The classic peanut butter and jelly sandwich is getting a modern day upgrade and backing from some top athletes.
Jams, a new company created by 26-year-old Connor Blakley, launched Monday and hopes to take on Smucker’s Uncrustables as the next locker room and lunch box staple. Like Uncrustables, the sandwiches fall in the frozen foods category.
Backed by names like U.S. soccer legend Alex Morgan and NFL Pro Bowlers C.J. Stroud and Micah Parsons, Jams will be available exclusively at 3,000 Walmart stores nationwide.
Uncrustables has dominated the market with a near PB&J monopoly, but Blakley is hoping to differentiate his products by appealing to health-conscious consumers.
“No. 1 is it’s no seed oils,” he said. “We have no dyes, no artificial flavors or colors, no high fructose corn syrup, and we have the most protein per ounce of any peanut butter and jelly that’s currently on the market.”
Smucker’s parent company J.M. Smucker, late last month said it would remove synthetic food colors from all of its consumer food products by the end of 2027.
Jams is a slightly larger product than the Smuckers option, at a weight of 74 grams versus Uncrustables’ 58 grams. Blakley also said his product has a lower total sugar content, and each sandwich contains 10 grams of protein.
Walmart also stocks Uncrustables at a $4.34 price point. Jams will cost slightly more at $5.97 per box.
Jams will initially be available in two flavors: strawberry and a mixed berry option.
The entrepreneur, who dropped out of high school when he was 17, said he has taste-tested more than 250 iterations of PB&J sandwiches in the process of developing Jams. The sandwiches are manufactured in Ohio and Wisconsin.
But Blakley has a steep hill to climb.
In its most recent earnings call in June, J.M. Smucker said it is on track to generate over a billion dollars in net sales by the end of fiscal 2026 from Uncrustables, noting that they are the No. 1 product in the the total frozen category.
To support the rising demand, Smucker’s recently opened its third and largest Uncrustables manufacturing facility in McCalla, Alabama.
Blakley said he believes the key market for his sandwiches will be athletes.
NFL teams consume more than 80,000 Uncrustables per year as a growing number of teams and athletes look for a fast, convenient and filling snack, according to a 2024 report by The Athletic.
“Athletes want to get the best possible products to fuel their body and lifestyle,” Blakley said.
He attributed the success of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich to two things: nostalgia and ease.
“I think convenience is really, really a big part of why this category has and will continue to take off,” he said.
The best views of the total lunar eclipse will be from Asian and Western Australia, where skywatchers can see the entire event from start to finish, according to Time and Date.
Totality, when the moon is fully immersed in Earth’s shadow, will last 82 minutes, from 17:30 to 18:52 GMT (1:30–2:52 a.m. local time in Perth, 2:30–3:52 a.m. in Tokyo).
Observers across eastern Australia, New Zealand, Africa and parts of the Middle East will also see most of the eclipse phases. The only major regions missing out entirely are the Americas. But don’t worry, U.S. skywatchers won’t have to wait too much longer for a blood moon as the total lunar eclipse on March 2–3 2026 will be visible from Asia, Australia and North America.
Tricky viewing in Europe
From much of Europe, the total lunar eclipse will already be underway at moonrise. That means the blood-red moon will climb above the eastern horizon already darkened, creating a dramatic but challenging sight. Because eclipsed moons appear dimmer than normal, a clear, unobstructed view low to the horizon will be needed to catch the lunar show.
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For example, in Berlin, the moon rises at 7:37 p.m. CEST, just as totality begins, while in London, the moon rises at 7:30 p.m. BST, shortly after the eclipse has reached totality. Western Europe will see less of the eclipse as the moon rises later into the event.
The moon can be harder to see when it is fully eclipsed. (Image credit: WILLIAM WEST/AFP via Getty Images)
What to expect
Unlike solar eclipses, lunar eclipses are safe to watch with the naked eye. The moon will gradually shift from a bright silver to a deep red as Earth’s shadow covers it. Because this is a relatively “deep” eclipse, where the moon passes deep within the center of Earth‘s shadow, known as the umbra, expect the moon to look darker than usual, glowing a rusty orange or even brown-red.
Carlo Acutis has become the first millennial saint
A London-born boy has become the first millennial saint, in a ceremony steeped in an ancient ritual presided over by Pope Leo on Sunday.
In his short life, Carlo Acutis created websites documenting “miracles” as a means of spreading Catholic teaching, leading some to nickname him God’s influencer.
His canonisation had been due in late April, but was postponed following the death of Pope Francis.
More than a million people are estimated to have made a pilgrimage to the Italian hilltop town of Assisi where Carlo’s body lies, preserved in wax.
But there is another pilgrimage site associated with Carlo Acutis that has seen an increase in visitors since it was announced that he was to be made a saint – Our Lady of Dolours Church in London.
The font at the back of the Roman Catholic church in the Chelsea area was where Carlo was baptised as a baby in 1991.
To the side of the church an old confession booth has been converted into a shrine to him. In it, a relic holder contains a single strand of Carlo’s hair.
“His family were in finance and they were working really temporarily in London,” says Father Paul Addison, a friar at the church.
“Although they didn’t use the church much, they decided to come and ask to have the child baptised. So Carlo was a flash, a very big flash, in the life of the parish community,” he says.
Father Paul Addison shows the font where Carlo was baptised in 1991
Carlo was not yet six months old when his parents moved back to their home country of Italy, and he spent the rest of his life in Milan.
There, he was known for a love of technology and is said to have enjoyed playing video games.
While some who knew Carlo Acutis say he did not appear to be especially devout, as a teenager he did create a website – pages of which are now framed at the church in Chelsea – in which miracles were documented.
Pages of Carlo’s website are now framed at Our Lady of Dolours Church in Chelsea
But he died of leukaemia aged just 15.
In the years after his death, Carlo’s mother, Antonia Salzano, visited churches around the world to advocate for him to be a saint.
As part of the process, it had to be proved her son had performed “miracles”.
“The first miracle, he did the day of the funeral,” says Carlo’s mother.
“A woman with breast cancer prayed (for) Carlo and she had to start chemotherapy and the cancer disappeared completely,” she explains.
Antonia Salzano has spent years advocating for her son to be made a saint
Pope Francis attributed two miracles to Carlo Acutis and so the test was passed and he was due to be made a saint on 27 April.
But Pope Francis died during the preceding week.
Some followers who had travelled to Rome for the canonisation instead found themselves among the tens of thousands of mourners at the late pontiff’s funeral – Diego Sarkissian, a young Catholic from London, was one of them.
He says he feels a connection to Carlo Acutis and is excited by his canonisation.
“He used to play Super Mario video games on the old Nintendo consoles and I’ve always loved video games,” Mr Sarkissian says.
“The fact that you can think of a saint doing the same things [as you], wearing jeans, it feels so much closer than what other saints have felt like in the past,” he says.
Approval for someone to become a saint can take decades or even centuries, but there is a sense that the Vatican fast-tracked Carlo Acutis’ canonisation as a means of energising and inspiring faith in young people.
The Catholic Church will be hoping Sunday’s events do just that.
The iPhone needs a shakeup. It could get one as soon as September 9, when Apple is expected to announce an all-new slimmer model of the iPhone, potentially called the “iPhone Air,” alongside the iPhone 17 and new Apple Watch models at its marquee annual event.
That kind of overhaul would be the first dramatic redesign of Apple’s signature product since 2017, when Apple released the iPhone X, the first model without the familiar home button and with Apple’s now-ubiquitous Face ID technology. That shift set the stage for iPhone generations to come.
But the iPhone Air, which Bloomberg reports will be announced at this year’s event, may play a different role. Rather than setting the stage for the iPhone’s future, an iPhone Air could add more variety to the iPhone lineup for customers who want something different, analysts say.
Apple needs the help. While iPhone sales have been strong, as Apple’s most recent earnings report indicated in July, consumers are only upgrading when they feel new features are worth it — and that’s happening less often now, according to market research firm Consumer Intelligence Research Partners.
And unlike Android rivals Samsung and Google, which have leaned into artificial intelligence on their smartphone software, Apple Intelligence is expected to take a back seat during Tuesday’s event, even as perceptions continue that the company lags in AI.
Apple could also set to rest questions of whether tariffs will raise iPhone prices.
But there’s a bigger question looming over all of this: Can Apple’s blockbuster, 18-year-old product still excite consumers?
Apple did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
When Google unveiled the Pixel 10 lineup in August, pre-empting Apple’s iPhone announcement, its Gemini assistant was front and center. Rick Osterloh, Google’s senior vice president of platforms and devices, kicked off the launch event with an overview of the company’s vision for Gemini, claiming the digital helper can “unlock so much helpfulness on your phone.”
One of the Pixel 10’s hallmark new features is a tool called Magic Cue, which uses AI to analyze what you’re doing on your phone and suggest the next action.
Samsung similarly touted the AI capabilities on the Galaxy S25 — its flagship phone that competes with the iPhone — as a major selling point when it unveiled the device in January. One such feature allows users to do a multi-step task, such as looking up the schedule of a sports team and adding it to their calendar, with one voice command.
But analysts say Apple is too behind in AI to take that approach. Instead, it’s expected to focus more on hardware advancements than AI.
Ted Mortonson, a technology strategist at Baird, said Apple’s AI advancements likely aren’t ready yet, adding that the company is under pressure to impress when it does deliver new AI tools or else it could risk losing customers to Samsung and Google.
Earlier this year, Apple delayed a high-profile update that would have enabled Siri to act across apps and answer questions about content on your phone’s screen. The feature would have brought Siri up to speed with more sophisticated AI agents like Google’s Gemini and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Apple said it needed more time to bring the technology up to the company’s “high quality bar.”
“Taking a step back, we see AI as one of the most profound technologies of our lifetime,” CEO Tim Cook said in his opening remarks during Apple’s July earnings call. “We are embedding it across our devices and platforms and across the company. We are also significantly growing our investments.”
Still, AI isn’t “compelling users to walk into stores to upgrade,” Nabila Popal, a senior director with the International Data Corporation’s (IDC) data and analytics team, previously told CNN via email. And between an MIT study indicating that 95% of organizations are getting no return on their AI investments and muted earnings from Nvidia, the chipmaker at the center of the AI boom, there’s growing sentiment that the AI gold rush may be overhyped.
But the iPhone is still one of the world’s most ubiquitous smartphones, accounting for 15.7% of the global smartphone share — just behind market leader Samsung, according to the IDC.
Apple will likely lean into that advantage, choosing to focus on improvements to the iPhone’s core functionality like battery life, camera quality and design. And price will be top of mind; both Wall Street and consumers will be watching to see whether tariffs have impacted the new iPhone’s price.
Analysts from Morgan Stanley and Loop Capital believe price hikes could be in store. The company could eliminate one of the lower storage options for the iPhone 17 Pro to drive consumers to the pricier models, a group of Morgan Stanley analysts led by Erik Woodring wrote in a September 4 research note. This could help Apple offset the prices of higher component costs, the report noted.
“Normally, it’s not a good sign for a launch event when the price is the big focus, because then the product itself might not be as much of a highlight compared to the previous generations,” said Runar Bjørhovde, a research analyst for market research firm Canalys.
But President Donald Trump’s tariffs make this launch an exception, since many will be watching to see whether Apple changes its pricing in the United States and other markets. “How does Apple decide to play that game?” Bjørhovde said. “Apple doesn’t like to change the prices over time, so whatever is set from Day 1 is normally a key indicator on what we will see for the next year.”
Apple has struggled in recent years to find a fourth iPhone model that resonates as strongly as the standard, Pro and Pro Max. It removed the iPhone Mini from its lineup after just two generations starting with the iPhone 14, and now the company is expected to replace the Plus model with this new Air.
But that may entail compromises like just one camera instead of the two on the standard iPhone 16, according to Bloomberg.
The phone could be a tough sell for other reasons, too. Consumers have tightened their purse strings and are holding onto their smartphones for longer periods of time, so a thin design may not be enough to attract new buyers. Plus, Samsung has already gotten ahead of Apple with a slimmer new phone called the Galaxy S25 Edge.
Still, Apple does have one advantage.
“The Air version of the MacBook has stuck. The Air version of the iPad has stuck,” said Dipanjan Chatterjee, vice president and principal analyst for market research firm Forrester. “So, there’s good reason to believe that the Air version — a slimmer, thinner iPhone — will.”
