Aurelia Butler

Former President Donald J. Trump suggested that he would try to reduce taxes for Americans living abroad, the latest in an expensive string of tax cuts he has promised to different voting groups during the presidential campaign.Americans who live outside the United States must still file tax returns with the Internal Revenue Service. That means in some instances, Americans living abroad pay taxes to both the United States and a foreign government, creating so-called double taxation. Many other countries collect taxes from people living and working within their borders but not on their citizens living abroad.In a statement, which was provided earlier to The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Trump said he would eliminate the practice. “I support ending the double taxation of overseas Americans!”But, as with many of Mr. Trump’s campaign tax pledges, it was unclear what exactly he envisions changing. Americans living in other countries don’t always owe taxes both there and in the United States. They can already discount taxes paid to another government from their U.S. tax bill, and those making less than $126,500 don’t owe anything to the I.R.S.Higher-income Americans living in countries with low taxes are more likely to owe additional taxes in the United States. Mr. Trump’s idea, depending on how it is ultimately drafted, could encourage wealthy Americans to move to tax havens overseas to avoid taxes.During his campaign, Mr. Trump has expressed support for a wide variety of seemingly simple, but potentially far-reaching, tax cuts aimed at specific groups of voters. He has said Social Security benefits should no longer be taxed, a bid for support from retirees, and suggested that tipped income and overtime pay should not be taxed, proposals that he has framed as benefits for working Americans.“Fellow Americans living abroad, your vote is more important than ever,” Mr. Trump said in the statement. “No matter where you are, your voice can make a difference.”Mr. Trump’s campaign promises come on top of the Republican goal to extend many of the tax cuts from his signature legislative achievement while president, a 2017 tax law. Many of those tax cuts expire after 2025. The cost of continuing those cuts is significant, and together all of Mr. Trump’s plans could cost $7.5 trillion over 10 years, according to a nonpartisan budget group.Mr. Trump has also repeatedly said he would raise tariffs on imports to the United States to pay for his tax cuts, which would effectively shift the country’s tax burden to lower-income Americans. Those Americans spend more of their money on consumer items that could get more expensive because of the tariffs.Vice President Kamala Harris has attacked Mr. Trump’s tax plans, arguing that they would amount to a giveaway to the rich. She has pledged to raise taxes on corporations and Americans making more than $400,000 a year. More

Choose your battles carefully while solving Grant Boroughs’s puzzle.Jump to: Today’s Theme | Tricky CluesTHURSDAY PUZZLE — Grant Boroughs has had two very entertaining crosswords published in The New York Times, but today’s puzzle, his third, might just put him on the map of constructors to keep an eye on.Not many constructors attempt this type of puzzle, which is sad, because I happen to enjoy them — and the whole New York Times Games enterprise is about entertaining me specifically, right?Even if the creation of our games is not all about me (I maintain that it is), crosswords with this sort of theme are rare because of how difficult they are to put together. And if a constructor manages to tie this theme into a clever revealer, as Mr. Boroughs does, the result is even more elegant.Today’s ThemeHave you ever solved a Schrödinger puzzle? If you are relatively new to solving, it’s possible that you may not have encountered one before.A Schrödinger puzzle — named after Dr. Erwin Schrödinger and his famous thought experiment about a cat — is one where certain squares accept more than one letter, and using either letter is considered correct. That means a Schrödinger puzzle accepts both versions of a changeable entry, even though there is only a single clue.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

Even as some parts of Florida’s western coast were enduring a surge of seawater on Wednesday night, Hurricane Milton’s heavy winds were pushing water out of Tampa Bay.A flood gauge near Tampa showed the water levels fluctuating as Milton approached and then plummeting while the storm’s eye passed to the south — dropping three feet below the level expected on a normal day.The phenomenon, reminiscent of what occurred during Hurricanes Ian in 2022 and Irma in 2017, will probably last only a few hours — and could suddenly reverse, with damaging results.The outward flow is sometimes referred to as a reverse, or negative, storm surge. A storm surge occurs when high-speed winds push ocean water onshore, but in this case the winds are draining the bay instead of flooding it.A hurricane’s winds blow counterclockwise, and with Milton passing south of Tampa Bay, winds to the north of the storm are blowing in from the east, pushing water away from the shoreline.The unusual sight can draw curious onlookers, but officials say that it’s dangerous to wander out along shores with receding tides. The water will eventually return and could rise quickly in a matter of minutes. More

A diner patron asks a waitress for an extraordinary side dish in Meghan Kennedy’s sweet but shaggy new play.With their twirly stools, chipped mugs and napkin contraptions, old-fashioned diners are apparently dying out. But not onstage, where they solve a lot of playwriting problems.Getting strangers to talk to each other? Easy: Waitress, meet customer. Motivating random pop-ins and exits? Jingle the door and pay the bill. Signal “America” without having to say it? The Bunn-O-Matic might as well be a flag.All of those are ingredients in “The Counter,” a sweet but shaggy dramedy by Meghan Kennedy that opened Wednesday at the Laura Pels Theater in Midtown Manhattan. The waitress is Katie (Susannah Flood): a big-city exile returning to her small-town home for reasons that emerge over the play’s 75 minutes. Her first customer, most days, is Paul (Anthony Edwards): a retired firefighter slumping onto his favorite stool for coffee and a lifeline of conversation.Kennedy’s dialogue is piquant and suggestive but mechanically avoidant. Needing to hold back the play’s big events, she lets her characters spend most of its first third dropping bread crumbs of information and noodling amusingly around the edges of not much. Paul has trouble sleeping and is a cinephile. Katie prefers Netflix. Both, it’s clear, if only by the impenetrable fog on the windows, are lost and lonely, in a way we are meant to understand as American.The banality of all that is undercut, in David Cromer’s typically thoughtful staging, by hints that the story will soon be heading sideways. That’s literally true of Walt Spangler’s set, which orients the title character — the counter — perpendicular to the audience, so we see the divide between Katie and Paul at all times. At some point, each also gets a private soliloquy, with lighting (by Stacey Derosier) and sound (by Christopher Darbassie) altered to indicate interiority.But these breaks in the production’s otherwise closely observed naturalism — including hoodies, plaids and puffers by Sarah Laux — come off as passing tics, especially in comparison to the plot’s wackadoodle bombshell, which distorts the rest of the play.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

With the presidential race in its closing weeks, Donald J. Trump’s language has grown increasingly strident on the issue of immigration. But as he continues to demonize undocumented migrants as violent criminals, the former president is also reviving another old habit: invoking his long-held fascination with genes and genetics.For decades, including long before he became a political figure, Mr. Trump has been publicly obsessed with bloodlines and his stated belief that genetics are the best predictor of a person’s success. He has repeatedly commented on what he described as his, his family’s and his supporters’ good genes, and on others’ bad genes.In an interview on “The Hugh Hewitt Show” on Monday, Mr. Trump misleadingly cited government data to assert that thousands of murderers had crossed the southern border under the Biden administration. And then he pivoted.“Many of them murdered far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Hewitt, a conservative radio talk show host. “You know, now, a murderer, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”Mr. Trump’s remarks about migrants’ having “bad genes” brought a flurry of headlines from news outlets, and then condemnation from Democrats. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, called the language “vile, disturbing, hateful” during a briefing on Monday.Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, accused the news media of ginning up a controversy, saying that Mr. Trump “was clearly referring to murderers, not migrants.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

GSK, which developed and sold versions of the now-discontinued blockbuster heartburn drug, agreed to pay up to $2.2 billion.The British drug maker GSK said on Wednesday that it would pay up to $2.2 billion to settle most of the lawsuits filed against it by people who claim that they developed cancer after taking a now-discontinued blockbuster heartburn drug commonly known by the brand name Zantac.GSK, which developed the drug decades ago and sold a version of it until 2017, did not admit liability in settling the cases. The evidence is mixed on whether the drug elevates the risk of cancer, but the concern that the drug might was sufficient to get it removed from the market.An over-the-counter medication sold today as Zantac 360 by Sanofi has a different active ingredient from the withdrawn versions of Zantac and has not raised questions about a cancer link.In 2019, the Food and Drug Administration said it had detected low levels of a cancer-causing contaminant known as NDMA in samples of Zantac, which at that time was widely sold by prescription and over the counter. Manufacturers soon voluntarily withdrew their versions of the drug, and pharmacies pulled the products from their shelves.The next year, the F.D.A. recommended that the drug no longer be sold or used, saying that when stored for long periods its active ingredient can degrade and cause a buildup of NDMA, creating a danger of cancer.Other research has found that Zantac users were no more likely to develop cancer than people who took other drugs that suppress the production of stomach acid.Tens of thousands of Zantac users have filed product liability lawsuits against GSK and other makers of versions of Zantac. This year, juries in Illinois that heard the first few such cases sided with the manufacturers or failed to reach a verdict.Several other pharmaceutical companies that previously sold versions of the drug, including Sanofi and Pfizer, reached similar settlements this year. Boehringer Ingelheim, a former manufacturer that has not settled, is in court in California this week defending itself in a jury trial brought by a man who claims that over-the-counter Zantac caused his bladder cancer.GSK’s settlement on Wednesday will resolve claims by about 80,000 plaintiffs in the United States. The company said it had also agreed to pay $70 million to settle a whistle-blower complaint by an independent laboratory, Valisure, whose testing first raised the alarm about a link between Zantac and cancer. In that lawsuit, Valisure accused GSK of knowing that the drug elevates cancer risk and of keeping quiet about it.The suit was unsealed this year after the Justice Department declined to either join the suit or recommend that it be dismissed. The company denies Valisure’s allegations. More

The humble hotel lobby has become a gathering place for some evacuees as Hurricane Milton bears down on Florida. It’s a spot where people can exchange information — such as which gas stations still have fuel or where to find a hot meal — and stay informed with storm updates. For some, it’s also a place to connect, with the shared uncertainty fostering moments of camaraderie.“We’re all in the same boat, and the boat is flooding,” said Chris Granson Sr., 74, who evacuated from a barrier island off the coast of Clearwater, Fla., to the Holiday Inn Express & Suites here in Wesley Chapel, about 30 minutes north of downtown Tampa.Across the lobby from Mr. Granson, four friends from a senior community in Oldsmar, Fla., discussed politics and planned their next meal while watching the weather updates on TV. (Another guest advised them that a nearby 7-Eleven was still open.)They said they were part of a larger group at the community known as the Hippo Club, named so because its members enjoy “wallowing” in the pool while chatting about everything under the sun. For these four, the hurricane has temporarily relocated their club — and possibly added a few honorary members.“We’ve met people from all up and down the coast,” said Gayle Richardson, 66.Nearby, four women split Champagne and chocolates while playing a card game, including Laurie Deer, 56, who left lollipops at the front desk for the other guests, and Rosemary O’Hara, 69.Two of the women’s husbands joined them. Tom O’Hara, 77, who was affectionately called Mr. Positive by the others, confidently predicted that the storm would shift south, sparing their homes.“We’re laughing and bonding, trying not to watch too much news,” said Ms. O’Hara. “We know something bad is happening out there, and we’ll face it when we return. But, for now, we’re focusing on what matters.” More

More than 300 American students have benefited from the George J. Mitchell program, founded after the Good Friday Agreement, but it has been halted indefinitely.Last month, 12 American students flew across the Atlantic to begin the prestigious George J. Mitchell scholarship program in Ireland and Northern Ireland. They are living in cities and towns including Cork, Belfast and Dublin, studying subjects like biotechnology, history and engineering.But they could be the last cohort in the program, as organizers announced earlier this year that they had paused selection for coming years because of funding difficulties.The program sent its first students to the island in 2000, in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement that forged peace after decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles. Named for then-Senator George J. Mitchell, who lead the talks, it has brought nearly 300 students to Ireland since its inception. The scholarship covers the full cost of tuition for a year, accommodations and a stipend for living expenses and travel.Organizers said the difficulty in securing long-term funding for the program raised questions about the changing relationship between the United States and Ireland, although the countries still benefit from close ties, particularly when compared to other small European countries. The scholarship has an overall budget of around $1 million, according to its latest annual report.Simon Harris, Ireland’s taoiseach, or prime minister, is in Washington on Wednesday for a two-day visit to meet with President Biden and to attend an event marking 100 years of bilateral diplomatic relations between the two nations.For a small country of just five million, Ireland has an outsized status in the American psyche because of the large numbers of immigrants in centuries past, the deep involvement of Irish Americans in the founding of the Irish state and more recently, America’s involvement in the peace process in Northern Ireland.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More