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Hayley Berg, Hopper’s lead economist, previews soaring summer 2025 travel: record international flights, cheaper fares for Europe & Asia, plus booking hacks.

Apple and Warner Bros.’ F1: The Movie’ took the top spot at this past weekend’s U.S. box office, grossing approximately $55.6 million in domestic ticket sales.

Nasdaq outpaced the NYSE in the first half of 2025, raising $21.3 billion through IPOs compared to $8.7 billion on the NYSE.

Joby Aviation recently completed its first piloted electric vertical take‑off and landing test flights in Dubai.

Mark Zuckerberg has announced the creation of Meta Superintelligence Labs, a centralized A.I. division overseeing applied research and product strategy.

Elon Musk’s A.I. company xAI secured a total of $10 billion in funding.

Tesla shares dropped 6% after President Trump suggested on Truth Social that DOGE should review the vast government subsidies received by Elon Musk’s companies.

NerdWallet Senior Economist Liz Renter shares what she's tracking in economic data, with a focus on U.S. household debt and rising credit card balances. Watch!

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are inching closer to getting their tax and spending cut bill through Congress with a final Senate vote likely late Monday or early Tuesday.

At some 940-pages, the legislation is a sprawling collection of tax breaks, spending cuts and other Republican priorities, including new money for national defense and deportations. President Donald Trump has admonished Republicans, who hold majority power in the House and Senate, to skip their holiday vacations and deliver the bill by the Fourth of July.

Democrats are united against the legislation and were offering scores of amendments to alter it Monday as the Senate slogged through what is known as a vote-a-rama. Senators can offer an unlimited number of amendments, with each receiving a vote. Once the bill clears the Senate, it would have to pass the House before Trump can sign it into law.

Here’s the latest on what’s in the bill. There could be changes as GOP lawmakers continue to negotiate.

Tax cuts are the priority

Republicans say the bill is crucial because there would be a massive tax increase after December when tax breaks from Trump’s first term expire. The legislation contains about $4.5 trillion in tax cuts.

The existing tax rates and brackets would become permanent under the bill. It temporarily would add new tax breaks that Trump campaigned on: no taxes on tips, overtime pay, the ability to deduct interest payments for some automotive loans, along with a $6,000 deduction for older adults who earn no more than $75,000 a year.

It would boost the $2,000 child tax credit to $2,200. Millions of families at lower income levels would not get the full credit.

A cap on state and local deductions, called SALT, would quadruple to $40,000 for five years. It’s a provision important to New York and other high tax states, though the House wanted it to last for 10 years.

There are scores of business-related tax cuts, including allowing businesses to immediately write off 100% of the cost of equipment and research.

The wealthiest households would see a $12,000 increase from the legislation, which would cost the poorest people $1,600 a year, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office analysis of the House’s version.

Middle-income taxpayers would see a tax break of $500 to $1,500, the CBO said.

Money for deportations, a border wall and the Golden Dome

The bill would provide some $350 billion for Trump’s border and national security agenda, including $46 billion for the U.S.-Mexico border wall and $45 billion for 100,000 migrant detention facility beds, as he aims to fulfill his promise of the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history.

Money would go for hiring 10,000 new Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, with $10,000 signing bonuses and a surge of Border Patrol officers, as well. The goal is to deport some 1 million people per year.

The homeland security secretary would have a new $10 billion fund for grants for states that help with federal immigration enforcement and deportation actions.

To help pay for it, immigrants would face various new fees, including when seeking asylum protections.

For the Pentagon, the bill would provide billions for ship building, munitions systems, and quality of life measures for servicemen and women, as well as $25 billion for the development of the Golden Dome missile defense system. The Defense Department would have $1 billion for border security.

How to pay for it? Cuts to Medicaid and other programs

To help partly offset the lost tax revenue and new spending, Republicans aim to cut back on Medicaid and food assistance for the poor.

Republicans argue they are trying to rightsize the safety net programs for the population they were initially designed to serve, mainly pregnant women, the disabled and children, and root out what they describe as waste, fraud and abuse.

The package includes new 80-hour-a-month work requirements for many adults receiving Medicaid and food stamps, including older people up to age 65. Parents of children 14 and older would have to meet the program’s work requirements.

There’s also a proposed new $35 co-payment that can be charged to patients using Medicaid services.

More than 71 million people rely on Medicaid, which expanded under Obama’s Affordable Care Act, and 40 million use the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program. Most already work, according to analysts.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 11.8 million more Americans would become uninsured by 2034 if the bill became law and 3 million more would not qualify for food stamps.

The Senate proposes a $25 billion Rural Hospital Transformation Program to help offset reduced Medicaid dollars. It’s a new addition, intended to win over holdout GOP senators and a coalition of House Republicans warning that the proposed Medicaid provider tax cuts would hurt rural hospitals.

A ‘death sentence’ for clean energy?

Republicans are proposing to dramatically roll back tax breaks designed to boost clean energy projects fueled by renewable sources such as energy and wind. The tax breaks were a central component of President Joe Biden’s 2022 landmark bill focused on addressing climate change and lowering healthcare costs.

Democratic Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden went so far as to call the GOP provisions a “death sentence for America’s wind and solar industries and an inevitable hike in utility bills.”

Under the bill, a tax credit that subsidizes the production of electricity would be eliminated for any wind and solar plant not plugged into the grid by the end of 2027. But Republicans aren’t just looking to roll back the tax breaks Biden put into place: they’re also looking to add a tax for new wind and solar projects that use a certain percentage of components from China.

A tax break for people who buy new or used electric vehicles would expire on Sept. 30 of this year, instead of at the end of 2032 under current law.

Meanwhile, a tax credit for the production of critical materials will be expanded to include metallurgical coal used in steelmaking.

Trump savings accounts and so, so much more

A number of extra provisions reflect other GOP priorities.

The House and Senate both have a new children’s savings program, called Trump Accounts, with a potential $1,000 deposit from the Treasury.

The Senate provided $40 million to establish Trump’s long-sought “National Garden of American Heroes.”

There’s a new excise tax on university endowments. A $200 tax on gun silencers and short-barreled rifles and shotguns was eliminated. One provision bars money to family planning providers, namely Planned Parenthood, while $88 million is earmarked for a pandemic response accountability committee.

Another section expands the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, a hard-fought provision from GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, for those impacted by nuclear development and testing.

Billions would go for the Artemis moon mission and for exploration to Mars.

The bill would deter states from regulating artificial intelligence by linking certain federal AI infrastructure money to maintaining a freeze. Seventeen Republican governors have asked GOP leaders to drop the provision.

Additionally, a provision would increase the nation’s debt limit, by $5 trillion, to allow continued borrowing to pay already accrued bills.

What’s the final cost?

Altogether, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the bill would increase federal deficits over the next 10 years by nearly $3.3 trillion from 2025 to 2034.

Or not, depending on how one does the math.

Senate Republicans are proposing a unique strategy of not counting the existing tax breaks as a new cost because those breaks are already “current policy.” Republican senators say the Senate Budget Committee chairman has the authority to set the baseline for the preferred approach.

Under the alternative Senate GOP view, the bill would reduce deficits by almost a half-trillion dollars over the coming decade, the CBO said.

Democrats say this is “magic math” that obscures the true costs of the tax breaks. Some nonpartisan groups worried about the country’s fiscal trajectory are siding with Democrats in that take. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says Senate Republicans are employing an “accounting gimmick that would make Enron executives blush.”

NEW YORK (AP) — Apple has its first box-office hit.

“F1 The Movie” debuted with $55.6 million in North American theaters and $144 million globally over the weekend, according to studio estimates Sunday, handing the tech company easily its biggest opening yet.

Though Apple Original Films has had some notable successes in its six years in Hollywood — including the 2021 Oscar-winner “CODA” — its theatrical results have been decidedly mixed. Misfires like “Argylle” and “Fly Me to the Moon” and big-budget awards plays like Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” and Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” have been better at driving viewers to Apple TV+ than movie theaters.

But “F1” was Apple’s first foray into summer blockbuster territory. It won a bidding war for the project from much of the production team behind the 2022 box-office smash “Top Gun: Maverick.” Apple then partnered with Warner Bros. to distributed the film starring Brad Pitt, Damson Idris and Kerry Condon.

With a production budget over $200 million, “F1” still has several laps to go to turn a profit. But for now, “F1” is full speed ahead.

“The film’s outstanding debut reflects both the excitement of Formula 1 and the deeply emotional and entertaining story crafted by the entire cast and creative team,” said Zack Van Amburg, who heads worldwide video for Apple with Jamie Erlicht. “Their dedication and innovation have fueled an unforgettable cinematic experience.”

Car racing movies have often struggled in theaters; crash-and-burn cases include Ron Howard’s “Rush” (2013) and Michael Mann’s “Ferrari” (2023). But “F1” built off the Formula 1 fandom stirred up by the popular series “Formula 1: Drive to Survive.” And it leaned on “Top Gun: Maverick” director Joseph Kosinski and producer Jerry Bruckheimer to deliver another adult-oriented action thrill ride.

As in “Top Gun: Maverick,” the filmmakers sought an adrenaline rush by placing IMAX cameras inside the cockpit in “F1.” IMAX and large-format screens accounted for 55% of in its ticket sales. IMAX, whose screens are much sought-after in the summer, has carved out a three-week run for the movie.

Warner Bros. expected “F1” to perform well overseas, where the sport is more popular than it is in the U.S. Jeffrey Goldstein, distribution chief for Warner Bros., said Pitt was the movie’s “secret sauce.” The $144 million global launch is the actor’s biggest opening weekend.

“We came up with multiple campaigns based on where you are in the world,” said Goldstein. “We planned for an audience-winner: screen the movie and get it out there. People talking about this movie drove this movie.”

Reviews have been very good for “F1” and audience reaction (an “A” via CinemaScore) was even better. That suggests “F1” could hold up well in the coming weeks despite some formidable coming competition in Universal Pictures’ “Jurassic World Rebirth.”

Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst for data firm Comscore, praised Warner Bros. for making “F1” a theatrical event. The studio was also behind the year’s other big original release, “Sinners.”

“For Apple, this demonstrates to them the prestige factor of having a big theatrical release,” said Dergarabedian. “It elevates their brand.”

Universal’s “M3gan 2.0” had been expected to pose a greater challenge to “F1.” Instead, the robot doll sequel didn’t come close to matching the 2022 original’s box-office launch.

“M3gan 2.0” collected $10.2 million in 3,112 theaters. Memes and viral videos helped propel the first “M3gan” to a $30.4 million opening and a total haul of $180 million, all on a $12 million budget.

Still, the Blumhouse Productions horror thriller could wind up profitable. The film, written and directed by Gerald Johnstone, cost a modest $25 million to make. A spinoff titled “Soulm8te” is scheduled for release next year.

M3gan 2.0” ended up in fourth place. The box-office leader of the last two weekends, “How to Train Your Dragon,” slid to second with $19.4 million. The DreamWorks Animation live-action hit from Universal Pictures has surpassed $200 million domestically in three weeks.

After a debut that marked a new low for Pixar, the studio’s “Elio” gathered up $10.7 million in sales in its second weekend. That gives the Walt Disney Co. release a disappointing two-week start of $42.2 million.

Top 10 movies by domestic box office

With final domestic figures being released Monday, this list factors in the estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore:

1. “F1 The Movie,” $55 million.

2. “How to Train Your Dragon,” $19.4 million.

3. “Elio,” $10.7 million.

4. “M3gan 2.0,” $10.2 million.

5. “28 Years Later,” $9.7 million.

6. “Lilo & Stitch,” $6.9 million.

7. “Mission: Impossible — Final Reckoning,” $4.2 million.

8. “Materialists,” $3 million.

9. “Ballerina,” $2.1 million.

10. “Karate Kid: Legends,” $1 million.