By Jordan Valinsky, CNN

New York (CNN) — It’s not just hardcore athletes who want to stay hydrated, and that’s become a problem for Gatorade.

PepsiCo, which owns Gatorade, announced Thursday a sweeping makeover of the brand in response to increased competition. Changes include new drinks, powders and packaging that reinforce the brand’s science-backed roots and market it beyond its longtime identity as a sports drink.

The goal is to reinvent Gatorade beyond a sports drink and into a hydration brand enticing for everybody, Mike Del Pozzo, president of PepsiCo’s US beverage category, told CNN.

Gatorade invented the first, commercially available hydration drink more than six decades ago. But roughly 150 new brands have entered the hydration space since 2020, and their messaging — including Gatorade’s — has been “diluted and confusing” for consumers, said Del Pozzo.

The wave of competitors includes offerings from influencers Alex Cooper and Kylie Jenner as well as soccer star Leo Messi to growing upstarts like Electrolit and Liquid I.V. Plus, chief rival BodyArmor relaunched last year but has struggled with parent company Coca-Cola slashing the brand’s value twice since its 2021 acquisition.

They’re all tapping into the hydration craze that grew following the pandemic plus social media trends like the personalization water trend, aptly named #WaterTok, on TikTok. Electrolytes drinks are forecast to blossom from $40 billion last year to an $80 billion category by 2032, according to Fortune Business Insights.

‘We got disrupted’

Gatorade remains the top-selling brand in hydration but has lost about 3% of its market share since 2021. As of 2025, it controls 60% of the category, according to research firm Numerator.

The slight drop shows how fragmented the category has become, since hydration is no longer exclusive to traditional sports drinks, said Howard Telford, who leads soft drinks research at Euromonitor.

Gatorade’s growth is being eroded by powders, electrolytes and coconut waters, plus high-end hydration drinks “that borrow the language of replenishment without leaning so heavily on overt sports positioning,” he told CNN. He added that the market is “being shaped by products that feel more portable, more personalized, more functional or more natural.”

On the last point, Gatorade is removing synthetic colors and dyes from its top three selling flavors (fruit punch, lemon lime and orange). Removing artificial ingredients makes nearly half of consumers more likely to buy the drink, Del Pozzo said. The drinks — zero sugar and regular — will roll out in the fourth quarter.

Del Pozzo said removing the dyes was an “incredibly difficult” change because it risks damaging Gatorade’s brand recognition. Shoppers might not recognize the drinks without their iconic bright colors, he added.

Another area of focus is Gatorade and sister brand Propel’s flavored powders, one of its fastest-growing businesses because of their portability.

“People forget we were the OGs in powders. That’s how (Gatorade) was invented. We got disrupted,” Del Pozzo said (namely by Unilever’s Liquid I.V., which generated $1 billion in revenue last year).

Also rolling out next year is a first-of-its-kind product called “Gatorlyte Longer Lasting,” which was developed after researchers identified an unusual consumer demand: people on

By Julia Buckley, CNN

(CNN) — The Italian diaspora continued the fight against the government’s restrictions on citizenship by descent this week, as three cases were scrutinized by Italy’s supreme court.

On Tuesday, the Corte di Cassazione, Italy’s highest court, met to evaluate citizenship restrictions for descendants of Italian citizens born abroad that were imposed by the government in October 2024.

The so-called ‘minor issue,’ introduced via a government circular, preceded the controversial March 2025 law change which cut citizenship by descent to two generations and effectively banned dual citizenship for Italians abroad.

It stipulated that if a parent of an Italian child born abroad naturalized while their children were still underage, that would “cut” the line of descent — unless it would otherwise render the child stateless.

The rule immediately disqualified Italo-descendants in countries such as the US, that grant citizenship to those born in the national territory. The sudden implementation, with no provision made for those whose citizenship requests were already in progress, led to complex situations for those who had already moved to Italy.

Now, the United Sections civil panel of the Corte di Cassazione, has begun an evaluation of whether the government’s policy change was legal. While the hearing was unrelated to the sweeping restrictions, lawyers hope a ruling on the “minor issue” could open the door for challenges to the 2025 law.

Americans in court

The Cassazione judges examined three cases of citizenship by descent which had been rejected at initial trial and subsequent appeal.

These involved two American families who traced their ancestry back three and four generations respectively. The third case was a Venezuelan whose Italian mother had naturalized when he was 10 years old. The Venezuelan plaintiff’s brother had already been granted citizenship by descent before the “minor issue” hit, leading to a discrepancy in the legal status between siblings.

The Procuratore Generale — a post which advises the Cassazione judges — also gave her legal interpretation, which was in favor of the plaintiffs, against the government restrictions.

Although the cases heard preceded the 2025 law change, lawyers for the plaintiffs were hopeful that the Procuratore Generale’s legal evaluation — which emphasized that citizenship cannot be lost involuntarily — could bode well for future challenges to the March 2025 law, which stripped millions of the right to recognition.

“It was important that she said that citizenship can only be lost by a voluntary act,” said Monica Restanio, attorney for the Venezuelan family.

The attorney for the American plaintiffs, Marco Mellone, explicitly asked the court to rule on whether citizenship is a permanent right acquired at birth, in their judgment. Should they do so, that would give an avenue for the lower courts to disregard the 2025 citizenship restrictions.

Speaking after the hearing, Mellone said he was “absolutely confident” that the court would rule the “minor issue” illegal, based on previous case law.

The Cassazione has intervened in citizenship law just twice in the 21st century, he added. Each time, it retroactively re-established citizenship for those who had lost it involuntarily.

A legal minefield

If the Cassazione rules in favor of the plaintiffs on the grounds that citizenship is acquired at birth, it could open the door for a judicial dismantling of Italy’s controversial citizenship law, which was introduced by emergency decree on March 28, 2025.

Regional judges

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Lo que significa para el Gobierno de Delcy Rodríguez el alivio a las sanciones. Varios estados de EE.UU. buscan evitar que los hijos de inmigrantes detenidos terminen en cuidado temporal. Jurado determina que Ticketmaster y Live Nation operan como monopolio. Esto es lo que debes saber para comenzar el día. Primero la verdad.

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A Estados Unidos e Irán no les queda más remedio que llegar a un acuerdo. Esta verdad tácita, presente desde el inicio de la guerra, se hizo aún más notoria en los últimos cinco días del alto el fuego. Mientras Washington busca aliviar presiones económicas, Teherán enfrenta graves daños militares y aislamiento regional. Las negociaciones avanzan pese a diferencias sobre el programa nuclear y el equilibrio político. ¿Cómo negocia cada uno?

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El levantamiento parcial de las sanciones de EE.UU. sobre bancos de Venezuela es una medida clave para la estabilización de la economía del país en un momento en que algunos indicadores permanecen fuera de control, según analistas que destacaron que la decisión debe estar acompañada por reformas fiscales que permitan aliviar la alta inflación.

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Mientras las autoridades inmigratorias llevan a cabo lo que el presidente Donald Trump ha prometido que será la mayor operación de deportación masiva en la historia de Estados Unidos, varios estados están aprobando leyes para evitar que los niños de padres detenidos, sin otros familiares o amigos, entren al sistema de cuidado temporal.

• Licencias de conducir de Florida mostrarán estatus de ciudadanía en EE.UU. a partir de 2027
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Por Aaron Blake, CNN

El presidente Donald Trump parece inclinarse por la idea de que los ancianos jueces conservadores de la Corte Suprema de Justicia de EE.UU. Samuel Alito y Clarence Thomas podrían considerar una jubilación oportuna este año.

Trump expresó sus comentarios a Maria Bartiromo de Fox Business con respeto hacia la jurisprudencia y los procesos de toma de decisiones de ambos magistrados. Pero también aludió repetidamente a la utilidad política de su próxima jubilación:

• “Creo que es uno de los mejores jueces de todos los tiempos”, declaró Trump sobre Alito, antes de añadir: “Sería bueno poder decir que ahora tengo a alguien para los próximos 40 años”.
• Trump dijo que ya tenía una lista reducida de posibles sustitutos.
• Parecía señalar a la fallecida jueza liberal Ruth Bader Ginsburg como ejemplo a tener en cuenta, destacando que se negó a jubilarse y luego falleció cuando Trump pudo nombrar a un sustituto conservador. “Realmente se perjudicó a sí misma dentro del Partido Demócrata”, afirmó Trump.
• En dos ocasiones aludió a cómo los magistrados pueden preservar su ideología en la Corte durante las próximas décadas permitiendo el nombramiento de un sustituto con ideas afines.

Como suele ocurrir, los comentarios de Trump sobre la Corte Suprema fueron notablemente políticos.

Pero también planteó algunos puntos importantes. Esta es una de las cuestiones políticas más trascendentales de 2026, por diversas razones. Y las decisiones que tomen Alito, de 76 años, y Thomas, de 77, podrían tener repercusiones de muchas maneras.

Lo primero que cabe destacar es que la jubilación de Alito y/o Thomas estaría muy en consonancia con el funcionamiento habitual de la Corte Suprema.

Los últimos siete magistrados que se han jubilado (a diferencia de quienes fallecieron en el cargo, como Ginsburg o Antonin Scalia) lo han hecho cuando el partido más afín a ellos controlaba tanto la presidencia como el Senado, y podía confirmar a un sustituto de ideas afines.

Si bien a los jueces les gusta hablar de que el poder judicial no es simplemente otra rama política del Gobierno, el patrón en el momento de su jubilación no parece una coincidencia.

Alito y Thomas están cerca de la edad normal de jubilación, aunque ambos son algo jóvenes. Los últimos 10 magistrados que se jubilaron tenían una edad promedio de 80 años.

Ambos podrían mantenerse en sus puestos, pero si los republicanos pierden el Senado en noviembre, los jueces podrían tener más de 80 años antes de que el Partido Republicano vuelva a controlar la Casa Blanca y el Senado.

(Aunque hay una razón por la que Thomas podría mantenerse en el cargo: le faltan unos dos años para convertirse en el juez con más años de servicio de la historia).

Y probablemente también habrá una presión política considerable para evitar la situación en la que Ginsburg puso a los demócratas, ya sea por parte de Trump o de otros republicanos. (Stephen Breyer se enfrentó a presiones para que se retirara anticipadamente durante la presidencia de Joe Biden tras el caso Ginsburg. Finalmente lo hizo en 2022).

El riesgo político para Trump es grande porque cada vez parece más probable que los demócratas logren avances significativos en las elecciones de 2026, al menos en la Cámara de Representantes. (Será mucho más difícil para los demócratas arrebatar el Senado, ya que implica tener éxito en algunos estados

By Arit John, CNN

(CNN) — Two months after progressive Analilia Mejia won a special election in the Democratic primary for New Jersey’s 11th District, voters will decide Thursday whether they want to send her to Congress.

Mejia will face Republican Joe Hathaway, a member of the Randolph Township council.

In a district where there are about 65,000 more registered Democrats than Republicans, according to the state’s Department of Elections, Mejia is favored to win the special election for the seat Mikie Sherrill vacated after being elected governor in November. Mejia has united most of the Democratic Party behind her, including former Rep. Tom Malinowski, who ran in the special primary and lost after facing a barrage of spending from a group linked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

A Mejia victory on Thursday would be a boon for progressives, notably Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who endorsed her after she was national political director for his 2020 presidential campaign. Hathaway, meanwhile, is hoping to win over Democrats who feel Mejia would be too far left for the district.

“I think on Thursday voters know they have a decision – an easy decision – to make,” Mejia told CNN. “Their pocketbook, the prices at the gas pump, the prices at the grocery store, are informing people about just how dangerous it is to send someone else to do Donald Trump’s bidding in Congress.”

Hathaway has run as a moderate, a self-described “commonsense, independent” former mayor willing to buck the Republican Party.

“For a lot of those Democrats out there, I say it kind of tongue in cheek, but I mean it too: They have an opportunity here,” he said. “If they’re really concerned about Analilia, there’s an opportunity to test drive a Republican for six months.”

The winner of Thursday’s election will have an immediate impact on the razor-thin US House majority. House Speaker Mike Johnson is now able to lose two GOP defections on party-line votes and still pass legislation. A Mejia victory would shrink that margin yet again.

Hathaway and Mejia are both also running in their party’s June primaries for a full two-year term that would start in January.

AIPAC’s attacks on Malinowski boosted a more strident Israel critic

A Mejia win would be a reminder of how AIPAC’s efforts to punish a former ally backfired.

Prior to February’s primary, Malinowski had raised the most money and was well known thanks to his two terms in Congress representing a nearby district. He campaigned as the candidate most ready to jump into the role.

Then the United Democracy Project, a super PAC aligned with AIPAC, spent $2 million on ads attacking Malinowski and portraying him as supportive of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, pointing to his 2019 vote for a bipartisan spending bill that funded the agency.

“If AIPAC had never gotten involved, Tom Malinowski would be going to Congress right now,” said Julie Roginsky, a Democratic strategist who ran a super PAC supporting the former congressman.

The campaign came as a surprise given that Malinowski – a self-described Zionist – had a strong pro-Israel voting record. AIPAC, however, took issue with the former congressman’s willingness to place conditions on aid to Israel. “I wouldn’t promise a blank check in advance for anything a prime minister would ask for,” Malinowski Read more