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Target will stop selling cereals containing synthetic colors by the end of May. The Minneapolis-based discounter said Friday it had been phasing out synthetic colors in cereals for several years. Right now, 85% of its cereal sales already come from products made without synthetic dyes. Target said it has worked with national brands and its private brands to reformulate products as needed. Some cereals including Trix and Lucky Charms, which are made by General Mills will have updated formulations, Target said. Target said it will no longer carry brands that don’t reformulate, but it didn’t name the brands. General Mills announced last year that it planned to remove artificial dyes from all of its U.S. cereals by the summer of 2026. But WK Kellogg has said it plans to remove artificial dyes from its cereals by the end of 2027. Kellogg makes several cereals with artificial dyes that are now sold at Target, including Froot Loops, Apple Jacks and Squishmallows. Messages seeking comment were left Friday with General Mills and WK Kellogg. Target’s move acknowledges that American consumers and the U.S. government are paying closer attention to what goes into packaged foods. Last January, days before former President Joe Biden left office, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned Red 3, a petroleum-based dye. A few months later, the FDA under President Donald Trump urged food makers to phase out petroleum-based artificial colors by the end of 2026. The agency is reviewing some other petroleum-based dyes, including Red No. 40, Yellow No. 5 and 6 and Blue No. 1. Earlier this month, the FDA said it was relaxing rules that restrict when food companies can claim that their products have no artificial colors. The agency said food labels may claim to have no artificial colors when they are free of petroleum-based dyes even if they contain dyes derived from natural sources such as plants. Target isn’t the first big retailer to nix artificial dyes. Whole Foods has never allowed products with artificial colors since its founding in 1980. Trader Joe’s also doesn’t use synthetic colors in its products. Last year, Walmart said it planned to remove synthetic food dyes and 30 other ingredients, including some preservatives, artificial sweeteners and fat substitutes, from its store brands sold in the United States by January 2027. Target noted that its private label Good & Gather brand, which it introduced in 2019, is made without artificial flavors and sweeteners, synthetic colors or high fructose corn syrup. The brand has more than 2,500 products across dairy, produce, ready made pastas meat as well as baby and toddler food. We know consumers are increasingly prioritizing healthier lifestyles, and were moving quickly to evolve our offerings to meet their needs, said Cara Sylvester, Targets executive vice president and chief merchandising officer, in a statement. In recent months, other major food companies like Kraft Heinz, Nestle and Conagra Brands have pledged to eliminate petroleum-based synthetic dyes in coming years. Anne D’Innocenzio and Dee-Ann Durbin, AP business writer
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On Friday, Modernas mCombriaxa combined vaccine for both the flu and COVIDwas recommended for authorization by European regulators, which opens the door for the vaccines approval in the European Union. The European Medicines Agency, the regulator granting the recommendation (or adopting a positive opinion on recommending it for market authorization), said that the messenger RNA vaccine should help protect people aged 50 years and older against COVID-19 and seasonal influenza (flu), in a statement. The shot works like any other vaccine, effectively prepping the human body to defend itself against foreign infection, with the messenger RNA contained within giving blueprints to the body to make proteins to help stave off various seasonal flu viruses, and SARS-CoV-2. As the first combined COVID-19/influenza vaccine, mCombriax provides people with the option of having a single shot to protect against both illnesses, reads a statement from the Agency. Next, the European Commission would need to ratify the recommendation to open it up for widespread use. The CHMP’s positive opinion represents an important milestone for respiratory virus vaccination and for Moderna, with the introduction of the world’s first flu plus COVID combination vaccine, said Stéphane Bancel, Modernas CEO, in a statement. Combination vaccines have the potential to simplify vaccination and support improved health outcomes. We appreciate the EMA’s rigorous scientific review. The big question remaining: What about the United States? The answer is complicated and unclear, but part of it has to do with the Food and Drug Administrations (FDA) higher standards and scrutiny. Moderna applied for clearance in the U.S. back in 2024, supplying data showing that the vaccine was effective against both the flu and COVID viruses. But the FDA had asked for more supplemental data, according to reporting from BioPharma Dive, prompting Moderna to withdraw the submission, gather more data, and then resubmit it. Also, additional hurdles have entered the fray. The Trump administrationwhich includes several high-profile anti-vaccine advocates in various leadership positionsinitially opted not to review its application, though it changed its mind shortly thereafter after public and industry pressure. As it stands, thats where the bottleneck is: With the FDAs review process. Its unclear if or when the vaccine could win approval or be made available to the public in the United States.
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One of generative AIs earliest applications remains among its most controversial: AI art. Its proponents celebrate the chance to create the images in their head, no time or traditional skills necessary. Its critics argue that AI images lack the soul of human-made art, steal the work of other artists without permission, and take opportunities away from working artists. AI-generated art often draws ridicule across social media, whether its being used for advertising, like Guccis recent series of AI-generated posts, or in the fine art world, like the immersive AI-generated works of Refik Anadol, which caught flak on X last week after being featured on 60 Minutes. (This is not an artist. He makes screensavers, one user wrote.) But there are internet forums where AI art enthusiasts can celebrate their passion free of ridiculeor at least know that there will be people in their corner to back them up. On the sister subreddits r/DefendingAIArt and r/AIWars, AI art lovers are encouraged to post freely about their controversial hobby (and talk trash right back at their critics). Though the two subreddits espouse similar philosophies on AI art, r/AIWars encourages debate between the tech’s supporters (known as “pro’s”), and its critics (known as “anti’s”). Meanwhile, r/DefendingAIArt flat-out bans debate. One of the latter subreddit’s pinned posts is a compendium of court cases where AI copyright claims were dismissed. Another is an infographic arguing that AI art isnt copying the work of other artists: Training an AI off the work of another artist, it says, is like looking at someones finished work and learning. You look at other peoples work all day, and learn from them for free, the post continues. Theres nothing wrong with that. you've probably seen this image before but try spreading it around as much as you can, it may not change anyone's mind but it'll at least have a chance of take down the most danming accusation in people's minds byu/GlitteringTone6425 inDefendingAIArt r/DefendingAIArt isnt a space for AI artists to share their work, but a place to speak Pro-AI thoughts freely, per the subs rules. The most upvoted posts of all time include gotcha moments of tricking anti-AI folks into thinking human-made art is AI-generated; callouts of the other sides apparent hypocrisy; and, naturally, memes about not caring where a piece of art came from. Every comment section is entirely free of argument. For that, Redditors are redirected to r/AIWars, where debate reigns supreme. On r/AIWars, posts are designed to be picked apart and argued into oblivion. There are examples of AI clearly plagiarizing copyrighted works, like generating an image of Sonic when asked for a blue hedgehog videogame character. And there are real-world legal and moral dilemmas, like the ethics of a vendor being banned from a convention for selling AI-generated artwork. Some posts simply argue to let everyone make art however they please, without deriding it as AI slop or, as the subreddits users satirically call traditional art, pencilslop. While comment sections on some social media platforms have been dominated by AIs critics, r/AIWars user base seems to be closer to a 50/50 split. That might make sense: Reddit has always been a place for niche fandoms and communities to connect, and in the age of AI, that includes the folks who love to fight about it.
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Hopefully you never find yourself left behind by a partner while hiking a mountain or abandoned in the woods. If you do, you might be a victim of an alpine divorce. The phrase has gained traction on social media in recent weeks following news of a climbers guilty verdict after he left his girlfriend behind on a hike, where she froze to death on Austrias highest mountain. The phrase is said to have originated from the 1893 short story An Alpine Divorce by Robert Barr, in which an unhappy husband plots to kill his wife by pushing her off a mountain during a trip to the Swiss Alps. Across platforms like TikTok and X, women have started sharing their own stories of times they were allegedly left behind to fend for themselves by partners during hikes. @lillystuffle #fyp #xyzbca original sound – WavingCandle461 One TikTok creator posted a short clip of herself walking along a mountain trail earlier this month. In the clip, she is audibly upset. POV: you go on a hike with him in the mountains but he leaves you alone by yourself and you realize he never liked you to begin with, she wrote in the videos text overlay. Her video has since gone viral, with over 19 million views. @everafteriya #venting levitation – Aaron Hibell & Felsmann + Tiley The comments section is filled with similar stories from other users. My boyfriend did this to me. I found another hiker to show me how to get back then I went home and blocked his number, one wrote. “This happened to me in Joshua tree on a day when it was 100+ degrees outside,” another wrote. “My ex husband left me and took the backpack with water and snacks. I thought hed come back but nope. Finally found my way back to the car and he was chilling in the front seat with the AC on. Needless to say were divorced.” While many of the stories are unverified personal accounts, the recent surge in attention has also served as a grim reminder of the real-life case that echoes the tropes dark origins. Thomas Plamberger, 37, was found guilty of gross negligent manslaughter over the death of his 33-year-old girlfriend, Kerstin Gurtner. He was given a suspended sentence of five months in prison and fined 9,600 euros (about $11,300). In January 2025, the two hiked up Grossglockner, Austrias highest mountain. After Gurtner became exhausted, Plamberger abandoned her roughly 50 meters from the summit in freezing, high-wind conditions and without an emergency blanket. She later died of hypothermia. During the course of the trial, an ex-girlfriend of Plambergers came forward and testified that he had also left her alone on a night hike on Grossglockner a few years earlier. “Once we descended the Glockner at night, and suddenly he was gone,” she reportedly said. “I felt dizzy, I screamed, and I was completely alone. From then on, we didnt go on any more hikes together.”
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E-Commerce
On Thursday, Block CEO Jack Dorsey announced that his fintech company, which owns Square and Cash App, would be laying off a whopping 40% of its workforce, slashing over 4,000 jobs. Despite a strong year in 2025, Dorseylike many of his tech executive peersbelieves AI will enable greater efficiency with far fewer workers. Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company, he wrote in a letter to shareholders. We’re already seeing it internally. A significantly smaller team, using the tools we’re building, can do more and do it better. A number of business leaders have seemingly used AI as a smokescreen for layoffs, but Dorsey has explicitly attributed the job cuts at Block to intelligence, which he claims will be at the core of how the entire company works. Dorsey attempted to explain his decision in a memo to employees, which he shared publicly on X (also known as Twitter, the company Dorsey once cofounded). I had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now, he wrote. I chose the latter. Repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead. (Block has, in fact, been laying off employees in waves this month, according to multiple reports.) Dorsey insisted the company would not just disappear people from slack and email and pretend they were never here, and that he would host a live video session to thank employees for their work. I know doing it this way might feel awkward, he wrote. I’d rather it feel awkward and human than efficient and cold. Read Dorseys post in full below: today we’re making one of the hardest decisions in the history of our company: we’re reducing our organization by nearly half, from over 10,000 people to just under 6,000. that means over 4,000 of you are being asked to leave or entering into consultation. i’ll be straight about what’s happening, why, and what it means for everyone. first off, if you’re one of the people affected, you’ll receive your salary for 20 weeks + 1 week per year of tenure, equity vested through the end of may, 6 months of health care, your corporate devices, and $5,000 to put toward whatever you need to help you in this transition (if youre outside the U.S. youll receive similar support but exact details are going to vary based on local requirements). i want you to know that before anything else. everyone will be notified today, whether you’re being asked to leave, entering consultation, or asked to stay. we’re not making this decision because we’re in trouble. our business is strong. gross profit continues to grow, we continue to serve more and more customers, and profitability is improving. but something has changed. we’re already seeing that the intelligence tools were creating and using, paired with smaller and flatter teams, are enabling a new way of working which fundamentally changes what it means to build and run a company. and that’s accelerating rapidly. i had two options: cut gradually over months or years as this shift plays out, or be honest about where we are and act on it now. i chose the latter. repeated rounds of cuts are destructive to morale, to focus, and to the trust that customers and shareholders place in our ability to lead. i’d rather take a hard, clear action now and build from a position we believe in than manage a slow reduction of people toward the same outcome. a smaller company also gives us the space to grow our business the right way, on our own terms, instead of constantly reacting to market pressures. a decision at this scale carries risk. but so does standing still. we’ve done a full review to determine the roles and people we require to reliably grow the business from here, and we’ve pressure-tested those decisions from multiple angles. i accept that we may have gotten some of them wrong, and we’ve built in flexibility to account for that, and do the right thing for our customers. we’re not going to just disappear people from slack and email and pretend they were never here. communication channels will stay open through thursday evening (pacific) so everyone can say goodbye properly, and share whatever you wish. i’ll also be hosting a live video session to thank everyone at 3:35pm pacific. i know doing it this way might feel awkward. i’d rather it feel awkward and human than efficient and cold. to those of you leavingim grateful for you, and im sorry to put you through this. you built what this company is today. that’s a fact that i’ll honor forever. this decision is not a reflection of what you contributed. you will be a great contributor to any organization going forward. to those stayingi made this decision, and i’ll own it. what i’m asking of you is to build with me. we’re going to build this company with intelligence at the core of everything we do. how we work, how we create, how we serve our customers. our customers will feel this shift too, and we’re going to help them navigate it: towards a future where they can build their own features directly, composed of our capabilities and served through our interfaces. that’s what i’m focused on now. expect a note from me tomorrow. jack
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