By MICHELLE CHAPMAN and WYATTE GRANTHAM-PHILIPS AP Business Writers
Ben & Jerry’s co-founder Jerry Greenfield is leaving the ice cream brand after 47 years, saying that the independence it once had to speak up on social issues has been stifled by its parent company Unilever.
In a letter, which co-founder Ben Cohen posted on social media on Greenfield’s behalf, Greenfield said he could not “in good conscience” remain at Ben & Jerry’s — citing a loss of independence to Unilever, which he said had once agreed to give Ben & Jerry’s autonomy around its social mission when it acquired the brand more than two decades ago.
“For more than 20 years under their ownership, Ben & Jerry’s stood up and spoke out in support of peace, justice and human rights, not as abstract concepts, but in relation to real events happening in our world,” Greenfield wrote “It’s profoundly disappointing to come to the conclusion that that independence, the very basis of our sale to Unilever, is gone.”
Ben & Jerry’s, famous for its colorful ice cream containers with flavor names such as Cherry Garcia and Phish Food, has also long been known for its progressive political values — speaking out on a range of social issues over the years. And in his letter late Tuesday, Greenfield noted that the brand’s loss of independence arrived at time in the U.S. when the Trump administration “is attacking civil rights, voting rights, the rights of immigrants, women and the LGBTQ community.”
“Standing up for the values of justice, equity, and our shared humanity has never been more important, and yet Ben & Jerry’s has been silenced, sidelined for fear of upsetting those in power,” he wrote.
Tensions between Ben & Jerry’s and its parent have heightened in recent years — with the ice cream brand accusing Unilever of silencing its statements in support of Palestinians amid Israel’s war in Gaza, among other conflicts. And Greenfield’s departure also arrives as the consumer product giant, based in London, is spinning off its ice cream business into a stand-alone company called The Magnum Ice Cream Company.
In a statement on Wednesday, a spokesperson for Magnum said that it would be forever grateful to Greenfield for his contributions to Ben & Jerry’s and thanked him for his service, but was not aligned with his viewpoint.
“We disagree with his perspective and have sought to engage both co-founders in a constructive conversation on how to strengthen Ben & Jerry’s powerful values-based position in the world,” the spokesperson said — adding that Magnum is still committed to Ben & Jerry’s mission and remains “focused on carrying forward the legacy of peace, love, and ice cream of this iconic, much-loved brand.”
Meanwhile, Greenfield and Cohen have been pushing for Ben & Jerry’s to be allowed to become an independently owned company again, saying in a letter to Magnum’s board that they don’t believe the brand should be part of a corporation that doesn’t support its founding mission.
Ben & Jerry’s has been at odds with Unilever for a while. In March Ben & Jerry’s said that its CEO was unlawfully removed by Unilever in retaliation for the ice cream maker’s social and political activism.
In a federal court filing, Ben & Jerry’s said that Unilever informed its board on March 3 that it was removing and replacing Ben & Jerry’s CEO David Stever. Ben & Jerry’s said that violated its merger agreement with Unilever, which states that any decisions regarding a CEO’s removal must come after a consultation with an advisory committee from Ben & Jerry’s board.
Unilever said in a statement at the time that it hoped Ben & Jerry’s board would engage in the agreed-upon process.
Unilever acquired Ben & Jerry’s in 2000 for $326 million. At the time, Ben & Jerry’s said the partnership would help the progressive Vermont-based ice cream company expand its social mission. But experts stress that preserving complete independence from a corporate owner is never promised.
“What Ben & Jerry’s does spills over onto brand Unilever, and vice versa,” said Kimberly Whitler, a marketing professor at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. “If a brand wants complete and total autonomy, then it is best to remain independent,” she added.
Tommaso Bondi, an assistant professor of marketing at Cornell Tech, speculates that both Unilever and Ben & Jerry’s “underestimated” conflicts that would arise out of the arrangement — noting that the way that brands now talk about politics and social issues is “completely different” from when this deal was struck 25 years ago. And the size of the parent company today also piles on pressure.
“Unilever is just simply too big to be polarizing,” Bondi said, while speaking out on social issues remains a defining feature of Ben & Jerry’s identity. “In some sense, it was an obvious clash,” he said.
Particularly in recent years, the marriage has been on shaky ground. In 2021, Ben & Jerry’s announced it would stop serving Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and contested east Jerusalem. The following year, Unilever sold its Israeli business to a local company that said it would sell Ben & Jerry’s under its Hebrew and Arabic name throughout Israel and the West Bank.
In March 2024 Unilever announced the spinoff of the ice cream business — including Ben & Jerry’s — by the end of 2025 as part of a larger restructuring. Unilever also owns personal hygiene brands like Dove soap and food brands like Hellmann’s mayonnaise.
But the acrimony continued. In November, Ben & Jerry’s sued Unilever in federal court in New York, accusing it of silencing Ben & Jerry’s statements in support of Palestinians in the Gaza war.
In its complaint, Ben & Jerry’s said Unilever also refused to let the company release a social media post that identified issues it believed would be challenged during President Donald Trump’s second term — including minimum wages, universal health care, abortion and climate change.
Businesses across sectors have encountered growing pressure to take a backseat when it comes to social activism today — particularly amid the Trump administration’s wider crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in both government and workplaces across the U.S.
Vanessa Burbano, a professor at Columbia Business School, notes that her research shows that corporate stakeholders today “most appreciate” when companies take an apolitical stance, or try their best to distance themselves from politics as much as possible.
Still, Burbano notes that it’s a “tough line to navigate.” She and others note that there can be a sense of whiplash if companies stay silent on something today that they may have commented on just a few years ago.
“You need to know what your brand is. You need to know what your brand is not. And you need to be consistent,” said Beth Egan, an associate professor of advertising at Syracuse University.
While she understands that a company “the size of Unilever is being cautious in this political environment,” Egan adds that it’s important to recognize Ben & Jerry’s longstanding brand and nature of their relationship as a well-known subsidiary. “I think trying to silence them will probably backfire,” she said.

NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon says it’s investing more than a $1 billion to raise wages and lower the cost of health care plans for its U.S. fulfillment and transportation workers.
The Seattle-based company said Wednesday the average pay is increasing to more than $23 per hour. Some of its most tenured employees will see an increase between $1.10 and $1.90 per hour. Full-time employees, on average, will see their pay increase by $1,600 per year.
Amazon also said it will lower the cost of its entry health care plan to $5 per week and $5 for co-pays, starting next year. Amazon said that will reduce weekly contributions by 34% and co-pays by 87% for primary care, mental health and most non-specialist visits for employees using the basic plan.
Amazon has a global workforce of 1.5 million workers.
Last December, seven Amazon facilities went on strike, an effort by the Teamsters union to pressure the e-commerce company for a labor agreement during a key shopping period.
That same month, Amazon reached a settlement with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that requires the online behemoth to adopt corporatewide ergonomic measures at facilities across the country. The agency claimed hazardous working conditions led to serious lower back and other musculoskeletal disorders at Amazon facilities.
In January 2024, Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, said that average wages for hourly workers would exceed $18, up from $17.50. The increase was due to Walmart introducing some higher-paying hourly roles in its Auto Care Centers last year, among other changes, the company said.
Walmart, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, had announced in January 2023 that U.S. workers would get pay raises the following month, increasing starting wages to between $14 and $19 an hour. Starting wages had previously ranged between $12 and $18 an hour, depending on location.
At Minneapolis-based Target, the starting hourly wage ranges from $15 to $24 for workers employed at stores and distribution centers, depending on the location, company spokesman Brian Harper-Tibaldo said.
The average hourly wage for a Target store worker is more than $18, he said.

A Uniondale High School student was arrested Wednesday after attempting to enter the school with a loaded weapon. The student was caught by metal detectors, and law enforcement was immediately notified. The district praised its security team, emphasizing that “safety and security are paramount.” The type of weapon and the student’s identity have not been released.

NEW YORK (AP) — A New York judge on Tuesday threw out terrorism charges against Luigi Mangione, rejecting the Manhattan district attorney’s theory in a state murder case that the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was “intended to evoke terror.”
Judge Gregory Carro kept other charges in place, including a second-degree murder count that requires prosecutors to prove Mangione intended to kill Thompson but not that he was doing so as an act of terrorism.
The ruling eliminated the top two charges in Mangione’s state case, sparing him the possibility of a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole. The 27-year-old Ivy League graduate is also facing a parallel federal death penalty prosecution. Carro said the defense’s argument that the dueling prosecutors amounted to double jeopardy was premature.
Mangione, a cause célèbre for people upset with the health insurance industry, appeared in good spirits and raised his eyebrows at supporters as police officers led him out of the brief hearing after Carro issued his ruling.
In a written decision, the judge said that although there isn’t any doubt that Thompson’s killing last December was no ordinary street crime, state law in New York doesn’t consider something terrorism simply because it was motivated by ideology.
“While the defendant was clearly expressing an animus toward UHC, and the health care industry generally, it does not follow that his goal was to ‘intimidate and coerce a civilian population,’ and indeed, there was no evidence presented of such a goal,” Carro wrote.
The judge also said there was insufficient evidence that Mangione intended to influence or affect government policy by intimidation or coercion — another element of the terrorism charges. He noted that federal prosecutors hadn’t charged Mangione with terrorism offenses even though the federal terrorism statute was a model for the state law.
But in keeping the second-degree murder charge, Carro ruled there was sufficient evidence that Mangione “murdered Brian Thompson in a premeditated and calculated execution.” That charge carries a potential penalty of 15 years to life in prison, with the possibility of parole.
Afterward, Mangione lawyer Marc Agnifilo told TMZ: “It’s a big win and it’s the first of many.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office issued a brief statement, saying, “We respect the Court’s decision and will proceed on the remaining nine counts.”
Carro scheduled pretrial hearings in the state case for Dec. 1, just days before Mangione is next due in court in his federal case.
Mangione handcuffed and shackled for court appearance
Mangione, who has been locked up since his arrest, arrived in court in beige jail garb, handcuffs and ankle shackles. Making his first appearance in Carro’s courtroom since February, he was mostly silent, quietly conferring with his lawyers as the judge outlined his decision.
Echoing the scene at his last hearing, a few dozen supporters — mostly women — packed three rows in the rear of the courtroom gallery. Some were dressed in green, the color worn by the Mario Bros. video game character Luigi. One woman sported a “FREE LUIGI” T-shirt. Across the street from the courthouse, cheers erupted from a pro-Mangione rally as news spread that the judge had dismissed his terrorism charges.
Mangione pleaded not guilty late last year to multiple counts of murder, including murder as an act of terrorism. Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shoot Thompson from behind on Dec. 4, 2024, as the executive arrived at a midtown Manhattan hotel for his company’s annual investor conference. Police say the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were scrawled on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase commonly used to describe how insurers avoid paying claims.
Mangione was arrested five days later in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (370 kilometers) west of New York City.
Judge rejects ‘double jeopardy’ argument
Mangione’s lawyers have argued that the simultaneous state and federal prosecutions violate double jeopardy protections meant to prevent people from being tried multiple times for the same crime. But Carro rejected that argument, saying it would be premature to make such a determination because neither case has gone to trial.
Bragg’s office contended that there are no double jeopardy issues, in part because the state and federal prosecutions involve different legal theories. The federal charges allege that Mangione stalked Thompson and do not involve terrorism allegations.
Mangione’s lawyers said the two cases have created a “legal quagmire” that makes it “legally and logistically impossible to defend against them simultaneously.”
Diary writings had been a basis for the terrorism charges
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi in April said she was directing federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Mangione for “an act of political violence” and a “premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America.”
Bragg’s office quoted extensively from Mangione’s handwritten diary as they sought to uphold the terrorism charges. In a June court filing, they highlighted his desire to kill an insurance honcho and his praise for the late Theodore Kaczynski, the convicted murderer known as the “Unabomber.”
In the writings, prosecutors said, Mangione mused about rebelling against “the deadly, greed fueled health insurance cartel” and said killing an industry executive “conveys a greedy bastard that had it coming.” They also cited a confession they say he penned “To the feds,” in which he wrote “it had to be done.”
Mangione’s “intentions were obvious from his acts, but his writings serve to make those intentions explicit,” prosecutors said. The writings, which they sometimes described as a manifesto, “convey one clear message: that the murder of Brian Thompson was intended to bring about revolutionary change to the healthcare industry.”
Carro noted in his ruling that terrorism “has been famously difficult to define.” He knocked prosecutors for emphasizing Mangione’s use of the phrase “revolutionary anarchism” in their attempt to bolster their claim that he intended to influence government by intimidation or coercion.
“Not only does this stretch the import of a two-word phrase beyond what it can carry, but it ignores other, more explicit excerpts from defendant’s writings in which he states that his goal is to spread a ‘message’ and ‘win public support’ about ‘everything wrong with our health system,'” the judge wrote.

President Donald Trump has signed an executive order establishing an emergency mediation board to address a labor dispute at the Long Island Rail Road (LIRR), a move aimed at preventing a possible strike that threatened to disrupt daily commutes for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers.

The dispute, involving LIRR unions and management, raised the prospect of service disruptions that could have left nearly 250,000 daily riders without reliable transportation. The timing of the threat was particularly concerning given the upcoming Ryder Cup, which is expected to draw large crowds to Long Island and increase demand on the rail system.

By appointing the emergency mediation board, the Trump administration seeks to bring both sides back to the table and avoid a shutdown that could ripple through the region’s economy and transportation network.

“The President is taking decisive action to ensure that New Yorkers don’t face unnecessary disruptions in their daily lives or during major events,” a White House spokesperson said.

The mediation board will conduct hearings, gather testimony, and issue recommendations designed to resolve the contract dispute before a strike deadline is reached. Both union and management representatives are required to participate in the proceedings.

New York officials and business leaders have welcomed the move, noting that a strike would have had a “devastating impact” on commuters and the state’s image as it prepares to host an international sporting event.

While the order does not guarantee an agreement, it buys time for negotiations to continue under federal oversight, reducing the immediate risk of a strike.