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Like embellished denim and indie sleaze, frozen yogurt is back. 

The signs of the froyo renaissance are everywhere. First, like any food trend worth its mettle, acquiring the treat at a hip purveyor might include a long line. In New York City, wait times could be upward of an hour and might include hairstyling or a DJ while you cool your heels. Meanwhile, ice cream upstarts like Van Leeuwen have started introducing their own froyo offerings. And then there are the many wellness influencers freezing their beloved yogurt at home with a few dollops of chocolate or peanut butter for a DIY “indulgence.”

The third wave of froyo resembles the previous crazes in one key way: The dessert is still marketed and perceived as a healthier choice than other treats. Every time it comes out of hibernation, frozen yogurt has revealed something about the diet culture of the moment, and this resurgence is no different.

This go-round, the emphasis is on froyo’s super ingredients — namely, the probiotics and protein in each bite. Mythos Greek Frozen Yogurt, for instance, promises “godly probiotics in every bite…supporting gut health and overall wellness,” as well as “prebiotics, probiotics, postbiotics, and enzymes to support your digestive, metabolic, mental, and cognitive health.” It’s all about highlighting what the treat does have, whereas previous froyo fads differentiated the dessert by underscoring what it lacked, namely: fat, lots of calories. 

On the surface, today’s wellness culture focuses on being additive as opposed to depriving yourself and counting calories, which we saw in previous iterations. The idea is balance: balanced diet, balanced gut. The word “holistic” gets thrown around a lot. But the same motivation — a desire for thinness — underpins it, even if the language has become less explicit. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing in every swirl of the latest froyo renaissance. 

Where froyo went and why it came back

Liz Moskow, who predicts food trends as a principal at consultancy Bread and Circus, didn’t have to strain her third eye to foresee the resurgence of frozen yogurt. “The buzzwords in the wellness realm — longevity, gut health, bone health, high protein — all lead back to yogurt,” she told Vox. She described frozen yogurt in particular as “that permissible indulgent way to get more protein in a dessert moment.”

Frozen yogurt first took off in the 1980s, as Americans obsessed over health and exercise — including President Ronald Reagan, who set up a gym at the White House. It was the heyday of fitness stars like Jane Fonda and Richard Simmons. The treat promised all the enjoyment of “naughty” frozen desserts, like ice cream, without the fat. Imagine: a guilty pleasure sans guilt. TCBY (full name: The Country’s Best Yogurt) was the standard bearer of the era. 

But the collapse of the low-fat diet trend, and consumers’ desire for overall low-calorie treats as opposed to just low-fat ones, brought an end to froyo’s first wave. “When you remove fat, you have to add flavor, typically with sugar,” Moskow said. Froyo’s status as the healthy alternative lost credibility once overall calorie counts came into play.

When froyo reemerged in the 2000s and broke wide in the early 2010s, tabloids and Tumblr were awash in a toxic sea of body shaming. This time, the flavor du jour was “tart,” which played up the natural taste of the yogurt and gave it another veneer of health. After all, it wasn’t sweet and rich like ice cream. At destinations like Pinkberry and Menchies, you self-served your yogurt and piled on toppings from a well-stocked buffet of options. And sure, you could opt for a mountain of fresh fruit, but you could also select gummy bears, Reese’s Pieces, and other confections. So, yet again, froyo receded “when vilification of sugar started happening,” Moskow said.

And now, we’re back in the ring with froyo for another round, amid an intense cultural focus on GLP-1s, proteinmaxxing, and gut health. This time, there are a lot of scientific terms getting thrown around. The website for Culture An American Yogurt Company, which has two outposts in New York City, cites the World Health Organization and Harvard Medical School to vaunt the benefits of its probiotic cultures and names the specific bacteria strains they use (Lactobacillus delbrueckii subsp. bulgaricus, Streptococcus thermophilus, Lactobacillus acidophilus, Bifidobacterium lactis, in case you were curious). The toppings on offer at many of these shops — fresh fruit, manuka honey, organic dates, and granola — also provide a halo of health. They seem “better for you, and even a little more posh,” Moskow said. 

While probiotics definitely take center stage this time, other ingredients are also getting their moment. For example, Meli Frozen Yogurt, in Miami Shores, promises six grams of protein per serving (and “zero regrets”). Yogurt Club in Manhattan briefly sold a banana milk-flavored froyo with collagen, which the company claimed in a social media post “improves skin/nail/hair health.” 

Will eating froyo actually improve your digestive tract and confer all of these other health benefits? It depends. Dietary probiotics are generally good for you, and yogurt with live cultures is considered a high-quality source. But it’s not clear if having froyo every so often will do a ton for your microbiome. (Poppi, a soda that promised it was “gut healthy,” settled a lawsuit last year; the plaintiffs argued that the company improperly labeled and marketed its products, and that merely drinking one can wouldn’t benefit the gut.) As for collagen, however, studies about its effectiveness when ingested have been inconclusive or simply haven’t occurred. “There isn’t enough proof that taking collagen pills or consuming collagen drinks will make a difference in skin, hair, or nails,” Dr. Payal Patel and Dr. Maryanne Makredes Senna wrote for Harvard Health’s blog in 2023. And things weren’t looking much better as of 2025. 

Still, the focus on hair, skin, and nails isn’t surprising in our current moment.

“It’s a lot easier to say, ‘Well, I’m eating this for gut health’ instead of ‘I’m eating this because this whole cup has 80 calories,’” Mikala Jamison, writer of the Body Type newsletter and the forthcoming book The Forever Project, told Vox. The current iteration of froyo is intertwined with the broader trend of “clean” living and the “clean girl.” Take Mimi’s Frozen Yogurt, which is located near New York University and regularly has lines around the block. Mimi’s describes itself as “Clean & Natural Froyo…Light as air, full of care.” But “clean” is similar to “plant-based” or “natural” in that it doesn’t really have an agreed upon definition in the food world. It’s mostly vibes-based and can be as much about morality as much as it is about nutrition.

Meanwhile, “light as air” isn’t particularly subtle. Mimi’s has collaborated with Shark Beauty to style people’s hair as they wait in line, further connecting frozen yogurt to a specific aesthetic. Mikono, which just went from pop-up to brick-and-mortar in Chicago, was part of a Porsche & Pilates event, tagging the Instagram post about it “#healthy.” Myka, a growing chain in more than 20 cities with long lines at its Paris outpost, says its product “is more than frozen yogurt: it is a way of understanding life. A way to enjoy what is simple, natural, and effortlessly beautiful.” 

Jamison coined the term “luxe lean” to refer to the current cultural moment: “Your body needs to be lean, not fat, look like you work out a little bit. But also, you pair that with these luxury signifiers. You have a blowout, you have the expensive workout set, you have the nails, you have the glowing skin.” As she sees it, it’s a body type that is also a class and status signifier. You want to look good without implying that you tried to look good, while still communicating that looking this good costs money. 

She wonders about the legacy of the body positivity movement. While some people have given up the pursuit of thinness and are making a concerted effort to build a world where women aren’t constantly denigrated for their weight, there is also an active cadre of people publicly advocating for being as skinny as possible, at the same time that GLP-1s are impacting every aspect of American life. And then, there are the people caught in the middle. “Maybe they do want to lose weight, but they don’t want to admit it because that doesn’t seem like the correct, feminist, progressive, body positivity whatever thing to do,” Jamison said. 

And that’s where the current froyo trend stands: promising “wellness” while letting the impetus for it remain unsaid. 

But if you simply love frozen yogurt, enjoy this renaissance while you can. Moskow expects it to “wax and wane” as it has in the past and, especially, as studies emerge that show the health benefits of ice cream: “I think we might be at peak yogurt.”

Clayton, if confirmed, would replace Bill Pulte, and is facing senators for confirmation as the US’s top spy

Jay Clayton, the US attorney for the southern district of New York, refused to say that Joe Biden won the 2020 election during his Wednesday confirmation hearing to become the nation’s next intelligence chief.

Clayton opted instead to say that Biden was “certified” as president. Clayton also skirted questions about his previous election integrity claims and whether or not a White House official asked him to subpoena a group of New York Times journalists as part of an alleged national security investigation.

Northampton Saint is embracing a friendly rivalry with his headline-grabbing teammate when they take on the Pumas

It has been a long road for several of the players who went on the British & Irish Lions tour to Australia last year. They are putting on a professionally brave face, but for some the final weekend of the season cannot come soon enough. Factor in the travel, the training and associated other stresses and strains and the 2025-26 campaign has been relentless from a physical and a mental perspective.

Crunch the numbers before the last hurrah against Argentina on Saturday and it is a wonder many are still standing. Of the English Lions, Henry Pollock is about to participate in his 32nd competitive game while his Northampton teammate Tommy Freeman is poised to play his 29th. Ben Earl and Ellis Genge, assuming their involvement against the Pumas, will be in the same situation with Ollie Chessum one behind.

Stage starts from Vichy at 12.50pm BST/1.50pm CEST
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Christoph Roodhooft, Jasper Philipsen’s boss at Alpecin-Premier Tech, tells Hannah Walker on TNT Sports that his sprinter is “feeling better … but that doesn’t mean he will win today.”

Is there any thought of letting Mathieu van der Poel sprint, instead of Philipsen, given the latter’s apparent lack of form?

The ubiquity of GLP-1s is wreaking new havoc on bridal designers who must scramble to accommodate rapid weight loss

In bridal stores across the world, solicitous sales assistants are being trained to ask a new, blunt question: “Are you planning on losing a drastic amount of weight?”

Wedding season’s new disruptor is semaglutide, now used by 10% of engaged couples, according to a survey by the wedding planning platform Zola. In the same survey, 42% of couples said the ubiquity of GLP-1s has made them feel they should “look a certain way” for their wedding.

Mitch McConnell’s mysterious disappearance had everyone going a little wild. 

After the Kentucky senator was abruptly hospitalized last month, little information was given on his condition or the cause of it. Politicians and internet conspiracists immediately started to wonder if there was more to the story. Far-right political activist Laura Loomer even went so far as to say he was “brain dead.” Things moved quickly. 

It all seemed to come to a head when McConnell’s office shared a proof of life photo on Sunday with an accompanying statement in which the senator explained that he was recovering from a fall and undergoing some physical therapy. He’s smiling and holding the Sunday sports section of the Washington Post. But the image wasn’t enough to quell the questions about his health. 

How did McConnell’s whereabouts become such a mystery? Annie Grayer is a senior reporter for CNN, where she has been following and breaking news about McConnell’s health journey. She joined Today, Explained co-host Sean Rameswaram to discuss why his nearly one-month disappearance rocked the country and why the public demanded more information than he gave. 

Below is an excerpt of the conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

When did you first hear that something was wrong with the former Senate majority leader?

His team actually put out a statement the day that he was hospitalized on June 14. It was a very short statement and all it said was Sen. McConnell was admitted to the hospital this morning. He is receiving excellent care. That short statement set off a firestorm of trying to figure out more because we learned so little from just that one sentence.

Why does this become a big mystery if they were transparent about it from the jump?

Because I think it’s one thing to alert people that the senator’s been hospitalized, but to go on for so long and not say why he was hospitalized initially or what is keeping him in the hospital just led us to continue to ask more questions because we were getting no answers.

We’re talking on the morning of Tuesday, July 14, and we got proof of life on Sunday, July 12. Was there actually no communication over that month?

A couple things happened. First, there was EMS audio that came out that showed that emergency responders went to McConnell’s home on June 14 and were responding to somebody who was unconscious, needed CPR, and was under cardiac arrest. And that really turned this story because it showed that this was a really serious situation and much more severe than the simple statements that we were getting from McConnell’s team. 

After that EMS audio, McConnell’s team put out another statement, but, again, it didn’t really address the larger concerns or the questions about why he was hospitalized. It just said that the senator was continuing to recover in the hospital. So the mystery around all of this just continued to build. 

And then I spoke to one of McConnell’s neighbors who witnessed the morning of McConnell being taken to the hospital on June 14. This person witnessed emergency responders carrying somebody out of McConnell’s home on a stretcher. This person was wrapped in a blanket and their feet were exposed and somebody else remarked, “Oh, that’s Mitch McConnell.”

If we had known the circumstances around McConnell’s hospitalization earlier or in more detail, how he was transported to the hospital might not have been that big of a deal. But because we were dealing with such [minimal] amounts of information, the fact that he was transported to a hospital on a stretcher was important for this story. We were just trying to fill in any blanks that we could and provide that transparency at a moment when we were getting very little from the senator and his team.

How weird is it for a politician of this stature to just ghost?

McConnell has a very busy day job. He is supposed to be in the Senate voting. He serves on the Appropriations Committee, which is in charge of funding the entire government. And he’s specifically the chair of the defense subcommittee. Now the Defense Department, kind of busy right now in the middle of a major war with Iran, needs more funding from Congress.

McConnell has a major role to play in all of that. And Republicans also have a very narrow majority in the Senate and where every vote counts. With such slim margins, not being able to count on McConnell’s vote is a huge problem for Republicans as they try [to] navigate their very narrow and unruly majority. 

Even some of McConnell’s colleagues have said that transparency is always better. For example, Republican Sen. John Cornyn from Texas told our team that, “I think we need some transparency. I wish Senator McConnell and his team had done that earlier. I think it would’ve resolved a lot of questions.” That just shows you even some Republicans are aware that the way that McConnell’s team handled the situation didn’t necessarily help things when senators know how much is at stake, how much that goes into their day job. And for him to just not be there for so long is not normal.

In these weeks where Mitch goes dark, goes quiet, is anyone talking to him? Is anyone communicating with him? Is anyone vouching for him?

When the firestorm online really started to take off and the conspiracy theories were at their peak, the majority leader in the Senate, John Thune, Republican, said that he spoke to Sen. McConnell for about 20 minutes. They talked about a variety of topics and that was supposed to quell the noise online. Another Republican leader in the Senate, Sen. [John] Barrasso, also said that he had spoken to McConnell. It didn’t do much for that. 

I think people wanted to hear from the senator himself. They wanted a photo, a video, a statement that was more [complete] than one sentence, to really understand what was going on. And even though there were Republicans in the Senate trying to vouch for him, I don’t think it was until Sunday that people started to understand more what was going on.

On Sunday, we got a proof of life photo from Mitch McConnell. It’s got Mitch and his wife and he’s got his hand on a copy of the Sunday sports section from the Washington Post. Is that how you thought this story would come to an end?

I didn’t know how this story was going to come to an end. And frankly, I don’t know if it’s over. We still need to see McConnell return to work. And he is no longer hospitalized, but he is in a rehabilitation center and unable to come to the Senate. And there’s one quote from his statement that I want to circle back to because I think it was his way of indirectly addressing why it took so long to share what sent him to the hospital last month. He said, “You all know how folks of my generation often hesitate to share the vulnerability that comes with growing older. Even in the public eye, I feel that same instinct — I can’t help it.” He’s essentially saying there that he wanted to maintain his privacy. He felt that he didn’t have to share more than what his office was putting out there. And that’s the balance that lawmakers are grappling with right now is what level of transparency is required while still protecting personal health and sensitive matters.

What we learned from the public response to this is people want transparency. People are invested in this. They want to know what their representatives are doing, if they are able to work, what their status is. And lawmakers get to make their own rules about this. There is no mandate that you must show up for work after X days or explain why you’ve been gone for X number of days. There’s no protocol here. It’s totally up to each member how they do this. And how McConnell and his team handled this situation was one way. We clearly saw the response to that. 

Worse-than-expected figures for three months to June come amid concerns over lopsided economy

• Business live – latest updates

China has posted worse-than-expected growth figures for the three months to June as its economy expanded by just 4.3% – one of its lowest quarterly readings on record.

The rate, which came in under the government’s target of 4.5% to 5%, was one of the weakest since reporting on official quarterly GDP figures began in the early 1990s.

Partnered Health says personal information and medical details and notes were breached in the attack on 21 clinics

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Thousands of medical records and patient information stored with one of Australia’s biggest healthcare providers have been breached in a cyber-attack.

Partnered Health, owned by private equity firm Quadrant, said 21 clinics across several cities including Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra have been affected by the breach which occurred on 23 June.

Worse-than-expected figures for three months to June come amid concerns over lopsided economy

• Business live – latest updates

China has posted worse-than-expected growth figures for the three months to June as its economy expanded by just 4.3% – one of its lowest quarterly readings on record.

The rate, which came in under the government’s target of 4.5% to 5%, was one of the weakest since reporting on official quarterly GDP figures began in the early 1990s.

Partnered Health says personal information and medical details and notes were breached in the attack on 21 clinics

• Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast

Thousands of medical records and patient information stored with one of Australia’s biggest healthcare providers have been breached in a cyber-attack.

Partnered Health, owned by private equity firm Quadrant, said 21 clinics across several cities including Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra have been affected by the breach which occurred on 23 June.

Exclusive: Andrew Bailey says he does not regret meeting Reform UK leader to discuss cryptocurrency regulation

The Bank of England governor has said he would have put off a meeting with Nigel Farage last autumn had the Reform UK leader’s £5m gift from a crypto billionaire been under investigation at the time.

Andrew Bailey said he did not regret meeting Farage to discuss the Bank’s plans for cryptocurrency regulation last September, months before the controversial donation from the Thailand-based investor Christopher Harborne was revealed by the Guardian in April.

Exclusive: Andrew Bailey says he does not regret meeting Reform UK leader to discuss cryptocurrency regulation

The Bank of England governor has said he would have put off a meeting with Nigel Farage last autumn had the Reform UK leader’s £5m gift from a crypto billionaire been under investigation at the time.

Andrew Bailey said he did not regret meeting Farage to discuss the Bank’s plans for cryptocurrency regulation last September, months before the controversial donation from the Thailand-based investor Christopher Harborne was revealed by the Guardian in April.

Head coach praises his players’ ability to rise to the occasion and ‘put on a fight’ against the defending champions in the semi-final

“A funny quote for you,” Thomas Tuchel says as he prepares to lead England in the World Cup semi-final against Argentina on Wednesday but peeks back at a subject that has attracted a few column inches of late. “You don’t have to be a horse to be a good jockey.”

It is a line made famous by Arrigo Sacchi in 1987 when he was appointed as the manager of Milan despite being a relative unknown and having had no professional playing career. It worked out pretty well for Sacchi, just as it has done for Tuchel, who was forced to hang up his boots as a 24-year-old after a knee injury. He played no higher than the Bundesliga 2 with Stuttgart Kickers and spent time at SSV Ulm, a semi-professional club in the third tier. “I had a mediocre career at best,” Tuchel says.