• Apple is reportedly interested in the broadcast rights to F1. This follows the success of the company’s F1: The Movie. ESPN currently holds the rights and could retain them, but did not make a deal during an exclusive negotiating period with the league.

As F1: The Movie continues to roar through the box office, Apple could be turning its attention to the F1: The Sport.

The Financial Times reports Apple is in talks to steal away the streaming rights for F1 events from Disney following the success of the company’s first box-office smash. ESPN currently broadcasts F1 races, but its contract is set to expire next year.

Should it succeed, it will be the latest of a growing string of live-sports coups for Apple. The company began airing games from Major League Baseball in 2022 and has a deeper deal with Major League Soccer as well.

F1’s broadcast deal was expected to be worth $121 million per year when it came up for renewal, Citi estimated. However, with the success of F1: The Movie, which has brought in $300 million at the global box office so far, that number could be revised upward. (When it signed the deal with ESPN, the rights went for $85 million per year.)

ESPN could have locked up F1 prior to this, as it had an exclusive period to negotiate a deal. Nothing was struck, though, which opened the rights up to competition. Viewership of F1 events has doubled on ESPN since 2018.

F1 has expanded its footprint in the U.S. lately, with an annual race in Las Vegas along the strip and another high-profile event in Miami. In addition to airing on ESPN, the league offers a stream of races, which charges fans directly.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Mario Renzi - Formula 1 / Formula 1—Getty Images

• Kirk Tanner is departing as CEO of Wendy’s to become CEO of Hershey. He was in the role at the fast-food company for 17 months. He could earn over $17 million in his first year, which would be notably higher than outgoing CEO Michele Buck.

Goodbye, burgers. Hello, candy bars!

Kirk Tanner is leaving his role as CEO of Wendy’s to take the top spot at Hershey effective Aug. 18. He’ll replace Michele Buck, who announced her plans to retire earlier this year. (Buck will work with Tanner as a senior advisor to aid the transition.)

It’s a notable passing of the torch. Tanner laid out a playbook that was collaboration intense at Wendy’s, launching items such as the a chicken sandwich and fries topped with Takis, and a Thin Mints Frosty. That got people talking, but hasn’t sparked sales. Wendy’s cut its sales and profit outlook for 2025 in May and shares are down 30% year to date.

Still, Hershey made Tanner an offer he couldn’t refuse. His total compensation at Wendy’s last year was $17.3 million. At Hershey, he’ll make a base salary of $1.25 million and is eligible to earn a cash incentive award that’s targeted at 180% of his base salary.

Tanner will also receive a restricted stock unit award worth $7 million and a performance stock unit worth $4 million as a sign-on bonus. (Both will vest over a three-year period.) He’ll also receive another $3.4 million worth of pro rata stock.

He’ll also be eligible to receive an annual equity-based compensation award of up to $9 million—a figure determined by the company’s board.

Buck, last year, had a base salary last year of $1.4 million and annual incentive of 160% of that base. Her total compensation in 2024 after stock awards and incentives came to $11.9 million. In 2023, she earned $15.7 million.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Courtesy of Wendy's

• Amazon is reportedly asking some workers to volunteer to help with orders on Prime Day. Office workers in New York are being asked to work two-hour shifts to help pick and pack orders for Amazon Fresh. This comes as Amazon adds more robots to its fulfillment centers.

Prime Day is an all-hands-on-deck day—or, this year, a four-day event. And to follow through on its promises, the retail giant is reportedly asking some corporate workers to “volunteer” their time to assist with customer deliveries.

The Guardian reports that Amazon sent a Slack message to workers in New York office on Monday looking for “volunteers to help us out with Prime Day to deliver to customers on our biggest days yet.”

The call asked for workers to put in two-hour shifts between 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood, where Amazon operates an Amazon Fresh warehouse. Volunteers were asked to pick items, prepare delivery orders, and work to “boost morale with distribution of snacks.”

Those volunteers will still be able to take calls and meetings in conference rooms during their volunteer shift, the Guardian notes.

The call for volunteers comes as Amazon closes in on having more robots than humans at its fulfillment facilities. At the end of last month, Amazon said it had deployed nearly 1 million robots in workplaces, helping select and pack items for shipment. Some 75% of all global deliveries are now assisted in some way by robots, the company said.

Amazon Fresh, though, is a bit of an outlier. The grocery delivery division has struggled to make a profit in recent years and has seen hundreds of workers laid off since 2022.

Amazon did not immediately reply to Fortune’s request for comment about the Guardian story, but a spokesperson told the paper: “This support is entirely optional, and it allows corporate employees to get closer to customers while enabling our store teams to focus on the work that’s most impactful.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

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• McDonald’s is introducing three spicy versions of the McMuffin. The limited-time menu items are part of a celebration of 50 years of the McMuffin – and come after other fast ood chains have embraced spicy menu items. Also on the way is a double burger.

Breakfast is getting spicier at Micky D’s.

McDonald’s has announced three new limited-time breakfast menu items that kick up the heat: a Spicy McMuffin, Spicy Sausage McMuffin, and a Spicy Sausage McMuffin with Egg. Each will feature the usual ingredients for the long-time fast food breakfast option, but they’ll also come with a Spicy Pepper Sauce.

The sandwiches went on sale Tuesday at participating restaurants.

The spicy take on breakfast comes as McDonald’s celebrates 50 years of the McMuffin, which launched in 1975. Herb Peterson, a McDonald’s franchisee in Santa Barbara, Calif., is credited with coming up with the breakfast sandwich idea, though he positioned it initially as a to-go version of Eggs Benedict.

Spicy foods are … well, hot right now. Last month, Taco Bell announced a partnership with Mike’s Hot Honey for a limited-time dipping sauce. Wendy’s introduced a Cajun Crunch Chicken Sandwich in April and Chick-fil-A brought back its Spicy Deluxe sandwich at the start of the year.

McDonald’s, meanwhile, been on a mission to lure back customers whose allegiance to the brand has fallen in the past couple of years.

Beyond the spicy breakfast menu items, the company will also introduce new meal deal options on July 22, introducing the Daily Double, a burger with two beef patties, a slice of American cheese plus shredded lettuce, slivered onions, mayo, and two tomato slices. That burger is already available in some test markets today.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Courtesy McDonald's

• Elon Musk slammed the dollar on social media, calling it and other fiat money “hopeless.” His America Party will embrace crypto, he says. That could set up another area of contention with Donald Trump, who was his political ally for many months before and after the November election.

Elon Musk wants his political third party to stand apart from the establishment—and he’s leaning into cryptocurrency to do so.

Replying to a tweet that questions the America Party’s stance on cryptocurrency, Musk gave a brief answer that indicated his lack of faith in the U.S. dollar.

“Will America Party embrace Bitcoin?,” the user asked. Musk replied: “Fiat is hopeless, so yes.”

Fiat is a government-issued currency that’s not backed by gold or silver and derives its value from public trust. (The Euro, British pound, and others are also fiat.) The dollar became fiat in 1971, when President Richard Nixon suspended the dollar’s convertibility into gold.

By declaring it hopeless, Musk is aligning himself and the America Party with many of crypto’s most avid backers, who view digital currency as a balance against federal monetary policies. Exactly how he plans to incorporate it into the political party’s platform, of course, remains to be seen.

While Musk has been vocal about his opposition to the Trump budget bill and has railed against increasing the national debt, he has not yet lined out any of the America Party’s political agenda.

Musk’s embrace of cryptocurrency is nothing new, of course. His endorsement of Dogecoin four years ago caused that memecoin to see a tremendous surge in value. (Musk also was responsible for the coin’s collapse in value, when he trashed it while hosting Saturday Night Live.)

The embrace of Bitcoin by the American Party could also be yet another thumbing of the nose to Trump, who has been positioning himself as “America’s ‘first crypto president.'”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Kevin Dietsch—Getty Images

• Trump’s budget bill stacks the tax odds against gamblers. Starting in 2026, gamblers will only be able to deduct 90% of their losses, versus 100% today. That means even if you break even for the year, you’ll still face a tax bill. Pro gamblers are rallying against the act, as are other parts of the gaming world.

Donald Trump campaigned hard in Nevada in 2024, but his recently passed budget bill is not doing gamblers much good.

One of the caveats in the legislation will limit the amount of gambling losses that can be used to offset winnings to 90%. That’s down from the 100% gamblers can currently claim.

That’s unlikely to hit casual gamblers too hard, but frequent Vegas (and other casino town) visitors and professional gamblers could see much higher tax bills starting next year.

Casinos are required to issue tax paperwork when a player wins $1,200 or more. But gamblers are required to keep up with their losses themselves—and the IRS often asks them to back up those claims, something that’s not always easy.

Casinos always have the advantage over gamblers, so even those who rack up big wins generally have big losses as well. Traditionally, those losses have been used to lower the tax bill at the end of the year. Under the new rules, though, they’re likely to pay a higher amount or could pay significant taxes even if they just break even for the year.

Nevada Congresswoman Dina Titus, who highlighted the clause on social media, has introduced legislation that will act as “a legislative fix that fairly treats gaming losses in the tax code”—but as a Democrat, she might have a tough time pushing it through.

Professional gamblers have decried the changes, as well.

“Let’s say that over the course of all the sessions that we played throughout the year, we won $5.2 million and we lost $5 million dollars for a net of $200,000,” said Phil Galfond on social media. “Now, we would pay as if we won $5.2 million, minus 90 percent of $5 million, which is $4.5 million for a fake net of $700,000… So you would make $200,000 during the year and pay tax as if you made $700,000.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

• Palmer Luckey is launching a new digital bank with backing from Peter Thiel. Erebor takes its name from The Lord of the Rings. It’s the latest in several businesses associated with the two that pay homage to the fantasy books.

Peter Thiel has signed on to back Palmer Luckey’s latest startup, a digital bank for startups and cryptocurrency companies named Erebor.

Thiel’s Founders Fund has reportedly invested in the bank in an ongoing round. 8VC, the venture fund from Palatir cofounder Joe Lonsdale, is also reportedly backing the bank.

Like Palantir, Erebor takes its name from The Lord of the Rings series, specifically the prequel. Also known as the Lonely Mountain, it’s a prime setting for The Hobbit. While it’s described in that book as the greatest kingdom in Middle-Earth, it also has a dark history.

We’ll spare you the full history of Erebor, but if you’ve read the book or seen the movie, you might recall that Smaug, the treasure-loving dragon, calls it home and destroys a nearby settlement, setting it ablaze and killing … well, a lot of folks. And when he is killed via an arrow to a weak spot in his armor-like scales, he falls on the town and crushes it.

His death also sets off a struggle for the treasure that results in the Battle of the Five Armies. Basically, lots of bad stuff happens there before it’s restored to its former glory.

The Lord of the Rings is something of a favorite for both Luckey and Thiel. Luckey’s Anduril defense-tech company is named after the sword used by Aragorn. Thiel’s Palantir is a huge software company. And Thiel’s Mithril Capital, founded in 2012, takes its name from a precious metal mentioned in the books.

As for Erebor the bank, its charter says it plans to serve technology businesses, as well as the people who work at or invest in them. Among the areas of interest are AI, crypto, and defense. The bank will hold stablecoins on its balance sheet and will be headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, though it’s not planning any brick-and-mortar locations at present.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Nordin Catic / Getty Images—The Cambridge Union

Fire up the barbeque and find a good spot to watch the fireworks.

Memorial Day might be the unofficial start to summer, but the Fourth of July is the holiday that most epitomizes it. It’s not just Independence Day, it’s a chance to lounge in or around a pool and enjoy the warm days with friends. But if you’ve got business to conduct or food and drink to restock, it’s not a day without hurdles.

While many retailers are open, many running big summer sales, not all of them are. Some have reduced hours. And many essential services are closed for the day.

Trying to figure out what you can and can’t do today? We’ve got answers for you.

Are banks open on July 4?

July 4 is a federal holiday, meaning all major banks (and pretty much all the minor ones) will be closed. You can, however, still use ATM machines to get cash or put money into your account, and online banking is open, though many transactions won’t process until Monday morning.  

Will there be any mail delivery on July 4?

Don’t expect any mail or packages on Independence Day. The U.S. Postal Service does not operate on July 4 and UPS and FedEx generally suspend deliveries that day as well. Some FedEx Office Print & Ship Centers will be open, but be sure to call before you head there.

Is the stock market open on July 4?

The New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and bond markets are all closed. They’ll reopen on Monday.

Which department stores are closed on July 4?

Most retailers see July 4 as a chance to run a seasonal sale (it’s a great time to buy furniture, in fact). Some, though, like to give their employees a chance to relax with the rest of us. Costco will be closed on the holiday. And many locally owned small businesses choose to take the day off as well.

Which department stores are open on July 4?

Bass Pro Shops – Open on July 4

Belk – Open on July 4

Best Buy – Open July 4

Cabella’s – Open on July 4

CVS – Open on July 4

Dillard’s – Open July 4

Home Depot – Open on July 4

Ikea – Open on July 4, but some stores will close early

J.C. Penney – Open July 4

Kohl’s – Most store are open

Lowe’s – Open on July 4

Macy’s – Open July 4

Michael’s – Open July 4

Old Navy – Open on July 4

Rite Aid – Open on July 4

Target – Open July 4

T.J. Maxx – Open July 4

Walgreens – Open on July 4 (Some pharmacies may have reduced hours, however).

Walmart – Open regular hours.

Which grocery stores are open on July 4?

July 4 is one of the most popular days for cookouts, get-togethers and, well, day drinking. If you run out of hot dog buns or ketchup or beer, you shouldn’t have too much trouble getting more. It’s worth noting, however, that even if a store is listed below as open, it’s smart to check with them to ensure they don’t have reduced hours.

Aldi – Open on July 4, but with limited hours.

Food Lion – Open on July 4

Harris Teeter – Open on July 4

Ingles – Open on July 4

Kroger – Open on July 4

Publix – Open on July 4.

Safeway – Open on July 4

ShopRite – Open on July 4

Stop and Shop – Open on July 4

Trader Joe’s – Open on July 4

Wegmans – Open on July 4

Whole Foods – Open on July 4

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

© Getty Images