STRATHAM, N.H.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 7, 2025--
After captivating American taste buds with its limited-edition handmade Lindt Dubai Chocolate Bar in December 2024, Lindt & Sprüngli (USA) today announced the highly anticipated nationwide debut of their sought-after bar following strong consumer demand and record-breaking pre-launch sale last month. Don’t wait! The Lindt Dubai Style Chocolate bars will have limited availability at major retailers nationwide beginning July 7.
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Inspired by the popular Dubai chocolate flavor trend, Lindt’s creation is now poised to become the definitive premium Dubai style chocolate experience for fans across the U.S. To meet the excitement, Lindt is proud to launch a new recipe, ensuring Lindt chocolate enthusiasts across the U.S. can enjoy it.
Ahead of the larger nationwide roll out, the Lindt Dubai Style Chocolate Bar launched in Lindt Retail Stores and online last month in limited quantities, with the first drop selling out in less than 24 hours. Now, as the brand expands the product’s availability nationwide in participating retailers, fans can find the bars at Walmart, Target, Walgreens, Kroger, Albertson's, Meijer, Publix, Stop & Shop, Hannaford, Hy-Vee and more.
“After our handmade limited-edition bars sold out in a matter of days in December 2024, it was our mission to create a refined recipe using state-of-the-art technology,” said Ann Czaja, Lindt Master Chocolatier. “We keep a close eye on flavor trends and are proud to invite consumers across America to taste our newest luxurious creation!”
Meticulously crafted by Lindt’s Master Chocolatiers, each bar features delicious melting Lindt milk chocolate with an incomparable filling made from the finest pistachio paste containing 45% pistachios, crunchy kadayif, almonds and hazelnuts. These exquisite ingredients give every piece of the bar a unique flavor and make every bite an unforgettable experience.
As the Dubai chocolate flavor trend continues to sweep the globe, Lindt invites chocolate lovers to discover the exclusive indulgence of Lindt Dubai Style Chocolate. Whether enjoyed as a personal treat or a unique gift, the Lindt Dubai Style Chocolate Bar promises a taste of luxury with every bite.
For more information about the Lindt Dubai Style Chocolate Bar and to keep up with all Lindt USA news, follow @Lindt_USA on Instagram and TikTok. To be the first to learn about upcoming promotions, flash sales and store events, join Lindt’s email list on lindtusa.com.
About Lindt & Sprüngli
Lindt & Sprüngli has been enchanting the world with chocolate for 180 years. The long-established Swiss company with its roots in Zurich is a global leader in the premium chocolate product sector. Lindt & Sprüngli produces quality chocolates today at its 12 factories in Europe and the USA. Its products are sold by 38 subsidiaries and branch offices in around 560 of its own stores as well as via a network of more than 100 independent distributors around the globe. With around 15,000 employees, the Lindt & Sprüngli Group reported sales of CHF 5.47 billion in 2024.
Fans can purchase Lindt Dubai Style Chocolate nationwide beginning July 7
WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.
West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.
The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.
Decisions are expected by early summer.
President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.
Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.
“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”
She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.
Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.
She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.
Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.
“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.
Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.
The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.
About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.
"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”
But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.
“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”
Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”
“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.
One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.
Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”
The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.
The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.
The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.
The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.
If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.
“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.
Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)
