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Friday is the opening ceremony for the 2026 Winter Olympics. But, if youve spent any time on TikTok over the past week, you might have already got a sneak peek at some behind-the-scenes content courtesy of the athletes themselves. In 2024, the International Olympic Committee loosened its rules governing what athletes can capture and share on social media. The shift helped spark viral moments during the Paris Games, when Team USA rugby star Ilona Maher and Norways swimmer Henrik Christiansen, whose chocolate muffin reviews became an unlikely hit, took over TikTok feeds. This year, Olympians have already been posting vlogs of their journeys to the Olympic Village from all over the world. The Team USA ice dancer Emilea Zingas shared a snippet into what makeup she packed for the Olympics, as well as a get-ready-with-me video before her first practice. Dutch speed skater Jutta Leederman, who’s dating American boxer Jake Paul, documented her journey to Milan via private jet. @zingaskolesnik33 Makeup is packed all my extras/other tools and things I packed yesterday:) #roadtomilanocortina2026 #icedance #iceskatingtiktok @Team USA original sound – Emi and Vadym Once inside the Village, room tours have become a major draw. Sleeping arrangements, in particular, have drawn attention in recent years, following the Tokyo and Paris Games, where athletes slept on beds made from reinforced cardboard, reportedly designed to discourage intimacy. This time around, a Team GB athlete revealed that the beds are made from sturdier materials. @nathanpare_ The details everyone wants to know!! Follow along to see the inside scoop of this Winter Olympics. #olympics #winterolympics #roomtour #fyp #teamusa original sound – nathanpare_ If youve ever wondered what Olympians eat in the run up to the games, look no further. South African snowboarder Matt Smith has been rating the food inside the athletes canteen, tucking into Italian staples like lasagna and pizza. The Olympic village gnocchi is my chocolate muffin, American snowboarder Hahna Norman said in a TikTok video of her own. @thesnowbok Couldnt help but start my canteen exploration in the Italian section. #crosscountryskiing #xcskiing #athlete #milanocortina2026 #nordicskiing @Milano Cortina 2026 Get Lucky – Stay Groove Band Olympic hauls are no longer limited to medals. Videos of athletes unboxing sponsored gear are going viral, too. Team USAs kit this year comes from Ralph Lauren, along with additional swag from Skims. Team South Korea ice dancer Hannah Lim modeled a North Face puffer jacket and matching luggage, while Canadian speed skater Brooklyn McDougall shared her Lululemon haul. @brooklyn_mcdougall Come be overstimulated with me thank you @lululemon original sound – brooklyn_mcdougall Between competitions and training sessions, athletes are also documenting how they spend their downtime. Coca-Cola has outfitted a recreational area with foosball tables, air hockey, and gaming systems, which American ice-dancing duo Emilea Zingas and Vadym Kolesnik toured for their nearly 36,000 followers. British ice dancer Phebe Bekker filmed herself attending a sound bath meditation session before being interrupted by media obligations. Speed skater Casey Dawson even treated followers to ice ASMR during a practice at the Milan arena. @phebebekker Sound bath class in the Olympic village?! #olympics #milanocortina2026 #olympicvillage #coronacero Carefree Days – Peaceful Reveries In between events, many Olympians are hoping to capitalize on this brief window of hyperattention. The hashtag #winterolympics has already been used in more than 37,000 TikTok posts, while #milancortina2026 has surpassed 900 tagged videos. As the Games get started, even more content will be coming out of the Olympic Village. After all, competing may be the top priority, but posting about it has become a close second.
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Amazon sales surged 14% during the fourth quarter, helped by strong holiday spending and a better-than-expected growth in its prominent cloud computing unit.But shares fell 11% in after hours trading on Thursday as investors appeared to be spooked by the Seattle-based tech company’s plans to increase capital spending by nearly 60% to $200 billion from last year’s $128 billion as it sees opportunities in artificial intelligence, robots, semiconductors and satellites. The company’s fourth-quarter profits also were slightly below analysts’ projections.Wall Street analysts were expecting capital spending to rise to around $147 billion this year, according to FactSet.Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy told investors on the call following the earnings release that it anticipates strong long-term return on the invested capital.“We are continuing to see as fast as we install this capacity, this AI capacity, we are monetizing it,” Jassy said. “So it’s just a very unusual opportunity. I passionately believe that every customer experience that we know of today is going to be reinvented.”The results come as Amazon is slashing about 16,000 corporate jobs in the second round of mass layoffs for the e-commerce company in three months. Amazon said in an emailed statement last week that AI was “not the reason behind the vast majority of these reductions.” Rather, the cuts had more to do with eliminating layers to drive speed.Separately, Amazon said last week it would cut about 5,000 retail workers, according to notices it sent to state workforce agencies in California, Maryland and Washington, resulting from its decision to close almost all of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh stores.That’s on top of a round of 14,000 job cuts in October, bringing the total to well over 30,000 since Amazon’s Jassy first signaled a push for AI-driven organizational changes.Analysts are analyzing retailers’ performances for insight into how shoppers spent during the holidays and what’s in store for 2026.Amazon is also under pressure to shore up confidence that its computing arm Amazon Web Services is just as powerful as Microsoft’s Azure and Google’s Google Cloud platform.Amazon delivered 24% growth for AWS in the fourth quarter, the fastest in 13 quarters, the company said. That followed a 20% growth in the third quarter and a 17.5% increase in the second quarter. In comparison, Google parent Alphabet said Wednesday that its cloud business registered a 48% increase, or nearly $18 billion in revenue.Meta, Apple and other Big Tech firms are expected to ramp up their spending on artificial intelligence this year. After investing $91 billion into capital expenditures devoted mostly to AI, Alphabet said Wednesday that it expects to double down by spending another $175 billion to $185 billion this year.Amazon also continues to invest in its speedy fulfillment network, through a combination of robotics, AI technology and more efficient warehousing.Amazon’s new service called Amazon Now, an ultra-fast delivery that offers delivery on thousands of items in 30 minutes or less, is now available in various cities in India, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates and is being tested in several communities in the U.S. and the United Kingdom, the company said.Amazon is also expanding its same-day grocery delivery to more than 2,300 cities and towns across the U.S.Jassy told investors the company continues to see strong customer response to everyday essentials and groceries.Meanwhile, Amazon is closing almost all of its Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh locations as it narrows its focus on food delivery and its grocery chain, Whole Foods Market.Some of the shuttered stores will be converted into Whole Foods locations, the company said in a blog post last week.Amazon reported net income of $21.2 billion, or $1.95 per share, for the three-month period ended Dec. 31. That compares with $20 billion, or $1.86 per share, in the year-ago quarter.Revenue rose to $213.4 billion in the fourth quarter, compared with $187.8 billion in the year-ago period.Analysts were expecting $1.97 per share on sales of $211.4 billion, according to analysts polled by FactSet.Revenue from Amazon Web Services reached $35.6 billion. Analysts were expecting $34.9 billion.Product sales during the holiday period rose 9.4%, the company said.The company said that it expects sales to be between $173.5 billion and $178.5 billion for current quarter.Analysts are projecting $175.6 billion. Anne D’Innocenzio, AP Retail writer
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The Dietary Guidelines for Americans aim to translate the most up-to-date nutrition science into practical advice for the public as well as to guide federal policy for programs such as school lunches. But the newest version of the guidelines, released on Jan. 7, 2026, seems to be spurring more confusion than clarity about what people should be eating. Ive been studying nutrition and chronic disease for over 35 years, and in 2020 I wrote Sugarproof, a book about reducing consumption of added sugars to improve health. I served as a scientific adviser for the new guidelines. I chose to participate in this process, despite its accelerated and sometimes controversial nature, for two reasons. First, I wanted to help ensure the review was conducted with scientific rigor. And second, federal health officials prioritized examining areas where the evidence has become especially strongparticularly food processing, added sugars and sugary beverages, which closely aligns with my research. My role, along with colleagues, was to review and synthesize that evidence and help clarify where the science is strongest and most consistent. https://youtube.com/watch?v=zo-f0j1E_jY%3Fwmode%3Dtransparent%26start%3D0 The latest dietary guidelines, published on Jan. 7, 2026, have received mixed reviews from nutrition experts. Whats different in the new dietary guidelines? The dietary guidelines, first published in 1980, are updated every five years. The newest version differs from the previous versions in a few key ways. For one thing, the new report is shorter, at nine pages rather than 400. It offers simpler advice directly to the public, whereas previous guidelines were more directed at policymakers and nutrition experts. Also, the new guidelines reflect an important paradigm shift in defining a healthy diet. For the past half-century, dietary advice has been shaped by a focus on general dietary patterns and targets for individual nutrients, such as protein, fat and carbohydrate. The new guidelines instead emphasize overall diet quality. Some health and nutrition experts have criticized specific aspects of the guidelines, such as how the current administration developed them, or how they address saturated fat, beef, dairy, protein and alcohol intake. These points have dominated the public discourse. But while some of them are valid, they risk overshadowing the strongest, least controversial and most actionable conclusions from the scientific evidence. What we found in our scientific assessment was that just a few straightforward changes to your dietspecifically, reducing highly processed foods and sugary drinks, and increasing whole grainscan meaningfully improve your health. What the evidence actually shows My research assistants and I evaluated the conclusions of studies on consuming sugar, highly processed foods and whole grains, and assessed how well they were conducted and how likely they were to be biased. We graded the overall quality of the findings as low, moderate or high based on standardized criteria such as their consistency and plausibility. We found moderate to high quality evidence that people who eat higher amounts of processed foods have a higher risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, dementia and death from any cause. Similarly, we found moderately solid evidence that people who drink more sugar-sweetened beverages have a higher risk of obesity and Type 2 diabetes, as well as quite conclusive evidence that children who drink fruit juice have a higher risk of obesity. And consuming more beverages containing artificial sweeteners raises the risk of death from any cause and Alzheimers disease, based on moderately good evidence. Whole grains, on the other hand, have a protective effect on health. We found high-quality evidence that people who eat more whole grains have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and death from any cause. People who consume more dietary fiber, which is abundant in whole grains, have a lower risk of Type 2 diabetes and death from any cause, based on moderate-quality research. According to the research we evaluated, its these aspectstoo much highly processed foods and sweetened beverages, and too little whole grain foodsthat are significantly contributing to the epidemic of chronic diseases such as obesity, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease in this countryand not protein, beef or dairy intake. From scientific evidence to guidelines Our report was the first one to recommend that the guidelines explicitly mention decreasing consumption of highly processed foods. Overall, though, research on the negative health effects of sugar and processed foods and the beneficial effects of whole grains has been building for many years and has been noted in previous reports. On the other hand, research on how strongly protein, red meat, saturated fat and dairy are linked with chronic disease risk is much less conclusive. Yet the 2025 guidelines encourage increasing consumption of those foodsa change from previous versions. The inverted pyramid imagery used to represent the 2025 guidelines also emphasizes proteinspecifically, meat and dairyby putting these foods in a highly prominent spot in the top left corner of the image. Whole grains sit at the very bottom; and except for milk, beverages are not represented. Scientific advisers were not involved in designing the image. Making small changes that can improve your health An important point we encountered repeatedly in reviewing the research was that even small dietary changes could meaningfully lower peoples chronic disease risks. For example, consuming just 10% fewer calories per day from highly processed foods could lower the risk of diabetes by 14%, according to one of the lead studies we relied on for the evidence review. Another study showed that eating one less serving of highly processed foods per day lowers the risk of heart disease by 4%. You can achieve that simply by switching from a highly processed packaged bread to one with fewer ingredients or replacing one fast-food meal per week with a simple home-cooked meal. Or, switch your preferred brands of daily staples such as tomato sauce, yogurt, salad dressing, crackers and nut butter to ones that have fewer ingredients like added sugars, sweeteners, emulsifiers and preservatives. Cutting down on sugary beveragesfor example, soda, sweet teas, juices and energy drinkshad an equally dramatic effect. Simply drinking the equivalent of one can less per day lowers the risk of diabetes by 26% and the risk of heart disease by 14%. And eating just one additional serving of whole grains per daysay, replacing packaged bread with whole grain breadresults in an 18% lower risk of diabetes and a 13% lower risk of death from all causes combined. How to adopt kitchen processing Another way to make these improvements is to take basic elements of food processing back from manufacturers and return them to your own kitchen what I call kitchen processing. Humans have always processed food by chopping, cooking, fermenting, drying or freezing. The problem with highly processed foods isnt just the industrial processing that transforms the chemical structure of natural ingredients, but also what chemicals are added to improve taste and shelf life. Kitchen processing, though, can instead be optimized for health and for your households flavor preferencesand you can easily do it without cooking from scratch. Here are some simple examples: Instead of flavored yogurts, buy plain yogurt and add your favorite fruit or some homemade simple fruit compote. Instead of sugary or diet beverages, use a squeeze of citrus or even a splash of juice to flavor plain sparkling water. Start with a plain whole grain breakfast cereal and add your own favorite source of fiber and/or fruit. Instead of packaged energy bars make your own preferred mixture of nuts, seeds and dried fruit. Instead of bottled salad dressing, make a simple one at home with olive oil, vinegar or lemon juice, a dab of mustard and other flavorings of choice, such as garlic, herbs, or honey. You can adapt this way of thinking to the foods you eat most often by making similar types of swaps. They may seem small, but they will build over time and have an outsized effect on your health. Michael I Goran is a professor of pediatrics and a vice chair for research at the University of Southern California. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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