Andrew McCutchen hasn’t had the conversation with 7-year-old son Steel yet, but the Pittsburgh Pirates star knows it’s probably coming at some point.
Steel, already playing in a youth baseball league, will probably come home at one point and ask his five-time All-Star father if he can have whatever hot item his teammates might be wearing during a given spring.
McCutchen plans to accommodate Steel up to a point. The oldest of McCutchens four children is already rocking an arm sleeve, just the way dad does.
Yet if Steel is hoping his father will spring for a sliding mitt a padded glove a player can slip over one of their hands to protect it should the hand get stepped on while diving headfirst for a base he probably shouldn’t get his hopes up.
McCutchen, who has stolen 220 bases at the major league level, has never worn one. And he’s quick to point out the next time the cleat of a fielder mashes his hand will also be the first.
Still, the 38-year-old understands. Once upon a time, he was a 20-something who epitomized baseball cool, from his dreadlocks (long since shorn) to his goatee to his rope chain to the occasional skull cap he wore underneath his batting helmet, all of it designed to accentuate McCutchen’s innate blend of talent and charisma.
It’s all about the drip, McCutchen said with a smile.
Even if the drip (Gen Z slang for stylish clothes and their accessories) emphasizes fashion over function, particularly when it comes to the gloves which look a bit like oven mitts that are becoming just as ubiquitous in the Little Leagues as they are in the major leagues.
Safety and self-expression
Former major leaguer Scott Podsednik (career stolen base total: 309) is credited with inventing the sliding mitt during the late stages of his 11-year career.
Tired of having his hand stepped on, Podsednik worked with a hand therapist for a solution. The initial mitts were relatively simple. A 2009 picture of Podsednik sliding into second base shows his left hand covered in what looks like a padded modified batting glove, all wrapped in black to match the trim on his Chicago White Sox uniform.
Things have gotten considerably more intricate over the years. Google sliding mitt designs and you’ll find themes ranging from the American flag to an ice cream cone to aliens to a poop emoji ( yes, really ).
Scott McMillen, a lawyer in the Chicago area, had no plans to get into the baseball accessory business. He first took notice of sliding mitts when his son Braydon, then 10, pointed out one of his teammates had one and said basically, Oh hey dad, wouldn’t it be nice if I had one, too.
They headed to a local sporting goods store, where McMillen was surprised at the variety available.
That was around 2021. By early 2024, McMillen had launched Goat’d, a specialty baseball accessory company with everything from sliding mitts to batting gloves to arm sleeves to headbands and more, many of them religiously inspired.
Sales during their first full year? Over 1 million units.
We were surprised at how large the marketplace is, McMillen said.
Maybe he shouldn’t have been.
Youth sports have bounced back from the COVID-19 pandemic. The Aspen Institute’s 2024 State of Play report noted that the participation levels in sports among children ages 6-17 were the highest theyve been since 2015. Baseball’s numbers have steadied following a decline. Little League International told The Associated Press last fall that more than 2 million kids played baseball or softball under its umbrella across the world, an uptick over 2019.
Many of those kids are also fans of the game, some of whom may have noticed their favorite major leaguer sporting a mitt when they’re on the bases. Yes, that was San Diego Padres star Fernando Tatis Jr. sliding across home plate ( feetfirst, by the way ) with a bright yellow mitt on his left hand in the ninth inning of a 2-1 win over Pittsburgh last weekend.
It’s one of the many ways in which the game has evolved over the years. When McMillen grew up, there wasn’t much swag to go around.
We had our baseball uniform and our glove (and) everyone looked the same, everyone was the same, he said. Now, everyone wants to express themselves individually. The best way to do that without acting like a clown is to wear something that shows people who you are.
Self-expression, however, doesn’t exactly come cheap, particularly in an era when top-of-the-line bats are $400 or more. What amounts to an entry-level sliding mitt can go for $40, but Goat’d and others have versions that can fetch double that.
That hasn’t stopped sales from being brisk, and McMillen points out it’s not merely a luxury item.
We dont play football with 1940s safety equipment, he said. You feel better in the (batter’s) box when you have something that protects you, right? With a sliding mitt, it’s also like, Hey this is fun. Its cool. I want to be like my fave high school player, like my favorite college player.
It’s becoming increasingly common for McMillen and other members of the company’s staff to spot Goat’d gear at the field. In recent months, they’ve popped up in youth tournaments from Georgia to Las Vegas, sometimes in the back pockets of players as young as 6 or 7. McMillen can’t help but shake his head to see his product become part of the time-honored tradition of kids imitating their heroes.
Which is good for business and, oh by the way, probably unnecessary.
The pressure to keep up
Here’s the thing: In most if not all youth baseball leagues, headfirst slides that would require a player to stretch out their hand to secure the bag are illegal.
In Little League, for example, stealing bases for players 12 and under is rare because the player can take off only after the ball has reached the batter. And even if they do bolt for the next base, they have to slide feetfirst. The only times in Little League that a baserunner can dive headfirst toward a base is when they are returning to it while in a rundown or during a pickoff attempt, both of which are also rare.
That doesn’t stop the players from wanting a sliding mitt. It also doesn’t stop their parents from buying them, all part of the pressure to keep up with the Jones that has practically been a part of youth sports culture since the first time somebody came to practice with a batting glove or wristbands.
It’s a phenomenon Chelsea Cahill and her family has known for years. The longtime educator who lives just east of Columbus, Ohio, has spent most of the last decade shuttling her three boys from practice to games to tournaments.
What she and her husband have learned over the years is that some trends come and go, but the pressure to have the right stuff remains.
There’s always that feeling of This is the next new thing’ or This is what youve got to get, Cahill said.
They appeased their sons up to a point, but only up to a point.
Last summer their youngest son Braxton, then 11, and the rest of the kids on his travel team kept pestering their parents to buy sliding mitts. Entering the final tournament, the team moms decided to give in.
Sort of.
Rather than plop down that kind of money for something they didn’t actually need, the moms headed to a local dollar store and bought them actual oven mitts the kind used to pull tonight’s dinner from out of the oven. Average retail price? Less than a cup of coffee at the gas station.
Oh, and the kids loved them, and wore them during the game. Cahill posted video of them playing with the mitts stuck in their back pocket to her TikTok account. The video is now at 12 million views and counting.
They thought it was hilarious, but we didnt really think they would wear them for the rest of the tournament, Cahill said. We were wrong. They really embraced it!
Among viewers of that TikTok, by the way, were the people at Goat’d, who sent Braxton a couple of mitts as a result.
The good news is, Cahill now won’t have to buy one for Braxton this spring. Yet there’s also something else she has learned through the years: This time in her boys’ lives is fleeting.
For proof, just look at her calendar. Her two older sons the ones who played travel baseball just like Braxton, and asked for all the cool stuff their teammates had, just like Braxton has gave up baseball by the time they got to high school.
Her advice to parents who might be feeling the financial pinch of what it takes to play these days: Relax.
We’ve learned as parents is to stop taking it so seriously, she said. Theyre kids. Let them have fun.
The reality
A day after hundreds of members of the Monroeville Baseball and Softball Association marched through the Pittsburgh suburb’s well-appointed community park, the regular season is in full swing.
All four fields are alive with the chatter of coaches, parents and boys and girls aged anywhere from 5-12.
Over on Field 1, the Rays are in the middle of their season opener. Playing first base, Josiah Jones has his glove at the ready, with a black sliding mitt noticeably sticking out of his left back pocket.
Per the league rules, the Rays and the other players at the Bronco level (ages 11-12), play actual full-on baseball. They can take leads and steal bases whenever they like, though headfirst slides are only allowed when returning to a base, just like in Little League.
Longtime MBSA executive commissioner Josh Plassmeyer is milling about, trying to keep tabs on everything. Plassmeyer outlawed sliding mitts on his son Grant’s 10-and-under tournament team, calling them a distraction” because players would spend so much time fiddling with them once they got to first base, they would miss signs from the third-base coach.
About 50 feet away, Jones settles into the box and rips a ball to left-center field. His long legs carry him past first base, and he cruises into second with an easy double.
As his teammates erupted in the dugout, Jones beamed for a brief moment. Then, as the opposing pitcher stepped onto the rubber, he took an aggressive lead off second and eyed third.
His back pocket, the one where his sliding mitt had been 30 minutes before, was empty.
Will Graves, AP national writer
The U.S. Justice Department is doubling down on its attempt to break up Google by asking a federal judge to force the company to part with some of the technology powering the company’s digital ad network. The proposed dismantling coincides with an ongoing federal effort to separate Google’s Chrome browser from its dominant search engine.
The government’s latest proposal was filed late Monday in a Virginia federal court two-and-half weeks after a federal judge ruled that its lucrative digital ad network has been improperly abusing its market power to stifle competition to the detriment of online publishers.
In a 17-page filing, Justice Department lawyers argued that U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema should punish Google by ordering the company to offload its AdX business and DFP ad platform, tools that bring together advertisers, who want to market their products, and publishers, who want to sell commercial space on their sites, to bring in revenue.
The government also is seeking other restrictions, including a 10-year ban on Google from operating a digital ad exchange, to undercut the power of a recidivist monopolist.
Not surprisingly, it’s an idea that Google vehemently plans to oppose when the penalty phase of the antitrust case known as remedy hearings begins in late September. Google already has vowed to appeal Brinkema’s ruling that the technology powering the ad network has been breaking the law, but can’t do that until the judge rules on its punishment in a decision expected late this year or early next year.
The Justice Department’s proposal would cause economic chaos and technological dysfunction resulting in harm to millions of advertisers and publishers, and in so doing, degrade the experience of internet users, Google said in a court filing late Monday.
In its counterproposal, Google outlined a plan that it believes will bring more transparency to its ad network and eventually foster more competition. Google proposed the appointment of a trustee to oversee its behavior for three years.
The attempt to tear down Google’s ad network comes on top of the Justice Department’s ongoing effort to have the company part with its popular Chrome browser and impose other restrictions to curtail the power of its ubiquitous search engine, which another federal judge branded an illegal monopoly in a ruling last August.
The remedy hearings in the search case are scheduled to conclude later this month, with a ruling from U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta expected by Labor Day.
If the Justice Department is able to persuade the two different judges to order its proposed dismantling of Google, it would be the biggest breakup of a U.S. company since AT&T was forced to spin off its phone service into seven separate regional companies more than 40 years ago.
Google’s Play Store for apps running on its Android software that powers most of the world’s smartphones also was declared an illegal monopoly by a federal jury in 2023 and is battling a judge’s order that would require it to overhaul a commission system that generates billions of dollars in annual revenue.
But hobbling its search engine and digital ad network would be far bigger blows because they are the key cogs in a business that generated $265 billion in revenue last year.
Google is confronting the breakup threats at the same time the advent of artificial intelligence is changing the way consumers are using technology and seeking information online a shift that could also siphon traffic and money away from a powerhouse that began in a Silicon Valley garage in 1998.
Despite the adversity, Google is still delivering robust financial growth to its corporate parent Alphabet Inc., which is currently valued at $2 trillion.
Alphabet’s shares dipped slightly during Tuesday’s late morning trading.
Michael Liedtke, AP technology writer
Its official: You won’t be able to afford as many dolls as in the past.
Thats based on Mattels first quarter financial report, released yesterday. While the results indicated that the company had a resilient first quarter, it also foreshadowed price hikes to come.
In a meeting with investors, the company reported net sales of $827 million for the period, up 2% year over year, but pulled its full-year 2025 guidance, given the volatile macroeconomic environment and evolving U.S. tariff situation. Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz also shared that while Mattel has a three-pronged plan to mitigate tariff-based losses, prices for some products are expected to rise.
The Barbie-makers report comes as President Trump has turned dolls into a kind of symbolic flashpoint in his ongoing trade war. According to the Toy Association, a national industry group, nearly 80% of the toys sold in the U.S. are sourced from Chinameaning that toy and doll companies have been scrambling to absorb the impact of Trumps 145% tariff on Chinese goods.
Last week, the president commented on reports that store shelves could soon be empty due to the tariffs on China, and the resulting tanking import volume, by acknowledging potential price hikes. Somebody said, Oh, the shelves are going to be open, the president told reporters. Well, maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, and maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more.
Now, it appears that the presidents uncharacteristically frugal suggestion is inching closer to becoming a reality as Mattel is forced to rethink its supply chain and prices in order to offset the cost of Trumps tariffs.
Mattel has a 3-part tariff mitigation strategy
On yesterdays call, Kreiz told investors that Mattels tariff-mitigation plan includes three main approaches: Accelerating diversification of our supply chain and further reducing reliance on China-sourced products, optimizing product sourcing and product mix, and where necessary, taking pricing action in our U.S. business.
Shifting the supply chain away from China is one of Mattels top priorities for a reason. The U.S. represents about half of Mattel’s global toy sales, and the company imports about 20% of its goods sold in the U.S. from China, according to a Reuters report. Mattel told Reuters it would reduce imports into the U.S. from China to below 15% by 2026.
The company was planning to reduce reliance on Chinese manufacturers even before Trump took office, assuring investors back in December that, in 2025, Mattel will source less than 40% of its goods from China, as opposed to the industry average of over 80%.
Ultimately, there will be price hikes on playtime
But for Mattel, these supply chain steps likely still wont be enough to absorb tariff-based fees, which company finance chief Anthony DiSilvestro said in a post-earnings call are expected to reach $270 million in incremental costs over the course of the year, starting in the July quarter.
As an added measure, Kreiz told investors that consumers can expect pricing adjustments on some products. While he didnt share details on specific products or price increases, he did predict that 40% to 50% of all Mattel product will remain at or under the $20 threshold.
This is something we are committed to do, Kreiz told CNBC this morning about the new prices. To continue to create quality product and find the right balance of price and value, all in the service of the consumer.
Deeper supply chain disruption could be yet to come
The Mattel price increase announcement comes amid deep disruption to store supply chains, which are expected to increase as U.S. imports from China plummet and stockists pause orders. There was a nearly 43% drop in containers received from China, week over week, between April 21 and April 28, according to port data from Vizion.
Retailers typically place orders for the holiday season around now as well, indicating a possible negative downstream effect later in the year. We have a frozen supply chain that is putting Christmas at risk, Greg Ahearn, chief executive of the Toy Association, told The New York Times.
However, consumers could notice reduced product availability and purchasing power even sooner. Retail inventories may actually look lean in coming months, a May report from the Bank of America Institute stated.
Fast Company has reached out to Mattel for more specific examples of the coming price hikes. The company did not respond by time of publication.
Elon Musk has ruffled plenty of feathers since stepping more prominently into the political arena. Now, it seems hes also a bad neighbor.
In 2022, Musk purchased a six-bedroom, $6 million mansion in the upscale Austin suburb of West Lake Hills, Texas. At the time, he didnt knock on doors or introduce himself to his new neighborsbut word spread quickly, especially when visibly armed security personnel and their vehicles began appearing on the quiet suburban street.
Since moving in, Musk has erected an unauthorized 16-foot chain-link fence, installed a metal gate, and mounted outward-facing camerasactions that have irritated local residents, according to a recent report by The New York Times.
I call that place Fort Knox, said Paul Hemmer, a Tesla owner and retired real estate agent who lives across the street. Hemmer is also president of the neighborhood homeowners association.
When Musk later attempted to retroactively gain permission for the additionswhich violate six city ordinancesthe West Lake Hills Zoning and Planning Commission voted unanimously against granting variances. Wed incentivize people to break the rules, one commissioner told the Times.
The matter is now set to go before the West Lake Hills City Council in a session scheduled for May 14. Unless the Council overrules the commissions decision, the fence and gate may need to be removed or modified to comply with town regulations.
The mansion is one of three Musk has purchased in the area over the past three years, with plans to create a compound for his children and their mothers. Musician Claire Boucher, better known by her stage name Grimes, previously lived there with the three children she shares with Musk. Shivon Zilis, a brain technology executive and mother to four of Musks children, lives just a 10-minute walk away.
In recent months, the house has been quieter, as Musk has spent more time in Washington advising President Donald Trump. But neighbors say they are bracing for his return.
Hemmer, who now flies drones over Musks property to check for city code violations, also has round-the-clock video surveillance in place, he told the Times. Musks security team has taken noticereporting Hemmer to police for allegedly standing naked in the street (he was on his property, wearing underwear).
On another occasion, Hemmer was caught urinating by Musks cameras. The cameras got me, he said. Its scary they have guys sitting and watching me pee.
Ashlee Piper is a former political strategist turned eco-lifestyle journalist. She has been a Professor of Sustainability Marketing at Loyola University Chicago and eco instructor for LinkedIn Learning. Well-known companies, such as Airbnb, LUSH, and Nissan, have sought her counsel on sustainability practices. Piper has spoken at the United Nations, SXSW, and has a popular TED Talk.
Whats the big idea?
A life of overconsumption can feel almost inescapable in our hyper-personalized advertising ecosystem. Billions of dollars go into getting people hooked on shopping. Fortunately, a way out of this addictive cycle is the No New Things challenge, which guides anyone fed up with buyers remorse toward a healthier, happier, more sustainable lifestyle.
Below, Ashlee shares five key insights from her new book, No New Things: A Radically Simple 30-Day Guide to Saving Money, the Planet, and Your Sanity. Listen to the audio versionread by Ashlee herselfin the Next Big Idea App.
1. Its not you, its us.
If you wrestle with overconsumption or just buy way more stuff than youd like to, then youre not alone. Fifty-four percent of Americans report feeling stressed by their stuff, 60 percent say they dont have enough time in the day, and 80 percent are in some form of consumer debt.
Overconsumption distracts us from whats important and steals time, energy, money, and peace of mindnot to mention harms the planet. Its safe to say that if youre uncomfortable with your relationship to shopping, youre probably experiencing one or more of these side effects.
2. Its not your fault.
Our drive to buy more, buy better, and seek out stuff to meet or fulfill every need and emotion we experience is the result of decades of deft marketing programming. Starting at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, Americans fundamentally shifted their consumption habits, and World War II turned consumerism into a patriotic act.
From 1941 to 1945, advertising expenditures grew from $2.2 billion to $2.9 billion, and the 1950s were seen as the advertisers dream decade (think Mad Men). Today, companies collectively spend nearly $515 billion annually on marketing in the US, much of which is devoted to consumer insights, data, and research.
Our drive to buy more, buy better, and seek out stuff to meet or fulfill every need and emotion we experience is the result of decades of deft marketing programming.
I dont want to sound like Im wearing a tinfoil hat, but there are entire departments that track how you buy, when you buy, and what you buy, as well as your demographics like income, gender identification, marital status, and more. Its no wonder we are constantly exposed to advertisements that show us exactly what we need or what they can convince us we need.
3. This is your brain on shopping.
This conditioning isnt just historical; its omnipotent and happening to you right now. It has morphed over the years to create an uncomfortable, unsustainable pattern that keeps industry overproducing, marketing playing on our emotions, and advertising driving us to buy because we dont feel good enough. The act of browsing merchandise initiates the release of dopamine, so what you sometimes conflate with a feeling of pleasure is really you being flooded by desire.
Lets say youre a little stressed or excited when going out on a shopping trip. In that scenario, adrenaline enters the equation, heightening your senses and making you more impulsive. Youre essentially high, teetering between feeling in control and out of control, which ratchets up the dopamine release even more.
The emotional high isnt meaningfully sustained.
The interesting part about dopamine is that its released in anticipation of getting the thing you want. Before you even receive the item youre coveting, dopamine begins to Irish Goodbye, leaving you feeling . . . sort of empty. Thats why many shoppers regret buying many of their impulse purchases. The emotional high isnt meaningfully sustained.
If you repeat this process regularly (aka: you shop at the same places around the same time), dopamine interacts with the part of the brain responsible for habit formation, recognizes your behavior as a pattern, and eventually automates it into a habit. In that way, impulsive shopping gets coded in your brain. This is biochemically similar to what happens when someone is addicted to drugs or alcohol. When you feel powerless over your shopping impulses, remember that youre wired to chase your next fix.
4. The No New Things solution.
Help is on the way in the form of my 30-day No New Things Challenge, designed to help you build strong neural pathways that move you away from knee-jerk shopping and toward more sustainable, economical, circular ways of getting your needs met. Each day is designed with an action item and reflection that is relatively easy to do, but incredibly powerful for building a new relationship with shopping.
You dont need any supplies or fancy connections to get started.
Moreover, these action items help you extend the longevity of the things you already own, tap into gratitude for the abundance you already have, declutter your space and schedule, save loads of money, focus on your goals and dreams, and nurture the things that actually matter and make your life better. You dont need any supplies or fancy connections to get started. No New Things is as easy as turning off of the shopping tap and learning to redirect shopping impulses to healthier-for-you activities.
5. Make it stick.
The rest of the book covers how to keep the No New Things mindset going as an enjoyable lifestyle. Youll hear from some of the people who have done the Challenge with remarkable results, from the family that saved enough money and got organized so they could adopt a little girl to the woman who saved a whopping $36,581 just from items she wanted to buy, tracked, and didnt. And yes, I consider that savings because she saved herself from spending that amount.
No New Things gives you the tools, guidance, and support to shift your mindsets and habits, and in turn, live betterwhile also being better to others and the planet. Thousands have participated in No New Things before it was a book, so imagine the community doing the Challenge alongside you. Imagine the broader, powerful impact it can make. Getting closer to a more peaceful, prosperous, satisfying life while also upending epidemic overconsumption? Thats a win-win.
This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
In the crypto world, meme coins are mostly just jokes with no intrinsic value. But the Trump family is parlaying the presidents meme coin into two valuable commodities: serious cash and access to the president.
Since the coin was launched earlier this year, it has generated more than $320 million in fees for its creators, according to the blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis. And on Monday, Trump promoted a dinner hes set to attend on May 22 thats open to almost anyone who buys enough of the coins.
According to the contests rules, the top 220 holders of the meme coin will get to go to the dinner at Trumps Washington-area golf club. The top 25 holders will also get to attend a reception where they can rub shoulders with Trump beforehand.
Let the President know how many $TRUMP coins YOU own! the meme coin said on its website promoting the dinner.
Trading activity in the meme coin jumped after the dinner was first announced and the price rose as well. But the Trumps dont need to sell any coins to make money.
How Trump makes money off the meme coin
Decentralization is foundational to cryptocurrency. Bitcoin, the worlds most popular crypto, was born in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis as a digital currency meant to be uncontrolled by banks or governments.
Trump meme coins can be traded on a decentralized exchange, which is essentially a place where traders can swap goods without a middleman.
Instead of matching buyers and sellers one by one, decentralized exchanges use something called a liquidity pool to ensure trades can happen easily and instantly. Liquidity pools are essentially an automated pot of funds that pair meme coins like $TRUMP with more popular types of crypto that can be easily traded.
When the Trump meme coin was first launched, its creators initially released 20% of the planned 1 billion total coins. Half of that 20% was put up for public sale while the other half was put into a liquidity pool. CIC Digital, an affiliate of the Trump Organization, and another company receive trading revenue derived from trading activities of the Trump meme coins, according to its website.
Through the liquidity pool, the creators of Trumps meme coins make money by charging tiny fees on each trade.
You dont really care about what happens to the price. You only care that there is continuous volume, said Nicolai Sndergaard, a research analyst at the blockchain analytics firm Nansen. Because the more volume there is, that means more trades and therefore more fees for you.
Since cryptocurrency blockchains are public, its possible to track how much in trading fees has been paid. Chainalysis said Trump meme coin creators made more than $1.3 million in trading fees in the week after the dinner was first announced. The value of the meme coin jumped from about $9 to around $14 just after the announcement. It was trading around $11 on Monday afternoon.
Trump downplays profits
Launched just before he took office, Trumps meme coin has become one of the most high-profile ways the norm-breaking president has mixed politics and his personal finances.
The remaining 80% of Trumps meme coins, which are still under a lock-up, have been allocated to CIC Digital and another company. An ethics agreement prohibits Trump from day-to-day decision making at the Trump Organization when hes president and limits the financial information about the business that can be shared with him.
During an interview with NBCs Meet the Press over the weekend, Trump said he didnt follow the price swings of his meme coin and dismissed the idea that he was profiting from the presidency. He also rejected a suggestion that he would forgo any profits made from his crypto endeavors.
Should I contribute all of my real estate that Ive owned for many years if it goes up a little bit because Im president and doing a good job? I dont think so, Trump said.
Heavy promotion
The team behind Trumps meme coins has been aggressively trying to promote the chance to eat with the president.
Good News! President Trump is allowing one more person to attend Dinner with Trump, the meme coins official account on X said last week, encouraging people to reply with memes featuring Trump. Our favorite $TRUMP memes will be shown to President Trump and we will pick 1 person who gets to come to the dinner on May 22nd!
The creators have also tried to up the ante by offering $100,000 Trump-themed watches to the top four holders of Trumps meme coins.
Unknown guests
On Monday night, Trump hosted a closed-door Crypto & AI Innovators Dinner fundraiser sponsored by his MAGA Inc. super PAC at his golf club outside Washington. An invitation to the event that circulated online instructs those invited to pay $1.5 million per person to attend. The White House did not provide a list of attendees, though the super PAC eventually will be required to list donors in its regular public disclosures.
Whether the public will ever know who bought their way into the meme coin dinner with the president is unclear, though. Unlike political donations that must be publicly reported, theres no disclosure requirement for meme coin buyers.
Critics of Trumps foray into meme coins, which includes several Democrats, say the pseudonymous nature of cryptocurrency gives bad actors the opportunity to try and unduly influence the president through purchasing his digital assets.
The Trump meme coin website assures those who register for the contest that their full legal name and contact information will never be publicly shown.
Instead, registrants pick a username thats displayed on the websites leaderboard. The ranking is dependent not just on how many Trump meme coins someone holds, but also on how long.
After No. 220, the board has a note of encouragement for those just below the cut to buy more of the meme coins.
Youre so close. FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT for your $TRUMP dinner.
Alan Suderman, AP business writer
Associated Press reporter Will Weissert contributed.
Two government agencies are warning Americans about threats from Salmonella outbreaks this week.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has cautioned about a multi-state outbreak of the potentially deadly bacteria in poultry, while the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has posted two recall notices about tomatoes that are feared to be tainted with Salmonella.
Although the poultry and tomato salmonella outbreaks are not reported to be linked, each should be taken seriously given the threat that Salmonella infections can pose. Heres what you need to know about the Salmonella outbreak and recalls.
CDC announces Salmonella outbreak linked to poultry
On May 5, the CDC issued an investigation notice confirming a multi-state outbreak of the potentially deadly bacteria.
The outbreak is believed to be linked to human contact with backyard poultry, including chickens and ducks. The agency says that two individuals who became sick reported obtaining poultry from agricultural retail stores beforehand.
However, an individual does not need to consume poultry to become infected with Salmonella. The CDC says that simply touching infected birds, supplies the animals have come into contact with, or the eggs they have laid is enough to contract the bacteria.
The CDC says that between February 9 and March 24, 2025, seven people across six states have been confirmed to have been infected with Salmonella. The illnesses occurred in the following states:
Utah: 1
South Dakota: 1
Wisconsin: 1
Illinois: 1
Missouri: 2
Florida: 1
However, the CDC says that the number of sick individuals is likely much higher. Thats because many people who become infected with Salmonella get sick and recover fully at home without ever reporting the illness to health authorities.
The CDC also notes that it usually takes between three and four weeks to determine if a sick individual is part of an outbreak, which means the agencys current numbers may be lagging behind the actual number of cases up to this point in time.
FDA posts Salmonella-linked tomato recalls
Separately, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has posted recall notices on its website for tomatoes that are feared to possibly be contaminated with Salmonella. There is no indication that the tomato recalls and the poultry outbreak are linked.
On May 3, the FDA published a recall notice from Ray & Mascari Inc. of Indianapolis, Indiana. The voluntary recall covers the companys 4 Count Vine Ripe Tomatoes product. The tomatoes were acquired from a Florida provider who discovered that they may be contaminated with Salmonella.
The recalled product is as follows:
Brand Name: Ray & Mascari Inc.
Product name: 4 Count Vine Ripe Tomatoes
Package: clam shell containers [20 oz. (1 lb. 4 oz) 567g]
UPC: 7 96553 20062 1
Lot numbers: Lot# RM250424 15250B or Lot# RM250427 15250B
The recalled tomatoes were sold by Gordon Food Service Stores in eleven states:
Illinois
Indiana
Kentucky
Michigan
Missouri
Mississippi
New York
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Tennessee
Wisconsin
On May 2, the FDA published a recall notice from Williams Farms Repack LLC of Lodge, South Carolina, for some of its tomato products over fears they could be contaminated with salmonella.
The tomato products were sold in multiple package sizes under the brand name H&C Farms Label. The full list of products affected by this recall can be found here.
The products covered under this recall were sold to wholesalers and distributors between 4/23/2025 and 4/28/2025. They were sold in the following states:
Georgia
North Carolina
South Carolina
There is currently no indication that the two tomato recalls are linked, nor is there any indication that they are linked to the multi-state poultry Salmonella outbreak.
Consumers who believe they may have the recalled tomatoes should read the respective recall notices carefully for instructions on what to do.
What is Salmonella?
Salmonella is a bacterium that can make you very sick if ingested. According to the CDC, the symptoms of Salmonella can include:
Watery diarrhea that might have blood or mucus
Stomach cramps that can be severe
Headache
Nausea
Vomiting
Loss of appetite
The agency says that symptoms can begin anywhere from six hours to six days after infection. Symptoms can last for anywhere between four and seven days.
While many people can recover without treatment, some may require hospitalization. In certain cases, Salmonella infections can cause death. The illness can be particularly troublesome for people who have weakened immune systems, are 65 or older, or are younger than 5.
In 2024, there were several significant Salmonella outbreaks, including a backyard poultry outbreak in May of that year that sickened more than 100 people and an outbreak reported in September linked to eggs that sickened at least 65 people.
DoorDash, the ubiquitous U.S. food delivery app, has agreed to acquire British rival Deliveroo for 2.9 billion pounds ($3.9 billion) in cash, expanding its business in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.
San Francisco-based DoorDash will pay 180 pence ($2.40) for each Deliveroo share, 29% more than the closing price on April 24, the day before the offer was announced, the companies said in a joint statement before the London Stock Exchange opened for trading on Tuesday.
The deal is DoorDashs second major international acquisition in three years as the company expands from its traditional base in the U.S., Canada and Australia. After the purchase of Deliveroo, and the 2022 acquisition of Helsinki-based Wolt Enterprises, DoorDash will operate in more than 40 markets worldwide.
I could not be more excited by the prospect of what DoorDash and Deliveroo will be able to accomplish together, DoorDash CEO Tony Xu said in the statement.
Both companies were founded in 2013, using the then emerging technology of smartphones to link restaurants and their customers to a network of delivery riders.
Deliveroo now operates in nine countries, including the U.K. and Ireland, which accounted for 59% of its business in 2023. It also does business in France, Italy, Belgium, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Qatar.
The acquisition comes less than three months after technology investment company Prosus agreed to buy Amsterdam-based Just Eat Takeaway.com for 4.1 billion euros ($4.29 billion), boosting its food delivery portfolio in Europe.
Big Four accounting firm PwC is laying off about 1,500 employees in the United States, a company spokesperson told Reuters on Monday.
The workforce reduction equates to approximately 2% of our U.S. firm, the spokesperson said.
PwC employs more than 75,000 people in the United States.
“This was a difficult decision, and we made it with care, thoughtfulness, and a deep awareness of its impact on our people, appreciating that historically low levels of attrition over consecutive years have made it necessary to take this step”, PwC said in a statement.
Last year, Reuters had reported that PwC was considering slashing up to half its financial services auditing staff in China, as a regulatory investigation and an exodus of clients darken business prospects.
PwC last month shut operations in nine Sub-Saharan African countries following a strategic review.
KPMG, PwC, EY and Deloitte make up the Big Four accounting firms.
In November last year, Reuters had reported that KPMG would lay off less than 4%, or about 330 people, of its audit workforce in the United States.
Jaiveer Shekhawat, Reuters
Cisco is the latest company to announce a quantum breakthrough.
On Tuesday, the company said it has developed a prototype entanglement source chip that has the potential to cut the timeline for practical quantum computing by as much as a decade. The chip was developed in partnership with UC Santa Barbara and is novel in that it generates up to one million entangled photon pairs per second, and does so at room temperature, saving considerable resources.
Additionally, Cisco is also announcing the opening of Cisco Quantum Labs, which will be the companys dedicated quantum research hub in Santa Monica, California. The chip itself was developed at Ciscos Outshift incubator, where Viljoy Pandey, senior vice president at Outshift by Cisco, says the company works on projects that are slightly out of the comfort zone.
Were a networking company, says Pandey. Were looking at quantum networking and quantum security.”
“Our thesis is pretty straightforward: To make [quantum computing] practical, you need to scale it out, he adds. You need a network, and to have a quantum network, you need a quantum entanglement chip. Thats the first building block.
In practice, the chip will allow quantum computers to be networked togethersimilar to existing networks for classical computersenabling distributed quantum computing.
‘There’s going to be a ChatGPT moment for quantum’
While other companies are focused on building quantum computers themselves, Cisco is working on the infrastructure to make quantum computing actually workand it’s attempting to get ahead of things by developing the network and security frameworks while large-scale quantum demand is still likely years away.
Moreover, while some experts have mused that quantum computing could be as far as 20 years down the road, Pandey says that Ciscos breakthrough likely cuts that timeline by between five and 10 years.
[Photo: Cisco]
Building the chip took between three and four years, and now Cisco is looking at moving it into production, says Reza Nejabati, head of Quantum Research and Quantum Labs at Outshift by Cisco.
Were working toward more commercial fabrication, he says. Theres a whole bunch of hardware and software technology that were bringing up. The quantum proof of concept is happening.
As for whats next, Pandey says Cisco will work on software to help build out a quantum network and continue work on a quantum roadmap. Theres going to be a ChatGPT moment for quantum, he says. We need to start putting the fundamental building blocks together to prepare.
