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A British tourist has triggered widespread outrage and ridicule after posting a TikTok video complaining about the prices and quality of drinks at a café near the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration and extermination camp in Poland, where approximately 1.1 million people were murdered during the Holocaust.

The video, titled “Prices at Auschwitz,” amassed more than four million views before being removed from public view, and the controversy surrounding it quickly attracted media attention in both Britain and Poland.

The tourist, identified as Lynne, offered viewers what she described as a useful “tip,” advising anyone visiting Auschwitz to bring their own drinks.

She complained that the café did not offer decaffeinated coffee or alternative milk options and described a strawberry smoothie she purchased as “very watery.” She also claimed that the lemonade ordered by her daughter smelled like toilet cleaner.

Lynne described the £9 bill for the two beverages as “very expensive,” while contrasting it with the £1.20 taxi ride to the site, which she called a “bargain.”

The video prompted thousands of angry responses from social media users who accused the tourist of displaying extraordinary insensitivity by focusing on refreshments and prices while visiting one of the most infamous sites of the Holocaust.

“The focus should be on honoring their memory, not turning the experience into a personal review,” one commenter wrote.

Others responded with dark sarcasm. One comment that reportedly received 84,000 likes asked, “Will the cruelty at this place ever end?”

Another commenter wrote, “No one knows suffering like these two ladies.”

Some users also questioned why a café was operating at the site in the first place.

Despite the backlash, Lynne refused to apologize. Instead, she posted follow-up videos defending herself and attacking her critics, whom she described as “wokes” and “snowflakes.” She argued that some of the responses directed at her were themselves disrespectful to those murdered during the Holocaust.

“No one died in the café, no one was murdered there in gas chambers. I just had a drink there, and it’s not even close to the entrance to the camp,” she said.

She also accused the site of profiting from the Holocaust and criticized what she described as the commercialization of Auschwitz.

“It should be a memorial site, not an attraction. I’ll get over it, and they’ll get over it,” she said.

The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum responded to the controversy by stressing that the café in question is independently operated and is not run by the museum. A museum spokesman told The Times of London that prices at the establishment are clearly displayed for customers.

“For us, the important point remains that people come to the Memorial to learn about the history of the concentration and extermination camp, to learn about the fate of its victims, and to commemorate their memory,” the museum said.

[Video below.] Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas addressed the United Nations General Assembly by prerecorded video on Thursday after the United States denied him a visa for the second consecutive year, using his speech to level a series of accusations against Israel and call for the Gaza Strip, Yehuda and Shomron, and eastern Yerushalayim to ultimately be placed under Palestinian Authority control.

Abbas delivered the address remotely from Ramallah after the Trump administration extended visa restrictions on senior Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization officials ahead of the UN gathering in New York. The General Assembly voted last week to allow Abbas to participate by video, approving the measure by a vote of 152-3, with four abstentions.

The State Department has accused the PA and PLO of failing to comply with commitments made under previous agreements, supporting terrorism and attempting to “internationalize the Israeli-Palestinian conflict” through actions against Israel in international bodies. Palestinian officials have rejected the U.S. accusations and criticized the visa restrictions.

Opening his remarks Thursday, Abbas criticized Washington’s refusal to permit him to attend the gathering in person, calling the move a violation of UN procedures. He called on the United States to remove the sanctions imposed on Palestinian officials and resume dialogue aimed at advancing a two-state solution.

Abbas then turned much of his address toward Israel, accusing it of waging what he called a genocidal campaign in Gaza.

“In Gaza, the Palestinian people are being subjected to killing, destruction, starvation and a genocidal war that has created a major humanitarian catastrophe,” Abbas charged.

Israel has rejected accusations that its military campaign constitutes genocide, maintaining that its operations have been directed against Hamas and other terrorist organizations and that it takes measures to reduce civilian casualties.

Abbas also accused Israel of attempting to force Palestinians from their homes and of expanding Jewish communities in Yehuda and Shomron while seeking to “Judaize” Yerushalayim.

“This is a colonial plot intended to force us to leave. We warn you not to allow another Nakba and massacre like in 1948,” Abbas said.

He further called on the international community to halt arms shipments to Israel and accused the IDF of providing protection to what he described as “violent gangs that burn communities.” His speech also included accusations of “settler terrorism” in Yehuda and Shomron.

At the same time, Abbas laid out his demand for Palestinian Authority rule over Gaza as part of a unified Palestinian political structure encompassing Gaza, Yehuda and Shomron, and eastern Yerushalayim. He called for the territories to operate under “one law and one weapon,” a formula Abbas has repeatedly invoked in discussing the future governance of Gaza.

Abbas also called for accelerated implementation of the next stage of the UN-backed framework involving the establishment of a “Board of Peace” for Gaza.

Notably, reports on Thursday’s address said Abbas did not mention Hamas in his speech, despite having condemned the terrorist organization’s October 7, 2023, attack in previous public remarks.

The U.S. decision to keep Abbas and other senior Palestinian officials out of the country stands in contrast to Washington’s decision to issue visas to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and members of the Iranian delegation for this year’s General Assembly. Pezeshkian addressed the gathering Wednesday amid the continuing U.S.-Iran confrontation.

The diplomatic spotlight at the UN will turn next to Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, who is scheduled to address the General Assembly on Thursday evening. Netanyahu is expected to use his speech to respond to international criticism of Israel and address the continuing regional conflicts involving Iran and the Palestinians.

{Matzav.com}

New York Attorney General Letitia James suffered a legal setback Wednesday when a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit she and 18 other states brought against the Trump administration over access by Department of Government Efficiency personnel to sensitive U.S. Treasury payment systems. U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas concluded that the states’ central claims had become moot because the Treasury’s DOGE team had been disbanded and DOGE-affiliated employees no longer had the access the lawsuit sought to block.

The dispute dated back to the opening weeks of President Donald Trump’s current term. Trump signed an executive order in January 2025 establishing DOGE and directing federal agencies to create their own DOGE teams as part of an effort to identify waste, fraud and abuse throughout the federal government. The order set July 4, 2026, as the termination date for the U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization.

James subsequently led New York and 18 other states in a lawsuit after DOGE-linked personnel were granted access to systems operated by the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service. The bureau functions as a central clearinghouse for federal payments, including funds sent to states, and maintains sensitive financial information.

The states argued that allowing DOGE personnel into those systems created risks to sensitive information and potentially threatened the processing of federal payments. They also contended that the administration had exceeded its legal authority in providing the access.

Vargas, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Joe Biden, initially sided with the states on an interim basis. In February 2025, she issued a preliminary injunction restricting the Treasury DOGE team’s access to the covered systems. The order was subsequently modified to permit access by personnel who met specified requirements involving vetting, training, hiring, reporting and security measures.

But the circumstances underlying the lawsuit had changed significantly by the time Vargas issued her latest ruling. With the Treasury DOGE team disbanded and no DOGE-affiliated personnel remaining at Treasury, the judge concluded that there was no longer an ongoing access policy for the court to prohibit.

Vargas ruled that the “plaintiffs’ claims related to access by DOGE-affiliated employees to sensitive Treasury information are dismissed as moot.”

The states had also challenged an automated Treasury system that they said was capable of pausing federal payments. Vargas rejected that portion of the lawsuit as well, finding that the states had failed to identify a specific federal payment owed to them that had actually been frozen or canceled through the system.

In her 17-page ruling, Vargas dismissed the remaining claims under the federal rules governing failure to state a claim and directed that the case be closed.

“For the reasons stated herein, the Court dismisses the Access Claims as moot. The Court GRANTS the Government’s motion to dismiss the remaining claims pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,” Vargas wrote.

The decision brings an end at the district-court level to one of the prominent legal battles that erupted during the early months of Trump’s second term over DOGE’s access to federal government systems.

James has repeatedly clashed with Trump in court over the years. In 2022, her office brought a civil fraud lawsuit against Trump, the Trump Organization and other defendants over the valuation of assets in financial statements. The case ultimately produced a judgment carrying hundreds of millions of dollars in financial penalties, although a New York appeals court later eliminated the monetary penalty while leaving the finding of liability in place.

The latest ruling, however, concerned a separate fight over the Trump administration’s DOGE initiative and Treasury Department systems. In that case, the administration ultimately prevailed in having the remaining lawsuit dismissed after arguing that the challenged DOGE access no longer existed and that the states had failed to establish viable remaining claims.

President Donald Trump should use his high-stakes summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday to pressure Beijing to stop supporting Iran, a move that House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast says could help stabilize the Strait of Hormuz and ultimately bring down gasoline prices for Americans. The meeting comes as the national average for regular gasoline has climbed to roughly $4.48 per gallon, according to AAA, which cited volatility in the Strait and elevated crude oil prices as major factors behind the increase.

Mast, a Florida Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, argued that China’s relationship with Tehran is contributing to instability in one of the world’s most important oil-shipping corridors. He said Trump has an opportunity during his talks with Xi to directly address Chinese support for Iran.

“If President Trump can secure that China will stop arming Iran, who is trying to destabilize this key oil route through the globe, then the president will have done something very important for affordability, especially in terms of global crude prices, which equal prices at the pump here in the United States of America,” Mast said.

The cost of living has become an increasingly prominent issue ahead of November’s midterm elections, with Republicans and Democrats battling over responsibility for higher household expenses. Gasoline has become a particularly visible part of that debate as the U.S.-Iran war and uncertainty surrounding shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have roiled global energy markets.

AAA reported Thursday that the nationwide average for regular gasoline stood at $4.4825 per gallon, compared with $4.0991 a month earlier and $3.1634 at the same point last year. AAA said the current price is the highest national average ever recorded for this time of year, with crude oil prices and continuing volatility around the Strait of Hormuz keeping pressure on motorists.

Mast said China “probably is the number one actor that is working to raise those prices,” pointing to Beijing’s relationships with both Iran and Russia.

China has maintained significant economic ties with Iran even as the Trump administration has sought to tighten Tehran’s financial isolation. The administration warned countries in August that continued business with Iran could expose them to secondary U.S. sanctions, although it initially stopped short of immediately imposing those penalties.

Mast argued that China’s role goes beyond economic support, accusing Beijing of providing assistance that enables Tehran to threaten vessels moving through the Strait of Hormuz.

“China is arming Iran so that Iran can indiscriminately attack civilians moving through the strait. That is the fundamental difference about what China is doing … the United States, looking to protect all of those resources going through there, the civilians going on the ships through there and the civilians across all of the countries throughout the Gulf,” Mast said.

The congressman credited Trump with keeping commercial shipping and oil moving through the strategically vital waterway despite the ongoing hostilities.

Over the last two months, Mast said, Trump “moved over a billion barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.”

“He’s moved over 2,000 ships through the Strait of Hormuz, civilian merchant ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has moved nothing. But that doesn’t mean that the global oil markets don’t see instability,” Mast said.

The Strait of Hormuz remains a central point of contention in the U.S.-Iran conflict. Iranian officials said earlier this week that Tehran was prepared to reopen the strategic waterway within a week if Washington reduced military pressure and lifted its blockade of Iranian ports.

Trump’s Thursday talks with Xi come during the Chinese leader’s September 23-25 state visit to the United States. It is the third meeting between Trump and Xi during Trump’s current term and Xi’s first trip to the United States since Trump returned to the White House. China’s Foreign Ministry has said the leaders are expected to discuss U.S.-China relations as well as major international issues.

Iran is expected to be among the important geopolitical issues surrounding the summit. The conflict has complicated Washington’s relationship with Beijing, while Gulf countries have also looked to China to use its considerable economic influence over Tehran to help ease tensions and restore shipping through the Strait.

Asked what leverage Trump could employ to persuade Xi to reduce Chinese support for Tehran, Mast pointed to the recently enacted Russia-Iran sanctions legislation, named for the late Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. The measure gives the administration additional tools to target countries and businesses maintaining significant economic relationships with Moscow and Tehran.

“China is the number one target for that sanctions bill. It would affect, has the potential to affect, a great deal of trade if President Trump chooses not to waive some of his sanction authorities that he’s given in that bill,” Mast said.

Anthropic says its Claude artificial-intelligence system has made what the company describes as a genuine scientific discovery, identifying a previously unknown enzyme system hidden inside the genomes of bacteriophages — viruses that infect bacteria — that could potentially open a new avenue of biological research and, eventually, gene-editing technology. For now, however, researchers emphasize that they do not yet know exactly what the newly discovered system does.

The discovery was announced Wednesday as Anthropic unveiled a new life-sciences research group and laboratory devoted to using Claude to conduct fundamental biological research. The project represents an effort to move AI beyond assisting scientists with writing, data analysis and literature reviews and toward having AI agents independently search enormous biological datasets, generate hypotheses and help direct experiments.

“Claude has discovered a previously unknown enzyme system hidden in the DNA of bacteriophages,” Anthropic said in announcing the finding.

“We don’t yet understand what this system does, but only a handful of known systems share its features, and all of them are able to cut, copy, and paste DNA. Historically, the discovery of such programmable systems has helped revolutionize medicine.”

The newly identified system has been dubbed ART, short for “array-associated reverse transcriptases.” Claude found it while analyzing large collections of bacteriophage genetic sequences, searching for unusual proteins and patterns that might point scientists toward biological mechanisms that had previously escaped attention.

According to Anthropic, Claude agents searched through more than 200,000 reverse transcriptase enzymes and narrowed them into groups worthy of further investigation. Reverse transcriptases are enzymes capable of producing DNA from an RNA template and play important roles in a range of biological processes.

One of the candidates caught Claude’s attention because the gene encoding the enzyme was located beside an unusually long array of repeating DNA sequences. The arrangement bore similarities to the repeating genetic structures associated with CRISPR, the natural bacterial defense system whose discovery ultimately led scientists to develop powerful tools capable of precisely editing DNA.

The comparison to CRISPR is particularly significant because CRISPR-based technology has transformed biological research and medicine. Scientists can use versions of the system to target specific portions of genetic material, enabling research into genetic diseases and the development of new therapies. Anthropic is not claiming that ART can presently perform the same functions, and its biological purpose remains unknown.

What makes the finding especially notable is the role played by the AI itself. Anthropic says its scientists provided Claude with broad research goals rather than directing it toward the specific enzyme system it ultimately identified. Claude examined the biological data, noticed unusual patterns, proposed candidates and helped formulate hypotheses that could then be tested experimentally.

At one stage, Claude reportedly noticed the repeated DNA sequences through direct examination of the genomic information surrounding one of the candidate enzymes. That observation helped lead researchers toward the previously uncharacterized system.

The discovery does not mean that an AI system independently operated a laboratory or conducted the entire scientific process without humans. Anthropic scientists remained involved, and physical laboratory experiments were performed by human researchers. The company’s approach is instead designed around AI agents carrying out substantial portions of the computational research and hypothesis-generation process while scientists supervise the work and perform experimental validation.

Researchers have already begun investigating whether ART actually performs the kinds of genetic manipulation suggested by its structure. Anthropic said the system contains characteristics resembling a small number of known biological mechanisms capable of manipulating genetic material, but further laboratory testing is required to establish its function.

That distinction is important. The finding remains an early-stage discovery rather than a new medical treatment or a proven replacement for CRISPR. The work has been released as a preprint and has not yet completed the traditional peer-review process, and scientists still need to determine what ART does inside bacteriophages and whether it can be harnessed or programmed for useful applications.

Still, the history of molecular biology gives researchers reason to investigate unusual systems found in bacteria and bacteriophages. CRISPR itself originated as a natural microbial defense mechanism before scientists learned how to adapt it into a programmable gene-editing technology. Other molecular tools used throughout biotechnology similarly originated in biological mechanisms that initially had no obvious medical application.

Anthropic says the experiment illustrates a larger goal: deploying increasingly capable AI agents as scientific collaborators that can search through quantities of biological information far beyond what individual researchers could reasonably examine manually.

The company’s new life-sciences laboratory is focused on precisely that approach — giving Claude access to biological datasets, allowing it to identify unexplored protein families and other potentially significant patterns, generating large numbers of hypotheses, and then testing the most promising ideas experimentally.

The implications could be substantial if systems such as ART eventually prove useful. Programmable molecular machinery can potentially become the foundation for new research tools, diagnostics, gene therapies and other medical technologies. But whether Anthropic’s newly discovered system will ultimately have any such application remains an unanswered question.

For now, the more immediate breakthrough may be the method by which it was found: an AI agent was given a broad scientific problem, searched an enormous body of genetic information and surfaced a biological system that researchers had not previously characterized — providing an early glimpse of how artificial intelligence could increasingly participate in the process of scientific discovery itself.

The U.S. military is using high-energy laser weapons in the Strait of Hormuz to destroy Iranian drones and other airborne threats, marking a significant battlefield deployment of technology that the Pentagon has spent decades trying to transform from experimental systems into practical weapons of war, according to a new report.

The laser systems are being used against Iranian military hardware, including attack drones, amid the continuing confrontation in and around the strategic waterway. Unlike the bright beams associated with science fiction, the military’s high-energy infrared lasers are invisible to the human eye. They work by concentrating energy on a precise point of a target until critical components are damaged or destroyed.

The technology offers the U.S. military a particularly important advantage against relatively inexpensive Iranian drones: cost. Traditional air-defense missiles can cost millions of dollars per interceptor, creating a major imbalance when they are fired at drones costing a small fraction of that amount. Laser systems, by contrast, rely primarily on electrical power and can engage targets at a dramatically lower cost per shot. The Defense Department says directed-energy systems can be used against drones and incoming cruise missiles “at a much lower cost than using more expensive kinetic weapons like missiles.”

“We can very specifically track and target drones and put the spot exactly where we want it, [in order] to disable its sensors or kill [i.e. explode] the drone itself,” Mark Neice, president of Directed Energy Consultants, which works with the military, told the New York Post.

Laser weapons generally draw electricity from generators, batteries or a platform’s power system and convert that energy into a highly concentrated beam. Unlike conventional guns or missile launchers, they do not depend on a limited supply of physical ammunition, although their effectiveness can be affected by available power, cooling requirements, atmospheric conditions and the ability to maintain a precise line of sight to a target.

The technology has advanced significantly in recent years. The Pentagon has moved beyond treating directed-energy weapons primarily as research projects and is now preparing to field them on a much larger scale. Earlier this month, the Army awarded AeroVironment a $464.8 million contract for its Enduring-High Energy Laser program, the first U.S. Army production contract for a high-energy laser weapon system. The company is expected to supply dozens of LOCUST X3 systems over the coming years.

The LOCUST system has already emerged as one of the most operationally experienced lasers in the American arsenal. The technology has been deployed overseas since 2022 and has also been integrated onto Army vehicles.

One unusual feature of some of the military’s directed-energy systems is the way operators control them: modified video-game-style controllers are used to make the weapons relatively intuitive for troops.

“If you’ve shot a Spartan laser in ‘Halo’, you can probably fire [one of the cutting-edge weapons] in real life,” Jared Keller, a military technology journalist and author of the Laser Wars newsletter, told the New York Post.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth received a firsthand look at the technology during a June visit to White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, where the Pentagon demonstrated several high-energy laser and high-power microwave weapons. The demonstration included systems ranging from a 20-kilowatt LOCUST weapon to a 300-kilowatt Lockheed Martin system known as Valkyrie.

“Secretary Hegseth was able to take over a controller and shoot down a drone with, I think, a couple minutes of training,” Keller reportedly told the outlet.

Hegseth later said he watched “incoming drones and cruise missiles” get stopped “dead in their tracks.”

The Pentagon is now preparing for a major expansion of the technology. Hegseth told Congress earlier this year that the military intends to acquire “tens to hundreds” of directed-energy weapons, while the Trump administration’s fiscal 2027 budget proposal includes more than $2 billion for directed-energy research, development and testing.

The Navy, meanwhile, is pushing toward the eventual deployment of laser weapons across its fleet. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle said this week that directed energy could allow American warships to reserve their limited and expensive missile inventories for more dangerous threats while using electrical power to defeat drones and other lower-cost weapons.

“I don’t view directed energy as a replacement for kinetic weapons. I view it as an essential part of a layered defense that can fundamentally change our magazine-depth problem,” Caudle said.

“That changes both the economics and endurance of naval combat and allows us to preserve our most capable kinetic weapons for the threats that demand them.”

The reported use of laser weapons in the Strait of Hormuz comes as the strategically critical shipping route remains at the center of the confrontation with Iran. Tehran has restricted passage through the strait, while U.S. forces have sought to keep oil tankers and other shipping moving through the waterway. Iran has also continued employing drones and other weapons against vessels and American forces operating in the region.

For the Pentagon, the fighting is providing a real-world test of a technology pursued by the U.S. military for roughly half a century. After decades in which laser weapons repeatedly appeared to be on the verge of battlefield deployment, military leaders now say the underlying science has largely been solved and that the primary challenge is producing reliable systems in large numbers and integrating them into ships, vehicles and existing air-defense networks.

It is the end of an era for a candy that became almost as familiar at American Jewish celebrations as the events themselves: Sunkist Fruit Gems have been discontinued.

The brightly colored, individually wrapped fruit candies — a fixture for decades at aufrufs, shalom zochors, candy tables, fundraisers and countless other Jewish celebrations — were discontinued by their manufacturer effective May 1, according to a Ferrara Candy Company customer service representative quoted by eJewishPhilanthropy. Remaining supplies are now dwindling, and one longtime candy wholesaler says the once-common confection is rapidly becoming a collectible.

For generations of Jewish families, Fruit Gems occupied an unusual place in the candy world. They were inexpensive, colorful, individually wrapped and kosher, making them particularly useful for celebrations at which candy is tossed, like auf rufs.

They were also a familiar sight in mishloach manos on Purim, at fundraisers and candy sales, and on tables at Jewish organizational dinners and events.

But after more than half a century, the familiar Sunkist-branded candy is disappearing.

“They’re an iconic American candy brand,” Jon Prince, owner of CandyFavorites.com and McKeesport Candy Co., told eJewishPhilanthropy.

Prince said his company still has a small remaining supply, but the situation has changed dramatically.

“We have a very limited amount left,” he said. “They’ve gone from being a classic candy to being a collectible.”

Fruit Gems trace their history to 1955, when they were introduced by the Los Angeles-based Ben Myerson Candy Company. In 1966, the company entered into a licensing agreement with Sunkist, giving the candies the name that would become familiar to generations of consumers.

The company remained family-owned for decades before being acquired by Jelly Belly Candy Company in 2006.

Another major change came in 2023, when Ferrara Candy Company acquired Jelly Belly. Ferrara officially completed that acquisition in November 2023, bringing Jelly Belly and its other confectionery products into a sprawling candy operation whose portfolio includes Nerds, SweeTarts, Laffy Taffy, Lemonhead and other major brands.

Ferrara has continued to expand aggressively. The company reported $2.2 billion in sales for fiscal 2025 and said the integration of Jelly Belly helped support its growth strategy.

Against that backdrop, Fruit Gems did not survive.

A Ferrara customer service representative identified as Fred told eJewishPhilanthropy that the decision came down to national sales.

“Believe it or not, it’s due to lack of consumer demands across the country,” he said. “If something doesn’t perform, [the company] move[s] onto something else.”

That explanation may come as a surprise to members of the Jewish community, where the candies seemed anything but unpopular.

Prince, whose family has operated McKeesport Candy Co. since 1927, said Sunkist Fruit Gems were among his company’s best-selling products. His business sold well over 1,000 pounds of them last year alone, including large quantities to shuls for Purim and Sukkos fundraisers.

Prince said he discovered the product had been discontinued only when he attempted to place another order in August and was informed that Ferrara would no longer supply it.

“My dad always joked [that] the day comes when this job will not be as fun when you have nothing to sell,” Prince said.

Prince believes the demise of Fruit Gems reflects a larger change taking place in the American candy business as longstanding brands are consolidated under increasingly large corporate owners.

For kosher consumers, the impact can extend beyond particular candies simply disappearing. Products that remain on store shelves can also lose their kosher certification as manufacturing arrangements and production facilities change.

“Kosher food is a niche,” Prince said. “It’s a niche for a specific audience, and to that audience it’s extremely important, but to a company that is interested in quantity versus quality, it’s not so important.”

Prince pointed to other longtime candies whose kosher status has changed over the years. He said wholesalers are not necessarily notified in advance when a product loses its hechsher, sometimes discovering the change only after receiving a shipment.

“Ordering kosher candy in today’s day and age is caveat emptor, buyer beware,” he said.

That has created additional work for wholesalers such as McKeesport Candy, which was an early supplier of the candy buffets that became popular at events in the 2000s. Employees now sometimes have to inspect individual products to make certain that the candy still bears an acceptable hechsher.

The Ferrara representative told eJewishPhilanthropy that kosher status can be affected when factories introduce non-kosher products onto production lines. He advised kosher consumers to inspect the actual packaging every time they purchase candy rather than relying on photographs displayed by online retailers, which may show older packaging and outdated kosher symbols.

The disappearance of Sunkist Fruit Gems has already created an opening for competitors.

Nassau Candy announced this week that it has introduced Clever Candy Fruit Jelly Jewels specifically as an alternative as Sunkist Fruit Gems disappear from the market. The individually wrapped candies have a jelly center and sugar coating and include orange, lemon, grapefruit and lime along with cherry and blueberry. Nassau says the replacement candies are kosher, gluten-free and peanut-free.

“Jelly fruit candies have been around for a long time, but they’re getting harder and harder to come by with Sunkist Fruit Gems sundowning production,” Nassau Candy marketing executive Dana Rodio said in announcing the new product.

Prince also pointed to Sunsations fruit jelly candies as another potential replacement.

Still, for consumers who grew up with the familiar Sunkist package and its brightly colored assortment, a substitute is a substitute.

“But the Sunkist Fruit Gems as you and I know it — gone,” Prince said.

Could enough consumer outrage bring them back?

Technically, perhaps.

The Ferrara customer service representative said discontinued products can sometimes return if there is overwhelming demand nationwide. But he did not sound optimistic about Fruit Gems.

“You never know,” Fred said, “but that’s not likely.”

{Matzav.com}

Starbucks announced Thursday that it will close approximately 250 stores across the United States and Canada by the end of this week, targeting locations that the coffee giant says are either financially underperforming or unable to provide the customer experience it wants. The closures amount to roughly 1% of Starbucks’ more than 18,000 North American locations.

Chief Operating Officer Mike Grams announced the move in a letter to Starbucks employees, whom the company refers to as “partners,” saying the decision followed a detailed examination of the chain’s North American portfolio.

“We have carefully reviewed our North America coffeehouse portfolio and identified locations where we do not believe we can consistently deliver the experience we want for customers and partners or where we don’t see a path to acceptable financial performance,” Grams said.

“As a result, we will close approximately 250 coffeehouses later this week. This represents approximately 1% of our more than 18,000 North America coffeehouses,” he added.

Starbucks has not released a complete list of the locations that will be shuttered, and it was not immediately clear how many of the affected stores are in the United States versus Canada.

The announcement represents the second major round of North American store closings under CEO Brian Niccol, who has been carrying out an extensive turnaround effort known as “Back to Starbucks.” Last year, the company closed hundreds of underperforming stores as part of a restructuring that also included the elimination of approximately 900 non-retail positions.

Grams stressed that the latest closures come even as Starbucks says its overall North American business is improving. The company has been renovating stores, adjusting operations and attempting to restore the coffeehouse atmosphere that executives believe was diluted as the chain increasingly emphasized mobile orders and takeout business.

The company has already remodeled more than 1,000 stores in the United States and Canada since late 2025, adding softer seating, artwork, greenery and other features designed to encourage customers to spend more time inside its cafés. Starbucks says it is now accelerating toward completing 1,500 such store “uplifts.”

The company’s most recent quarterly results showed signs that the strategy has gained traction. Starbucks reported that U.S. comparable-store sales rose 7.9% during its fiscal third quarter, with transactions increasing 4.2%. The company had 16,933 U.S. stores at the end of the quarter, down 2% from a year earlier.

Despite those improvements, Grams said some individual stores have continued to struggle even as the broader business recovered, leading management to conclude that they should be closed.

“Closing any coffeehouse is a difficult decision, and we know today’s news will be hard for the partners, customers and communities affected,” Grams said.

Starbucks said employees at the affected stores are being contacted directly. The company plans to offer transfers to other nearby Starbucks locations whenever possible, while employees who cannot be placed elsewhere will receive severance assistance. Customers at stores being closed will also be directed to nearby locations.

The company emphasized that the closures do not represent a retreat from North America. Starbucks says it continues to develop new stores and sees significant long-term opportunities for expansion, with the chain simultaneously opening new locations while removing stores that management believes no longer make financial or operational sense.

“We’re making this decision for a simple reason: we want every Starbucks coffeehouse to be a place customers love and partners are proud to work,” Grams said.

The announcement also comes shortly after Starbucks reached a $1 million settlement with Florida over a lawsuit challenging the company’s diversity, equity and inclusion-related employment practices. Under the agreement described by Florida officials, Starbucks agreed to comply with state civil-rights requirements regarding race- and sex-based employment practices. The settlement is separate from the company’s decision to close the 250 stores.

Starbucks’ latest round of closures underscores the two-track strategy Niccol has pursued since taking over the company: spending heavily to improve stores that executives believe have strong potential while moving more aggressively to close locations that fail to meet the chain’s financial or customer-experience standards. The company says that despite this week’s closures, its broader plan remains focused on expanding its North American business.