NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec 11, 2025--
Factor, America’s leading fresh prepared meal delivery service, and Dartmouth College are excited to announce a strategic partnership that is transforming convenient, healthy campus dining for students, staff, and athletes. Through Dartmouth’s introduction of new Smart Fridges across campus, they are now providing dietitian-designed Factor meals, snacks, and beverages available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
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The Factor partnership and Dartmouth’s Smart Fridge solution helps meet the demanding schedules of the college community. It offers essential support for student-athletes with intense training regimens, students with late-night study sessions, faculty working late, and staff requiring accessible and flexible meal options. The Factor-stocked Smart Fridges are strategically located in high-traffic areas across campus, including residence halls, athletic centers, and academic buildings.
“Dartmouth Dining is thrilled to partner with Factor to offer their high-quality fresh meals and food items to our student population in our smart fridge pods across the campus,” said Jon Plodzik, Director of Dining at Dartmouth College. “Factor has proven to be an extremely popular brand within our offerings and truly fills many of the nourishment needs requested at all hours of the day. Our students and staff just love it.”
Factor Fuels Student Performance
The partnership underscores both Factor’s commitment to making healthy eating an accessible tool and Dartmouth’s commitment to providing superior campus resources that support the well-being of its community. By providing fresh, nutritious, ready-to-heat meals at any hour, Factor and Dartmouth are supporting the success of its students.
Strategic Growth Through Diversified Distribution
This partnership in higher education is a key element of Factor’s strategy to diversify its distribution beyond direct-to-consumer delivery and into new channels such as campuses, hospitals, residential buildings, hospitality, corporate offices, and retail locations.
"We are incredibly proud to partner with Dartmouth College," said Adam Park, Managing Director for Factor US. "This collaboration is a demonstration of how Factor continues to evolve its business model to make healthy eating an accessible tool for students and student athletes. We are committed to using this blueprint to extend our campus footprint to even more universities next year and continue to support the well-being of students and faculty."
While Factor successfully provides fresh prepared meals to traditional campus cafeterias at many academic institutions nationwide, the Dartmouth partnership represents a full solution approach. Branded Smart Fridges are a scalable business-to-business solution that meet the evolving demands for immediate, fresh food options in non-traditional settings.
To learn more about how Factor is supporting universities and businesses, visit https://www.factor75.com/pages/factor-for-business.
ABOUT FACTOR
Factor is a fully-prepared meal delivery service that is taking a whole new approach to fresh-prepared food. The company’s weekly rotating menu of 100 weekly meals and 70+ add-on options, including smoothies, juices, snacks and more, are hand-crafted by gourmet chefs and optimized by dietitians. Factor delivers anywhere in the contiguous U.S. For more information, visit Factormeals.com.
ABOUT HELLOFRESH GROUP
The HelloFresh Group is a global digital-native CPG company and the world's leading meal kit provider. The HelloFresh Group consists of eight brands that provide customers with high quality food and recipes for different meal occasions. The Company was founded in Berlin in November 2011 and operates in the USA, the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Australia, Austria, Switzerland, Canada, New Zealand, Sweden, France, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Ireland and Spain. In Q2 2025, the HelloFresh Group delivered c. 215 million meals globally. HelloFresh SE went public on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in November 2017 and is currently traded on the MDAX (Mid-Cap German Stock Market Index). For more information, visit www.hellofreshgroup.com.
Dartmouth and Factor Smart Fridges Provide 24/7 Access to Fresh, Nutritious Meals
The United States has seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela as tensions mount with the government of President Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela called it blatant piracy, exposing how U.S. pressure has always been about controlling the country's vast oil reserves.
Congress is now scrutinizing President Donald Trump ’s latest push to increase pressure on Maduro, who has been charged with narcoterrorism in the United States. Trump has said the deadly strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats will expand to attacks on land. Maduro told supporters in Caracas that Venezuela is “prepared to break the teeth of the North American empire if necessary.”
Trump’s approval on the economy and immigration have fallen substantially since March, according to a new AP-NORC poll, the latest indication that two signature issues that got him elected barely a year ago could be turning into liabilities as his party begins to gear up for the 2026 midterms.
And Trump's tariffs have cost U.S. households $1,200 each so far, Democrats say. The members of Congress' Joint Economic Committee tallied the costs of sweeping taxes on imports. Their report found that they've cost American consumers nearly $159 billion — or $1,198 per household — from February through November.
The Latest:
U.S. jobless claim applications for the week ending Dec. 6 climbed by 44,000 from the previous week’s 192,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s more than analysts’ forecast of 213,000.
The total number of Americans filing for jobless benefits for the previous week ending Nov. 29 fell by 99,000 to 1.84 million, the government said. That’s the lowest level for continuing claims since mid-April.
Applications for unemployment aid are viewed as a proxy for layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market. Overall layoffs have been muted despite recent high-profile job cuts. Hiring is also sluggish, which makes finding a job for those out of work challenging. For now, the U.S. job market appears stuck in a “low-hire, low-fire” state.
The U.S. trade deficit fell for the second straight month in September, dropping to the lowest since June 2020 when global commerce was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Commerce Department reported Thursday that the deficit — the gap between what the United States sells other countries and what it buys from them — dropped nearly 11% to $52.8 billion in September. It had fallen more than 23% from July to August.
Still, the U.S. trade deficit is up so far in 2025, coming in at $765.1 billion through September, up 17% from $652.6 billion in January-September 2024. Many companies imported foreign goods early in 2025 to get ahead of Trump’s tariffs.
The outcome of Thursday’s state Senate vote remains uncertain despite months of pressure from Trump to remap Indiana’s House districts in ways that could give the GOP control of all nine seats. Even in the face of one-on-one pressure from the White House and violent threats against state lawmakers, many Indiana Republicans have been reluctant to back a new congressional map that would split the city of Indianapolis into four districts.
Democrats are increasingly liking their odds at flipping control of the U.S. House after the results of recent high-profile elections. Trump is threatening to back primary challengers for any GOP state senator who votes against the Republican remap. “If Republicans will not do what is necessary to save our Country, they will eventually lose everything to the Democrats,” Trump wrote on social media.
▶ Follow developments on Indiana redistricting
Trump’s approval ratings on immigration have declined since March, but border security remains a relatively strong issue for him.
Half of U.S. adults, 50%, approve of how Trump is handling border security, according to a new AP-NORC poll. Just 38% currently approve of how he’s handling the issue of immigration.
Trump’s relative strength on border security is partially driven by Democrats and independents, who are less likely to approve of his immigration approach. Other polls have shown these groups tend to prioritize increasing border security more than deporting immigrants, even those who are living in the country illegally.
Shaniqwa Copeland, a 30-year-old independent and home health aide in St. Augustine, Florida, said she approves of Trump’s overall handling of the presidency, but believes his immigration actions have gone too far.
“Now they’re just picking up anybody,” Copeland told the AP. “They just like, pick up people, grabbing anybody. It’s crazy.”
▶ Read more about the poll’s findings
Prediction markets pegged AI as a leading contender, along with Trump, Pope Leo XIV, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani.
Trump was already named the 2024 person of the year by the magazine after his winning his second bid for the White House, succeeding Taylor Swift, who was the 2023 person of the year.
The magazine cited 2025 as the year when the potential of artificial intelligence “roared into view” with no turning back. “For delivering the age of thinking machines, for wowing and worrying humanity, for transforming the present and transcending the possible, the Architects of AI are TIME’s 2025 Person of the Year,” Time said in a social media post Thursday.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine would give its latest peace proposals to U.S. negotiators ahead of his urgent talks Thursday with a coalition of about 30 countries supporting Kyiv’s effort to end the war with Russia on acceptable terms. The White House did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday on whether that happened.
Negotiations are at “a critical moment,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron said in a statement.
Washington’s goal of a swift compromise to stop the fighting that followed Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 is reducing Kyiv’s room for maneuvering. Zelenskyy is walking a tightrope between defending Ukrainian interests and showing Trump he is willing to compromise, even as Moscow shows no public sign of budging from its demands. Zelenskyy’s allies are backing his effort, seeking a fair settlement that will deters future Russian attacks and defend Europe.
▶ Read more about the latest negotiations to end Russia’s war in Ukraine
The Senate is poised on Thursday to reject legislation to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits for millions of Americans, a potentially unceremonious end to a monthslong Democratic effort to prevent the COVID-era subsidies from expiring on Jan. 1.
Despite a bipartisan desire to continue the credits, Republicans and Democrats have never engaged in meaningful or high-level negotiations. The Senate is expected to vote on two partisan bills and defeat them both — essentially guaranteeing that many who buy their health insurance on the ACA marketplaces see a steep rise in costs at the beginning of the year.
“It’s too complicated and too difficult to get done in the limited time that we have left,” said Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who has unsuccessfully pushed his Republican colleagues to extend the tax credits for a short time so they can find agreement on the issue next year. Neither side has seemed interested in compromise.
▶ Read more about the congressional stalemate on health care
Senators for the first time are poised to question military leaders over Trump’s use of the National Guard in American cities, an extraordinary move that has prompted legal challenges as well as questions about states’ rights and the use of the military on U.S. soil.
The hearing Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee is expected to feature tough questioning for Pentagon leaders over the legality of the deployments, which in some places were done over the objections of mayors and governors.
The hearing will bring the highest level of scrutiny to Trump’s use of the National Guard outside of a courtroom since the deployments began and comes a day after the president faced another legal setback over his muscular use of troops in larger federal operations.
▶ Read more about Senate scrutiny of the Guard deployments
Oil companies offered $300 million for drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday in the first of 30 sales planned for the region under Republican efforts to ramp up U.S. fossil fuel production.
The sale came after Trump’s administration recently announced plans to allow new drilling off Florida and California for the first time in decades. That’s drawn pushback, including from Republicans worried about impacts to tourism.
Wednesday’s sale was mandated by the sweeping tax-and-spending bill approved by Republicans over the summer. Under that legislation, companies will pay a 12.5% royalty on oil produced from the leases. That’s the lowest royalty level for deep-water drilling since 2007.
Thirty companies submitted bids on parcels covering 1,600 square miles (4,142 square kilometers). Total high bids were down from $382 million offered in the most recent lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico under former President Joe Biden in December 2023.
▶ Read more about the sales
When Trump promised new tariffs while running for president, Gene Stehly worried that trade disputes would jeopardize his international sales of corn, soybeans and wheat.
A little more than a year later, Stehly said his fears have become a reality, and Trump’s latest promise of federal assistance is insufficient to cover farmers’ losses.
Trump announced Monday that his administration would distribute $12 billion in one-time payments to farmers, who have suffered from persistently low commodity prices, rising costs and declining sales after China cut off all agricultural purchases from America during the trade war.
While rural areas remain conservative bastions, farmers’ patience with Washington is wearing thin. Several of them described the government bailout, an echo of similar policies during Trump’s first term, as a welcome stopgap but one that won’t solve the agricultural industry’s problems.
“It’s a bridge. It’s not the ultimate solution we’re looking for,” said Charlie Radman, a fourth-generation farmer. “What we really want to have is a little more certainty and not have to rely on these ad hoc payments.”
▶ Read more about farmers’ concerns
Sweeping taxes on imports have cost the average American household nearly $1,200 since Donald Trump returned to the White House this year, according to calculations by Democrats on Congress’ Joint Economic Committee.
Using Treasury Department numbers on revenue from tariffs and Goldman Sachs estimates of who ends up paying for them, the Democrats’ report Thursday found that American consumers’ share of the bill came to nearly $159 billion — or $1,198 per household — from February through November.
In his second term, Trump has reversed decades of U.S. policy that favored free trade. He’s imposed double-digit tariffs on almost every country on earth. According to Yale University’s Budget Lab, the average U.S. tariff has shot up from 2.4% at the beginning of the year to 16.8%, the highest since 1935.
The president argues that the import taxes will protect U.S. industries from unfair foreign competition, bring factories to the United States and raise money for the Treasury.
▶ Read more about the Democrats’ report
Trump’s approval on the economy and immigration have fallen substantially since March, according to a new AP-NORC poll, the latest indication that two signature issues that got him elected barely a year ago could be turning into liabilities as his party begins to gear up for the 2026 midterms.
Only 31% of U.S. adults now approve of how Trump is handling the economy, the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds. That is down from 40% in March and marks the lowest economic approval he’s registered in an AP-NORC poll in his first or second term. Trump has also struggled to recover from public blowback on other issues, such as his management of the federal government, and has not seen an approval bump even after congressional Democrats effectively capitulated to end a record-long government shutdown last month.
Just a few months ago, 53% of Americans approved of Trump’s handling of crime, but that’s fallen to 43% in the new poll. There’s been a similar decline on immigration, from 49% approval in March to 38% now.
▶ Read more about the poll’s findings
This image from video posted on Attorney General Pam Bondi's X account, and partially redacted by the source, shows an oil tanker being seized by U.S. forces off the coast of Venezuela, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025. (U.S. Attorney General's Office/X via AP)
Sitting next to founder and CEO of Dell, Michael Dell, left, President Donald Trump speaks during a roundtable discussion with business leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Members of the National Guard patrol in front of the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, Friday, Nov. 28, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
