newsnation

Bloomberg : Mobile game publisher Jam City is no longer going public via a SPAC merger, announced in May, that would have valued the company at $1.2B   —  Mobile entertainment company Jam City Inc. has called off its plan to go public through a combination with a blank-check firm that would have valued the combined company at $1.2 billion.

Christine Hall / TechCrunch : Paystone, which provides service-based businesses with payments and customer engagement tech, raises $23.8M, bringing its total funds raised in 2021 to $78.8M   —  Paystone, a payments and integrated software company, secured another strategic investment this year, this time $23.8 million …

Omar Faridi / Crowdfund Insider : AuthenticID, which offers AI-based identity proofing and verification to help businesses fight fraud, raises $100M from Long Ridge Equity Partners   —  - Twitter- Facebook- LinkedIn- Pinterest- Reddit- HackerNews- Telegram- Weibo- Email- Print- Subscribe  —  AuthenticID recently announced …

The last active original member of the classic Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd was recovering Saturday night after recently undergoing an emergency heart procedure, according to the band.

Twitter accounts linked to the leftist activist group Antifa rejoiced at the news that a Washington state sheriff's deputy had been shot in the head and killed.

Bloomberg : Canadian auto parts supplier Magna has agreed to buy Veoneer, which develops advanced driver-assistance systems for autonomous vehicles, for $3.8B in cash   —  - Veoneer shares slumped following spinoff by Autoliv in 2018  — Offer represents a 57% premium to closing price Thursday

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hit the streets of Cleveland on Saturday in a show of support for Ohio congressional candidate Nina Turner.

Christine Hall / TechCrunch : Lev, which wants to automate commercial real estate financing, raises $30M Series A at a $130M valuation, after raising a $10M seed round four months ago   —  Commercial real estate has been slow to embrace technology; though it has an addressable financing market of more than $40 billion …

Famed Borscht Belt comedian Jackie Mason, who rose from a modest childhood on the Lower East Side to become one of the most famous funnymen of all time, has died. He was 93.

An Alabama Army combat veteran whose business had taken a hit because of rising steel prices is calling on President Joe Biden to reinstate a Trump Administration tradition to honor American-made products at a time, he says, when businesses could really use the morale boost. 

Bus loads of migrants are being dropped off at bus stations in McAllen, Texas with bus tickets to go to their chosen destinations -- amid new reports that authorities are struggling to cope with the backlog of migrants being allowed into the U.S.

Liberal mega-donor George Soros has directed $1 million to an activist group attempting to defund the police as violent crime surges in major urban centers across the nation.

Ashwin Rodrigues / VICE : A look at the presence of crypto in hip-hop culture, beginning as early as 2013, including meme songs, rapper Nas's Coinbase investment, and illicit ICOs   —  Nas made a fortune with his Coinbase investment.  Soulja Boy claims to be the first to make a song about Bitcoin.  Big Sean is sending your girl Doge.

Music superstar Britney Spears posted a topless photos on Instagram amid a tense family feud over control of her finances.

Twitter accounts linked to the leftist activist group Antifa reportedly rejoiced at the news that a Washington state police officer had been shot in the head and killed.

Rep. Steve Scalise blasted President Joe Biden’s Justice Department Friday after the DOJ announced it was dropping a Civil Rights probe into New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the coronavirus in nursing homes.

Jennifer Lopez posted a steamy photo embracing and kissing boyfriend Ben Affleck marking her 52nd birthday.

Iran’s authoritarian regime is facing fresh pressure from Iranian protesters over a drought in the southwest of the country -- with protesters chanting anti-government slogans just as the regime is installing a hardline president.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt said he plans to file a lawsuit against St. Louis and St. Louis County for reinstating a mask mandate for both vaccinated and unvaccinated people over the age of 5.

Apoorva Mittal / The Economic Times : Data from Venture Intelligence shows Indian social commerce startups have raised $554M so far this year, up 7x from all of 2020   —  The amount is the highest since 2015 and seven times what these companies made a year ago  —  Social commerce startups have raked in $554 million this year as of July 16 …

Rep. Madison Cawthorn says he stands by his criticism of Dr. Anthony Fauci after the doctor appeared on Fox News and rebuked Cawthorn’s suggestion that legal action should be taken against Fauci.

Vanessa Hudgens and Heather Graham are turning up the heat overseas.

Amanda Kloots is shutting down social media trolls after receiving negative comments about her personal life choices.

The Catholic Archbishop from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hometown of San Francisco, California slammed her recent support of eliminating the Hyde Amendment and suggested she is not a “devout Catholic” she has claimed to be.

Alabama’s Republican governor made an urgent plea for residents to get vaccinated to slow a surge in Covid-19 cases, becoming the latest top GOP official to step up calls for inoculations in the face of vaccine hesitancy among conservative voters.

Mitchell Clark / The Verge : Facebook announces the Passthrough API, which allows Oculus Quest 2 developers to use real-world images collected via sensors to create mixed reality apps   —  Developers will get the experimental feature with Oculus' next SDK  —  Facebook announced a new API that will let developers incorporate video …

Joseph Pisani / Associated Press : A look at Amazon's Key For Business program, launched in 2018 to let drivers unlock apartment buildings via an app, which it is encouraging landlords to adopt   —  NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon is tired of ringing doorbells.  —  The online shopping giant is pushing landlords around the country …

The actor took to Instagram to share a trailer of the movie, “Off the Rails,” which was the last project Kelly Preston shot before her death. The star of films like "Jerry Maguire" and "Twins" died in July 2020 at age 57 from breast cancer. 

Actress Andie MacDowell admitted her managers weren't completely on board with her dying her hair gray. The "Green Card" actress said she's always wanted to be "salt and pepper."

Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s decision to invite United Nations envoys on racism and minority issues to assess the U.S. continued to draw backlash Thursday, more than a week after the announcement.

Radhamely De Leon / VICE : Researchers say they embedded malware in up to half of the neurons in the benchmark AlexNet AI model⁠ and still kept the model's accuracy rate above 93.1%   —  In a proof-of-concept, researchers reported they could embed malware in up to half of an AI model's nodes and still obtain very high accuracy.

Mark Bergen / Bloomberg : YouTube has avoided criticism by Biden and others for vaccine misinformation, after Biden criticized Facebook, possibly because its content is harder to track   —  Hi, it's Mark Bergen.  Erin Elizabeth was kicked off Facebook.  Elizabeth, owner of an alternative health blog, is one of the …

Dean Takahashi / VentureBeat : Outbrain closes flat on its first day of trading, after raising $160M in its IPO at a valuation of $1.25B   —  All the sessions from Transform 2021 are available on-demand now.  Watch now.  —  Outbrain, which provides recommended web links at the bottom of news stories …

Monica Lewinsky reflected on spending half of her life as a "public person" in a social media post celebrating her 48th birthday.

The group of Texas House Democrats who fled their state for Washington, D.C. held a press conference marking the halfway point of the special session they are blocking and said they will stay away for the last two weeks of the session, criticized the election integrity law they are blocking, and accused Gov. Greg Abbott of politically motivated blackmail.

White House Press Secretary sparred with a reporter Friday over the issue of transparency on breakthrough coronavirus cases among White House staffers.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Friday announced that it is terminating two border wall contracts in the Laredo Sector of Texas that amount to 31 miles of construction as part of its broader plan to stop the Trump-era project.

Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., on Friday called on President Biden's Education Secretary to fully and publicly denounce Critical Race Theory (CRT) material after the department promoted the radical Abolitionist Teaching Network in an official school reopening handbook, which officials later said was in "error."