Today’s Big Story

The Fancy Ice Backlash

Those big, crystal clear cubes are certainly cool. But has our pursuit for the best gotten out of hand?

Have we hit “peak cocktail ice”? It’s no longer a surprise to see an oversized cube or perfectly round orb of ice in your drink these days. But according to InsideHook, the cocktail world has become more than a little obsessed, not so much with invention or ingredients as with chunks of frozen water. Much as dealers in diamonds—that metaphoric “ice”—are preoccupied with the “three Cs” of cut, carat and clarity, so dealers in cocktails are likewise microscopically attentive to the cold stuff, some bringing blowtorches, bandsaws, Japanese steel picks and even CNC machines to carve their own.

It’s an obsession that’s catching on at home, too. We’ve gone from simple, silicone ice trays that make giant ice cubes, to more sophisticated kits that take about 18 hours to freeze perfectly clear cubes (just a few at a time). Of course, you could always buy it already made. But it’ll cost you. A $32 bag of ice balls at Erewhon has become famous (or more like infamous) on TikTok. Eater spoke to the company behind it that explains the science and pricing of premium ice. “It takes anywhere from three to five days to freeze 300-pound blocks, and then we cut them down by hand,” says the guy behind Penny Pound ice. “It’s a very time consuming, labor intensive, and also dangerous process that a lot of people either take for granted or don’t have much forethought or concern about.”

But like anything, we take something good and take it a bit too far. Case in point: the new startup that’s shipping ice from Greenland’s 100,000-year-old glaciers to luxury cocktail bars in Dubai. Punch mentions a news story about glaciers in Greenland melting 20% faster than scientists previously estimated, while pointing to an Instagram of Martha Stewart sipping a cocktail chilled by a chunk of iceberg aboard a luxury Arctic cruise.

Luxury ice, whether harvested or manufactured, has steadily gained steam, but some bars are starting to pull back now. VinePair reports that there’s a growing thirst for drinks with pebble ice among younger drinkers and a belief (no matter how false) that larger ice cubes are placed in cocktails to disguise the true amount of liquor present. Noticing a lack of consumer demand for extremely high-quality ice cubes—not to mention the labor and costs involved with producing said cubes—many bars have pulled back, even serving ice with a few clouds here and there.

Campus Protests Escalate With Suspensions

As student protesters get arrested, they risk being banned from school too

Student protesters at Columbia University declared early this morning that they had taken over a building near the campus’s South Lawn, raising the prospect of further turmoil at the Ivy League institution. On Monday afternoon, the university started suspending students who refused to leave a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus grounds.

A statement posted by student groups on Instagram said protesters have “taken matters into their own hands,” adding that the students plan to remain in Hamilton Hall until Columbia divests financially from Israel. A video shared by the group showed rows of students entering the building, carrying barricades. NPR points out that a big question on the minds of many is what, if any, disciplinary action student protesters might face from their schools, especially with finals and graduation fast approaching.

Meanwhile, similar encampments and sit-ins at universities across the country have only expanded. The University of Southern California canceled its main commencement ceremony, citing safety concerns. But at the University of Texas at Austin, “no encampments will be allowed,” said Texas Gov. Greg Abbott. “Instead, arrests are being made.”

Ozempic Needs to Slim Down Its Pricing

The wonder drugs face fresh scrutiny from officials

The prices of blockbuster drugs used for weight loss are gaining increased scrutiny as the universe of Americans who could receive these treatments expands. Patients are currently struggling to afford the medications called GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) receptor agonists. They were initially used to treat diabetes, of course, but drugmakers have since won approval to market these drugs for weight loss and heart disease.

More potential uses—and lucrative pharmaceutical company sales—are on the horizon as a late-stage study this month reported that the drugs also may help treat sleep apnea. But as more and more people ask their doctors for a prescription, health insurers are pushing back because they don’t want to pay the high prices (which can cost more than $10,000 to $16,000 per year). While Medicare doesn't cover drugs for weight loss, its decision last month to cover Wegovy to prevent heart attack and stroke instantly made an estimated 3.6 million enrollees eligible, per a recent KFF analysis.

The head of Congress’ budget scorekeeper last week said the net costs of the drugs—that is, after any rebates and discounts—would have to drop by 90% to even “get in the ballpark of not increasing the national deficit,” Politico reports. His comments came just days after Sen. Bernie Sanders announced an investigation into the “unjustifiably high prices” of Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy.

MLB Is Fixing Its Uniform Fiasco

Nike expected to alter MLB uniforms by 2025

After months of complaints from fans and players, Nike is expected to change several elements of its new Major League Baseball uniforms by the start of the 2025 season, according to a memo obtained Sunday night by ESPN.

The prominent modifications include a return to larger lettering on the back of jerseys, addressing the new Nike jerseys' propensity to collect sweat, along with increasing seam stitch count and providing higher-quality zippers. In addition, as Nike previously told The Athletic, the memo said Nike is working toward solutions for teams’ mismatching gray uniforms and for the sweat stains showing through jerseys.

When the new jerseys, known as Nike Vapor Premiers, were broadly released at the start of the season, they were touted as a cutting-edge overhaul that was long overdue. They promised to offer both a better fit and sweat-wicking technology on uniforms that would be stretchier and dry faster than the past editions. Nike called them the “most advanced uniforms in the history of MLB.” Then players across the league actually put them on and fans saw what they looked like at spring training. MLB has argued for months that players would learn to adapt, and that it wouldn’t be making substantive changes to uniforms Nike had spent years developing. In the end, though, notable elements of the too-sheer uniforms will be a one-and-done.

Forge your own path.