Saudi Arabia saw its strongest start to a year for foreign direct investment since 2022, in an early signal the kingdom is gaining some traction in its push to attract overseas capital to support its economic ambitions.
FDI inflows amounted to $6.4 billion in the first quarter, according to preliminary data released on Sunday by the General Authority for Statistics. That’s up 24% from a year earlier and down only slightly from the prior quarter, when inflows reached a one-year high.
Hitting the road this summer won’t bring as big of a hit to your wallet.
The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline, $3.21, is about 23 cents cheaper than this time last year, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Analysts say plentiful supply is expected to keep prices down in the coming months even with turmoil in the Middle East.
Oil prices on Tuesday were lower than before Israel and Iran’s conflict began.
Reduced prices would be a boon for consumers during the warmer months when Americans drive more. Low energy prices so far this year have already contributed to the economy’s resilience and helped keep inflation in check.
Oil prices tumbled Monday after Iran targeted a U.S. military base in Qatar for retaliatory strikes, with traders interpreting the move as a sign that strikes might spare energy infrastructure and oil tankers. The $5.53-a-barrel drop in Brent crude, the international benchmark, was the largest single-day dollar decline in front-month oil futures since summer 2022.
The Brent price fell Tuesday to $67.14 a barrel after the two sides continued to exchange fire despite a U.S.-brokered cease-fire. Later in the day, there were signs the cease-fire might be holding.
Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, expects gasoline prices to fall in the coming days and hold between $3 and $3.20 for the summer, assuming Israel’s conflict with Iran doesn’t re-escalate. Even if the conflict were to reignite or worsen, De Haan said prices likely wouldn’t rise more than 15 cents a gallon.
“I don’t have enough in front of me to believe that there’s going to be a paradigm shift in gas prices for the rest of the summer,” De Haan said.
That is because the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has been increasing production, and U.S. output is near records.
Analysts said a robust supply of crude oil, including some domestic production coming online, is expected to outpace demand and push prices lower later this year.
“All the information points to much cheaper gasoline by the time we get into switching the clocks back,” said Tom Kloza, chief market analyst at consulting firm Turner, Mason.
Gas prices can influence attitudes about the economy, given how often drivers encounter them at the pump and on roadside signs. Just over two-thirds of consumers said they would drive five minutes out of their way to save 5 cents a gallon on gas, according to a survey from the National Association of Convenience Stores, a trade group.
Drivers in Fort Wayne, Ind.; Tucson, Ariz.; and Marquette, Mich., are seeing some of the steepest drops in gas prices compared with a year ago, according to AAA. In Chicago, another city enjoying a big decline, a gallon of gas is 52 cents cheaper than a year ago.
Americans’ spending has largely held up this year, though surveys of consumer sentiment this spring from the University of Michigan have been dire.
Uncertainty around President Trump’s tariffs and the outlook for the labor market has led some consumers to be more cautious about their spending. The share of summer travelers planning to take a road trip rose 7 percentage points between March and April, according to Deloitte surveys. The share planning to fly domestically fell by 3 percentage points.
U.S. drivers are racking up more miles on the road again after a decline during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. They covered roughly 277.3 billion miles in April, the first time in five years that the month’s number exceeded the 273.4 billion in April 2019, according to data from the Federal Highway Administration.
Still, the federal government projects demand for gasoline to be slightly lower this summer than last, as the fuel efficiency of Americans’ vehicles improves.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gas-prices-down-summer-driving-120000322.html
Food businesses must make it easier for customers to buy healthy food, under new government plans announced on Sunday.
Supermarkets and food manufacturers in England will partner with the government to tackle obesity rates by encouraging people to make their weekly shop healthier.
Ministers say it will be up to food retailers to decide how they do that, but it could involve offering promotions on healthy food, tweaking loyalty points to incentivise healthy options, or changing shop layouts.
It may also involve changing products to make them healthier.
It is hoped the plans will help to make healthy eating more accessible to customers and relieve pressure on the NHS.
The policy will see major food retailers report on healthy food sales in a bid to increase accountability, but it does not impose specific targets.
The plan is part of a raft of measures aimed at improving the health of the nation that will be included in the 10-year plan for the NHS in England, which is expected to be published next week.
"Unless we curb the rising tide of cost and demand, the NHS risks becoming unsustainable," Health Secretary Wes Streeting said.
"This government's ambition for kids today is for them to be part of the healthiest generation of children ever. That is within our grasp."
The upcoming report will show that more than one in five children are living with obesity by the time they leave primary school, rising to almost one in three in the most deprived areas.
A recent report found a basket of healthy food costs more than double that of less healthy options.
The Food Foundation reported that 1,000 calories of healthy food such as fruit and veg costs £8.80, compared to £4.30 for the equivalent amount of less healthy food, such as ready meals and processed meats.
Andrew Opie of the British Retail Consortium said the news is "really positive" but said "all food businesses" must work together to drive down obesity.
"Engaging all food businesses makes a difference," Opie told the BBC.
"It can't just be about supermarkets- we consume about a quarter of our calories outside the home, so unless we get all supermarkets, food retailers, and restaurants on board, we won't move the dial on obesity."
Opie said that he agreed with the government's flexible approach on the standards, as businesses have "a lot of insights and data" into how we shop for food and what would be best for their customers.
Katharine Jenner, director of the Obesity Health Alliance said: "The government has rightly identified the root cause of obesity-related ill health: a food system that makes healthy eating difficult."
She said it was encouraging to see the government putting the spotlight on businesses "rather than placing the burden on individuals who are already struggling to get by."
Alongside the new partnership, the government said it will also:
Offer shopping vouchers to customers in return for being active and eating healthily, via a new app
Double the number of spaces on the NHS Digital Weight Management Programme, which supports obese individuals with either diabetes or high blood pressure
Introduce stricter rules on advertising alcohol to in line with current regulation on promoting junk food
It is hoped the new guidance will reduce people's sugar and calorie intake overall.
The government cited research showing that cutting just 50 calories a day would lift 340,000 children and two million adults out of obesity.
If everyone who is overweight reduced their calorie intake by just 216 calories a day, which is equivalent to a single bottle of fizzy drink, obesity would be halved, researchers said.
This is not the first time the government has sought voluntary partnerships with industry. Over the last 20 years there has been numerous food reformulation programmes aimed at reducing salt, sugar and calories in certain foods.
Success has been mixed with a push to reduce sugar in certain foods by 20% between 2015 and 2020 falling well short.
Sarah Woolnough, from The King's Fund think tank, said while welcome, the impact of the scheme may be limited.
“A lot of less healthy food and drink is purchased from local convenience shops and takeaways.
“The stark fact remains that unhealthy food is far cheaper and more readily available and so unless this change is part of a wider, comprehensive strategy it will not be enough.”
https://www.aol.com/food-retailers-pushed-healthy-options-025956875.html
Update (2335ET): Senate Republicans narrowly advanced President Trump's tax and spending package, as GOP lawmakers in both chambers are hoping to pass the legislation by the 4th of July. Now that the bill has advanced, it will be followed by a Democrat-demand to read the entire 1,000-page bill on the floor (total children) before a maximum 20 hours of debate on the legislation and a multi-hour vote-o-rama, putting it on course for final passage from Sunday into Monday.
Two Republicans voted against the bill; Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) - who opposed raising the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, and Thom Tillis (R-NC), who says the 'Big Beautiful Bill' could cost his state heavily when it comes to Medicaid funding.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) flipped his vote from "no" to "aye," while Sens. Mike Lee (UT), Rick Scott (FL) and Cynthia Lummis (WY) also voted yes.
There was drama into the home stretch... less than an hour after the vote opened up, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Lee, and Scott, hadn't made an appearance on the Senate floor. Paul and Tillis had previously announced that they would oppose the motion to proceed, and could not support the bill in its current form.
When Murkowski finally sauntered onto the floor, Thune quickly approached her along with Sens. Barrasso, Graham, and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID), who peppered her with demands - as one does when it comes to Lisa Murkowski...
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Update (1718ET): Elon Musk has weighed in on the Senate's latest iteration of President Trump's tax and spending bill, calling it "utterly insane and destructive," and that it will "destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!"
The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 28, 2025
Utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future. https://t.co/TZ9w1g7zHF
Musk also called it 'political suicide.'
Polls show that this bill is political suicide for the Republican Party pic.twitter.com/HJwKZ9g4tu
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 28, 2025
Meanwhile, Senate Republicans are marching toward an initial vote Saturday afternoon despite several GOP Senators expressing grave concerns.
Both Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Thom Tillis (North Carolina) are either "leaning against" or "no" on final passage. According to Politico, Trump "has personally reached out to Tillis to try to work him on the bill."
If at least two other Republicans join Tillis to oppose the procedural vote Saturday afternoon, Senate leadership would have to rely on Vice President JD Vance to break a tie to move forward to debate the bill. Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Tim Sheehy (R-Mont.) all have concerns that could drive them to vote against moving forward.
Johnson and Paul, who have been vocally opposed to the bill because of its impact on the national debt, met with the president on Saturday shortly before the vote, according to Lee.
According to Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), "We won’t bring it to the floor if we don’t have the votes," adding "I think it’d be better to have the vice president close. I don’t know if we’re going to need him."
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Senate Republicans unveiled a revised version of President Trump’s $4.2 trillion tax package early Saturday morning, making targeted concessions on state tax deductions, Medicaid policy, and renewable energy provisions in an effort to unite their caucus ahead of a July 4 deadline set by the White House.
The updated draft reflects compromises among Senate GOP factions that have sparred for weeks over how aggressively to cut social safety net programs and whether to roll back clean energy incentives enacted under the Biden administration. The legislation, if passed, would serve as the centerpiece of Mr. Trump’s second-term economic agenda.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune announced that voting on the bill would begin Saturday afternoon, with a final vote potentially coming as soon as Sunday. If it does pass the Senate, Republican leaders have indicated they will call House members back to Washington early next week in hopes of sending the legislation to the president’s desk before Independence Day.
However, it remains uncertain whether all 50 Republican senators are prepared to back the measure. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said Saturday on Fox News that he would oppose beginning debate on the bill immediately, citing the need for more time. “This is an important bill,” Johnson said. “There’s no need to rush it.”
To address concerns from House Republicans representing high-tax states, the new draft raises the cap on the state and local tax (SALT) deduction from $10,000 to $40,000 for five years. The cap would snap back to its original level thereafter, with a modest 1% annual increase during the interim period. The deduction would begin phasing out for taxpayers earning more than $500,000 annually.
A House provision aimed at curbing SALT workarounds used by pass-through businesses was stripped from the text. While fiscal conservatives have criticized the SALT compromise as overly generous, the deal is expected to secure the support of swing-district Republicans and has been endorsed by the White House.
Senate Republicans also removed a controversial Section 899 “revenge tax” on foreign companies and investors following concerns from Wall Street and a request from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
The legislation makes permanent the individual and corporate tax cuts first enacted in 2017 and introduces new temporary breaks for tipped workers, seniors, and car buyers. In a nod to moderate Republicans, the revised bill creates a $25 billion rural hospital fund intended to mitigate the effects of Medicaid spending reductions that critics warn could threaten services in underserved areas.
Senator Susan Collins of Maine had pressed for a $100 billion allocation but has not yet commented on whether the smaller fund will earn her support.
The new version delays the full impact of a 3.5% cap on state Medicaid provider taxes from 2031 to 2032. The cap, which would begin phasing in by 2028, applies only to states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. Additionally, the bill imposes new work requirements for Medicaid recipients and would require ACA-expansion beneficiaries to contribute to their care through co-pays or deductibles.
Republicans accelerated the phaseout of tax credits for wind and solar energy projects, now requiring such projects to be fully operational by the end of 2027 to qualify. That change, reportedly supported by Mr. Trump, could impact companies like NextEra Energy, the nation’s largest renewable developer.
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer criticized the change, warning on social media that the rollback would “jack up your electric bills and jeopardize hundreds of thousands of jobs.”
The bill also ends the $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit sooner than earlier versions proposed, cutting it off after September 30, 2025, including for used and commercial EVs.
A separate provision reinstated in the draft would authorize the sale of up to 1.2 million acres of federal land across 11 western states for housing and community development, a measure pushed by Senator Mike Lee of Utah. The plan could raise up to $6 billion but faces resistance from GOP senators in affected states.
Tax credits for hydrogen production, originally slated to end this year, would now continue through 2028 for projects started by then.
The legislation includes steep cuts to funding for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and federal food assistance programs, while increasing allocations for the U.S.-Mexico border wall. It preserves $15 million in funding for a task force to study alternatives to the IRS Direct File program, though it drops language that would have terminated the free filing service entirely — a defeat for tax software providers like Intuit.
A proposed tax on money transfers by non-citizens was scaled back from 3.5% to 1%, a win for companies like Western Union and MoneyGram.
Finally, the bill would raise the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, a move intended to avert a potential federal default projected for as early as August.
With internal GOP divisions still simmering, the path to final passage remains uncertain. Yet with Independence Day looming, Senate Republicans are betting that the new concessions will be enough to unify their ranks — and deliver a long-sought legislative victory for the president.
By Krit Chanwong and Dominik Lett
For years, states have used creative financing schemes to game the Medicaid system, effectively laundering billions in federal dollars with little transparency or accountability. Even the Government Accountability Office (GAO), tasked with auditing how federal programs spend taxpayer dollars, can’t keep track of the full costs of these schemes.
Finally, Congress is considering cracking down on these financing gimmicks in its 2025 reconciliation bill. Curbs on payment abuses are long overdue and would mark a meaningful step toward restoring a modicum of fiscal responsibility to one of the federal government’s fastest-growing entitlement programs.
What Are These Financing Gimmicks?
States and the federal government jointly fund Medicaid. States set total Medicaid spending. The federal government then reimburses a percentage of this total. Theoretically, states that want to spend more money on Medicaid would be paying for that with higher taxes. Financing gimmicks, however, allow states to spend more money on Medicaid without tax increases. There are three basic types:
Watch the video below from the Paragon Health Institute explaining how the provider tax scheme works.
What Do These Financing Gimmicks Fund?
States use financing gimmicks to increase Medicaid spending without raising state taxes. Figure 2 plots federal revenues from financing gimmicks as a percentage of federal Medicaid funds, total Medicaid funds, and total state spending. In 2022, one out of every five dollars spent on Medicaid was drawn down by states through financing gimmicks.
Some states actually depend on financing gimmicks to reduce their state-incurred deficits. For example, California plans to use $1.3 billion of financing gimmick revenues to close the state’s $12 billion deficit in fiscal year 2025–2026. Medicaid providers also benefit from financing gimmicks. According to a 2021 GAO report, states used 73 percent of non-federal financing gimmick revenue to increase Medicaid payment rates in 2018. Providers received the remaining 27 percent in the form of ‘supplemental payments,’ which the GAO defines as “lump sum payments made to providers that are not tied to a specific individual’s care.”
In theory, supplemental payments are supposed to subsidize hospitals that lose money due to Medicaid’s low payment rates. In reality, supplemental payments usually subsidize large, profitable health systems. For example, Brian Blase and Niklas Kleinworth, in a 2024 report on Medicaid financing gimmicks, detail how New Mexico, Nevada, and North Carolina used Medicaid supplemental payments to subsidize large, profitable healthcare corporations.
Why Are These Taxes Harmful?
Financing gimmicks encourage overspending, driving up federal deficits. When the Medicaid program started, the financing burden was shared roughly equally between states and the federal government. Today, partly because of increased utilization of financing gimmicks, states cover just a quarter of the program’s spending. States lose incentives to spend wisely when they bear a smaller burden for financing Medicaid. Future federal taxpayers end up shouldering the costs of fiscal irresponsibility.
Over the last decade, Medicaid has been the fastest-growing major federal non-interest spending program, increasing in real terms from $492 billion in 2016 to $656 billion in 2025. This increased spending adds to the national debt and worsens the US fiscal outlook. Higher debt levels slow economic growth, reduce incomes, drive up inflation, push interest rates higher, and ultimately risk a catastrophic fiscal crisis.
There is also some evidence that these financing gimmicks lower healthcare accessibility. In 2024, health analysts Ann Kempski and Ge Bai found that North Carolina’s provider taxes would push Medicaid inpatient payment for hospitals to 226 percent of Medicare rates. North Carolina’s payment policies, Kempski and Bai argue, tilt “the competitive playing field to hospitals, promoting hospital-centric consolidation and eliminating competing care alternatives for patients and payers.” As such, there seems to be a very good case that Medicaid financing gimmicks can prevent ordinary Americans from accessing healthcare.
What Should Be Done?
Medicaid financing gimmicks are made possible by the federal government’s offer to match all state spending. Without federal matching, states would simply have to raise taxes to pay for more Medicaid spending. As such, the only way to definitively end all Medicaid financing gimmicks is to block-grant Medicaid. Short of this, however, Congress still has some options to rein in the most egregious Medicaid offenses.
For one, Congress should limit or eliminate the so-called “safe-harbor” threshold. Before 1991, states could effectively guarantee hospitals that they would eventually profit from a Medicaid provider tax. These guarantees made it much easier for states to enter into agreements with providers governing those schemes. However, after 1991, Congress banned such guarantees for taxes that were worth more than six percent of net patient revenue for a given provider class. Eliminating, or even reducing, this threshold would make it harder for states to use financing gimmicks.
Moreover, Congress should eliminate all supplemental payment programs. As noted above, Medicaid supplemental payments have been used as a cash cow by large, profitable healthcare corporations. Eliminating all supplemental payments would thus reduce billions of dollars in wasteful spending.
Don’t Miss a Golden Opportunity
As part of the 2025 reconciliation package, legislators are considering several reforms to the Medicaid program, including gradually scaling back provider taxes and placing limits on supplemental payments. These are promising first steps and represent a very modest course correction to a program fraught with overspending and waste.
If states want to continue spending on Medicaid at the current pace, they should do so honestly and transparently, not through budget gimmicks and shady financing schemes. Sunsetting provider taxes entirely, abolishing untethered supplemental payments, and ultimately converting Medicaid into a block grant program would curb waste and reduce the deficit.
Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo pressed President Donald Trump on whether hundreds of pounds of enriched uranium were removed and hidden prior to Trump’s Iran airstrikes.
Fallout from the airstrikes on Iran dominated the news this week, as the president and his administration continually complained about the coverage and the leaks casting doubt on his assertion that the strikes “completely obiterated” their nuclear program.
But another issue Trump has pushed back on is the stockpile of 60 percent enriched uranium that may have been removed — which Fox News anchor Bret Baier straight-up asked Vice President JD Vance about without success this week. Trump has insisted that photos potentially showing that removal are actually of Iranians evacuating the sites.
this week’s edition of Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures,
MARIA BARTIROMO Do you think that the Iranian regime hid some of the enriched uranium before the strikes?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP No, you mean did they take it out of the deep one?
BARTIROMO Because you were pretty clear, you can’t have a weapon, you’re gonna have to come to the talk, something’s gonna happen.
TRUMP I don’t think they did. No, I think, first of all, it’s very hard to do. It’s very dangerous to do, it is very heavy, very, very heavy. It’s a very hard thing to do plus we didn’t give much notice because they didn’t know we were coming until just, you know, then. And nobody thought we’d go after that site because everybody said that site is impenetrable.
BARTIROMO Because I saw reports that there were 400 kilograms, 800 pounds that they moved, but I wonder if it’s traceable. I mean, if they were to have moved something,
TRUMP They didn’t move anything.
BARTIROMO They didn’t move anything.
TRUMP You know, they moved themselves, they were all trying to live, they didn’t move anything.
