Poppi just sold for $1.6 billion | CNN Business

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PepsiCo is buying Poppi, the popular prebiotic soda brand, in a $1.65 billion deal.

The move marks PepsiCo’s further shift into the “better for you” category as consumers shy away from sugar-filled drinks and unhealthy snacks. In January, the company bought Siete Foods, which makes gluten-free chips for $1.2 billion, and PepsiCo bought the remaining half of the Sabra hummus brand it didn’t own late last year. “We’ve been evolving our food and beverage portfolio over many years, including by innovating with our brands in new spaces and through disciplined, strategic acquisitions that enable us to offer more positive choices to our consumers,” said Ramon Laguarta, CEO of PepsiCo, in a statement Monday.

Source: Poppi just sold for $1.6 billion | CNN Business

‘Stranded’ NASA astronauts will be carried away on stretchers after return from space. Here’s why. | Live Science

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On Tuesday (March 18) NASA astronauts Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are expected to splash harmlessly into Earth’s oceans inside a SpaceX crew capsule, ending a more than nine-month stay in space that was originally slated to last just a few weeks. When their capsule is finally opened, the astronauts will likely be carried out and loaded onto stretchers.

The reason for this has nothing to do with Williams and Wilmore’s specific mission aboard the International Space Station (ISS), but is simply a matter of protocol that all astronauts must follow, experts told Live Science.

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How Ann Arbor’s sustainable energy utility could impact future power grids | Fast Company

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An experiment is underway in Ann Arbor, Michigan, that could change how communities generate and distribute power in the future.

The city, with voters’ strong support, is launching its own sustainable energy utility. This new utility won’t replace DTE Energy, the local investor-owned power company, or even use DTE’s wires.

Instead, Ann Arbor will slowly build out a whole new modern power system, starting with installing rooftop solar and battery storage and reducing energy usage in individual homes and businesses whose owners opt in. The city then plans to expand by connecting homes and neighborhoods into microgrids and by using community solar and networked geothermal to allow broader access to clean energy.

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Florida’s citrus faces mounting threat from real estate developers | Fast Company

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As Trevor Murphy pulls up to his dad’s 20-acre (8-hectare) grove in one of the fastest-growing counties in the United States, he points to the cookie-cutter, one-story homes encroaching on the orange trees from all sides.

“At some point, this isn’t going to be an orange grove anymore,” Murphy, a third-generation grower, says as he gazes at the rows of trees in Lake Wales, Florida. “You look around here, and it’s all houses, and that’s going to happen here.”

Polk County, which includes Lake Wales, contains more acres of citrus than any other county in Florida. And in 2023, more people moved to Polk County than any other county in the country.

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Strategies for Reducing Financial Stress | AllBusiness.com

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If there’s one lesson that Covid-19 has taught us, it’s that unexpected disasters can and do happen. And for the more than 25% of Americans who currently live paycheck to paycheck, an unexpected job loss, drop in income, or large medical bill can be enough to send your finances over the edge and cause an enormous amount of financial stress on you and your family.

Fortunately, there are several things you can do to regain control of your finances and reduce the stress caused by a plunging bank balance. Find the road back to financial freedom with these reliable financial disaster management tips.

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How Tariffs Affect Small Businesses—Plus Tips on Navigating Them | AllBusiness.com

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In early March, Goldman Sachs downgraded its prior economic forecast for gross domestic product (GDP) growth for 2025 from 2.4% to 1.7%. According to Jan Hatzius, Goldman’s chief economist, “The reason for the downgrade is that our trade policy assumptions have become considerably more adverse.”

CNBC reports, “Goldman is warning that tariffs could raise consumer prices and tighten financial conditions, while leading companies to delay investments.”

David Kelly, the chief global strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management wrote, “The trouble with tariffs, to be succinct, is that they raise prices, slow economic growth, cut profits, increase unemployment, worsen inequality, diminish productivity and increase global tensions. Other than that, they’re fine.”

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Zoho Unveils Projects Plus, a Unified AI-Driven Project Management Platform | Small Biz Trends

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Zoho Corporation has launched Projects Plus, a new AI-powered project management platform designed to enhance efficiency and collaboration for mid-sized and enterprise organizations. The platform integrates four key Zoho applications—Projects, WorkDrive, Analytics, and Sprints—allowing businesses to leverage data-driven insights, streamline workflows, and facilitate collaboration in real-time.

The introduction of Projects Plus follows a year of substantial growth for Zoho Projects, which saw a 20% year-over-year revenue increase in 2024. Additionally, the company reported a threefold rise in user migration from third-party project management tools, with 55% of new users transitioning from Microsoft Projects and JIRA.

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Intuit QuickBooks Introduces Tap to Pay on iPhone for Seamless Contactless Payments | Small Biz Trends

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Intuit has announced the launch of Tap to Pay on iPhone for QuickBooks Online customers in the U.S., providing small and mid-market businesses with a streamlined way to accept in-person contactless payments using only an iPhone. The new functionality enables QuickBooks users to manage their business finances more efficiently while improving cash flow and payment processing.

“With Tap to Pay on iPhone, we’re giving customers a competitive advantage that accelerates cash flow, business growth, and customer loyalty,” David Hahn, SVP, QuickBooks Money Platform says. “What makes Tap to Pay on iPhone unique for QuickBooks customers, is that it allows them to streamline their in-person payments and seamlessly connect them to their books and our end-to-end services, putting their full business finances all in one place. This new feature, coupled with our AI-powered platform and ‘done-for-you’ experiences, empowers small businesses to reach new levels of growth and success.”

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Apple MacBook Air 13 (M4, 2025) review: the best small laptop ever | Digital Trends

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In our previous reviews of the Apple MacBook Air, we’ve rated it as the best 13-inch laptop but stopped short of giving it a perfect score. With the advent of Apple’s M4 chipset, which isn’t a sea change over the M3 but is nevertheless significantly stronger, I don’t see any reason to hold back.

We can dispute if a laptop with a 13.6-inch display is officially in the 13-inch category or better belongs to the 14-inch laptop segment. But who really cares? The MacBook Air 13 is incredibly thin, light enough to be highly portable, very fast, and oh-so-efficient. It’s a remarkable accomplishment in terms of making hardware that’s sheer genius, and it doesn’t hurt that the entry level price of $1,000 now applies to the current chipset and includes a more reasonable 16GB of RAM.

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Samsung promises not to remove S Pen from future Galaxy S Ultras | Digital Trends

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The S Pen has become the top-tier accessory for people who like to draw and take notes on their phone, especially on the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. However, the future of the stylus has become a topic of debate lately, as it wasn’t included in the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold Special Edition package. Fortunately, the company promised not to leave out the S Pen from future Galaxy S Ultra models.

Annika Bizon, VP of Product and Marketing at Samsung’s Mobile Experience in the UK, recently told TechRadar at MWC 2025 that Samsung Galaxy users don’t need to worry about whether or not the S Pen will be included in future models. The stylus was left out of Samsung’s Galaxy Unpacked event showcasing the Galaxy S25 series back in January, but just because it was absent from recent marketing campaigns for the latest model doesn’t mean it won’t be a part of the upcoming Galaxy S Ultra phones.

“Multimodality is really important to us,” Bizon said. “So [that’s] how people use their phone – whether they’re speaking, whether they’re writing, whether they’re in a meeting. People do use their S Pens in meetings to write notes. So, I don’t see a space where the S Pen is not a key part of our portfolio.”

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