(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump said Wednesday beverage giant Coca-Cola has agreed to use cane sugar in its iconic drink in the U.S.
“I have been speaking to Coca-Cola about using REAL Cane Sugar in Coke in the United States, and they have agreed to do so,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. “I’d like to thank all of those in authority at Coca-Cola. This will be a very good move by them — You’ll see. It’s just better!”
In a brief statement on its website, Coca-Cola said: “We appreciate President Trump’s enthusiasm for our iconic Coca‑Cola brand. More details on new innovative offerings within our Coca‑Cola product range will be shared soon.”
High-fructose corn syrup has been Coca-Cola’s primary sweetener in U.S. products since 1985. The company currently uses cane sugar in products sold in several other markets, including Mexico, the United Kingdom, Africa and the Middle East. The company also sells a limited amount of Coke in the U.S. made with sugar as a kosher option for Passover — distinguished by its yellow caps, instead of red.
A noted Diet Coke enthusiast, Trump’s relationship with the beverage giant has been well-documented.
Ahead of the inauguration for his second term, Trump received a special Presidential Commemorative Inaugural Diet Coke bottle from Coca-Cola Company Chairman and CEO James Quincey.
Why the change?
Trump didn’t specify a reason for the change. However, the announcement comes as Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s “Make America Healthy Again” initiative gains traction, which advocates for removing HFCS from American food products. The initiative cites research linking HFCS to various health issues that contributes to obesity and chronic illness.
However, studies are mixed on whether cane sugar is healthier than HFCS, with research suggesting that any added sugars, regardless of what type, increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes and other diseases. Dietitians recommend limiting added sugars of all varieties to less than 50 grams per day for most adults. One 12-ounce can of Coke has roughly 39 grams of sugar.
Coke’s switch from sugar to corn syrup
Coca-Cola’s 1985 transition to high-fructose corn syrup in the United States was primarily a business decision, the company said. The change coincided with rising sugar prices and agricultural policies that made corn syrup a more economical alternative.
(NEW YORK) — As state and local officials in Texas have come under scrutiny over the lack of sirens to warn people of impending flash flooding on the Guadalupe River that killed more than 100 people, records reviewed by ABC News show authorities of one of the hardest hit counties have had discussions about implementing such an alert system for nearly a decade.
The destructive flooding hit in the early morning hours of the Fourth of July, causing the Guadalupe River in Kerr County to rise by 26 feet in less than an hour, spilling its banks and flooding multiple summer camps and RV parks along the winding river.
On Monday, the death toll from the flooding climbed to more than 100, according to officials. At least 84 of the deaths occurred in Kerr County, including 27 children at Camp Mystic, an all-girls Christian summer camp near the banks of the Guadalupe, authorities said.
Ten girls and a counselor from Camp Mystic remained unaccounted for on Monday as search-and-rescue efforts stretched into their fourth day.
Since the catastrophe, local officials have faced questions about how warnings were sent out to the community, why evacuations weren’t ordered in low-lying areas and why there were no audible warning systems to alert campers along the Guadalupe.
“There should have been sirens here,” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told Fox News on Monday, adding that the subject will likely come up in a special session of the state legislature to analyze what occurred during the flooding.
Patrick added, “Had we had sirens around this area, up and down — the same type of sirens they have in Israel when there’s an attack coming, that would have blown very loudly — it’s possible that would have saved some of these lives.”
‘I’ve spent hours in those helicopters pulling kids out of trees’
Records reviewed by ABC News show that many of the same questions have been under discussion, specifically in Kerr County, for nearly a decade.
The minutes from a March 28, 2016, meeting of the Kerr County Commissioners’ Court, show that former Kerr County Sheriff Rusty Hierholzer pushed the commission to upgrade the county’s flood-warning system. At the time, Hierholzer told the commission that he was in favor of placing high-decibel outdoor sirens along the river that could go off and be heard from a distance of 3 miles when water gauges indicated flooding, according to the online minutes of the meeting.
According to the meeting minutes, first reported by The Wall Street Journal, then-Commissioner Tom Moser said there are state-of-the-art warning systems, including those with sirens, in other parts of the state, “even though this [Kerr County] is probably one of the highest flood-prone regions in the entire state.”
Hierholzer told the commission that the sirens, in addition to the county’s CodeRED emergency notification system, would work to quickly spread the word of imminent danger, according to the meeting minutes.
In that meeting, according to the minutes, Hierholzer raised what he called the “most important” issue — that of warning the summer camps along the Guadalupe, recalling a 1987 flash flood in which 10 children from the Pot O’ Gold Ranch Christian camp in Comfort, Texas, were killed attempting to evacuate the camp in a bus.
“I’ve spent hours in those helicopters pulling kids out of trees,” Hierholzer told the commission, according to the meeting minutes.
At the time, Hierholzer added that a lot of people in the county were not signed up for CodeRED alerts and that it was difficult to get people to sign up for the phone alerts.
“So yes, you need both. You need the sirens, and you need CodeRED to try to make sure we’ll notify everybody we can when it’s coming up,” Hierholzer said, according to the meeting minutes.
Moser, according to the meeting minutes, told his fellow commissioners that upgrading the warning system to include sirens was “not hugely expensive,” adding that the units would cost around $40,000 each.
The Kerr County Commissioners’ Court applied for a nearly $1 million FEMA grant, according to the meeting minutes. The county’s application was not selected, but it was not immediately clear why.
Moser could not be reached for comment by ABC News on Monday. He told The Wall Street Journal on Sunday that the county considered paying for the upgrade of its flood warning system, but eventually decided not to include it in its annual budget.
“It was probably just, I hate to say the word, priorities. Trying not to raise taxes,” Moser told the newspaper.
Reached by ABC News by phone on Monday, Hierholzer declined to comment on the statements he made to the commissioners more than nine years ago.
“This is probably one of the worst disasters Kerr County has ever seen. So right now, I don’t want to get into all this kind of political stuff — what we could’ve, would’ve, should’ve done,” Hierholzer told ABC News.
Officials concede they were caught off guard
Kerr County officials said during a news conference on Saturday that they were caught off guard by the torrential rains that caused the Guadalupe River to rise to near-historic levels in a matter of minutes.
“We didn’t know this flood was coming,” Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly said. “We have floods all the time. This is the most dangerous river valley in the United States, and we deal with floods on a regular basis. When it rains, we get water. We had no reason to believe that this was going to be anything like what’s happened here, none whatsoever.”
But during a news conference on Sunday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said the state began preparing for the storm last Wednesday by pre-positioning assets and resources in flood-prone areas of the state, including Kerr County.
Chief W. Nim Kidd of the Texas Division of Emergency Management said alerts were also sent out.
“From a technical perspective, there were multiple warning systems that are out there, and all of us can choose to sign up for warning systems in certain areas depending on the local government that they’re in and the way their system works,” Kidd said during the governor’s press conference. But he added that some places have spotty cell phone reception.
Kidd added, “There can be all kinds of alert systems that are sent, and we know that some general messaging was sent early, some urgent warnings were sent at various times. But just sending the message is not the same as receiving the message, having a plan to do something when you receive the message and then the ability to implement that plan.”
During a news conference on Monday, Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said staff at some of the summer camps on the Guadalupe were monitoring the rising river at 3:30 a.m. on the day of the flood and managed to move campers to higher ground.
Asked by reporters why mandatory evacuations were not issued by the city or county, Rice said, “Evacuations are a delicate balance because if you evacuate too late, you then risk putting buses, or cars, or vehicles, or campers on roads … trying to get them out, which can make it more challenging because these flash floods happen very quickly.”
When pressed on why evacuations were not announced far in advance of the storm, Rice added, “It’s like disasters in Texas everywhere — it’s very tough to make those calls because what we also don’t want to do is cry wolf.”
(Photo by Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images)
(KENAI, Alaska) — A woman has suffered “serious injuries” in Alaska when a bear attacked her near her driveway while she was out on her early morning jog, officials said.
The incident occurred early Tuesday morning when the Kenai Police Department in Alaska received a call at 6:58 a.m. informing them that there had been a bear attack near the intersection of Chinook Drive in Kenai, the Alaska Department of Public Safety said in their statement on Tuesday.
“[An] investigation revealed a 36-year-old female departed her residence at 5:45 a.m. to go jogging and was near her driveway when the initial attack occurred,” police said.
A neighbor eventually came outside and located the unnamed victim before alerting authorities to the incident.
The jogger was taken by helicopter to an Anchorage area hospital where she was treated for “serious injuries,” according to the Alaska Department of Public Safety, though no details were given about what injuries she sustained or what condition she was in following her initial medical evaluation and treatment.
“Alaska Wildlife Troopers, Kenai Police Department, and Alaska Department of Fish and Game personnel searched the area on foot and with a drone looking for the bear,” officials said. “The bear has not been located. Patrols of the area will continue, and the public is advised to remain vigilant while outdoors.”
The Kenai National Wildlife Refuge nearby contains almost 2 million acres of land along with an estimated 2,183 different animal species living there, according to the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.
The investigation into the attack is currently ongoing.
Red flag warnings remain in place for parts of Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming due to very dry conditions, low humidity and gusty winds and fires in these areas may undergo rapid development as new fires could begin quickly.
This comes as 741 wildfires continue to burn in Canada, with 304 labeled “out of control” and fires have burned more than 16 million acres in Canada this year — more than double their 10-year average to date.
This is already the third most destructive year for wildfires in Canada by acres burned since records began in 1983.
In fact, with only 1 million more acres needed to reach the number two spot, it is almost inevitable at this point that 2025 will likely be second on the list for most acres burned by wildfires in Canada since recording began, with first place being 2023 when more than 42 million acres burned.
Meanwhile, these western wildfires are creating smokey skies for millions, from Los Angeles to San Diego and to Las Vegas.
Air quality alerts are now in place for 10 states from Minnesota to Connecticut and, on Tuesday afternoon, Boston is expected to see a nice break from the smoke thanks to onshore winds keeping smoke inland as Detroit and New York City may catch more of a break due to winds from the east as well.
Smoke will be medium to heavy from Duluth to Green Bay to Buffalo to the Hudson Valley as smoke is expected to continue around the region on Wednesday as well.
Elsewhere, Tropical Storm Dexter continues to push out to sea without threat to land as an area with a 30% chance for tropical development remains off America’s southeast coast.
A low pressure system may develop later this week and then push west or northwest but, regardless of development, additional rainfall is expected for the late-week and weekend in the Southeast.
A disturbance has also moved off the coast of Africa and ,with gradual development over the Atlantic, a tropical depression may form late this week or weekend as the system continues moving west over the central tropical Atlantic with the National Hurricane Center giving this system a 50% chance for development over the next seven days.
On Tuesday, more than 9 million Americas in Georgia and Alabama are under a flood watch, including Atlanta, because heavy rainfall with rates of 2 inches per hour may lead to flash flooding.
Heat continues to be a problem around parts of the country as record high temperatures are possible in the Southwest, including for cities like Phoenix and Tucson, as an extreme heat warning is in place for more than 7 million Americans here with temperatures from 108 to 118 possible through Friday.
