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At the climax of one of the most closely watched trials in South Carolina history, the packed courtroom was silent except for one woman: the court clerk, who read the guilty verdicts aloud in March 2023 that put Alex Murdaugh, a prominent lawyer, in prison for life for the murder of his wife and son. Now, a new court hearing is getting underway on Monday to determine whether the clerk, Rebecca Hill, improperly influenced the jurors who voted to convict Mr. Murdaugh, 55, and whether Mr. Murdaugh should have a new trial. A state police agency is investigating allegations from Mr. Murdaugh’s lawyers that Ms. Hill made comments during the trial that could have influenced the jurors’ votes. Among the allegations are that Ms. Hill told jurors not to be “fooled” by Mr. Murdaugh’s defense, that she had private conversations with a juror, and that she told jurors before they started deliberating that “this shouldn’t take us long.”Ms. Hill has not been charged, and she has denied many of the most serious allegations. She and the jurors are expected to testify on Monday at a hearing in Columbia, S.C., that is part of Mr. Murdaugh’s appeal of his convictions.
Persons: Alex Murdaugh, Rebecca Hill, Mr, Murdaugh, Hill, Ms Locations: South Carolina, Columbia
Alabama carried out on Thursday the first execution using nitrogen gas in the United States, an untested method that was the subject of debate before it was used. Here are a few things to know about the case. According to court documents, Ms. Sennett, a mother of two, was stabbed 10 times in the attack by Mr. Smith and another man. Charles Sennett Sr., Ms. Sennett’s husband, had recruited a man to handle her killing, who in turn recruited Mr. Smith and another man. Mr. Sennett arranged the murder in part to collect on an insurance policy that he had taken out on his wife, according to court records.
Persons: Kenneth Smith, William C, Kenneth Eugene Smith, Elizabeth Dorlene Sennett, Sennett, Smith, Charles Sennett, Sennett’s Organizations: Alabama, Holman Correctional, U.S, Supreme Locations: United States, Atmore, Ala, Colbert County
Alabama is set to carry out the first American execution using nitrogen gas on Thursday evening, potentially opening a new frontier in how states execute death row prisoners despite concerns from death penalty opponents about the untested method. As it stands, prison officials plan to begin the execution around 6 p.m. Central time. Mr. Smith, 58, is one of three men convicted in the 1988 murder of a woman whose husband, a pastor, had recruited them to kill her. The protocol released by prison officials calls for strapping Mr. Smith to a gurney in the state’s execution chamber in Atmore, Ala., after which a mask will be placed on his head and a flow of nitrogen will be released into it, depriving him of oxygen. It would be the second time the state has tried to kill Mr. Smith, after a failed lethal injection in November 2022 in which executioners could not find a suitable vein before his death warrant expired.
Persons: Kenneth Smith, Smith, strapping Mr, gurney Organizations: Alabama, U.S, Supreme Locations: Atmore, Ala
Read previewHealth insurance startup Ansel has raised $20 million in new funding. Founded in 2019, Ansel is a platform that provides supplemental health insurance via carriers across 48 US states. This story is available exclusively to Business Insider subscribers. Advertisement"We're focused on making health hardships not become financial burdens," Veer Gidwaney, founder and CEO of Ansel, told Business Insider. The new capital will go towards expanding the company's partnerships with leading insurance providers, developing its tech platform, and scaling its marketing and distribution.
Persons: , Ansel, Veer Gidwaney, Gidwaney Organizations: Service, Business, Gallup, Nationwide, Portage, Sigma Ventures, Brewer Lane Ventures, SixThirty Ventures Locations: New York City
Mr. Smith, who had been on death row for more than a quarter-century after being convicted of murdering a woman, recalled thanking God for his final week alive and thinking of his family. At the time, the state was using the same method of execution that has been used in the vast majority of modern U.S. executions: lethal injection. And like many other states, Alabama had problems. Now, more than a year later, Alabama is preparing once again this week to execute Mr. Smith, this time employing a method that has never been used in a U.S. execution: nitrogen hypoxia. Alabama is one of several states that are looking at alternatives, including nitrogen hypoxia, and some states have recently authorized the use of a firing squad.
Persons: Kenneth Smith, Smith, God, Smith’s Locations: gurney, Alabama, U.S, Europe
Europe's tech startups were twice as likely to accept a reduced valuation in order to raise funds than their US counterparts in 2023, new data shows. Zurich-based Ledgy surveyed 2,500 tech firms across 10 countries for its study and found that by comparison, only 9% of US startups reported a down-round last year. Similarly, smaller firms with fewer than 250 employees were 26% more likely than larger firms to have experienced a valuation cut in the past year, Spirig added. Of the companies surveyed, one in five said they had delayed moves to go public amid tepid macroeconomic conditions, per Ledgy's report. Around a third of respondents indicated that a listing in the US would be their ultimate preference over other destinations, although 72% of UK-based companies surveyed wanted to list in London.
Persons: Yoko Spirig, Spirig Organizations: US, Business, Venture Locations: Europe, Zurich, Germany, Netherlands, Finland, London
Read previewElevenLabs, an early-stage AI startup that has captured the attention of some of the world's biggest investors, has raised its third funding round in a year. The Series B round values the business at over $1 billion, confirming Business Insider's earlier reporting from November. ElevenLabs last raised a funding round in June, when it tapped up investors for $19 million at a $100 million valuation. It has also released a new AI Speech Classifier tool, which lets anyone detect if an uploaded sample contains AI-generated audio from ElevenLabs. ElevenLabs now aims to expand its Classifier tool to other AI voice models in the coming year.
Persons: , ElevenLabs, Andreessen Horowitz, Nat Friedman, Uber, Daniel Gross, Piotr Dabkowski, Mati Staniszewski Organizations: Service, Business, Google, Github Locations: London, New York, Sequoia
Lapse, a buzzy social media app that wants to rival Instagram, is set to raise fresh funding, Business Insider understands. Based on the number of shares allocated, the company has raised approximately £24.48 million, $31 million. One London-based source familiar with the deal said Lapse was set to secure around $30 million. A look at the Lapse app. It aims to help satisfy the demand for more authenticity on social media.
Persons: Instagram, Jacob Andreou, Ben, Dan Silvertown, Plural's Ian Hogarth, Dmitry Tokarev Organizations: Business, Meta, Greylock Ventures, Facebook, Companies, Octopus Ventures, Redbus Ventures Locations: London
Read previewRecraft, a startup that aims to vastly improve the quality of AI-generated images, has raised $12 million in fresh funds. "We are building some unique things using technology that no one else has," Anna Veronika Dorogush, Recraft's CEO and founder told Business Insider. Recraft has brought in $12 million from Khosla Ventures and former GitHub CEO, Nat Friedman, with participation from RTP Global, Abstract VC, Basis Set Ventures, Elad Gil, and other angel investors. The startup originally wanted to raise $10 million but increased the round size due to being heavily oversubscribed, Dorogush said. AdvertisementThe company hasn't spent money on marketing, relying on word-of-mouth referrals to accrue more than 350,000 users, Dorogush added.
Persons: , Anna Veronika Dorogush, Recraft, Nat Friedman, Elad Gil, Dorogush, hasn't Organizations: Service, Business, Khosla Ventures, RTP Global Locations: London, New York
Car financing fintech Carmoola has raised a further $19.7 million in an extension to its Series A round. "The business has been growing strongly and revenues are up 5x," Aidan Rushby, Carmoola CEO and cofounder told Business Insider. The FCA moved to ban such commissions in 2021 and Rushby told BI that Carmoola was able to acquire customers at a lower cost by cutting out the middlemen. Rushby told BI that the round represented a 33% up round on its previous financing but declined to give specifics on the company's valuation. Check out Carmoola's 14-slide Series A extension deck below:
Persons: Carmoola, Aidan Rushby, we've, Rushby, It's Organizations: Business, FCA, InMotion Ventures Locations: London, InMotion Ventures , New York, Kyiv
Tracking Efforts to Remove Trump From the 2024 BallotStates with challenges to Trump’s candidacy Trump disqualified, decision appealed Challenge unresolved Challenge dismissed or rejected Alaska Ariz. Calif. Colo. Conn. Del. The ballot challenges focus on whether Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat make him ineligible to hold the presidency again. The Colorado Supreme Court and Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, each found Mr. Trump ineligible under that provision. Several judges have dismissed cases at the request of Mr. Trump or the request of the person who filed the challenge. The Michigan and Minnesota Supreme Courts have each said Mr. Trump is eligible to appear on the primary ballot in those states.
Persons: Trump, Kan, Donald J, Trump’s, , Biden, Shenna Bellows, Bellows Organizations: Fla ., Fla . Idaho Ill, New York Times, The U.S, Supreme, Colorado Supreme, Republican, Democrat, U.S Locations: Alaska Ariz . Calif, Colo, Conn, Del, Fla, Fla . Idaho, La . Maine, Mich, Minn, Mont, Nev, N.H . N.J, N.M, N.Y, N.C, Okla ., Pa, S.C . Texas Utah, Va, Wash, W.Va . Wis, Colorado and Maine, The, Colorado, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota
Federal prosecutors said on Monday that a retired State Department official worked for decades as a secret agent for Cuba, and told an undercover F.B.I. agent that the United States was “the enemy.”In a criminal complaint filed in federal court in Miami, the prosecutors said that the diplomat, Manuel Rocha, had secretly aided Cuba’s “clandestine intelligence-gathering mission against the United States” since 1981 as he rose undetected through the ranks of the diplomatic corps and the National Security Council. Mr. Rocha, 73, appeared to have met with handlers from Cuba’s premier spy agency as recently as 2017, prosecutors said, and boasted that his 40 years of spying on behalf of the communist government in Havana had “strengthened the revolution immensely.”For more than two decades, Mr. Rocha handled matters related to Latin America in a series of roles at the State Department under presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, including a stint as ambassador to Bolivia from 2000 to 2002. More recently, Mr. Rocha, a native of Colombia who grew up in New York, served as an adviser to the U.S. military command responsible for Cuba.
Persons: Manuel Rocha, Cuba’s, . Rocha, , Rocha, Bill Clinton, George W, Bush Organizations: State Department, United, National Security Locations: Cuba, United States, Miami, Havana, America, Bolivia, Colombia, New York
Justice O’Connor set the tone in her chambers by hiring a large number of female clerks, setting herself apart from the other justices. And while she was demanding — accepting no excuses for mistakes, a lesson she drew from growing up on a ranch in the West — she also took an interest in her clerks and their personal lives. “She would give them career advice, she would give them jobs,” said the historian Evan Thomas, who interviewed 94 former O’Connor clerks for his biography of the justice, “First.”“She told them to get out and get exercise, always take care of your family, give good dinner parties, never be too busy to take care of people,” he said. “You had to have a life.”For the women who clerked under Justice O’Connor, there was a keen awareness of both the barriers she had broken and her desire to be viewed outside of that history. Some recounted her wish to have her headstone reflect only that she had been a good judge, her relief when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg became a second woman to sit on the court and her insistence that her gender did not shape her decisions.
Persons: O’Connor, , Evan Thomas, , Justice O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Cristina Rodríguez Organizations: Yale Law School
Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer who was convicted of murdering George Floyd during a 2020 arrest that set off a wave of protests, was stabbed at a federal prison in Tucson, Ariz., on Friday, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. The Federal Bureau of Prisons confirmed that an inmate at the Tucson prison was stabbed at 12:30 p.m., though the agency’s statement did not identify Mr. Chauvin, 47, by name. No other inmates or prison staff were injured, and the situation was quickly contained, according to the people familiar with the situation. No details were immediately available on his condition, but one of the people with knowledge of the incident said that Mr. Chauvin survived the attack. Mr. Chauvin was serving a sentence of just over two decades in federal prison after he was convicted of state murder charges and a federal charge of violating the constitutional rights of Mr. Floyd.
Persons: Derek Chauvin, George Floyd, Chauvin, Floyd, Mr Organizations: Federal Bureau of Prisons Locations: Minneapolis, Tucson, Ariz
The City of Charleston this week elected a Republican mayor for the first time since the mid-1870s, signifying a new chapter for the centuries-old southern city. The new mayor, William Cogswell, a former state representative and real estate developer, won a tight runoff election on Tuesday against Mayor John Tecklenburg, a Democrat who was seeking his third term in office. Mr. Cogswell’s election indicates a shift for Charleston, a stubbornly left-leaning city that has consistently elected Democratic mayors — including one to 10 terms — even as the state as a whole has not voted for a Democratic president since 1976. The mayor’s office in Charleston is technically nonpartisan, though mayors are often known to identify with a party. The city’s last Republican mayor served until 1877, according to city records and The Associated Press.
Persons: William Cogswell, Mayor John Tecklenburg, Cogswell Organizations: Republican, Mayor, Democrat, Charleston, Democratic, , Associated Press, Mr Locations: Charleston, state’s
Monzo, a British fintech bank, is in talks with Alphabet's private investment arm Capital G to raise what is primed to be its last funding round before a public listing. The bank touts around 8.5 million customers in the UK and is best known for its bright coral pink bank cards. Fintech funding in Europe dropped 70% to $5 billion from $17.1 billion in the first half of 2023, compared with 2022, according to Finch Capital. The prospective funding round is set to be the fintech's last private raise before a mooted public debut that would likely take place in late 2024 or 2025. The British bank reported £116.3 million in losses last year despite more than doubling its revenue.
Persons: Monzo, Catalyst, Monzo's, Cash, Conor Walsh, Anil Organizations: Business, Sky News, Abu Dhabi Growth Fund, Silicon, VC, fintech, Finch, London, Starling Bank Locations: British, London, Abu Dhabi, New York, Europe, Monzo, Starling
Generative Engineering has raised $4 million in seed funding. The London-based startup aims to simplify the design of physical productsCheck out the 12-slide pitch deck used to raise the fresh funds below. Generative Engineering, a startup that aims to simplify the design of physical products, has raised $4 million in fresh funds. The London-based startup, founded in 2021, has developed a platform to reduce the time and resources used on regular iterations in physical engineering. The startup's platform enables engineers to generate thousands of possible design choices and continuously test them, allowing design iteration to happen in parallel.
Organizations: Business Locations: London
Why It Matters: Mr. Murdaugh is trying to get his murder conviction thrown out. But Mr. Murdaugh’s lawyers are seeking to get the conviction thrown out based on what they say was questionable behavior by the court clerk. What Happens Next: Mr. Murdaugh’s financial victims may confront him in court. Mr. Murdaugh is scheduled to be sentenced for the financial crimes on Nov. 28, at which point some of his victims may address the court. Creighton Waters, a prosecutor with the South Carolina Attorney General’s office, said in court on Friday that at the heart of the financial crimes was Mr. Murdaugh’s abuse of people’s trust, and his greed.
Persons: Murdaugh, Maggie, Paul, Mr, Clifton Newman, , , Newman, Creighton Waters, Waters Organizations: Prosecutors, South Carolina Attorney Locations: South Carolina
Qevlar, a cybersecurity startup, has raised $5 million in seed funding. The Paris-based company uses AI to help identify and manage security risks. Qevlar, an AI-powered cybersecurity startup, has raised $5 million in seed funding. The Paris-based company enables businesses to integrate the Qevlar platform, which then constantly monitors operations, helping identify and monitor security risks in the process. The startup aims to address issues including the alert fatigue faced by security teams and skills shortages in the sector.
Persons: DeepMind's Mehdi Ghissassi Organizations: EQT Ventures, Business Locations: Paris
The prosecution of Brett Hankison, the former police detective who fired 10 bullets through Breonna Taylor’s apartment during a fatal 2020 raid in Louisville, Ky., ended in a mistrial on Thursday after the jury said it could not reach a unanimous verdict on federal civil rights charges. It was the second time that Mr. Hankison had gone to trial on charges related to the case and avoided a conviction. The Justice Department charged Mr. Hankison last year after a jury found him not guilty of state charges of endangering Ms. Taylor’s neighbors by firing several times through a covered window and a sliding-glass door during a nighttime police raid. Two other Louisville police officers, both of whom were white, shot Ms. Taylor, a Black 26-year-old emergency room technician whose death led to massive protests against racism and police violence in Louisville and elsewhere. Mr. Hankison, who is also white, did not strike anyone with his gunfire, but some of his bullets entered a neighboring apartment where a pregnant woman, her boyfriend and her 5-year-old son were sleeping.
Persons: Brett Hankison, Hankison, Ms, Taylor Organizations: Justice Department, Louisville Locations: Louisville, Ky
More importantly buyers – in the form of private equity firms – are starting to line up. "Growth is clearly harder so we'll see a lot of M&A because PE funds are trying to grow their business and so are looking at early-stage tech businesses." This increased interest means private equity is set to play an enlarged role in Europe's startup ecosystem. Rollups, where private equity firms buy up a bunch of small businesses in an industry and consolidate them into a larger company, are also on the acquisition hunt. Crucially, private equity funds are unlikely to approach deals for companies that are not yet profitable, or unlikely to become so in the short term.
Persons: Alex Prokofjev, Claire Trachet, It's, Pedro Barros Organizations: Business, Venture, Bain, KKR, PE, Target Locations: London, Paris
French fintech startup Defacto has raised a $10 million Series A extension from Citi Ventures. The Paris-based business, founded in 2021, provides short-term loans to small and medium-sized businesses. However, through integrations with businesses like fellow fintechs Pennylane and Qonto, Defacto wants to lower the cost and administration for smaller businesses. The new funding will go towards the continued growth of Defacto's platform as it pushes towards more personalized debt financing for small businesses. Check out Defacto's 20-slide Series A extension pitch deck below:
Persons: Pennylane, Morgan O'Hana, O'Hana, Northzone Organizations: Citi Ventures, Open Banking, Global Founders Capital Locations: Paris, integrations
Dutch fintech startup Solvimon has raised $9.6 million in seed funding. The startup, founded by former Adyen execs, enables SaaS firms to offer usage-based pricing. Solvimon, a payments and billings startup, just raised $9.6 million in a seed round. The Dutch company, founded in 2022, has developed a billing platform that centers on usage-based pricing. "What we have seen is that the world is moving towards more flexible pricing," Kim Verkooij, Solvimon cofounder and CEO told Insider.
Persons: Kim Verkooij Organizations: billings Locations: Europe
Eilla AI, a startup using generative AI to improve dealmaking efficiency, has raised $1.5 million in fresh funds. The startup's platform generates documentation and provides financial research and analysis to speed up the process for firms in the space. In addition, the industry is slow to adapt to new technologies and there are not many solutions fit for M&A, VC, and PE." The company claims to have already been used by over 50 advisors and investors to aggregate and analyze prospective deals. The funding round was led by Eleven Ventures alongside Fuel Ventures, including capital from the fund's managing partner Mark Pearson, in a personal capacity.
Persons: Nikola Lazarov, Mark Pearson, Lazarov Organizations: Eleven Ventures, Fuel Ventures Locations: London
ElevenLabs, a generative AI startup focused on voice, is in talks to raise capital in a deal that would catapult its valuation to $1 billion. It is unclear as yet whether Sequoia would invest alongside Andreessen Horowitz or if they are competing with one another. Five months on, the prospective new round will increase that valuation 10 times over to $1 billion, three sources said. ElevenLabs and Andreessen Horowitz did not respond to a request for comment. Bruce Reed, President Biden's AI chief, said that voice cloning "keeps me up at night," in an interview with Politico.
Persons: Andreessen Horowitz, Joe Rogan, Emma Watson, Gizmodo, ElevenLabs, Sequoia, OpenAI's ChatGPT, FOMO, Mati Staniszewski, Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, Eric Adams, Adams, Bruce Reed, Biden's, Meta Organizations: Google, VC, Sequoia, Meta, Britain's Companies, Concept Ventures, New York City, White, Politico Locations: London, New York
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