Cheddar RSS

August 1, 2025 (New York, New York) – Cheddar, the leading news and entertainment network for the next generation of innovators and tech enthusiasts, is thrilled to announce a new partnership with the National Havoc Robot League (NHRL), the largest and most thrilling robot fighting league in the world.

Starting August 2nd, Cheddar will begin airing a 3-hour weekend special packed with the most explosive, innovative, and downright ruthless battles from NHRL’s elite competitions, the latest opportunity for a national TV audience to experience the sport.

“As a streaming network rooted in tech and innovation, Cheddar is always looking for what’s next and right now, that’s sports that speak to a new generation,” said Lauren Babbage, Head of Content at Cheddar. “Robot fighting is the perfect blend of engineering, adrenaline, and creativity and it’s exactly the kind of forward-thinking competition our audience craves. Partnering with NHRL lets us enter a new arena of entertainment while staying true to our DNA.”

Headquartered in Connecticut, NHRL has built a massive, global following across its YouTube livestreams, social platforms and live events. Its audience, which is predominantly Gen Z and millennials, generates a billion organic social media views each year. Thousands of competitors from nearly every continent have gone head-to-head in NHRL’s action-packed matches with their custom-built robots. Competitions blend cutting-edge engineering with real-time strategy, keeping fans at the edge of their seats throughout the tournament.

“Partnering with Cheddar is a major step forward in positioning the sport as premium, must-watch entertainment for the streaming era,” said Kelly Biderman, CEO of Havoc Robotics. “We’re blending high-stakes competition with cinematic storytelling that puts real people, creativity and drama at the center - creating bingeable, fan-driven experiences tailor-made for the next generation. Our builders are our athletes, makers and creators who aren’t just changing the game, but shaping where technology and culture go next.”

Cheddar will begin airing the 3-hour weekend special August 2nd, featuring highlights from recent competitions and a front-row seat to the future of robotic sports. Tune in on all the streaming platforms Cheddar is available on www.cheddar.com/watch.

About Cheddar

Cheddar is the news network for the next generation of innovators, decision-makers, and trendsetters in finance, tech, and business. With smart, conversational coverage, Cheddar delivers stories about the people, ideas, and trends shaping the future.

About National Havoc Robot League (NHRL)

The National Havoc Robot League (NHRL) is the world’s largest series of robot fighting tournaments. With a mission to promote, educate, and discover the next generation of STEM leaders, the NHRL combines groundbreaking technology, off-the-wall ideas, and ingenious engineering to develop a new category of intellectual and innovative sports (iSports). Based in Norwalk, Connecticut, the NHRL currently hosts seven tournaments that gather and reward thousands of competitors and fans from around the world. The NHRL is a subsidiary of Havoc Robotics Inc. To learn more, visit https://nhrl.io.

Whether it serves as a chill escape from the onslaught of the real world or simply a way to beat vacation doldrums, a viral Roblox game about gardening has become the surprise hit of the summer.

Grow a Garden, created by a 16-year-old in a few days, has shattered records for the most concurrent players of any game in history, beating out video games that take years and millions of dollars to develop.

And there’s no one to shoot, fight or race. If your last attempt at cultivating vegetables was FarmVille in 2010, don’t worry — your tomatoes will grow even if you never water them.

Grow a Garden is as simple as its name suggests — players can fill a plot of land with plants and animals, harvest and sell, trade or steal each others’ bounty. The game is low stress, with an aesthetic reminiscent of Minecraft and a soundtrack of soothing classical tunes such as Mozart’s Rondo Alla Turca playing in the background. Its popularity has further cemented Roblox’ place not just in the gaming world but in popular culture — for better or for worse, it’s where the kids hang out.

“The word I keep hearing used over and over to describe this particular game is that it’s chill, which is just such a nice alternative. I get a lot of sort of that Animal Crossing vibe from it. You know, like you can check in, you can check your gardens, you can get some new seeds, you can plant them,” said Becky Bozdech, editorial director at the nonprofit Common Sense Media. “I have an 11-year-old son who (plays it) and he says to him the big difference is that a lot of games have a big giant objective that you have to do, but in Grow a Garden, you can just kind of hang out and do what you want.”

Coincidence or not, Grow a Garden soared to popularity around the same time that Take-Two Interactive announced it would delay the launch of its wildly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6 until next year. In late June, the gardening game logged 21.6 million concurrent players, surpassing Fortnite’s previous record of 15.2 million according to Roblox. Analysts who follow Roblox’s stock say Grow a Garden is helping boost the company’s revenue and will push the company’s quarterly earnings numbers above Wall Street’s expectations.

While it’s not clear if the GTA audience flocked to this simple gardening game to pass the time until then, the timing reignited the age-old debate about who gamers are and what titles are taken seriously by the video game establishment. It happened with Candy Crush, with puzzle games, with Animal Crossing. Are people who play cozy games true gamers? Or is the title reserved for the folks who shoot enemies in Call of Duty or drive around creating mayhem in GTA?

“There’s a huge percentage of gamers that play Roblox and the actual industry just views it as like this esoterically immature platform of weird gameplay habits,” said Janzen Madsen, the New Zealand-based CEO and founder of Splitting Point studios, which acquired the game from its teenage creator. “Well, I actually think in five years this is what player expectation is gonna be. And because you guys haven’t embraced it, like you’re not gonna know how to make games.”

To start growing your garden, you’ll need a Roblox account. The game will start you out with an empty plot and some money — sheckles — and a starter seed. From there, you can plant seeds, harvest and sell your crops and buy more seeds, animals or tools for your garden. While it is possible to play the game without spending real-world money, it will take longer. Once you sell enough crops, you earn money to buy more expensive seeds beyond basic carrots and blueberries.

“For me, I just, I really want to get all the rarest stuff. I’m a completionist, so I want everything and that’s what’s fun for me,” said Leah Ashe, a YouTuber who plays Grow a Garden and other popular games to an audience of 5.3 million. “It’s really cool because you can come together because the seed shop is global, so everybody’s shop is the exact same. So you can work with other people and be like, ‘Oh my gosh, the sugar apple is in stock. Get online!’ The seed shop updates every five minutes, so there’s always something pulling you back into the game.”

For Roblox, which has faced a backlash for not doing enough to protect kids on its gaming service, Grow a Garden has served as something of a reprieve — along with new safety measures such as chat restrictions and privacy tools.

New players get help from more established peers who send them gifts and let them know when rare seeds become available in the seed shop.

Bozdech said that “if you have the right supervision and guidance,” Roblox can be a positive experience for kids, allowing them to create their own designs or practice coding, for instance.

“Something like Grow a Garden, particularly, is a nice opportunity maybe for parents and kids to play together,” she said.

And perhaps the slow cultivating of a magical garden can benefit parents too.

“It’s hitting a nerve, you know?” Bozdech said. “People need an escape from the world, I think we all do.”

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stock indexes are drifting on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve decided to keep interest rates where they are, a move that could upset President Donald Trump but was one that Wall Street was widely expecting.

The S&P 500 was edging up by 0.2% in afternoon trading, coming off its first loss after setting all-time highs for six successive days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 25 points, or 0.1%, as of 2:05 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was adding 0.4%.

In the bond market, Treasury yields gave back some of their gains from the morning, when a report suggested the U.S. economy’s growth was much stronger during the spring than economists expected. It grew at a 3% annual rate, according to an advance estimate, a full percentage point more than forecast. But underlying trends beneath the surface may be more discouraging.

“Cutting through the noise of the swings in imports, the economy is still chugging along, but it is showing signs of sputtering,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist at Annex Wealth Management.

The data reinforced the dilemma facing Fed officials as they voted Wednesday on what to do with interest rates. They could have lowered rates, which would give a boost to the economy as Trump has so been angrily calling for. But lower rates could also give inflation more fuel when Trump’s tariffs may be set to increase prices for U.S. households.

Trump on Wednesday announced a 25% tariff on imports coming from India, along with an additional tax because of India’s purchases of Russian oil, beginning on Aug. 1. That’s when stiff tariffs Trump has proposed for many other countries are also scheduled to kick in, unless they reach trade deals that lower the rates.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell has been insisting that he wants to see more data about how tariffs are affecting inflation and the economy before the central bank makes its next move, and he will speak shortly to offer more details about the decision.

Two officials on the Fed’s committee did dissent in Wednesday’s vote, an indication that Powell may face increasing pressure to cut rates soon. Much of Wall Street expects the Fed to resume lowering rates in September. It’s been on hold this year after cutting rates several times late last year.

The yield on the two-year U.S. Treasury note edged up to 3.87% from 3.86% late Tuesday. It tends to closely follow expectations for what the Fed will do with its overnight interest rate.

The 10-year Treasury, which also takes into account longer-term expectations for the economy and inflation, was holding at 4.34%.

On Wall Street, stocks were mixed as most big U.S. companies continue to report profits for the spring that were bigger than analysts expected.

Humana rose 10.3% after the insurer and health care giant reported stronger results for the spring than expected. It also raised its forecasts for profit and revenue over the full year.

Video-game maker Electronic Arts climbed 7% after likewise topping Wall Street’s expectations. The company said it saw better-than-expected contributions from EA Sports and other games, and it will reveal its new Battlefield game on Thursday.

Companies are under pressure to deliver solid profit growth. They need to in order to justify the big jumps in their stock prices during recent months, which has caused some critics to say the broad U.S. stock market looks too expensive.

Trane Technologies, whose stock came into the day with a 27.5% gain for the year so far, tumbled even though it reported a stronger-than-expected profit for the latest quarter. The heating, ventilation and air conditioning company’s revenue came up short of analysts’ estimates, as did its forecast for profit in the current quarter. It dropped 8%.

Starbucks swung between gains and losses after it reported a weaker profit than analysts expected as it tries to turn around its operations. The company is hoping to boost its performance through improved store operations and new products, including a cold foam protein drink. Its stock was most recently up 0.4%.

Palo Alto Networks fell 4.4% after saying it would buy CyberArk, an identity-security company, for $25 billion in cash and stock. CyberArk shares added 1.4%.

In stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed across Europe and Asia. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.4%, and South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.7% for two of the bigger moves.

___

AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.