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Senate Republicans on Tuesday passed changes to the federal deduction for state and local taxes, known as SALT, as part of President Donald Trump's multitrillion-dollar spending bill. Passed via the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, or TCJA, of 2017, there's a $10,000 limit on the SALT deduction through 2025, which has been a pain point for certain lawmakers in high-tax blue states. If enacted, the Senate bill would lift the cap to $40,000 starting in 2025. That benefit would start to phaseout, or decrease, for consumers who earn more than $500,000 of income. Both figures would increase by 1% yearly...

First the cliff notes version: There’s an important detail to remember. People are laughing at the long-range Russian bombers being left out in the open, vulnerable to attack. However, the bomber visibility is required as part of several nuclear agreements between the USA and Russia (SALT and START). Our U.S. long range nuclear capable bombers, covered under the same agreements, are also visible. Ukraine President Zelenskyy is playing with fire by targeting them, which also explains why Zelenskyy never told President Trump in advance.The U.S and NATO have provided the means. However, #1) did Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy just exploit...

After holding the tax bill hostage, House Republicans from high-tax states have extorted an enormous increase in the state-and-local tax deduction—not that they will get much credit for it. Unlike the bill’s pro-growth provisions, this giveaway to the affluent will have no economic payoff and subsidizes profligate Democratic-run states. Speaker Mike Johnson late Tuesday greased the wheels for the reconciliation bill’s passage by cutting a deal with Republicans from New York, New Jersey and California to raise the state-and-local deduction to $40,000 with a 1% annual inflation adjustment over 10 years. The deduction would be phased out starting at $500,000...

House GOP leaders discussed a new, heightened state-and-local-tax deduction with a group of Republican holdouts as they race to salvage their party-line megabill from ruin. A $40,000 cap on the key deduction for individuals and $80,000 cap for joint filers was part of a list of items GOP leaders raised overnight as they scrambled to shore up ultraconservative votes, according to three people granted anonymity to describe the private conversations. The SALT cap increase is one of the biggest hangups in the bill, which is filled with President Donald Trump’s domestic policy priorities. A band of SALT Republicans are publicly...

Bleary-eyed House Republicans advanced the One Big Beautiful Bill Act past the Rules Committee after a marathon hearing Wednesday, overcoming the final hurdle needed to bring it up for a floor vote. In an 8-4 vote shortly before 11 p.m., the colossal legislation cleared the GOP-led committee along party lines. The panel convened at 1 a.m. Wednesday to consider the measure due to requirements that Democrats get two days to file minority views. A “Manager’s Amendment” making last-minute tweaks to the mammoth bill — including a provision cementing a deal to increase the State and Local Tax (SALT) deductions cap...

* Currently, there’s a $10,000 limit on the federal deduction on state and local taxes, known as SALT, which will expire Dec. 31, 2025, without action from Congress. House Republicans are calling for a higher limit on the deduction for state and local taxes, known as SALT, as part of President Donald Trump’s tax and spending package. The House Ways and Means Committee, which oversees tax, released the full text of its portion of the bill on Monday afternoon. The SALT provision would raise the cap to $30,000 for those with a modified adjusted gross income of $400,000 or less....

Refrigeration just got a sustainable upgrade, and it didn’t come from a Silicon Valley startup or a government lab — it came from the brilliant minds of three teenagers. These young innovators recently won the 2025 Earth Prize for creating a refrigerator that runs on just salt and water. That’s right — no electricity, no fossil fuels, just simple science and groundbreaking ingenuity. Their invention isn’t just a clever science fair project — it’s already being deployed in hospitals to safely store medicine and even organs. The potential applications in developing nations, disaster zones, and remote areas are enormous. This...

Reseachers uncover a pyramid-like structure in the Judean Desert, photo taken March 2025 (photo credit: JUDEAN DESERT SURVEY UNIT, ISRAEL ANTIQUITIES AUTHORITY) =============================================================================== Experts uncover a massive pyramid-shaped structure, ancient papyrus documents and rare artifacts from Hellenistic-era rule in southern Israel, shedding new light on the region’s history. An excavation in the Judean Desert unearthed a massive 2,200-year-old pyramid-shaped structure alongside ancient papyri, weapons, tools, and fabrics, which experts are calling one of the richest archaeological excavations in the area. The Israel Antiquities Authority and the Heritage Ministry, which are jointly leading the dig north of Nahal Zohar, say...

Brighton, N.Y. (WHAM) — Gov. Kathy Hochul said she has taken steps to address the ongoing road salt shortage in New York state, including suspending the hours of service requirements for all truck drivers to increase deliveries. Hochul was in the Rochester area Friday and answered questions 13WHAM had about the rock salt shortage that has caused concern across the state and locally. More than 150 trucks lined up and down Lakeside Drive in Ontario to purchase rock salt earlier in the week. Several municipalities are also dealing with shortages and delivery delays from American Rock Salt.

While it may seem like we're comparing apples to oranges here, it's surprising to see how something as seemingly harmless as bottled salad dressing can share a pitfall with a classic salty snack like potato chips—an excess of sodium. This might not be a concern for everyone, but for those managing heart disease or high blood pressure, it's worth paying attention. Research suggests a high sodium diet is associated with both hypertension and cardiovascular disease. Potato chips top the list of high sodium foods. A single serving bag (1-¼ ounces) has 210 milligrams of sodium, 10% of the recommended daily...

Some foods are sirens of sodium—you know as soon as you see them that they're loaded with salt. Pickles, salted nuts, bacon, and fried foods all stand out as obvious sodium bombshells. With other foods, though, sodium content isn't so immediately clear. Unless you're a diligent label reader, you might not realize that multiple common grocery items are sneakily high in this nutrient.

You guys worked hard for this. As a reward here is Liberal Tears; a 2024 Compilation. You are welcome.

“I will turn it around, get SALT back, lower your Taxes, and so much more,” Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social, his social media platform. “I’ll work with the Democrat Governor and Mayor, and make sure the funding is there to bring New York back to levels [it] hasn’t seen for 50 years.” The SALT proposal is unlikely to dramatically change presidential votes in the largely Democratic states most affected by the $10,000 deduction cap, but it could be a factor in critical congressional races in places such as Orange County and Long Island that will determine which party controls...

Salt could help to boost the immune defense against cancer. This is suggested by research findings. Recently, adoptive T-cell therapy in particular has developed into an effective treatment tool. In adoptive T-cell therapy, the patient's own immune cells (T cells) are isolated from the blood and modified and multiplied in the laboratory in a therapy-specific manner. They are then reinfused into the patient and destroy tumor cells. The team has now discovered one of these factors: Sodium ions—a component of sodium chloride—increase the efficiency of antitumoral T cells. The researchers were able to show that breast cancer tumors have a...

A high sodium diet may increase the risk of eczema, according to researchers, who found that eating just one extra gram of sodium per day—the amount in a Big Mac—increases the likelihood of flares by 22%. Eczema, also known as atopic dermatitis, is a chronic disease that causes dry, itchy skin. It has become increasingly common in recent years, especially in industrialized countries, implicating environmental and lifestyle factors like diet. Sodium, which most people consume in the form of salt, increases the risk of hypertension and heart disease. And scientists recently discovered that sodium is stored in the skin, where...

Joe Biden has pledged to ensure that Trump’s tax reform expires next year. While many have already pointed out that this will mean a significant tax increase for most Americans, few have noticed that it will also mean a windfall for Biden’s political donors, in the millions of dollars. A key feature of the Trump tax reform, also known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), was to limit the state and local tax (SALT) deduction to $10,000. Previously, ultra-high-income earners in high-tax states could use this unlimited deduction to reduce their taxable income by millions of dollars. This...

Agroup of conservative Republicans on Wednesday joined Democrats in a procedural vote to stop the advancement of a plan to expand state and local tax (SALT) deductions. The procedural vote to consider SALT legislation failed 195-225, with 18 conservatives joining the Democrats, according to The Hill. Moderate Republicans from New York, California, and New Jersey have sought to expand the $10,000 SALT deduction cap imposed in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Supporters of the cap have argued it serves to incentivize states and local governments to reduce spending. New York GOP Rep. Mike Lawler had sought to double...

One in three Australian adults has high blood pressure (hypertension). Excess salt (sodium) increases the risk of high blood pressure so everyone with hypertension is advised to reduce salt in their diet. But despite decades of strong recommendations we have failed to get Australians to cut their intake. It's hard for people to change the way they cook, season their food differently, pick low-salt foods off the supermarket shelves and accept a less salty taste. Now there is a simple and effective solution: potassium-enriched salt. It can be used just like regular salt and most people don't notice any important...

The U.S. Embassy in London released an official statement to cool off this heated debate.We learned back in junior high history class that Americans and Brits have quite the contentious relationship regarding tea. And as of this week, when Michelle Francl, Ph.D., a professor of chemistry at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, released her new book, she stirred the pot even more — so much so that the U.S. Embassy in London felt it necessary to step in. So what's Francl's proposition that's making waves across the pond? That your cup of tea is missing one very important ingredient that...

As COVID and its health effects move into a fourth year, those who become infected may be searching for remedies to improve their respiratory symptoms and keep them out of the hospital. A new study determined that both a low- and high-dose saline regimen appeared to be associated with lower hospitalization rates compared to controls in SARS-CoV-2 infections. "Between 2020 and 2022, individuals aged 18–65 years with positive PCR test for SARS-CoV-2 infection were randomly selected to undergo low- or high-dose saline regimens for 14 days," says Sebastian Espinoza. "The low- and high-saline solutions consisted of 2.13 grams and 6...