Dale Earnhardt Jr.: 'It's good for Justin to be challenged'
Dale Earnhardt Jr. weighs in on lawsuit: "I think NASCAR wants Michael Jordan to be happy"
Dale Earnhardt Jr. says despite the lawsuit between Michael Jordan and NASCAR, He believes NASCAR is better off with Michael Jordan as part of the sport.
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TechCrunch
27 minutes ago
- TechCrunch
Snapchat adds new tools for building Bitmoji games
Snapchat is launching new Lens Studio tools that AR creators and developers can use to build Bitmoji games, the company told TechCrunch exclusively. The company is also releasing a Bitmoji Suite as well as new assets for games. With Lens Studio 5.10, the new games assets offer developers new ways to build dynamic games Lenses, the company said. We're getting a turn-based system to enable back-and-forth gameplay, as well as the ability to Snap and respond to a challenge or turn in the same game. There's also a new customizable Character Controller that supports different gameplay styles, including third-person, first-person, side-scroller, and top-down perspectives. The leaderboard has also been updated with new templates for start and end screens, a standardized and hybrid view of friends and global scores, and new friend-related metrics, like 'friends who have played.' The Bitmoji Suite brings new tools for personalizing and animating Bitmoji. Users can now design custom outfits for Bitmoji, generate stylized props, and animate them using Snap's library. Image Credits:Snap The company is also launching a new collection of single-player and turn-based Bitmoji Game Lenses that users can play and challenge friends in. The new Lenses include Bitmoji Bistro, Bitmoji Bucket, and Bitmoji Blast. Users can already play a number of game Lenses built by AR developers, but this is the first time Snap has introduced a collection of Bitmoji Game Lenses designed around challenging your friends. 'Lens Studio empowers our vibrant community of over 375,000 AR creators, developers, and teams to seamlessly build and publish Lenses, so we're excited to give them even more tools to create,' the company said in an email to TechCrunch. Techcrunch event Save now through June 4 for TechCrunch Sessions: AI Save $300 on your ticket to TC Sessions: AI—and get 50% off a second. Hear from leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic, Khosla Ventures, and more during a full day of expert insights, hands-on workshops, and high-impact networking. These low-rate deals disappear when the doors open on June 5. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you've built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | REGISTER NOW Snapchat also said that developers can register for a chance to win cash prizes for using Bitmoji Suite and Games assets with its Bitmojiverse Challenge.
Forbes
28 minutes ago
- Forbes
Exclusive: Tommy Hilfiger Partners With New Cadillac Formula 1® Team
F1® The Movie star Damson Idris in the new Tommy Hilfiger APXGP Collection. Formula 1® racing is about to get even more popular, thanks to the upcoming F1® The Movie starring Brad Pitt and Damson Idris and the Cadillac Formula 1® team's debut in 2026. Only one fashion brand, Tommy Hilfiger, has starring roles in both. The clothing brand's sponsorship for the Apple Original Films' racing flick produced by Jerry Bruckheimer was announced in March. Now, PVH Corp.'s Tommy Hilfiger, the American preppy brand founded in 1985, is announcing its role as the official apparel partner for the new motorsports team. Founder and principal designer Tommy Hilfiger, whose formative years involved a former F1 racetrack, parlayed love for the fast-paced sport and fashion with several racing partnerships: Team Lotus in 1991, then Ferrari and Mercedes-AMG F1TM️, to brand collaborations with driver Sir Lewis Hamilton. The global fashion powerhouse will play a key apparel role in the first new team to join the pinnacle sport since 2016. The tie-up marks the new F1 race team's first official partner announcement. The products include an official team's kit—to dress drivers, pit crews, paddock staff, team car constructors, management—and sport-inspired fanwear collections. The drop is timed to the March 2026 Formula 1 season and available in Tommy Hilfiger stores globally and select partner distribution. Tommy Hilfiger logo placement will grace technical gear such as the driver's suit, helmet and race car for the new Cadillac Formula 1 team, which was created by TWG Motorsports and General Motors. The announcement comes as the brand launches its F1 The Movie APXGP Collection globally across its stores, with select wholesale partners, and before the film's late June release. The collection features the movie's star, Damson Idris, a Tommy Hilfiger brand ambassador, in the campaign. Former Tommy Hilfiger brand ambassador Lewis Hamilton at the Spring 2018 TommyNow "Drive" show in ... More Milan. According to Hilfiger, the 2019 Netflix docuseries Formula 1®: Drive to Survive and the new F1®: Academyabout female racing talent, opened the sport's popularity to new audiences. "Drive to Survive lifted it to a new level; the F1: Academy will take it to another, but F1 the Movie is like the stratosphere," Hilfiger continued, adding, "I don't think there is another sport as relevant." Alba Larsen of the new series F1 ACADEMY™ "These documentaries show behind the scenes, and that's inspired a lot of new fans, which is the sport's biggest asset," Lowdon concurred. Hilfiger's brand embodies the FAMES approach: fashion, art, music, entertainment, and sports to capture the cultural Zeitgeist. Formula 1 is currently at the apex. "It's more than a sport. It's a global force. Fashion and motorsports have been part of the culture and relate to luxury for years. It's an elite sport gaining many international fans," said Hilfiger. For Lea Rytz Goldman, Tommy Hilfiger Global Brand President, delivering these cultural moments is bolstered by tech. "Tools like AI are helping us better understand what consumers want and how they engage. As we deepen our involvement with Formula 1, we see powerful ways to use technology to bring fans even closer through immersive activations, storytelling, and digital experiences, making them part of the action on the track or online," she said. 'Tommy Hilfiger is driving some of the most exciting consumer engagement in its history, and we are making this strategic investment as Formula 1 expands its relevance in the US and globally. This partnership is the latest example of how we are building Tommy Hilfiger into one of the most desirable lifestyle brands in the world as part of the PVH+ Plan—our long-term, brand-building growth strategy,' added Stefan Larsson, CEO, PVH Corp. Mr. Tommy Hilfiger Tommy sees it organically like the 1970s musical heroes that inspired his design ambitions. "The drivers are like rock stars. They're cool young athletic people living a great lifestyle." Tommy Hilfiger and Cadillac have global brand recognition. The latter is synonymous as the ultimate American luxury car with a motorsport background. "Cadillac has a proud and storied racing history as far back as 1950 when they began competing at Le Mans at World Championship Level," said Cadillac Formula 1 Team Principal Graeme Lowdon. The power of the names together is immense. "These two iconic American brands come together with a colorful history in visual culture. I love racing's iconic graphics. The uniforms are very cool with patches, logos, and team names. It's rich in design territory. We had insight into the Cadillac team's design direction; it will look incredible across the collections," noted Hilfiger. Cadillac Formula 1® Team Principal Graeme Lowdon The car brand is equally enamored. "Tommy has known Formula 1 for a long time. It's the pinnacle of motorsport, like Cadillac is for luxury automobiles. Cadillac's brand values are bold, sophisticated, and optimistic. That was a natural fit with the Tommy Hilfiger brand. Combining this offers an ambitious, confident outlook. The chemistry, vision, and passion felt right from the start. Racing is about passion and desire to win," Lowdon said. Both brands embody Americana with the cars soon to boast 'Made in the USA' in an Indianapolis manufacturing headquarters. "I didn't see that coming in the earlier years. Formula 1 was automobiles and cars coming from Europe. Building out fanwear with our iconic prep with Cadillac's bold racing and motorsport motifs is an exciting playground to push the boundaries," Hilfiger added of the partnership that was nearly two years in the making. Fashion's connection with racing was apparent in the Spring of 2018. Lewis Hamilton became Tommy Hilfiger Men's global brand ambassador and created five Tommy X Lewis collections during their six-year partnership. It coincided with the TommyNow "Drive" show during Milan Fashion Week that involved a race car on a runway. The Tommy x Gigi collection and sporty racing motifs also ran the track. Three of Hamilton's joint-record seven World Drivers Championships occurred during the six-year period. George Russell, another Mercedes team racer to join the Tommy Hilfiger universe, also regularly sported the clothes for appearances on and off the track. "Lewis expressing himself through fashion helped shift the spotlight beyond the track as he became a style icon," Hilfiger said. The collaboration happened before fashion existed in motorsport, and Hamilton's gusto for dressing up inspired other drivers to up the style ante, typically choosing Tommy Hilfiger. Hamilton winning those years is not lost on Lowdon. "There is an advantage to feeling good, whether wearing Tommy or driving a Cadillac. Formula 1 is a big team sport. We want mechanics, engineers, designers, and everyone working at the top of their game, feeling good and focused. The association with Tommy Hilfiger gives them a lot of confidence. People underestimate in sports, what you wear and how you feel are enormously linked to performance." Lowdown added. Damson Idris modeling the new Tommy Hilfiger APXGP Collection, inspired by a fictitious team. The ... More apparel Tommy Hilfiger is creating for the upcoming real team Cadillac Formula 1. Inspiration comes from the uniforms' authenticity to the extended team in the pits and factories. "Technology plays a huge part in all of it because the creation of cars and engines uses advanced technology. Putting technology into our fashion clothing is important. Using technical fabrics that add breathability, waterproofing, or a type of stretch or reflective can feel like the racing uniforms," Hilfiger noted. "Formula 1 is the Haute Couture of motor racing because cars are handmade. I love the creativity that sets Formula 1 apart. We see that same creative flare and passion for design and ideas with Tommy's talented team as ours. We can do many exciting things in this partnership," Lowdon added. "We're setting a new standard for how fashion and F1 can evolve into a new chapter, and we are incredibly proud leading it. It will be an epic milestone for American motorsport," Hilfiger stressed. Rytz Goldman concurs. "It's not just about race day—it's about tapping into the energy of the sport to create cultural moments extending beyond the track like our APXGP Collection, which fuels the connection between style, motorsport, and cinematic storytelling. These and other collaborations will continue to open opportunities to connect with and excite new communities and lead in the cultural conversation," she added. To wit, Tommy Hilfiger is also in partnership with F1 ACADEMY™, the series designed to help develop young female drivers and sponsors Spanish talent Nerea Martí. Archive images from the Tommy Hilfiger Team Lotus collaboration. Musicians were Hilfiger's early design beacons, and so were car races. "I was at a race where the John Player Special team won. Afterward, we talked a couple of the drivers and pit crew into giving us gear. That inspired shirts with embroideries, patches, and all sorts of detail in early collections taken from those authentic black shirts with gold lettering. They were the only team to do black, which was cool," reminisced Hilfiger, recalling his high school proclivities of working on his car at his gas station job and taking it out for a spin on the Watkins Glen track. Both gentlemen are pumped for the respective task ahead, especially one that involves the super stringent world of Formula 1. "It's relentless, but the challenge is part of the appeal. We're building a team for Cadillac's first entry everyone can be proud of. While drivers are the heroes, it involves 1000 people. We want the fans to join us," Lowdon noted. "Above all, I'm proud to be a part of an American team," said Hilfiger, adding, "As a fashion brand, we like to think into the future. What could be disruptive but inclusive and on brand? So, we're always looking at everything through the lens of pop culture that can extend into different categories. There are no limits, and F1 is at the heart of that mix; we've always been ahead of the curve!
Associated Press
29 minutes ago
- Associated Press
Opioid settlement plan allows millions to be spent on purposes other than the public health crisis
In the fallout of over 9,000 Mississippians dying of overdoses since 2000, lawyers and lawmakers have set up a plan to distribute the hundreds of millions of dollars from corporations that catalyzed the crisis. But public health advocates and Mississippians closest to the public health catastrophe worry the setup could enable these dollars to be spent on purposes other than ending the overdose epidemic. Mississippi is expected to receive $370 million from pharmaceutical companies that profited while people struggled with addiction. That payout is set to be split between the state and local governments, with 85%, or about $315 million, being controlled by the Legislature. For years after the state attorney general's office helped finalize the first settlements in 2021, it was unclear how the state would distribute its share and how much would be used to prevent the crisis from persisting. State senators and representatives took a major step toward answering these questions earlier this year. They nearly unanimously passed Senate Bill 2767, a law that outlines a general framework for how about $259 million of the funds will be distributed. A 15-person advisory council — made up of representatives for state government agencies, elected officials and law enforcement officials — will develop a grant application process for organizations focused on addressing the opioid addiction crisis. After evaluating the applications and making a list of which grants should be funded, the Legislature will decide whether to approve or deny each of the council's recommendations. The state lawmakers can spend the remaining $56 million they control for any purpose — related or unrelated to addressing addiction. House Speaker Jason White and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, who wield massive power over lawmakers and how state funds are spent, did not respond to questions from Mississippi Today about their priorities for the funds. Sen. Nicole Boyd, a Republican from Oxford and the bill's lead sponsor, said she and other senators borrowed some ideas from surrounding states to determine how these funds could best prevent more fallout from the opioid crisis. 'It involves everything, from child welfare services to the judicial system to medical care to mental health services,' she said. 'It is a crisis that has affected every aspect of society, and we needed a comprehensive group of people making those recommendations.' However, the bill leaves some questions unanswered, like how the application process will work, when it will open to the public and how grants will be evaluated. Public health advocates and Mississippians impacted by addiction expressed concern about the advisory council's makeup, the $56 million carveout for expenses unrelated to the opioid crisis and the Legislature's final decision-making power. They said those provisions could cause some of the corporate defendants' dollars to be spent on issues other than addressing and preventing overdoses. Jane Clair Tyner, a Hattiesburg resident, lost her 23-year-old son Asa Henderson in 2019 after he struggled for years with substance use disorder. Until last month, through her former job with the Mississippi overdose prevention nonprofit End It For Good, she worked to ensure that fewer parents have to go through the pain her family experienced. She said the only ways these state settlement dollars should be spent are on improving Mississippi public health and keeping people who are at risk of overdosing safe. 'That's what it should go towards, but not to the Legislature,' she said. 'This is not a rainy day slush fund.' An evolving plan It wasn't always the plan for the Legislature to control so much of the settlement dollars. In 2021, when Mississippi and other states were in the midst of negotiating settlements, State Attorney General Lynn Fitch published an agreement between the state and local governments that would send only 15% to the Legislature's general fund. The agreement said that the bulk of the money – 70% – would be sent to the University of Mississippi Medical Center to build a new addiction medicine institute. But Mississippi law says the Legislature is the ultimate decision maker for how this type of state settlement money gets spent, according to Fitch's Chief of Staff Michelle Williams. So lawmakers passed their bill to change the plan. The Legislature changed the arrangement to make sure the money goes to where the state's most pressing addiction needs are, said Boyd. The advisory council, which will be supplemented by at least 22 additional nonvoting members, is a good way to have those needs captured, she said. As for the Legislature having final approval power, Boyd said that and other provisions were put into the bill to keep some power with lawmakers if the council becomes ineffective or political. It's the highest percentage of any state's opioid settlement share that will be controlled by a Legislature, according to the Vital Strategies Overdose Prevention Program and state guides. Dr. Caleb Alexander, an epidemiology professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, served as one of the plaintiffs' expert witnesses for some of the opioid lawsuits. Alexander has also helped U.S. cities and counties develop blueprints for how to use the settlements to quell their opioid crises. He said using the money on a variety of prevention, treatment and recovery strategies, rather than one big project, is likely a better way to save lives and prevent more addiction. But having the Legislature, rather than an apolitical body of addiction experts, play such a large role is not the setup he would suggest. 'I would have some concerns that it may gum things up,' he said. Additionally, Alexander said creating ways for funds to not be used to address the opioid epidemic, as the 2025 bill does, is 'a shame.' While the settlement agreements say that 70% of the funds must be spent on addressing addiction, there is nothing that prevents all the money from being used for the crisis, and most statesare doing that. He said the settlements define a wide variety of uses as addressing the epidemic — from first responder training to medication research and development — and he doesn't see a scenario where it makes sense to spend the money on other uses. 'The costs of abatement far outweigh the available funds for every city or county that I've examined,' he said. Boyd said she believes her colleagues in the House and Senate are all motivated to use this money to address addiction as a mental health condition. She said the new bill categorizes some funds as 'nonabatement' to free them up for ways to address addiction that may not fit neatly into the settlements' list of uses. The attorney general's original plan was the first to categorize a percentage of the funds as not needing to be used to stop the opioid crisis. Williams said it was written that way to match the terms of the national settlement agreements, although the settlement for the largest payout says spending on purposes other than addressing the opioid crisis is 'disfavored by the parties.' She said Fitch would love to see all the funds be spent on addiction response and prevention, like the One Pill Can Kill campaign the office runs. 'But it's the Legislature's prerogative,' she said. 'Where are the people in recovery?' Jason McCarty, the Mississippi Harm Reduction Initiative's former executive director, said he's glad the plan is no longer to send such a large portion of the settlement funds to UMMC. Organizations like the Initiative, he said, also could use additional support to keep Mississippians from dying. And he's concerned that while a peer recovery specialist will serve as a nonvoting member, none of the committee's 15 voting members must be people who've experienced addiction. 'Where are the people in recovery?' he asked. 'We're the subject matter experts.' Boyd said many of the voting committee roles are representatives of state agencies that she expects will help administer the settlement grants, like the Department of Mental Health. And there were only so many people who the Legislature can assign spots. 'It was no slight to anybody,' she said. 'It's just, this is a completely complex issue.' The Mississippi governor, lieutenant governor and speaker of the house will each assign two people to the committee, and Boyd said it's possible they will choose people in recovery. The bill says council members need to be appointed by early June. However the process plays out, McCarty hopes all the state's funds go to reputable organizations focused on preventing more opioid-related harm. In Mississippi, he sees a lack of housing and treatment options, especially for new parents, as areas that this money can help address. And as hundreds of Mississippians continue to die from overdoses each year, he said the state government has to move quickly and responsibly to make these funds available. 'We don't have a year to wait. It needs to go out quicker.' ___ This story was originally published by Mississippi Today and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.
