Seven years ago, when a joint bid by the United States, Canada and Mexico was awarded the 2026 World Cup, rifts created by tariffsyes, back then, too!and a proposed border wall were glossed over because of the neighbors’ longstanding political and economic alliances.“The unity of the three nations” was the overriding theme articulated by Carlos Cordeiro, then-president of the U.S. Soccer Federation. “A powerful message,” he called it.Well, here we are now, with the soccer showcase arriving in North America in about 15 months, and President Donald Trump back in officeinciting trade wars between the neighbors, not to mention across the globe, by levying tariffs that come, then go, then return, with more promised, including what the Republican calls “reciprocal tariffs” starting Wednesday.It’s hard to know how, exactly, the current geopolitical fissures, made all the more stark every time Trump or those in his administration talk provocatively about making Canada the 51st state, might affect the World Cup, its organization and coordination, fans’ travel plans, and more.“Oh, I think it’s going to make it more exciting,” was Trump’s take during an Oval Office appearance with FIFA President Gianni Infantino last month. “Tension’s a good thing.”
Will the world come to the 2026 World Cup and the 2028 Olympics?
Given that the U.S. also is preparing to welcome the world for FIFA’s Club World Cup in June, golf’s Ryder Cup in September, and the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, the question becomes: Will the world want to come?And, taking Trump’s border and visa policies into account, will the world be able to?Alan Rothenberg, who ran the 1994 World Cup and successfully oversaw the bid to host the 1999 Women’s World Cup as then-president of U.S. Soccer, thinks the answers to those questions are “Yes.” Pointing to concerns about the last two World Cups, in Russia in 2018 and Qatar in 2022, he noted those still attracted attendance totals above three million apiece.“People love the United States around the worldfrankly, we wouldn’t have the immigration issue that we’re dealing with if that weren’t the caseso a lot of this is government-to-government,” Rothenberg said. “A passionate soccer fan is not going to be held up by that.”He doesn’t think one of the host nations would drop out of the World Cup, say, or that other countries might boycott, as happened at the 1976, 1980, and 1984 Summer Olympics.“More than anything, they’ll see it as an opportunity for, perhaps, rapprochement, rather than escalating the tensions,” Rothenberg said.“Besides, from an organizing standpoint, if either Canada or Mexico withdrew” from the World Cup, he said, “the U.S. would pick up the games in a heartbeat.”
Spectators booing the U.S. national anthem
Still, as the White House stance on tariffs and Russia’s war in Ukraine have put Europe on edge, and relations with other countries have become fraught, it might not be a surprise if soccer stadiums for the U.S. games at the World Cup offer the same sort of anti-American sentiment heard when spectators in Canada booed “The Star-Spangled Banner” during hockey’s 4 Nations Face-Off in February.FIFA, soccer’s governing body, did not respond to Associated Press requests for comment, but Infantino has never hidden his admiration for Trump, which he often demonstrates via social media. They have met at least five times since the U.S. election in November.Last week, when Kirsty Coventry was elected president of the International Olympic Committeebecoming the first woman in that positionshe was asked how she would work with Trump and what she would tell athletes about traveling to the U.S. for the next Games.“I have been dealing with, let’s say, difficult men, in high positions since I was 20 years old,” Coventry said with a chuckle, “and first and foremost, what I have learned is that communication will be key. That is something that will happen early on. And my firm belief is that President Trump is a huge lover of sports. He will want these Games to be significant. He will want them to be a success.”Referring to concerns about whether the administration might deny some athletes visas, she added: “We will not waver from our values . . . of solidarity in ensuring that every athlete that qualifies for the Olympic Games has the possibility to attend the Olympic Games and be safe during the Olympic Games.”The overriding assumption among those involved in the Olympics is that Trump will assure the 2028 Games are a success.As U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee chairman Gene Sykes put it: “I can’t speak for him, but I think he’s the kind of person who probably believes that having these go very, very well is a reflection of his leadership.”
Will Trump’s tariffs and other policies affect soccer’s World Cup?
“The most likely outcome is that Trump’s nonsense won’t have an impact,” said Smith College professor Andrew Zimbalist, an expert on the economics of sports.“My guess is that if relations between Canada and the U.S. deteriorate to the point that there are travel restrictions and spending restrictions,” Zimbalist said, “Trump wouldjust like he’s making exceptions all the time on his tariffs policiesmake an exception for a month or six weeks.”The U.S. and Canadian soccer federations declined AP requests for comment on how White House policies might affect the 2026 World Cup.Gabriela Cuevas, who represents Mexico’s government in meetings with FIFA, said she considers the tariffs and the soccer event “separate issues,” adding that she believes “the World Cup could be a route to engage in a conversation.”Observers tend to agree, saying logistics such as security cooperation or team transportation from city to cityor country to countryshould not be hampered when it comes to the World Cup, scheduled to take place in 16 cities across the U.S., Canada and Mexico from June 11 to July 19, 2026.The borders might become an issue, though.“The main thing FIFA needs to move for this event is not car parts, and it’s not wheat, and it’s not electricity. It’s people. That’s your real concern,” said Victor Matheson, an economics professor at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts.“What were previously pretty reasonable border crossings could become much more challenging, simply because both sides amp up their level of inspections and the United States, in particular, cuts down government services that allow people to move effectively between countries.”As for the fans, 29-year-old Mexican businessman German Camacho Pacheco said “soccer is religion” in is country, so when it comes to the World Cup, “I don’t think they care about tariffs.”Camacho, wearing the Monterrey club jersey of defender Sergio Ramos while on the way to watch a game at a sports bar in Mexico City, said he doesn’t expect there to be any effect at all on the World Cup “unless this goes from a trade war to an actual war.”
AP writers Greg Beacham in Inglewood, California; Nancy Benac in Washington; Ronald Blum in New York; Graham Dunbar in Costa Navarino, Greece; Eddie Pells in Denver; Anne M. Peterson in Portland, Oregon, and Carlos Rodriguez in Mexico City contributed.
Howard Fendrich is an AP national writer. Find his stories here: https://apnews.com/author/howard-fendrich. More AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports
Howard Fendrich, AP National Writer
The U.S. Naval Academy has removed nearly 400 books from its library after being told by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office to review and get rid of ones that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, U.S officials said Tuesday.Academy officials were told to review the library late last week, and an initial search had identified about 900 books for a closer look. They decided on nearly 400 to remove and began doing so Monday, finishing before Hegseth arrived for a visit Tuesday that had already been planned and was not connected to the library purge, officials said. A list of the books has not yet been made available.Pulling the books off the shelves is another step in the Trump administration’s far-reaching effort to eliminate so-called DEI content from federal agencies, including policies, programs, online and social media postings and curriculum at schools.Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said late Tuesday, “All service academies are fully committed to executing and implementing President Trump’s Executive Orders.”The Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, the Air Force Academy near Colorado Springs, Colorado, and the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York, had not been included in President Donald Trump’s executive order in January that banned DEI instruction, programs or curriculum in kindergarten through 12th grade schools that receive federal funding. That is because the academies are colleges.Pentagon leaders, however, suddenly turned their attention to the Naval Academy last week when a media report noted that the school had not removed books that promoted DEI. A U.S. official said the academy was told late last week to conduct the review and removal. It isn’t clear if the order was directed by Hegseth or someone else on his staff.A West Point official confirmed that the school had completed a review of its curriculum and was prepared to review library content if directed by the Army. The Air Force and Naval academies had also done curriculum reviews as had been required.An Air Force Academy official said the school continually reviews its curriculum, coursework and other materials to ensure it all complies with executive orders and Defense Department policies. Last week, Lt. Gen. Tony Bauernfeind, the Air Force Academy superintendent, told Congress that the school was in the middle of its course review, but there was no mention of books.The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss academy policies.Hegseth has aggressively pushed the department to erase DEI programs and online content, but the campaign has been met with questions from angry lawmakers, local leaders and citizens over the removal of military heroes and historic mentions from Defense Department websites and social media pages.In response, the department has scrambled to restore some of those posts as their removals have come to light.The confusion about how to interpret the DEI policy was underscored Monday as Naval Academy personnel mistakenly removed some photos of distinguished female Jewish graduates from a display case as they prepared for Hegseth’s visit. The photos were put back.In a statement, the Navy said it is aware that photos were mistakenly removed from the Naval Academy Jewish Center. It said U.S. Naval Academy leadership was immediately taking steps to review and correct the unauthorized removal.Hegseth spoke with students and had lunch at the academy Tuesday, but media were not invited or allowed to cover the visit.
Lolita C. Baldor, Associated Press
A trailer for Avatar: Fire and Ash, the third film in James Camerons galactically successful series, starts by delivering on the titles promise. Rivers of lava cascade through the forests of Pandora, reducing it to charred rubble. Soon, the score swells to epic proportions as the hulking, Smurf-colored Navi survey their ruined territory and swear vengeance on an unseen enemy. Released back in January, this trailer already has 3.5 million views. Not bad, considering it contains not one second of footage from the actual film.
Whenever Cameron and 20th Century Studios do release the official first trailer for Avatar: Fire and Ash, which is headed to theaters in December, they certainly wont release it through KH Studio, one of two video channels YouTube just demonetized to crack down on a larger issue.
The fake Avatar trailer, which relies on some truly abysmal AI, is part of a scourge of similar videos designed to trick movie lovers into thinking theyve found a first look at an upcoming flick. Crafty editors with access to Adobe Premiere take existing footage from previous media, splice in a dash of AI, andvoila steady stream of clicks and views from eager film buffs.
Google any major movie coming out later this year, and whether an actual trailer for it is already out there or not, the search will surface an impostor or two. Want a fake first glimpse of Edgar Wrights upcoming reboot of The Running Man? Its available on a channel called T Studio Movies (sic). How about a pirated preview of the next Conjuring movie? It can be conjured up on one called Skynet Studios. The most successful operators out there, though, appear to be the two that have newly attracted YouTubes ire: KH Studio and Screen Culture.
YouTubes move comes as a result of Deadline investigating the fake movie trailer epidemic. The publication reports that movie studios such as Warner Bros. Discovery were quietly lobbying YouTube to send any ad revenue from those fake movie trailers their way, but YouTube opted instead to suspend heavyweights Screen Culture and KH Studio from its partner program. Apparently, these channels violated the video giants policies forbidding content doctored in such a way that it misleads viewers.
“The two impacted channels were correctly suspended from the YouTube Partner Program following violations of our monetization policies,” says Jack Malon, Policy Communications Manager at YouTube. “Content isn’t eligible for monetization that uses metadata to deceive viewers into believing the content is different from what it actually is. For example, this could include a video title or description that alleges an official affiliation with a company. These suspensions are unrelated to any Content ID, or other copyright, enforcement.”
The two channels’ differing approaches highlight the level of variety in this strangely popular space. Screen Culture has 1.4 million subscribers and offers three tiers of membership. As Deadline reports, the channels founder employs a team of a dozen editors, whose fake movie trailers are viewed so often, they occasionally outrank real trailers in YouTubes search results. Screen Culture trailers are often slick and authentic-looking at first glance, mirroring the cadence and sound cues of typical Hollywood trailers with impressive alacrity. Only in the moments when the AI gets a touch shoddy, or the exposition extra disjointed, is it clear that these are forgeries.
The other newly demonetized channel, KH Studio, is a bit goofier. Its more amateurish trailers feature robotic AI-voice narration and graphics that look like ancient video game cutscenes. Beyond fake trailers for soon-to-be-blockbusters like the next Avatar, it also offers trailers for movies that will never be released, such as Interstellar 2, a Millie Bobby Brown-led remake of Nightmare on Elm Street; and Titanic 2: The Return of Jack.
The trailers on both channels offer warnings to viewers that these are merely concept trailers. The warnings come buried underneath the view count and a flood of hashtags, though; by the time the average viewer sees them, they will have already clicked on a link and inflated the view count that bit further. Although KH Studio claims in the warning that its videos are created solely for artistic and entertainment purposes, the channels trailers dont seem to have enough artistry or originality in their use of borrowed material to meet YouTubes monetization standards. They appear more like vehicles for siphoning off search traffic for notable movie titles.
While the output of neither of those channels may rise to the level of art or originality, theres a whole cottage industry of bait-and-switch trailers operating around them on YouTube. Channels like Blend FX and Dynatic Films publish videos about movies like the upcoming Naked Gun reboot starring Liam Neeson and simply add the word “trailer” in the title, guaranteeing at least some search-based traffic. The creators of those trailers cant even bother cobbling together a semi-coherent narrative to bolster their deception.
Both KH Studio and Screen Culture are entitled to appeal YouTubes decision. If they lose, we may never know what the trailer for Eraserhead 2: Revenge of the Lady in the Radiator looks like. If they win, all the other fake trailers may just be a sneak preview of whats to come.
A top employee of billionaire Elon Musk who is now working in the U.S. Justice Department previously bragged about hacking and distributing pirated software, according to archived copies of his former websites reviewed by Reuters.
Christopher Stanley, a 33-year-old engineer who has worked at both Musk’s social media company X and space-launch company SpaceX, is a senior adviser in the Deputy Attorney General’s office, according to a former Justice Department official and a staff directory listing reviewed by Reuters.
Stanley was assigned there while working for Musks Department of Government Efficiency that President Donald Trump set up to slash the federal bureaucracy. Musk has said no “organization has been more transparent than DOGE, but theres been little public information on the responsibilities and background of its staff.
Stanley ran a series of websites and forums starting as far back as 2006, when he was 15, registration data preserved by the internet intelligence firm DomainTools shows. Several of those sites distributed pirated e-books, bootleg software and video game cheats, according to copies maintained by the Internet Archive, a nonprofit whose “Wayback Machine” preserves old websites.
Stanley boasted about hacking into websites on at least two of the forums, according to archived posts, one of which dates to when he was 19. At the time, he said he had put his hacking days behind him. But a YouTube video he posted in 2014 shows his involvement in the breach of customer data from a rival hacking group, when he was 23.
In response to questions for this story, the Justice Department did not directly address Stanley’s current role or his past but said he had an active security clearance that predated his employment at DOGE. In a statement to Reuters, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said she had “full trust and confidence in Chriss ability to help the federal government.” Stanley, the White House, SpaceX, and X did not respond to requests for comment.
In the hours after Reuters contacted Stanley, several of his old websites vanished from the Internet Archive. Mark Graham, director of the Wayback Machine, declined to answer specific questions about the disappearance of Stanleys websites but said people who own the rights to sites can request to have their content withheld from the archive.
National security professionals were largely split on how seriously to take Stanleys past. Six former Justice officials told Reuters his background raised red flags, noting that the department handles sensitive information, including details of federal investigations and other information protected by grand jury secrecy rules.
I would have very serious concerns about hiring him in and giving him access to these kinds of records, said Jonathan Rusch, who spent more than 25 years as a Justice Department prosecutor before going into academia. Rusch said Stanleys background was worrisome, particularly for a Justice Department employee, because he had disclosed data which he had acquired apparently illegally.
Dan Guido, whose digital security firm Trail of Bits has worked with the Justice and Defense departments, was more forgiving. Stanleys history of hacking shouldnt disqualify him from working at the DOJ, he said, citing Stanleys youthfulness and the way he targeted other hackers as mitigating factors. That is a way Ive seen a lot of people learn.
Reuters could not determine Stanleys specific Justice Department responsibilities. The Deputy Attorney Generals office, run by Trumps former private attorney, Todd Blanche, oversees all the U.S. Attorneys offices, and manages criminal investigations into a range of offenses, including hacking and other malicious cyber activity.
Reuters also could not establish whether Stanley remains employed by X and SpaceX. On LinkedIn, he still identifies himself as working for them and makes no reference to his Justice Department work. A profile photo on X shows him standing before the emblem for the Office of Justice Programs, an office in the department that awards grant funds. Like Musk, Stanley is classified as a “special government employee” and is not drawing a government salary, the DOJ said.
PIRACY, VIDEO GAME CHEATS, AND HACKING
Other members of Musks DOGE team have faced scrutiny over their backgrounds.
When Reuters reported last week that DOGE staffer Edward Coristine had previously provided network infrastructure to a gang of cybercriminals, Democrats in the Republican-led House of Representatives Oversight Committee said in a post on X that it was another reason we need a full investigation into WHO is working for DOGE. Coristine has not responded to requests for comment.
Starting about 10 years before joining SpaceX, Stanley ran several online forums that covered software piracy, video game cheats, and hacking. He used various pseudonyms on those sites, including eNkrypt and Reneg4d3, both of which he still uses on some social media accounts.
Reuters was able to link the now-defunct forum websites and the usernames to Stanley by cross-referencing the sites registration data against his old email address and by matching Reneg4d3s biographical data to Stanleys.
On some of Stanley’s earliest sites, he claimed credit for hacking. The website, fkn-pwnd.com, launched in 2006 while he was in high school, boasted of Fucking Up Servers! and featured a crude sketch of a penis, according to a copy of the site preserved by the Internet Archive.
On reneg4d3.com, which he registered the following year, the archives show Stanley described how he hijacked a competing message board. Got admin access, he said in a 2008 post, just before he turned 17, describing the sites operators as stupid noobs. Easy exploit, he wrote.
Around that time, a rival video game-cheating website, rev0lution-cheats.com, was hijacked and defaced with the message: This site has been hacked by RENEG4D3.com. Reneg4d3.com was suspended by its internet service provider a few months later, according to a screenshot of the site preserved by DomainTools.
Reuters could not corroborate certain aspects of the hacking activity, including the identity of the site Stanley claimed credit for hijacking or the circumstances of rev0lution-cheats defacement.
Stanley went on to start other websites where he and other participants discussed hacking, video-game cheating, or piracy, including error33.net and electonic.net (sic), the Internet Archives records show.
I NO LONGER HACK
At age 19, Stanley distanced himself from malicious cyber activity in an archived 2010 post on electonic.net, writing: “I no longer hack into Paypals, gain root access into other peoples computer (sic), or exploit online websites like StickAM”an apparent reference to a video streaming service that shut down in 2013.
In that same post, he said hed been threatened with a lawsuit by the South Korean gaming company Nexon Co for “infiltrating their game software and altering certain aspects of the game.”
“They did not take kindly to this,” he said.
Reuters could not independently corroorate the claims of theft, computer hijacking, and software tampering, or the threatened lawsuit. A Nexon spokesperson said the company had been unable to locate any information regarding the matter. PayPal did not respond to a request for comment.
Discussions on the electonic.net forum show that Stanley had not entirely left the hacking world behind. The websitelike others Stanley had createdoffered contraband ebooks and warezinternet slang for pirated software.
In December 2014, when he was 23, Stanley posted footage of himself carrying out a hack of the customer database connected to Lizard Squad, a hacking group that took credit for several high-profile outages that included attacks against Sony Corp’s PlayStation Network. Reuters was unable to reach former members of Lizard Squad for comment.
Stanley posted the footage to his YouTube channel, where he still goes by the Reneg4d3 nickname and uses a photo of himself with Elon Musk as his profile picture.
Judge Susan Crawford preserved liberals’ narrow majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court Tuesday by defeating conservative Brad Schimel, but in a way the real loser of the election was billionaire Elon Musk.Musk and his affiliated groups sunk at least $21 million into the normally low-profile race and paid three individual voters $1 million each for signing a petition in an effort to goose turnout in the pivotal battleground state contest. That made the race the first major test of the political impact of Musk, whose prominence in President Donald Trump’s administration has skyrocketed with his chaotic cost-cutting initiative that has slashed federal agencies.Crawford and the Democrats who backed her made Musk the focus of their arguments for holding the seat, contending he was “buying” the election, which set records for the costliest judicial race in history.“Today Wisconsinites fended off an unprecedented attack on our democracy, our fair elections, and our Supreme Court,” Crawford said in her victory speech. “And Wisconsin stood up and said loudly that justice does not have a price, our courts are not for sale.”Trump endorsed Schimel as the race turned into a proxy fight over national political issues. The state’s high court can rule on cases involving voting rights and redistricting in a state likely to be at the center of both next year’s midterm elections and the 2028 presidential contest.But Musk’s involvement dialed those dynamics up to 11: “A seemingly small election could determine the fate of Western civilization,” the billionaire said Tuesday in a last-ditch call to voters on his social media site X. “I think it matters for the future of the world.”Notably, America PAC, the super PAC backed by Musk, spent at least $6 million on vendors who sent door-to-door canvassers across the state, according to the nonpartisan Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. It was a reprise of what the group did across the seven most competitive presidential battleground states, including Wisconsin, which were carried by Trump in November.But the end results this time were not good for Musk. Despite the millions he spent on Schimel, as of late Tuesday night the Supreme Court candidate was losing by four percentage points more than the other Republican-backed statewide candidate, Brittany Kinser, who also fell short in her bid for superintendent of public instruction.Musk’s court race defeat wasn’t only because of crushing Democratic margins in deep blue cities like Madison and Milwaukee. Crawford’s margins were higher in places where the Musk-backed group America PAC had been active, including Sauk County, just north of Madison, which Crawford was carrying by 10 points after Trump won it by less than two points in November.In Brown County, the home of Green Bay where Musk headlined a campaign rally with 2,000 people on Sunday, Crawford beat Schimel. Trump won the county by seven percentage points last year.Overnight, Musk posted on his X platform that “The long con of the left is corruption of the judiciary.” In another comment, he seemed to take solace from voters’ approval to elevate the state’s photo ID requirement from state law to constitutional amendment. The platform was rife with criticism from Trump opponents for his involvement in the race.“Please send @elonmusk to all the close races!” Jon Favreau, former speechwriter for President Barack Obama, wrote.“Elon Musk is not good at this,” J.B. Pritzker, Illinois’ Democratic governor and a billionaire himself who donated to support Crawford, posted on X.Voters definitely had Musk on their minds.“There’s an insane situation going on with the Trump administration, and it feels like Elon Musk is trying to buy votes,” said Kenneth Gifford, a 22-year-old Milwaukee college student, as he cast his ballot on Tuesday. “I want an actual, respectable democracy.”Others may not have had their vote decided by the billionaire but were all-too aware of the money pouring into their state.Jim Seeger, a 68-year-old retiree who previously worked in communications and marketing, said he voted for Schimel because he wants Republicans to maintain their outsized majority in Wisconsin’s congressional delegation, which could be at risk if Crawford wins and the court orders the maps redrawn. But, he added, he was disappointed the election had become a “financial race.”“I think it’s a shame that we have to spend this much money, especially on a judicial race,” Seeger said as he voted in Eau Claire.Wisconsin’s Democratic Attorney General, Josh Kaul, sued to bar Musk from making his payments to voters if they signed a petition against “activist judges.” The state Supreme Court unanimously declined to rule on the case over a technicality.Musk swooped into the race shortly after Trump’s inauguration. Republicans were pessimistic about being able to win the seat. They lost a longtime conservative majority on the state high court in 2023, and Democrats have excelled in turning out their educated, politically tuned-in coalition during obscure elections such as the one in Wisconsin.Musk duplicated and expanded on some of the methods he used in the final weeks of last year’s presidential race, when he spent more than $200 million on Trump’s behalf in the seven swing states, including Wisconsin.This time, in addition to the $1 million checks, Musk offered to pay $20 to anyone who signed up on his group’s site to knock on doors for Schimel and posted a photo of themselves as proof. His organization promised $100 to every voter who signed the petition against liberal judges and another $100 for every signer they referred.Democrats were happy to make Musk a lightning rod in the race.“People do not want to see Elon Musk buying election after election after election,” Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler said Monday. “If it works here, he’s going to do it all over the country.”
Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard in Washington contributed to this report.
Nicholas Riccardi and Thomas Beaumont, Associated Press
Glen Powell has done it all on screenfrom battling storms in Twisters to trading banter in the rom-com Anyone but You. But his latest role? Its a little unexpected: reinventing the American pantry.
The actor is stepping into the food world as a cofounder of Smash Kitchen, a new condiment brand hitting Walmart shelves nationwide on April 2. The line includes ketchup, mustard, mayo, and BBQ sauceall made with better-for-you ingredients like organic tomatoes and mustard seeds, cage-free organic eggs, and none of the usual suspects like high-fructose corn syrup or artificial additives. The goal? To bring all your favorite condiments under one cleaner, tastier brand.
Were trying to give you the flavor that you love and youre used to, with more integrity, Powell tells Fast Company. When you look at these legacy brands, they dont evolve because they dont have to evolve.
The Powell-backed brand is leaping into the $12 billion U.S. condiments category, which is projected to grow an additional $1 billion by 2029, according to market researcher Mintel. Unlike other food categories like coffee, soda, and yogurt where upstart brands have made inroads, Unilevers Hellmanns mayonnaise, Kraft Heinzs namesake ketchup, and McCormicks Frenchs mustard are the market leaders and have easily retained those positions for decades.
[Image: Smash Kitchen]
We have a tremendous sense of loyalty to these brands, says Matthew Barry, food and beverage insight manager at researcher Euromonitor International. People are really attached to Hellmanns and Heinz ketchup.
Smash Kitchen is the first business venture that Powell has announced outside of his career as an entertainer, which began with his big screen acting debut in the 2003 film Spy Kids 3: Game Over. Powell has since racked up dozens of film and TV credits and recently formed his own production company called Barnstorm. The creation of Smash Kitchen, Powell says, was inspired by his affinity for hosting dinner parties and barbecues in Los Angeles and his home state of Texas.
My family life and my favorite memories always evolved around the kitchen, says Powell. Food is how we show our love.
Smash Kitchen is backed by venture capital firm Collaborative Fund, an early investor in Olipop, Sweetgreen, and Blue Bottle Coffee. Powells co-founders Smash Kitchen CEO Sameer Mehta, a cofounder of dog food brand Jinx and former VP of strategic partners at mattress company Casper, and President Sean Kane, who co-founded consumer goods purveyor the Honest Company. The trio were brought together through a mutual connection with venture capital fund Iconiq Capital founder Divesh Makan.
Ultimately, you shouldn’t have to choose what’s better for your budget and and better for your health, and Glenn is super excited to be able to bring that to not only his family, but people everywhere, says Kane.
Smash Kitchens pitch to shoppers is not only a focus on a cleaner nutritional label that avoids high fructose corn syrup and tomato concentrate, but prioritizing the creation of condiments that taste good. Retailers, Mehta says, told the team that people arent picking up condiments for health benefits. They are picking it up for the flavor.
The more distinctive flavors from Smash Kitchen, like hot honey BBQ sauce and spicy mayo, may have greater success luring shoppers, as those flavor profiles arent as intrinsically linked to childhood memories as the classic Heinz ketchup. Weve seen hot honey get household recognition within the pizza category, says Mehta. Nobody has infused it with ketchup. Its a flavor profile that we know consumers are wanting.
Theres no hot honey sauce that is so emotionally resonant and widespread among the American consumer, says Barry. Its open to disruption. Anyone could be the hot honey sauce of America.
Smash Kitchens range is priced slightly above what larger rivals command. The classic 20-ounce ketchup has a standard list price of $3.97 versus Heinzs $3.48 at Walmart.com. Smashs yellow mustard is priced at $3.47, compared to $2.54 for Frenchs. Barry says inflation-wary shoppers remain particularly sensitive to grocery prices, but may be willing to spend a bit more on a cleaner ingredient label. The organic claim, he adds, has lost some luster because it has become so ubiquitous across the grocery store.
If you can be a little fun treat for people, a little moment of happiness and joy at a reasonable price point, thats really prominent right now, says Barry.
Audiences are used to Hollywood mining pre-existing material for movies. For over two decades now, the industrys go-to source for blockbusters has been comic books. And increasingly, its been video games. But occasionally, Hollywood turns to Reddit, too.
This week, it was announced that the popular Hollywood actress Sydney Sweeney had acquired the film rights to a four-year-old Reddit post. As noted by The Hollywood Reporter, the Reddit post in question is a short story by a Massachusetts-based high school English teacher named Joe Cote.
That short story and post, titled I pretended to be a missing girl so I could rob her family, is about a girl who shows up at the house of a family whose daughter went missing years earlier. The girl says she is their missing daughter so she can stay with them for the nighta lie she uses in her attempt to rob their house.
The Hollywood Reporter says that Warner Bros. won the rights to the film deal, which was described as competitive. Warner Bros. picked up the rights after Sydney Sweeney became attached to star in and produce the short story adaptation.
Sweeney reportedly then brought Oscar-winning scriptwriter Eric Roth, of Forrest Gump fame, to make the story into a screenplay. A release date and director have not yet been announced.
Hollywood has been interested in adapting Reddit posts into films before
But I pretended to be a missing girl isnt the only Reddit post that has been picked up for a movie adaptation before. This is actually the second confirmed time a Reddit post has attracted Hollywoods attention. The first time happened nearly 14 years ago.
As reported by Variety in 2011, Warner Bros. (seems like the studio loves Reddit, doesnt it?) picked up the film rights to a Reddit post with the lengthy title Could I destroy the entire Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus if I traveled back in time with a modern U.S. Marine infantry battalion or MEU?
This post was another short story, and this one explored what would happen if a group of modern-day U.S. Marines were transported back in time to the Roman Empire. The film adaptations working title was Rome, Sweet Rome. The short story was written by author and Jeopardy! champion James Erwin.
However, those Reddit scribes hopeful that their next postshort story or otherwisewill be picked up by Hollywood and see them soon walking down the red carpet need to understand one thing: just because a studio picks up the film rights to something doesnt mean that the film will ever see the light of day.
The majority of acquired film rights go on to languish in development hell, an industry term used to describe projects that get stuck in purgatory for whatever reason, often due to a revolving door of talent coming to and leaving a project.
In 2018, Little White Lies reported that Rome, Sweet Rome was stuck in development hell.
Of course, just getting anything picked up by Hollywood, even if it is never made into a movie, is a success in its own right. And when it comes to Reddit posts, its now happened at least twice.
As the superhero genre continues to die a slow death, Hollywood is certain to be looking for something it can generate movie ideas from for years to come. As the two examples above show, Reddit may be one of those places.
It’s been a wild few years for Snowflake, from a record-breaking IPO to a plummeting stock price to a data-breach scandal. Sridhar Ramaswamy took over in the heat of the turmoil and helped steady the ship, in part by betting big on AI. Ramaswamy shares lessons from the company’s turnaround including insights behind high profile partnerships with OpenAI and Anthropic, how Snowflake embraced China’s Deepseek early, and why Ramaswamy calls Snowflake the most consequential AI-data company in the world.
This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by the former editor-in-chief of Fast Company Bob Safian. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with todays top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode.
I had a guest on the show recently who confided that a lot of CEOs are kind of paralyzed right now by sort of external uncertainties in the world, shifting tariffs, and regulations, and executive orders. How do you deal with, and think about, the environment and all the changes relative to the things that you can control yourself?
One of my firm beliefs in life is that you need to focus on the things that you are going to have an impact on. There are many things that, let’s face it, we are simply not going to have any impact on. Obsessing about unchangeable things in the short term is the recipe for being uncertain about life.
There is a lot of macro uncertainty. Businesses will react, and we will have to worry. For example, if the stock market keeps going down, or if the business climate gets worse, it’ll have an impact on Snowflake, but so far, it’s been heads down, get great product work done, get great customer deployments done.
You recently said that Snowflake is the most consequential data and AI company in the world. That is an ambitious assertion, especially for a business that, at least previously, was known as a data storage company. How do you back up that claim?
The most important data for the most important enterprises in the world is already stored on Snowflake. Snowflake is the gold standard for analytics. We have something like 700-odd Global 2000 companies that are on Snowflake, and if you exclude the folks from China that we are not even going after, that is 700-something out of 1,600.
They all put their most important prized information on top of Snowflake. Large public companies close their books every month on top of Snowflake. Financial institutions share data with each other. Snowflake is the beating heart of at least the U.S. financial system in terms of how data moves from place to place.
I mentioned at the beginning that Snowflake was one of the first U.S. companies to adopt DeepSeek. You’re also the only data platform, big one, to offer models from both OpenAI and Anthropic. What did you see in DeepSeek, and second, why have you leaned into having multiple models available?
Our strength is as a data platform. We are not a foundation model company, and honestly, most companies have no business of pretending that they are foundation model companies. It takes very specialized expertise, incredible talent density, and a very, very big wallet.
And so for this, we decided to go the way of partnerships. We collaborate with a lot of folks. We focus on developing data products, which, in my mind, is the place where value is going to be realized.
When people think about OpenAI, they think, “Ah. These are the people that make the foundation models.” No, no, no. OpenAI is an amazing product company. ChatGPT is a legitimate product. It is going to approach the pantheon of the greats, the products that have a billion-plus users, and so helping people get value from models and the data that Snowflake has is what we are about.
Hence the leaning into heavy partnerships. Things like hosting DeepSeek quickly, that’s just a little bit of making sure that you can still run the hundred-meter sprint in 10 seconds. It was a challenge. It was an amazing model. We had it out in two days flat.
There was a lot of anxiety about DeepSeek. You don’t necessarily feel that same kind of anxiety, or even if you do, you feel like you have to have it available.
Let’s break that anxiety down. There are many parts of DeepSeek. One is the open-source model. DeepSeek also offers services on servers that are hosted in China, where if you use their app, for example, everything that you are typing in is getting sent to China.
Now, without getting too much into geopolitics, people will rightfully say that sending business data to China is a bad idea. It’s the same kind of fear that we have about TikTok. Hosting the DeepSeek model does not introduce any kind of security compromise. We host it. We take security and risk management very seriously. Us hosting DeepSeek did not cause issues like that.
Any anxiety about, “Oh, DeepSeek can do things so much more cheaply than OpenAI. They’re cheaper, faster ways to build these models”?
See, that’s the part of it that I actually like. That’s not anxiety. The reason I like that is because if there are highly capable-models that are freely available, the value of the data that is in Snowflake goes up. It doesn’t go down.
The value of the model companies goes down, and they have to innovate even harder. But innovation is a good thing for all of us. The cheaper that models get, the more broadly adoption there is, the more benefit that we, as society, are going to get, and certainly, Snowflake as a business.
You have mentioned the trend of businesses moving to India. You are an immigrant to the U.S. from India. You came from India with just a few suitcases and a couple hundred dollars, as I recall. There’s so much angst in the U.S. around immigration right now. How much do you think about it, given your personal experience?
Look, I’m incredibly blessed. I came with a bachelor’s degree, yes, I think it was $700. Neither of my parents went to college. I got a doctorate from Brown that Brown entirely paid for.
I got a monthly stipend and a free PhD, and I think I’ve contributed in meaningful ways to the country, helping create great, amazing businesses. I think the larger issue is that our population feels like there is enough prosperity to go around.
People in our country need to feel like they have a prosperous future before they’re willing to lean in and say, “We want more immigrants to share in that prosperous uture.” But I think those are the core issues that our government needs to address, where all of us feel like they have the opportunity like how I got the opportunity. My take is there’s no generosity without prosperity.
What do people and business leaders most misunderstand about the state of technology right now?
I think they are both feeling pressure about things like AI, but are also flooded with options for what to do. I think there’s just so much noise coming in terms of partnerships between X and Y or this new agent, take this or the other.
I think that just separating out what is real from what is hype, I think, is very hard. I would say this is less a misunderstanding than an amount of confusion, and I don’t think the AI industry helps itself with things like not talking about hallucination rates or not talking about things like what it takes for something to truly be enterprise-grade?
There’s a little bit of, “look, ma. It’s so cool,” kind of attitude to some of the things that happen in AI. I think there is a maturity process that is going to happen, but figuring out what is real from what is hype is the biggest challenge that business leaders, enterprise leaders face today.
Its rarely possible to be 100% efficient, 100% of our workday.
We need breaks and working with others means we need time and space for that collaboration to happen. But oftentimes, a needed break or interaction can balloon into an unneeded time suck that leaves you feeling frustrated that you didnt accomplish what you actually needed to get done.
So how do you identify when youre spending way too much time in an area and then eliminate that waste so that you have more time for whats most important? As a time management coach, heres what Ive found to be the most effective ways to make this happen.
Identifying your time sucks
Honest awareness: Sometimes you already know exactly whats stealing your time. You just need to be honest with yourself and willing to address it.
Do you know that you just cant resist checking your email every time a new message indicator pops up?
Do you know that you think you can just watch one YouTube video and then seemingly the next second you realize youve watched 10?
Do you know that you can never just send a quick text to your best friend, it always becomes a 20-minute text conversation?
Write down what you already know is taking more time than it should during your day as a commitment to admitting it and fixing the issue.
Automatic monitoring: Once youve recorded what you already know, one of the easiest next steps is to look at the automatic monitoring already in place on your phone.
Most phones will give you a weekly report of where you spent time on different apps. You may think that youre not scrolling that much on Instagram, but the data may tell a different story.
You can also set up automatic reports of your computer usage if you find thats an issue in addition to your phone.
Personal time tracking: A third way to identify your time sucks is through personal time tracking where you can make note of where your time is going both on and off the screen. I typically recommend tracking your time for at least two days, but if you want to do a more thorough analysis, document it for a week.
This can be done on paper, in an Excel document, or by using tools like Toggl or Timeular. My clients sometimes prefer the software options because of the ability to see consolidated reports. But if you find them overwhelming, its completely fine to keep things simple.
If you complete the above three steps, youre starting to get a clear picture of where your time might be overinvested. Then its time to take action. Here are some tips on eliminating, or at least reducing, the three biggest time sucks in most peoples days.
Eliminating Your Time Sucks
Screen time
Some screen time can be a nice mental break. But if your data shows that you have more than 30 minutes of personal screen time during the workday that doesnt fall into designated times off, like your lunch break, then youre probably spending too much time in that category.
If you cant handle social media or news sites, put the nuclear option on your device so that youre completely blocked from viewing them outside of scheduled times and have no option to undo the choice. You can also add online shopping sites or TV or movie sites like NetFlix or Hulu to the blocked list. If you work from home and are a gamer, considering locking up your controllers in a timed box so that you cant even think about beating the next level.
Communication
In addition to screen time, inefficient communication can be a huge time suck in your workday. In fact, I see it as one of the biggest time wasters among people who are working much longer hours than they would prefer.
To start, youll want to reduce or eliminate any scheduled meetings that dont actually need to happen. There are many times where an email could suffice instead of a meeting. For example, when people contact me who I dont know asking for a 15-minute meeting to explain something, I always reply by asking them to send over more information in written form. That way in less than a minute, I can scan what they sent and decide if it merits a conversation, and my workflow isnt interrupted by unnecessary meetings.
If youre in an office environment, beware of the drive-by meetings. They can be super useful, but they also can be productivity destroying. If you really need to focus and have a door, close it. If you dont have a door or people open your door spontaneously, put up a sign and/or put on headphones. Some of my clients even go so far to set up office hours, which are times when theyre OK with drop-in chats. Outside of those office hours, they request that people schedule a meeting.
And finally, email and other asynchronous communication tools like IM or Slack can consume massive amounts more time than needed if you let them. One of the best ways to reduce time in these areas is to have designated times you log in and batch reply to all of the new messages, such as at the beginning, middle, and end of the workday. If thats not permissible, at least give yourself a few spaces throughout the day to get focused work done by turning off notifications and if needed, putting up Do not disturb.
Disorganization
A final category of time suck during the workday is plain disorganization. You can waste so much time by being lost or losing items.
Start with a plan: I encourage all of my clients to make daily and weekly planning a ritual so that theyre clear on their priorities and always know what to do next. But if thats too overwhelming to start, at least write down the three most important things to accomplish for the day. That simple act can dramatically increase your progress on your most critical tasks.
Leverage your energy: If youre a super morning person, purposefully block that time from meetings, spend minimal time on email, and get your hardest tasks done first. If youre barely awake until 10 a.m., do the opposite. Start slow responding to others and having a few meetings, and then block off 3 p.m. and later for your own work. Failing to organize your tasks around your energy levels can leave you frustrated because you have the time but not the mental capacity to get hard work done.
Organize your environment: You dont need office drawers worthy of a Pinterest post. But you do need to be able to find what you need when you need it. If your physical disorganization or electronic disorganization is causing you to waste needless time searching for things, take some time to get yourself in order. Sometimes that looks like spending a couple of hours purging your desk and filing things away. Other times, its best to work on a few papers or folders a day until you have sufficient organization.
Your time will rarely be 100% utilized. But by following these tips you can dramatically reduce the time lst on time sucks so that you can invest it in what matters to you most.
Welcome to Pressing Questions, Fast Companys work-life advice column. Every week, deputy editor Kathleen Davis, host of The New Way We Work podcast, will answer the biggest and most pressing workplace questions.
Q: Help! None of my coworkers have kids and dont understand what its like.A: No two peoples lives are the same and people with all kinds of family structures have issues that pull their time and attention away from work. That said, few things in life are as schedule-disrupting as being a parent.In an ideal world, your boss and coworkers wouldnt need to be parents themselves to understand things like needing to miss work when you have a sick kid or having a hard out each day at daycare pick-up time. Also, in an ideal world the school day and calendar would align better with the typical work day. We are obviously not in an ideal world, and unfortunately resentment between parents and coworkers without children is common.
Here are my suggestions to deal with it.
Suggest changes that would benefit everyone
Most parents cant make 8 a.m. meetings, as thats prime time for getting the kids out the door and to school. You know who else hates 8 a.m. meetings? Just about everyone. Rather have your colleagues resent you for being exempt from attending, suggest to your manager that morning meetings get rescheduled for after 9 a.m.The same goes for taking time off for lifes unexpected problems. You have to leave work when your kid is sick or when theres a snow day, doctors appointment or a recital. But everyone has things pop up, whether its their own dentist and doctor appointments, or the needs of their relatives or pets. If you’re in a leadership position, you can help foster a culture that recognizes that lifes obligations sometimes need to take priority over work.
If youre not in a leadership position, you can be the change you want to see by happily covering for your colleagues when something comes up. Hopefully the next time your kid gets pink eye theyll remember the time you took over for them when their dog had to go to the vet.
Call it out
If you feel like youve made a good faith effort to prove how you’re a team player, have demonstrated that you are just as productive as the non-parents on your team, and have offered solutions and you still feel resentment, you might want to be direct and talk to your coworker or manager about it. As with any difficult workplace conversation, you can still enter it with a collaborative mindset. Theres a problem and you are going to solve it together. You are not on opposing teams.
As with other workplace disagreements, it can be helpful to approach the conversation with curiosity. Try something like: Ive noticed a lot of comments about my schedule. Is there something thats causing an issue for the team or workflow that Im not aware of? If there is an issue youre not aware of (like a domino effect of work falling on one person when you leave), once its out in the air you can problem solve. If theres not an actual issue, just vague resentment, calling it out might force the person to address their own bias, or at least be the start of a conversation that can lead to more understanding.
Want some more reading on working parents? Here you go:
Im the CEO of a family tech company. Heres how Ive created kid-friendly work hours
The school year used to favor working parents, but not anymore
4 simple ways leaders can better support working parents
How longer school days benefit working mothers
