Going all in: Shreveport Mayor Ollie Tyler is proposing to spend $100 million on a new mixed-use sports and entertainment complex that would include a midsized sports arena for the New Orleans Pelicans-affiliated G-league basketball team, The Shreveport Times reports. Tyler is proposing that the funding will come via public-private partnerships. The city is one of two remaining finalists in the New Orleans Pelicans NBA franchise’s hunt for a home for its new developmental league basketball team. The other finalist is Pensacola, Florida. Mayor Sharon Weston Broome also pitched Baton Rouge as a potential site for the team. Read more from The Shreveport Times.
What’s new?: Due out this fall, the iPhone 8 arrives with lofty expectations, Mark Gurman writes in Bloomberg. With the gadget’s 10th anniversary upon us, Gurman says the next iPhone will seamlessly mesh screen and charging technologies invented by others with such Apple innovations as a 3-D face scanner that unlocks the phone in a few hundred milliseconds. Read more from Bloomberg.
Under scrutiny: The European Commission has started an in-depth investigation of Bayer’s planned $66 billion takeover of U.S. seeds group Monsanto, Reuters reports. The commission is worried about the impact of the planned merger on competition in pesticide and seeds markets. The joining of Bayer and Monsanto would create the world’s largest integrated pesticides and seeds company, the commission says, adding that this limited the amount of competitors selling herbicides and vegetable seeds in Europe. Monsanto owns a plant in Luling, Louisiana. Read more from Reuters.
