A news recap? In this economy?

They’re not the title characters of a movie I’ve never watched. Rather, they’re a group of seven huge tech companies: Alphabet, Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Meta, Amazon and Nvidia. You know the S&P 500, the stock market index made up of the 500 largest companies in the U.S.? They make up a whopping one-fourth of all S&P 500 earnings.

There’s been a wave of recent news coverage about concerns over just how much sway the Mag-7 has over the stock market.

These seven companies have gotten richer and more powerful. Meanwhile, rent prices have risen and wages have stagnated.

Today I learned that financial news is extremely heavily paywalled. The more you know!

A new survey from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania shows that business leaders are leaning hard into AI. More and more companies are talking about AI in their SEC filings — including more than 400 major companies that say the technology could pose a reputational risk.

Some financial institutions are sounding alarms that AI is a bubble. Tbh I have no idea what “bubble” means in this context at the time of writing this sentence except that I expect to be poorer if one pops, so let’s walk through it together.

Investopedia says an economic bubble is when stock prices grow beyond a company’s value. Kinda like if I try to sell you a tattered mass-produced comic book for the price of a pristine super rare issue, I guess?

So, is there an AI bubble? Some financial institutions like Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley don’t think “bubble” is quite the right descriptor — they point to how even though Big Tech is spending a lot on AI, they are also earning a lot. But another report warns that to justify all this investment, companies need to make $2 trillion in the next five years.

President Donald Trump Truthed a social raising the idea of 50-year mortgages, which his housing director later echoed.

The administration’s logic? A longer mortgage would mean lower monthly payments, with the goal of helping more people afford to take out mortgages on homes.

The reality, according to housing policy experts? A longer mortgage also means a longer time period for interest to accrue, so the final amount you’d pay to actually own your home would be significantly more over a 50-year span as opposed to a 30-year span. Also, your monthly payment probably wouldn’t even go down by much.

Do you guys ever think about dy*ng? You should if you take out a 50-year mortgage. The typical first-time homeowner is 40 years old, and you’d be 90 when you pay off your mortgage — if you live 12 years past the current U.S. life expectancy.

The House of Representatives voted last night to pass budget legislation and end the government shutdown. So, how does one pass the federal budget?

Congress is supposed to do it by October 1, but it’s only actually met that deadline four times since the federal government established the modern budget process in 1974.

To pass the budget, the House and the Senate have to debate and pass 12 appropriations bills, which the president then signs.

But what if the House and Senate want to avoid or end a government shutdown before they can agree on all 12 appropriations bills? They pass temporary budget legislation, like the House did last night.

This video is part of Dave’s partnership with Free the Facts, a nonpartisan, non-profit organization that empowers young Americans to learn and lead.

Democrats’ mentions of climate has declined over the past three years, according to an analysis by The Washington Post. The issue goes beyond U.S. Democrats’ rhetoric. Late last month, the U.N. warned that climate pledges from countries around the world imply only a 10 percent cut in carbon emissions by 2035.

A U.N. official recently warned that “a temporary overshoot above 1.5 degrees Celsius is now inevitable.” The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement established a goal of limiting the long-term global average surface temperature increase to that threshhold in order to avoid more people experiencing extreme heat, food insecurity, higher sea levels and more.

But we’re not doomed. That same U.N. official said the overshoot above 1.5 degrees Celsius could be “small and as short as possible by fighting back, by holding leaders to account and by demanding action.” He specifically called for world leaders to commit to reaching net zero emissions, phasing out fossil fuels, and protecting the people most impacted by climate change.

Advancements in climate science may also help. For instance, carbon capture captures carbon (new tongue twister just dropped) before it’s released into the air. This year marked the first time that growth in solar and wind power generation around the world outpaced the demand for electricity. Those renewable energy sources are also becoming cheaper than fossil fuel-powered electricity.

Covering climate in ways that really resonate with audiences feels like a really tall order sometimes. How’d we do? Reply with your feedback.