NEW YORK — Momofuku Goods is launching a line of cooking sauces.

The chili crunch sauce is formulated with chili crunch, miso and garlic.

Momoyaki sauce is made with soy, ginger and garlic.

The sweet and spicy sauce contains gochujang, soy and garlic.

The sweet and sour sauce is formulated with vinegar, chili crunch and ginger.

The miso ginger sauce is made with miso and ginger.

The sauces are sold at retailers such as Whole Foods Market, Sprouts Farmers Market, Albertsons, Target, Publix, HEB and Hy-Vee.

Users of TopstepX, the proprietary trading platform used by futures traders participating in Topstep’s funded trading programs, began reporting connectivity problems Tuesday morning, with outage-tracking service Downdetector logging a spike in user complaints starting at 9:54 a.m. Eastern time and the hashtag #TopstepxDown trending on social platform X as affected traders compared notes on the disruption.

Downdetector’s official account posted an alert shortly after the spike began, asking users how the outage was affecting them and directing them to submit detailed reports through the platform. As of the alert, the scope, cause and expected duration of the disruption had not been detailed in any official statement from Topstep.

For TopstepX users, an outage carries stakes that go beyond the typical inconvenience associated with most consumer app disruptions. TopstepX serves traders working through Topstep’s funded trading programs, commonly known in the industry as “combines,” in which traders attempt to demonstrate profitable trading performance on a simulated or funded account in order to qualify for access to larger amounts of trading capital. When the platform experiences technical issues during active trading hours, affected users can find themselves unable to close open positions, facing frozen or delayed price data, or locked out of their trading dashboard entirely, circumstances that can directly affect a trader’s profit and loss on open positions depending on how markets move while the platform remains inaccessible.

TopstepX operates as a rebranded version of a trading platform called ProjectX, according to industry reporting, though neither Topstep nor ProjectX has officially confirmed the exact nature of that relationship. The arrangement took on added significance last year, when multiple futures proprietary trading firms announced that ProjectX intended to end its services to third-party platforms, with Topstep positioned as the sole firm continuing to offer trading through ProjectX’s underlying infrastructure going forward.

Tuesday’s reported outage adds to a pattern of recurring technical disruptions that TopstepX has faced over the past year, a pattern that has previously generated significant frustration within the futures trading community. Following an earlier wave of repeated outages, Topstep acknowledged the problems directly in a message posted to the company’s Discord server. “Right now, we are not delivering the Ultimate Trading Experience we promised,” the company wrote at the time, addressing trader frustration over the disruptions. That acknowledgment came amid broader criticism from traders who said the company had responded inadequately to users who experienced financial losses tied to platform outages, with some describing the company’s response to affected traders as unsupportive.

Independent outage-tracking services have continued to log periodic complaints about TopstepX’s reliability throughout the year. Reports collected by various monitoring services have described symptoms including the platform failing to load properly, data feeds not connecting, and, in at least one previously documented case, price charts appearing to freeze entirely during active trading hours, with the platform’s internal clock continuing to advance even as displayed prices remained static at a level last updated hours earlier. Individual trader complaints logged through these services have also described being unable to close open trades or enter new positions during periods when the platform was experiencing technical difficulties.

Not every reported connectivity issue necessarily reflects a problem on Topstep’s own servers. Some independent monitoring services have noted that isolated user reports can stem from a trader’s own specific network connection or an outdated version of the trading application, rather than a broader, platform-wide outage affecting all users simultaneously. Those same services generally advise traders experiencing connection issues to check Topstep’s official status page or its community Discord channel for confirmation of whether a reported problem reflects a genuine, widespread service disruption before assuming a broader outage is underway.

As of the most recent available information, Topstep had not issued a detailed public statement specifically addressing Tuesday’s reported outage, and it remained unclear whether the disruption was affecting all users across all regions or was concentrated among a specific subset of traders. Affected users were directed to Topstep’s official channels, including its status page and Discord server, for the most current and authoritative updates on the situation, rather than relying solely on crowdsourced outage trackers, which can occasionally lag behind or imprecisely characterize the true scope of a still-developing technical issue.

Downdetector, the platform that first flagged Tuesday’s disruption, aggregates user-submitted problem reports alongside automated monitoring signals to identify spikes in complaints for a given service, generating alerts when reports exceed typical baseline levels. Given TopstepX’s history of recurring outages and the financial consequences those disruptions can carry for traders with open positions, Tuesday’s reported issues are likely to draw renewed scrutiny from the platform’s user base, many of whom have publicly expressed frustration over how previous outages were handled and resolved.

BATAVIA, ILL. – Aldi is expanding its own brands line of products into refrigerated prepared meals. The meals will be marketed under the Aldi brand, be available in single-serve and family-size formats and retail for $8 and $15, respectively.

“Our shoppers are looking for meals that fit into busy lives without sacrificing quality or stretching their budgets,” said Joan Kavanaugh, Vice President of National Buying, Aldi US. “That’s why we were thoughtful about how we entered this category. We’re evolving to meet our shoppers where they are by delivering fresh ingredients, great flavor and unbeatable value that they can always expect from Aldi.”

The meals will launch in select markets in October, Aldi said, and will be available nationwide by January 2027. The single-serve meals will be available in five flavors, including beef Bolognese spaghetti, beef brisket with macaroni and cheese, butter chicken and rice, a chicken burrito bowl and chicken fettuccine alfredo. The family-size meals will be available in two varieties, chicken and bacon macaroni and cheese and a meat lovers pizza. 

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IRVING, TEXAS — Mission Foods is unveiling two product innovations: protein chips and grain-free chips.

Mission’s protein chips are available in chile limon and jalapeño varieties, and the chips feature 10 grams of plant-based protein per serving.

The company’s grain-free chips are formulated with cassava flour, whole chia seeds and avocado oil. Varieties include sea salt and hint of lime.

“Protein and fiber are two things people are trying to get more of, and snacks are a great place to do it,” said Sathish Mohanraju, vice president of sales and marketing for Mission Foods.

The chips are available at Kroger locations nationwide, and the company expects to add further retail availability.  

WALTHAM, MASS. — Welch’s is launching a line of fruit spreads formulated with simple ingredients.

Welch’s Simply Natural Fruit Spreads contain five ingredients and are sweetened with cane sugar and honey. The product is free from high-fructose corn syrup, artificial flavors, colors and preservatives, according to the company.

The fruit spreads are available in concord grape and strawberry flavors.

“Welch’s has had a place in family routines for generations, but today’s parents expect more from the foods they put on the table,” said Andrew Hartshorn, chief brand and innovation officer at Welch’s. “Simply Natural reflects that shift with five simple ingredients, including a touch of real honey, in a fruit spread families already know and love.”

The spreads are available at retailers nationwide.

The Liberal Democrats will fight the next general election on a promise to cut taxes for millions of workers, Sir Ed Davey has said in a speech to his party conference.

The Lib Dem leader said that if he gained power, he would raise the annual tax-free personal allowance to £15,000.

He would also raise the 40p income tax threshold from £50,270 to £56,000, in a £17bn package funded by the economic boost he says would come from the UK rejoining the EU single market and customs union.

He claimed the plan would mean a £680 cut for “most taxpayers” but it would not come into full effect until the fifth year of a Lib Dem government – potentially up to eight years away.

The announcement was greeted with sustained applause by Lib Dem MPs and activists in the Brighton conference centre.

The £12,570 income tax allowance was frozen by the Conservatives in 2021, resulting in more people being dragged into paying the tax, and Labour has so far resisted calls from trade unions and some of its MPs to unfreeze it.

The Lib Dems said they would raise the threshold to £15,000 a year, and increase the starting point for paying employee National Insurance (NI) to the same level.

At their conference earlier this month, Reform UK promised to increase the income tax personal allowance to £15,000 within 100 days if they won power.

Sir Ed told the Lib Dem faithful “the difference between us and Reform” is that “their tax cut is paid for through cruelty.”

He said “Reform’s figures show they’d pay for it by ripping £22bn of crucial support away from disabled people.”

Under the Lib Dem plan, based on research by think tank Frontier Economics, external, the economic boost from rejoining the single market would allow the party to spend £17bn on tax cuts by the end of the next Parliament.

The party says it would unfreeze personal allowances in the second year of a Lib Dem government, allowing them to rise with inflation, before bringing in big tax cuts in year five when the economic benefits of closer trading with the EU had kicked in.

However, the move would depend on the party being able to negotiate a closer trading arrangement with the EU in just 12 months.

Stuart Adam, of the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank, told BBC Verify the Lib Dem package would cost “much more” than the £17bn quoted by the party.

Reform has estimated that its policy, to raise the starting threshold to £15,000 just for income tax, would cost £21bn by the fifth year.

The Lib Dems say their policy would be funded by an extra £27bn from its plans for a “growth and defence pact” with the EU.

DoorDash has agreed to pay a $131.5m (£99m) settlement to New York City regulators after the food delivery giant admitted failing to compensate thousands of workers correctly or on time.

“Simply put, we screwed up,” DoorDash said. “Our mistakes meant some Dashers were underpaid or paid late.”

The agreement with the Department of Consumer and Worker Protection follows a city investigation into wage violations, with a significant share of the payout addressing how DoorDash calculates compensation for the time delivery drivers spend waiting for orders.

The settlement marks another chapter in an ongoing battle between so-called gig economy platforms and municipal leaders.

The likes of Uber Eats and Grubhub have repeatedly clashed with city officials over tipping laws, minimum wages and data-sharing requirements.

San Francisco-based DoorDash blamed “complex” changes to the minimum wage in New York state introduced in 2023.

Under the landmark minimum pay standard for app-based delivery workers, wages differ depending on the county, tipping and how many people work for the employer.

DoorDash also cited technical glitches and multi-stop delivery routes for causing the firm to underpay workers or delay wages.

The company said: “While these mistakes weren’t intentional, that doesn’t make them okay.”

DoorDash said local workers earn roughly $30 per active hour on average. It said it has now patched the software bugs responsible for the mistakes.

The business said the errors hit roughly 264,000 workers, though it insisted the issues affected under 1% of overall local transactions.

Systemic errors caused around $6.6m wages to never reach workers at all, and another $5.7m arrived days or weeks late.

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