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Rumor has it that soda fountains at a handful of gas stations and convenience stores across the Midwest are serving a thicker, more syrupy variant — with extra sweetness. Aptly dubbed heavy soda, the drink option can be traced back to a singular post on the subreddit r/Soda, and a few TikTok videos. You know when the gas station fountains have this option youre in gods country, creator Kate Boyer wrote in the caption of a post earlier this year. The video has since gained almost seven million view. The drink has recently been picked up by a number of news organizations. Not to be confused with the recent dirty soda or protein soda trends, heavy soda is all about dialling up sweetness and flavor (also rumored to be the secret recipe behind McDonalds Cokes superiority to all other types of Coke). The soda fountain supposedly dispenses an extra blast of syrup, resulting in a sweeter, more concentrated version of popular sodas like Pepsi, Mountain Dew, and Dr Pepper. Taking it a step further, one TikToker, an employee at a movie theater, even claimed that co-workers skipped the water altogether and drank straight from the Mountain Dew syrup fountain. Some commenters have taken this as an opportunity to dunk on America’s sweet tooth culture. Heavy soda is the most American culture, one wrote. Gods country is the reason we cant have free healthcare, another wrote. Many, however, protested their innocence, claiming theyve never seen the heavy option out in the wild. Ive lived in and been all over the South most of my life, and I have never heard of or seen this anywhere, one Reddit user responded. This must be some very backwoods rural area place. It seems most of the confirmed sightings have been in Missouri. For everyone asking, Heavy Pepsi is a Missouri thing, one wrote. Another responded: Ive seen it in Missouri gas stations south of St. Louis. I tried the heavy Mountain Dew. Its way better than it should be. Another explained that the fountain option is ideal for those who need their Big Gulp to last all day, with the ice diluting the heavy soda over time to the perfect ratio, thereby avoiding a watered down drink by the end of the day. Viral soda recipes? While heavy soda may not have caught on in other parts of the U.S. just yet, companies like McDonalds and Crumbl Cookies are trialling their own versions of viral soda recipes to capitalize on the social media-fueled frenzy for ultra-customized and made-to-order beverages. Beverages have been one of the hottest growth businesses for U.S. restaurants, the Wall Street Journal reported, with sales up 9.6% in 2024, the biggest annual increase of any restaurant category. At Starbucks, one-quarter of the chains custom drinks sold in the U.S. have more than three customer modifications like an extra shot or pump of flavored syrup, a company spokeswoman recently told The New York Times. In an era of personalization and little treat culture, an off-shelf soda no longer hits the same.
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E-Commerce
Tesla has raised lease prices for all its vehicles in the U.S. after a $7,500 federal tax credit that helped boost electric vehicle sales expired, according to the company’s website on Wednesday. The change follows the end of tax incentives under sweeping legislation passed by Congress, which eliminated the $7,500 credit for new EV leases and purchases, as well as a $4,000 credit for used EVs, effective September 30. Tesla and its rivals had been passing these credits on to customers through competitive lease offers. The monthly lease of the electric vehicle manufacturer’s best-selling Model Y increased to a range between $529 and $599, from a range of $479 to $529. Prices of all vehicles, however, remain unchanged. Model 3 lease prices touched a range of $429 to $759 per month, from a range of $349 to $699. Demand for battery-powered models is already showing signs of a slowdown after rapid growth earlier in the decade. Sales could drop after the credits dry up, auto executives and analysts have warned. Reuters reported last month that Tesla’s U.S. market share dropped to a near eight-year low in August, as buyers chose electric vehicles from a growing stable of rivals, according to data from research firm Cox Automotive. Tesla, which once held more than 80% of the EV market in the United States, accounted for only 38% of the country’s total EV sales in August, according to early data from Cox. Nilutpal Timsina and Kanjyik Ghosh, Reuters
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E-Commerce
Scientist and global activist Jane Goodall, who turned her childhood love of primates into a lifelong quest for protecting the environment, has died at the age of 91, the institute she founded said on Wednesday. Goodall died of natural causes while in California on a speaking tour, the Jane Goodall Institute said in a social media post. “Dr. Goodalls discoveries as an ethologist revolutionized science, and she was a tireless advocate for the protection and restoration of our natural world,” it said on Instagram. The primatologist-turned-conservationist spun her love of wildlife into a lifelong campaign that took her from a seaside English village to Africa and then across the globe in a quest to better understand chimpanzees, as well as the role that humans play in safeguarding their habitat and the planet’s health overall. Goodall was a pioneer in her field, both as a female scientist in the 1960s and for her work studying the behavior of primates. She created a path for a string of other women to follow suit, including the late Dian Fossey. She also drew the public into the wild, partnering with the National Geographic Society to bring her beloved chimps into their lives through film, TV, and magazines. She upended scientific norms of the time, giving chimpanzees names instead of numbers, observing their distinct personalities, and incorporating their family relationships and emotions into her work. She also found that, like humans, they use tools. “We have found that after all there isn’t a sharp line dividing humans from the rest of the animal kingdom,” she said in a 2002 TED Talk. As her career evolved, she shifted her focus from primatology to climate advocacy after witnessing widespread habitat devastation, urging the world to take quick and urgent action on climate change. “We’re forgetting that we’re part of the natural world,” she told CNN in 2020. “There’s still a window of time.” In 2003, she was appointed a Dame of the British Empire and, in 2025, she received the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom. Kenya-bound Born in London in 1934 and then growing up in Bournemouth on England’s south coast, Goodall had long dreamed of living among wild animals. She said her passion for animals, stoked by the gift of a stuffed toy gorilla from her father, grew as she immersed herself in books such as “Tarzan” and “Dr. Dolittle.” She set her dreams aside after leaving school, unable to afford university. She worked as a secretary and then for a film company until a friend’s invitation to visit Kenya put the jungle – and its inhabitants – within reach. After saving up money for the journey, by boat, Goodall arrived in the East African nation in 1957. There, an encounter with famed anthropologist and paleontologist Dr. Louis Leakey and his wife, archaeologist Mary Leakey, set her on course to work with primates. Under Leakey, Goodall set up the Gombe Stream Chimpanzee Reserve, later renamed the Gombe Stream Research Centre, near Lake Tanganyika in present-day Tanzania. There she discovered chimpanzees ate meat, fought fierce wars, and perhaps most importantly, fashioned tools in order to eat termites. “Now we must redefine tool, redefine man, or accept chimpanzees as humans,” Leakey said of the discovery. Although she eventually paused her research to earn a PhD at Cambridge University, Goodall remained in the jungle for years. Her first husband and frequent collaborator was wildlife cameraman Hugo van Lawick. Through the National Geographic’s coverage, the chimpanzees at Gombe Stream soon became household names – most famously, one Goodall called David Greybeard for his silver streak of hair. Nearly thirty years after first arriving in Africa, however, Goodall said she realized she could not support or protect the chimpanzees without addressing the dire disappearance of their habitat. She said she realized she would have to look beyond Gombe, leave the jungle, and take up a larger global role as a conservationist. In 1977, she set up the Jane Goodall Institute, a nonprofit organization aimed at supporting the research in Gombe as well as conservation and development efforts across Africa. Its work has since expanded worldwide and includes efforts to tackle environmental education, health, and advocacy. She made a new name for herself, traveling an average of 300 days a year to meet with local officials in countries around the world and speaking with community and school groups. She continued touring to the end of her life, speaking at Climate Week in New York City just last week. She later expanded the institute to include Roots & Shoots, a conservation program aimed at children. It was a stark shift from her isolated research, spending long days watching chimpanzees. “It never ceases to amaze me that there’s this person who travels around and does all these things,” she told the New York Times during a 2014 trip to Burundi and back to Gombe. “And it’s me. It doesn’t seem like me at all.” A prolific author, she published more than 30 books with her observations, including her 1999 bestseller “Reason For Hope: A Spiritual Journey,” as well as a dozen aimed at children. Goodall said she never doubted the planet’s resilience or human ability to overcome environmental challenges. “Yes, there is hope It’s in our hands, it’s in your hands and my hands and those of our children. It’s really up to us,” she said in 2002, urging people to “leave the lightest possible ecological footprints.” She had one son, known as ‘Grub,’ with van Lawick, whom she divorced in 1974. Van Lawick died in 2002. In 1975, she married Derek Bryceson. He died in 1980. Susan Heavey; additional reporting by Kanishka Singh, Reuters
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