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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Long-haul carrier Emirates reported on Thursday that it earned annual profits of $5.2 billion, with the state-owned firm declaring itself the world’s most profitable airline as global aviation fully returned to flight after the disruption caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The profits came as the Dubai-based carrier served 53.7 million passengers out of its hub of Dubai International Airport, compared to 51.9 million passengers in the fiscal year prior. It had aftertax profits of $4.7 billion that same period.

The overall Emirates Group, owned by Dubai’s sovereign wealth fund known as the Investment Corporation of Dubai, saw annual profits of $5.6 billion, compared to $5.1 billion the year before.

“Our excellent financial standing enables us to continue building on and scaling up from our successful business models,” said Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktom, Emirates’ chairman and chief executive.

“While some markets are jittery about trade and travel restrictions, volatility is not new in our industry,” he said. ”We simply adapt and navigate around these challenges.”

About 121,000 workers at the overall Emirates Group separately received word they’d receive a bonus worth 22 weeks of their annual salary. In 2024, they received a 20-weeks bonus.

Emirates’ financial year runs from April 1 to March 31, including revenue from both 2024 and 2025. This past fiscal year marked the first for the company to be charged with the United Arab Emirates’ new corporate tax of 9%.

The carrier had revenues of $34.9 billion, compared to $33 billion the year prior. Those revenues put it behind other private carriers, like Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines Inc., which led the industry with revenue of $61.6 billion last year.

However, Emirates’ $5.2 billion in profit put it to the front of the pack. Emirates operates hand-in-glove with Dubai International Airport, flying at all hours from a hub in a country where unions are illegal. Falling crude oil prices also aids its profits, like other airlines.

The carrier said its 260 aircraft fly to 148 locations around the world. It has long relied on the Boeing 777 and the double-decker Airbus A380, though it has also begun introducing the Airbus A350 to its schedule. It’s undertaking a multibillion-dollar retrofitting campaign for its aircraft and says it doesn’t expect its first Boeing 777-9 until 2027.

Emirates serves as a crucial link in East-West travel and is the crown jewel of what experts and diplomats refer to as “Dubai Inc.” — a series of interconnected companies overseen by the sheikhdom’s ruling Al Maktoum family. The Emirates Group accounts for around 15% of Dubai’s entire gross domestic product in 2023, and includes coffee shops, restaurants, liquor sales and other industries.

“Emirates is not just a transport company; it is a tool for economic transformation for the UAE, a strategic bridge connecting the world’s continents and a developmental carrier flying us through the skies toward the future,” wrote Dubai’s ruler, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, on the social platform X.

The Emirates’ results track with those for its base, Dubai International Airport. The world’s busiest airport for international travelers had a record 92.3 million passengers pass through its terminals in 2024.

The airport now plans to move to the city-state’s second, sprawling airfield in its southern desert reaches in the next decade in a project worth nearly $35 billion.

A real-estate boom and the city’s highest-ever tourism numbers have made Dubai a destination as well as a layover. However, the city is now grappling with increasing traffic and costs, pressuring both its Emirati citizens and the foreign residents who power its economy.

As one of seven hereditarily ruled, autocratic sheikhdoms that make up the UAE, Dubai provided Emirates with around $4 billion in a bailout at the height of the pandemic. In its report on Thursday, Emirates said that it had repaid $3.6 billion of that loan.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — The World Video Game Hall of Fame on Thursday inducted four honorees, paying tribute to games that challenged players and changed the industry.

Making up the Class of 2025 are: Defender, the 1981 arcade game that raised the bar on difficulty; Tamagotchi, the digital pets that bridged toys and video games; GoldenEye 007, whose four-person mode influenced multiplayer games that followed; and Quake, which debuted in 1996 with a 3D engine that became the new standard for the industry.

The winners emerged from a field of 12 finalists that included Age of Empires, Angry Birds, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, Frogger, Golden Tee, Harvest Moon, Mattel Football, and NBA 2K.

The Hall of Fame each year recognizes arcade, console, computer, handheld, and mobile games that have had staying power and influenced the video game industry or pop culture.

The best-selling Defender, released by Williams Electronics, proved that players would embrace complex and challenging games in the arcade, the experts said. It combined intense gameplay and a complicated control scheme with a horizontally scrolling shooter.

“Defender’s punishing gameplay raised the level of competition in arcades, and it was among the first games to truly separate dedicated players from more casual ones,” Jeremy Saucier, assistant vice president for interpretation and electronic games, said.

The 1996 launch of Tamagotchi is credited with sparking the popularity of pet simulation video games. The handheld egg-shaped electronic game allowed owners to care for a virtual pet from birth through death, feeding, playing with and cleaning up after it by pressing buttons. Collections manager Kristy Hisert said Tamagotchi offered something different than the popular video game electronics of the time.

“It provided players with feelings of connection, caring, and customization, a respite from competition and fighting games,” she said. Neopets, Nintendogs and other social media and app-based versions of pet simulation games would follow.

GoldenEye 007 was based on the 1995 James Bond spy film “GoldenEye” and was the third best-selling game for the Nintendo 64, behind Super Mario 64 and Mario Kart 64. The result of a 1997 partnership between Nintendo and Rare, the first-person shooter game was known for its four-person multiplayer mode, which Hall of Fame experts said influenced many multiplayer games that followed.

Id Software’s 1996 Quake was also recognized for its lasting influence, with a game code that “is a literal legacy” and continues to be used in some games after nearly 30 years, electronic games curator Lindsey Kurano said.

 “Of few games can it be said that its DNA — its code — continues to be present in modern games, decades after release,” she said.

The World Video Game Hall of Fame is inside The Strong National Museum of Play. Anyone can nominate a video game for consideration. Museum staff name 12 finalists each year and solicit votes from experts and fans before announcing the winners.

INDIAN WELLS, Ca. (AP) — Bill Gates is pledging 99% of his remaining fortune to the Gates Foundation, which will spend it all within 20 years. The funds will be delivered over time and will allow the foundation to spend another $200 billion by the time it closes in 2045.

“There’s still a little bit more that goes to the kids and some portion that, you know, I won’t be wanting for anything for my consumption,” Gates said. Even his climate-related investments, “all of the profits that come from that work go into the Gates Foundation.”

In interviews with The Associated Press, Gates spoke about the foundation’s past work and future goals. His responses have been edited for length.

“I hope other people wallop me. Even today, there’s probably a dozen people richer than I am, because I don’t count the money that I’ve already got in the foundation. I have just a bit over $100 billion outside of the foundation. I’d love to be beat in all of this work. Somebody should try and pay more taxes than I did, and save more lives than I did, and give more money than I did, and be smarter than I’ve been.”

“I think 20 years is the right balance between giving as much as we can to make progress on these things and giving people a lot of notice that now this money will be gone. It will be spent. Hopefully, many of these diseases are eradicated, so nobody even knows, ‘What was malaria? What was polio?’ in the years ahead. You know, some foundations, if they’ve been around 50 or 60 years, who knows how their work relates to the intent of the person who started that foundation? And I do think there’ll be more rich people in the future than there are today. So yes, it will create a vacuum in 20 years, and we’re letting people know way in advance that’s what this will look like.”

“It’s by some measures the most generous gift ever given and a real vote of confidence from Warren, who’s a great friend and has always given me phenomenal advice and is very driven by these inequity issues. And that was in 2006, and so it’s two years later that I give up my full-time work at Microsoft, and I move over. And I’ve been full time at the foundation since 2008 for the rest of my life. It’s my final, second career. You know, Warren, it’s hard to overstate the impact he’s had on me.”

“That was a big hope, that the societal expectation for anybody who has a lot of money would be that they give the majority of it away, and that basically everyone would join into that. Now, we’re not at that level, but I think year by year, people are saying, ‘Hey, the fairness of this system, the legitimacy of this system really benefits if those who both through skill and luck, the system has rewarded them, that they put a lot of their resources and even, some of their time and energy into improving society.’”

“Many things now are making it less clear how much progress we’ll make in these 20 years we have remaining. The donors are being somewhat less generous as they feel squeezed by an aging population and demands for Ukraine, both refugee costs, defense costs, a lot of things. And so telling the story of the success and the moral and geopolitical value of taking 1% of rich country budgets and saying, ‘No, this is to save lives for very, very, very little money.’ We’re going to have to renew people’s understanding and prioritization of these things in order to keep that piece. We have a lot of things we’re optimistic about because we have new tools, new ways of protecting women from getting HIV, new ways of killing mosquitoes... And so it’s incredible to come up with these low-cost things and tragic if we can’t get them out to everyone who needs them. So, it’s going to require renewing that commitment of those who are well off to help those who are in the greatest need.”

“Melinda has made a phenomenal contribution to the foundation, helping us pick the right people and being in partnerships, traveling the world, bringing her perspective to things. I can’t say enough good things about how she got us off on the right track. When we divorced, we hoped — I hoped — that she would choose to stay. She stayed for a period of time, continued to do great work, and then chose to do the philanthropy on her own.”

“Our work is for saving children’s lives. So it’s true, if they have other priorities, it’s hard to influence my commitment to not having mothers bleed to death or kids not dying from malaria. To be honest, the number of civil society actors that are in here trying to influence the work we do is so tiny. It’s unbelievable. I mean, I could almost list their names on one piece of paper. Where are these people? We want more people second-guessing our work, criticizing our work. I mean, what’s their idea about malnutrition? What’s their idea on how to deal with these funding cuts? What do they want us to do?”

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The Associated Press receives financial support for news coverage in Africa from the Gates Foundation and for news coverage of women in the workforce and in statehouses from Melinda French Gates’ organization, Pivotal Ventures.

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Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration announced a trade deal with the United Kingdom Thursday in grandiose terms, but with only limited details about what it will achieve.

The agreement will open up the British market to American beef, ethanol, and other agricultural products, the White House said. It will also allow British cars and steel better access to U.S. consumers.

The pact provides some support for President Donald Trump’s arguments that his steep tariffs could lead to agreements that open up overseas markets. But economists’ initial reactions were cool, with many noting that the United Kingdom isn’t a large enough trading partner for the U.S. to really move the needle for the U.S. economy.

“It’s more symbolic than economic,” Beata Caranci, chief economist at the bank TD Economics, said in an email. “What we have learned is that these initial announcements are going to be more fine-tuning around the edges and easing of pain points, rather than an end to the trade war.”

Trump said in the Oval Office Thursday that additional details will be worked out in the “coming weeks.” But in a fact sheet the administration said the deal is “historic” and “a great deal for America.”

U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said the deal would protect thousands of auto jobs and stressed the importance of the relationship between the two countries.

The U.K. is the United States’ fourth largest export market, though has received just 4.5% of U.S. exports this year.

—The United States will maintain the 10% duty on nearly all imports from the U.K., which Trump imposed April 2. Many economists had hoped that the tariff would be dropped as part of any trade deal, but Trump suggested that the 10% universal duty was likely to be a floor in any future talks with other countries.

—The U.S. will cut its tariffs on car imports from the U.K. to 10% from 27.5%, according to the U.K. government, but only up to 100,000 cars. The U.K. exported 92,000 cars to the U.S. in 2024, which means the U.K. auto industry won’t be able to boost its shipments without paying higher duties.

—U.K. steel exports will enter the U.S. duty-free, rather than face the 25% tariff the White House has placed on imported steel.

—The two countries have agreed to greater market access for each other’s beef, with both nations able to export 13,000 metric tons of beef to each others’ countries.

—The U.K. will eliminate its tariff on ethanol from the U.S., up to 1.4 billion liters.

—The U.S. will lift all duties on airplane engines and other aerospace parts from the U.K.’s Rolls Royce. In return, a U.K. airline will soon announce the purchase of $10 billion in planes from Boeing.

—The U.K. will reduce its average tariff on U.S. goods to 1.8%, which would amount to a $200 million cut in duties, the British government said. The U.K. will also lower import taxes on about 2,500 U.S. products including olive oil, wine and sports equipment.

—The U.K. will “reduce or eliminate” non-tariff barriers to U.S. exports, the White House said, though it did not provide details. The agreement creates opportunities for $5 billion in new exports of U.S. agricultural and other goods, according to the administration’s fact sheet.

—The agreement does not provide U.S. companies any additional access to the U.K.’s government-run national health service.

—There also aren’t any changes on the U.K.’s digital services tax, which hits U.S. tech giants such as Amazon, Alphabet’s Google, and Facebook parent Meta. Trump has strongly criticized the tax. The U.K. government said, however, that the two nations have agreed to negotiate on a digital trade deal.

—Trump said the deal did not exempt the U.K. from the 100% tariffs on foreign-made films he has proposed.

—Negotiations are still ongoing in areas such as pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, critical minerals, copper and lumber, a British trade official said.