"Saturday Night Live" this weekend mocked the confusion that followed new federal guidelines that fully vaccinated Americans can shed masks in most situations.
Zeke Faux / Bloomberg : An examination of Chamath Palihapitiya-sponsored SPACs, including Clover Health, which have plunged 50% on average after the SPAC market hit its peak in mid-Feb — One morning last October, as wildfires raged across Northern California, President Donald Trump convalesced from Covid‑ …
Todd Spangler / Variety : NBCU-owned Rotten Tomatoes launches a streaming channel, currently available on The Roku Channel and which will later expand to Peacock and Comcast's Xumo — Rotten Tomatoes is continuing on its quest to grow into something substantially bigger than its Tomatometer movie and TV rating scores.
AJ Dome / Manhattan Mercury : PE firm Insight Partners invests $290M for a majority stake in CivicPlus, which provides software and other technology to more than 4,000 municipal governments — A Manhattan software business owner says a multimillion-dollar investment into the company will not change the company's makeup.
Coco Feng / South China Morning Post : China ordered domestic app stores to remove 90 apps, including Maimai, a LinkedIn rival, following a new regulation on what types of user data apps can collect — The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology removed 90 apps from app stores on Thursday over the “irregular collection …
Stephanie Chan / Sensor Tower Blog : After WhatsApp's privacy policy changes, in the first four months of 2021, Telegram's installs rose 98% YoY and Signal's first-time downloads were up 1,192% YoY — Popular mobile messenger WhatsApp encountered backlash in January when it was announced that users would need to accept …
Organizers of New York City’s Pride Parade announced Saturday police officers and other law enforcement officials will be banned from their events, including the annual LGTBQ march, until 2025.
'Watters’ World' host Jesse Watters slammed the Biden administration Saturday, saying the president is 'politically wounded 100 days in,' and 'doesn't have a clue how to fix the problems he created.'
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., told her followers on Instagram that she will keep wearing her mask in “shared indoor public spaces” even though she is fully vaccinated.
The Biden administration has pulled more than $2 billion out of programs authorized by Congress for COVID-19 testing, emergency medical supplies and other health needs — and is spending it on shelter for the 45,000 unaccompanied migrant children that have flooded across the US border this year.
Reggie Ugwu / New York Times : A look at Spotify-exclusive “music and talk” podcasts, which let hosts avoid music licensing fees and fair-use legal fights via free access to Spotify catalog — Music-filled — and Spotify-exclusive — shows like “Black Girl Songbook” and “60 Songs That Explain the '90s” dance around copyright constraints.
Adriana Hamacher / Decrypt : Q&A with Dogecoin developer Ross Nicoll about its coming upgrade, and working with Elon Musk, who Nicoll says has been in touch with Doge developers since 2019 — They are working with him to make the cryptocurrency a cheaper, greener alternative to Bitcoin. — Dogecoin — In brief
"Jeopardy!" fans were puzzled after the show appeared to predict the future with a clue about "Bennifer" filmed weeks prior to Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck's reunion.
Casey Newton / Platformer : Study: minors in the US often receive abuse, harassment, or sexual solicitation from adults on tech platforms and many of them don't tell their parents about it — A startling new report finds far more young kids using platforms than we suspected — and they're having sexual interactions with adults in huge numbers
Kristen Clarke, President Biden's nominee to the assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Justice Department, walked back her past criticism of multiple moderate senators and Justice Brett Kavanaugh in a Judiciary Committee questionnaire submitted late last month.
Will Oremus / The Atlantic : About a dozen highly active Clubhouse users, all of them women, say its block feature creates opportunities for abuse, tactical silencing, and intimidation — On Clubhouse, a black badge was meant to identify trolls. It's become an emblem of the app's dysfunctional moderation system.
A Los Angeles County supervisor called on California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday to immediately lift the state's mask mandate as some other states have following new federal guidance that fully vaccinated people can go most places without masks.
Republicans on the House Oversight and Reform Committee are seeking answers into whether politics trounces science after the Biden White House’s ouster of a scientist respected on both sides of the aisle from overseeing the federal government’s report on climate change.
James Vincent / The Verge : Ad and content licensing company Veritone launches MARVEL.ai to let celebrities, influencers, and others clone their voices using AI and license them out — Deepfake voices could be a lucrative business for influencers — Recording advertisements and product endorsements can be lucrative work for celebrities and influencers.
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg : A look at the renewed animosity between Apple and Microsoft, as they increasingly compete in everything from gaming to PCs to AR — At a virtual product launch in November for Apple's Mac reboot, actor John Hodgman appeared in a nerdy, ill-fitting suit before a white backdrop.
Ari Levy / CNBC : Bay Area tech companies racked up ~$1B on real estate impairments in the pandemic for their vacated spaces; Dropbox took $416M, Salesforce $216M, Airbnb $149M — - The amount of available sublease office space in San Francisco more than tripled during the pandemic, and tech companies are paying the price.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer used funds from an inauguration-related nonprofit to pay for a $27,521 trip to Florida to visit her ailing father in March, her chief of staff clarified Friday.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, and newly-minted House Republican Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik joined 'Hannity' on Friday for their first joint interview since Stefanik unseated Rep. Liz Cheney from her leadership post
Multiple states dropped their mask mandates Friday following the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) latest guidelines, but some liberal elites are not quite ready to let go of their face cloths.
Adam London / CipherTrace : DeFi hacks made up 60%+ of the crypto hack and theft volume in 2021 and 47% of major fraud and misappropriation; criminals netted ~$240M from DeFi-related hacks — MAJOR TRENDS AND DEVELOPMENTS — DeFi Hacks Reach Record Highs 1% of Bitcoin Transactions are “Risky” 0.1% of Transacted Bitcoin Value is …
The Biden administration was slapped with a lawsuit on Friday after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched a suit countering changes to the state’s federally funded portion of Medicaid last month.
Ari Levy / CNBC : Payment card services company Marqeta files for IPO at a $16B to $17B valuation, reports Q1 revenue of $108M with a net loss of $12.8M, down from $14.5M YoY — - Marqeta reported revenue growth in the first quarter of 123% to $108 million, while its net loss narrowed to $12.8 million from $14.5 million a year earlier.
Kyle Bradshaw / 9to5Google : New Android beta APK for Apple Music describes two lossless audio options, “Lossless” and “High-Res Lossless”, at 24-bit/48 kHZ and 24-bit/192 kHz respectively — Earlier this month, our colleagues at 9to5Mac reported that Apple Music would be gaining “HiFi” streaming options, possibly with iOS 14.6.