| I often see the same variation of this joke on my social feeds: “Ever since I turned 20, someone is always in Japan or Italy. Is it like this forever?” At this point, FOMO isn’t so much an emotion but a constant state of being. There’s no escaping it. Someone is always doing something cooler than you. Case in point? I just spent three minutes scrolling through my Instagram feed and found: someone drinking wine in Èze, France with her husband, someone on an undisclosed cliffside beach in Italy with their family and someone getting a basket of tropical fruit delivered to a treehouse hotel room in Thailand. Although social media is partly to blame, Kristen Bellstrom says “aspirational” luxury travelers — the people splurging on fancy vacations who spam your timeline — are actually traveling more. “According to McKinsey, the aspirational set, defined as those with between $100,000 and $1 million in net worth, now accounts for 35% of the global luxury travel market. In 2023, they spent $84 billion on high-end vacations, a figure expected to grow to $107 billion by 2028. That purchasing power has helped turn luxury travel from a glamorous niche into a major profit center, sparking a race among airlines, hotels, cruise lines, tour companies and the rest to cater to and capture this market segment,” she writes. “But what happens when economic uncertainty suddenly brings aspirations back down to earth?” she asks. Read her column to find out. Bonus Travel Reading: Air travel was finally recovering from the pandemic but now faces supply chain upheaval just as Boeing and Airbus seek to increase production. — Thomas Black Here’s an astounding fact from Patricia Lopez: “42 million people rely on SNAP’s modest benefits to feed themselves and their children — 1 in every 8 Americans.” If Republican budget cuts go through, 4 million people — kids, old folks, veterans — would be going to bed hungry. “In this bill, MAHA appears to stand for Make America Hungry Again,” she writes. Elsewhere in increasingly unaffordable basic human necessities, you have my Con-Ed bill from May. I’ll spare you the details, but boy was it UGLY. Ever since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Matthew Yglesias says grid prices in the US have skyrocketed and they don’t appear to be getting any better. “To address rising consumer prices, America needs to generate more electricity. The budget bill currently being debated in the Senate would have the opposite effect,” he writes. Because why would the government help feed people and keep the lights on!? Ugh. America’s brain drain could be Britain’s gain. — Bloomberg editorial board Warner Bros. Discovery’s split puts bondholders in a bind. — Chris Hughes The Supreme Court just handed DOGE the keys to the kingdom. — Noah Feldman CEOs don’t realize their haters make them better leaders. — Beth Kowitt The US has plenty of rare earths, but not for long. — David Fickling Canada couldn’t build a pipeline. The “51st state” just might. — Liam Denning The fate of the Japanese government might rest on “vintage” rice. — Gearoid Reidy Banning burqas is the wrong move for the UK. — Rosa Prince Does a Michelada without the beer still taste as sweet? — Howard Chua-Eoan West Coast ports are feeling the pain of Trump’s tariff theater. — Erika D. Smith NIH scientists are in rebel mode. China’s chokehold on samarium. Big Bleach is thrilled by RFK Jr. Guava girls are taking over. The M&M shot isn’t a secret. Cole Escola went full Cinderella. Good news on beech leaf disease. | 
