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University of Virginia law professor Michael Doran — who held tax policy roles at the Treasury Department under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush — calls the current state of affairs “the great American retirement fraud.”

Secure 2.0 would take the fraud to a new level: Its congressional supporters have engaged in Enron-style accounting gimmicks to mask the bill’s effects on deficit

from the outset, IRAs were a generous gift to the upper class. At the time, very few low- and middle-income individuals could afford to stash $1,500 in a retirement account each year — median income for U.S. households was $11,100 in 1974 — so the people taking full advantage of the new IRAs tended to be relatively rich

since the benefit was structured as a deduction, it was worth more to taxpayers in higher income brackets.

In the nearly half-century since, Congress has continually expanded the amount that individuals can pour into tax-deferred savings accounts.

Now, the JCT estimates that 401(k)s and other similar defined-contribution plans cost the federal government $200 billion per year.

individuals can contribute up to $6,000 per year to an IRA ($7,000 if age 50 or older), plus $20,500 to a 401(k) ($27,000 for 50-year-olds and up), with their employers potentially chipping in to bring the 401(k) total to $61,000 ($67,500 for the over-50 set).

In 2018, the most recent year for which data is available, 58 percent of taxpayers with wage income made no contribution to 401(k)-style plans, and less than 4 percent bumped up against the contribution cap.

As of 2020, approximately 63 percent of U.S. households had no such accounts.

I calculated that an individual who made the maximum 401(k) contributions since 1990, investing exclusively in an S&P 500 index fund, would have more than $7 million in her account today.

When JCT released data last summer showing that 28,615 taxpayers had accumulated $5 million or more in IRAs, lawmakers cried foul. Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), who as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee is the top tax writer in the House, lamented the “exploitation” of IRAs. “IRAs are intended to help Americans achieve long-term financial security, not to enable those who already have extraordinary wealth to avoid paying their fair share in taxes,”

(The very largest IRAs, like PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel’s reported $5 billion account, result from a different loophole: the ability of founders and early-stage investors to stuff IRAs with start-up stock

Forbes revealed more than a decade ago that Thiel and another PayPal co-founder were using their IRAs to shelter entrepreneurial earnings; the Government Accountability Office flagged the IRA-stuffing phenomenon in 2014; and rather than clamping down, lawmakers from both parties sat on their hands.)

The Secure 2.0 bill, sponsored by Neal, doubles down on the inequities of the status quo. It will inevitably result in even more of the mega-IRAs that Neal and other Democrats decry.

Under current law, taxpayers must begin to take withdrawals from their 401(k)s and traditional IRAs at age 72. (It had been 70½ before Secure 1.0, signed into law by President Donald Trump in 2019, raised the age by a year and a half.

Secure 2.0 would bump that up to age 75. The change would mean that taxpayers with supersize IRAs could enjoy three extra years of tax-free growth before they needed to take money out

Lower-income retirees wouldn’t benefit because they don’t have the luxury of holding off on withdrawals, which they need to cover living expenses.

Another provision would lift the cap on 401(k) catch-up contributions at ages 62, 63 and 64 from $6,500 to $10,000. Factoring in employer matching contributions, that would raise the maximum 401(k) inflow to $71,000 per year.

if lawmakers were genuinely concerned about retirement security for people who need it, they wouldn’t start by aiding taxpayers who can afford to save more each year than most Americans earn. The higher limit on catch-up contributions will simply allow high-income taxpayers to race further ahead.

The top-weighted benefits of Secure 2.0 might be tolerable if they were offset by other tax increases on the rich — if this were all just moving money from one deep pocket to another. But the items audaciously labeled as “revenue provisions” in the bill generate revenue as real as Monopoly money.

The Rothification provisions in Secure 2.0 bring $35 billion of revenue into the 10-year window — ostensibly offsetting the cost of the bill’s giveaways — but the $35 billion is pure make-believe: It comes at the expense of an equivalent amount of revenue down the road.

If lawmakers from either party were truly concerned about the plight of low-income retirees, they would focus on strengthening Social Security, which actually provides a safety net for older people, rather than adding more deficit-financed bells and whistles to retirement accounts for the rich.

Taliban officials have said they need time to create gender-segregated arrangements in schools and work places that meet their severe interpretation of Islam.

When they first ruled from 1996-2001, the Taliban shocked the world by barring girls and women from schools and jobs, banning most entertainment and sports and occasionally carrying out executions in front of large crowds in sports stadiums.But Muttaqi said the Taliban have changed since they last ruled. “We have have made progress in administration and in politics ... in interaction with the nation and the world. With each passing day we will gain more experience and make more progress,” he said.

Muttaqi said that under the new Taliban government, girls are going to school through to Grade 12 in 10 of the country’s 34 provinces, private schools and universities are operating unhindered and 100% of women who had previously worked in the health sector are back on the job. “This shows that we are committed in principle to women participation,” he said.

He claimed that the Taliban have not targeted their opponents, instead having announced a general amnesty and providing some protection. Leaders of the previous government live without threat in Kabul, he said, though the majority have fled.

He said the Taliban have made mistakes in their first months in power and that “we will work for more reforms which can benefit the nation.” He did not elaborate on the mistakes or possible reforms.

Meanwhile, Islamic State militants have stepped up attacks on Taliban patrols and religious minorities in the past four months. The IS affiliate in Afghanistan has targeted Shiite mosques in the provincial capitals of Kunduz and Kandahar, and carried out frequent attacks on Taliban vehicles.

“My last point is to America, to the American nation: You are a great and big nation and you must have enough patience and have a big heart to dare to make policies on Afghanistan based on international rules and relegation, and to end the differences and make the distance between us shorter and choose good relations with Afghanistan.”

other research suggests everyone alive in the world today shares a common ancestor from sometime in the past 3,500 years.

As recently as the 1950s, British schoolchildren were still studying pre-World War II textbooks that divided Europeans into Germanic, Alpine and Latin “types” according to the shape of their noses.

scientists had been arguing for 50 years that all humans were too closely related to be divided into races. “The few externally visible differences like skin color or nose shape are not enough to justify divisions,” he said.

Modern Italians and Spaniards have relatively few common ancestors compared with other European populations, which may be explained by their geography and history.

“There have been many studies that we’ve been involved in showing that groups which are fighting each other furiously all the time are actually extremely closely genetically related,” Mark A. Jobling, a geneticist at England’s Leicester University, told Associated Press. “So for example Jewish and non-Jewish populations in the Middle East are extremely similar genetically, but to tell them they are genetic close relatives isn’t going to change their ways.”

As a result, the winner of the 2016 presidential election will become the third American commander in chief to oversee the Afghan war.

president's goal of ending the wars he inherited had already been tarnished by the return of U.S. forces to Iraq last year, 2½ years after they left. The troops are there to help Iraq fight the Islamic State, a mission Obama has said will likely outlast his presidency.

Obama's critics contend the decision to withdraw from Iraq created the vacuum that allowed the Islamic State to thrive and warned leaving Afghanistan next year could have the same consequences.

Military commanders have argued for months that Afghans needed additional assistance and support from the U.S. to beat back a resurgent Taliban and keep the Islamic State from using the country as a haven.

president had originally planned to withdraw all but a small embassy-based force from Afghanistan in late 2016, shortly before leaving office. Under the new $15 billion-a-year plan, the U.S. will maintain its current force of 9,800 through most of 2016, then begin drawing down to 5,500 late in the year or in early 2017.

Obama's decision thrusts the war into the middle of a presidential campaign that so far has barely touched on Afghanistan. Candidates now will be pressed to say how they will try to do what Obama could not - end a conflict that has killed more than 2,230 American service members and cost more than $1 trillion.

How did a chimplike society ever give rise to the egalitarian, largely monogamous structure of hunter-gatherer groups?

Dr. Chapais sees the transition as a series of accidents, each of which let natural selection exploit new opportunities. Early humans began to walk on two legs because it was a more efficient way of getting around than knuckle-walking, the chimps’ method. But that happened to leave the hands free. Now they could gesture, or make tools.

It was a tool, in the form of a weapon, that made human society possible

As soon as all males were armed, the cost of monopolizing a large number of females became a lot higher. In the incipient hominid society, females became allocated to males more equally. General polygyny became the rule, then general monogamy.

With only one mate, for the most part, a male had an incentive to guard her from other males to protect his paternity.

But Iranian leaders have made clear that their country will not consider giving up its ability to make nuclear fuel — the centerpiece of the talks since the same process used to make reactor stock can be used to make weapons-grade material.

Khamenei said he would not "interfere in the details of the talks," in a clear nod of support for the government of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, which has opened historic exchanges with the U.S. However, Khamenei also said the main goal is "stabilization of the rights of the Iranian nation, including nuclear rights."

Khamenei also blasted what he called the U.S. government's "warmongering" policies, including threats of military action, and he said sanctions cannot force unwanted concessions by Iran.

Barack Obama also faces opposition to a deal from Israel, Saudi Arabia and critics in the U.S. Congress, who say an envisaged first-step deal would give Iran too much in the way of sanctions relief for too little in the way of concessions. They argue that Iran can't be trusted. Obama and his national security team counter that the risk is worth taking because the alternative is war no one wants.

The reason there are so many vacancies without nominees is that certain senators are making strategic choices not to recommend federal trial-court nominees to the White House. These lawmakers are saying that they would rather have no one interpreting federal law in their states than to have more Obama-appointed judges interpreting the law.

The easy response, offered up recently by the Texas delegation, is that it's the White House's fault, too. But it's not.

It's an intentional act by the legislative branch to keep the judicial branch from effectively performing its constitutionally mandated functions. And it's a neutering of a co-equal branch achieved without a constitutional amendment or statute, or even much public debate, about expressly limiting judicial power.

What's happening here is part of a blunt political and ideological strategy: These particular senators have maneuvered so that the citizens of red states have less federal judicial oversight than citizens of blue states and purple states. This is great news if you are a secessionist or hate the idea of federal power exercised through the judiciary.

There are currently 59 federal court vacancies for which there are no pending nominees. This number represents more than half the number of current vacancies in total

By subverting this goal, by seceding from federal judicial authority by attrition, these senators are dooming their constituents to a third-world legal system.

The facts behind these statistics are just some of the newest arguments against one of the worst and most self-defeating Senate "traditions": the granting to local senators of what amounts to veto power over federal judicial nominees.

The reason this important story isn't covered well on television is because there are no dramatic images attached to it. The reason the White House doesn't highlight the problem more often is because it still needs to work with these intransigent senators on future nominations.

Syrian official and activists said government troops pushed into areas in the central province of Hama and south of Idlib in the boldest multipronged attack on rebel-held areas, benefiting from the Russian air cover. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Moscow

has mainly targeted central and northwestern Syria, strategic regions that are the gateway to Assad's strongholds in Damascus, and along the Mediterranean coast where Russia has a naval base.

The Islamic State group is not present in the areas where the ground fighting is underway.

In January, North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test, which it claimed was a hydrogen bomb. Last month, it put a satellite into orbit with a long-range rocket that the United Nations and others saw as a cover for a test of banned ballistic missile technology.

More than 180 countries have already submitted individual national plans, but a climate deal is by no means guaranteed.

Among several sticking points is money - how much rich countries should invest to help poor countries cope with climate change, how much should be invested in renewable energy, and how much traditional oil, gas and coal producers stand to lose if countries agree to forever reduce emissions.

Reviving the rich-poor differences that caused earlier climate talks to fail, Chinese President Xi Jinping said an eventual global deal must include aid for poor countries and acknowledge differences between developing and established economies.

Many of the leaders said the world must keep the average temperature within 1 degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) of current levels - and if possible to half that, to spare island nations threatened by rising seas.

The world has already warmed nearly 1 degree Celsius since the beginning of the industrial age, and factories and cars continue to belch pollution around the world.

Many of the leaders framed the problem as a generational issue, where current leaders owe future generations a livable Earth.

Leaders called their attendance in Paris an act of defiance after the Nov. 13 attacks, some of which occurred near the airfield north of the city where the conference is taking place.

Many of the leaders paid their respects at sites linked to the attacks. Obama, in a late-night visit, placed a single flower outside the concert hall where dozens were killed, and bowed his head in silence.

To that end, at least 19 governments and 28 leading world investors were announcing billions of dollars in investments to research and develop clean energy technology, with the goal of making it cheaper. Backers include Obama, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, billionaires George Soros and Saudi Prince Alaweed bin Talal, and Jack Ma of China's Alibaba.

Under the initiative, 19 countries pledge to double their spending on low- or no-carbon energy over the next five years. They currently spend about $10 billion a year, about half of that from the U.S.

Gates said he and other investors, including the University of California, are pitching in $7 billion so far and hope to raise more this week.

In another announcement, the United States, Canada and nine European countries pledged nearly $250 million to help the most vulnerable countries adapt to rising seas, droughts and other consequences of climate change. Germany pledged $53 million, the U.S. $51 million and Britain $45 million.

The money will be made available to a fund for the least developed countries. Other countries that contributed include Denmark, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Sweden and Switzerland.

The King also, in 1433, made his young half-brother, Edmund, earl of Richmond, and, two years later, arranged his momentous marriage with Lady Margaret Beaufort, daughter of the Duke of Somerset. About the same time he created Jasper earl of Pembroke. Naturally, when civil war broke out, their father supported his step-son, the King. But he was taken prisoner early in the war, at the disastrous battle of Mortimer’s Cross, and was executed at Hereford. He is said to have remarked ruefully as he placed his head on the block that it was “wont to lie on Queen Catherine’s lap.” His head was placed on the market cross, where a mad woman came and combed his hair and washed his face, and set it around with lighted candles. His body was buried in the chapel of the Grey Friars at Hereford

Even his cousin, Maredudd, the only surviving son of the rebel, Glyn Dwr, is known to have become “squire of the body” to King Henry V

It would be tempting to believe that he had taken the opposite side in the revolt; this would explain many things, but it is contradicted by the known fact that his possessions, like those of his brothers, were confiscated. And yet his son became a page in the household of King Henry V, the oppressor of the family. This son, whether he was bom in exile or not, bore the name of the rebel chieftain, Owain

It was in Jasper’s great castle of Pembroke that Edmund’s son, Henry Tudor, was born posthumously on January 28th, 1457. The child’s mother, the Lady Margaret, had not then yet reached the age of fourteen.

But the defeat of the Lancastrians at Tewkesbury in 1471, and the death of both King Henry VI and his heir, Prince Edward, led to a complete reversal of fortune

Prophecy in general terms had been easy enough, but the result of a specific event was not so easy to foretell. The bard, in a quandary, consulted his wife, who told him to prophesy victory, for if the prince were successful he might reward the prophet, but if he were unsuccessful he was not likely to return.

Henry promised to deliver the Welsh from “such miserable servitudes as they have pyteously longe stand in,” that is to say, from the penal laws of King Henry IV. This he did not do, for the laws remained on the statute book till the reign of James I

In his exile, Henry had fathered a son by a Breton lady. He was called Roland Velville, and his father knighted him when he ascended the throne and made him constable of Beaumaris Castle. Velville died in 1527, five years before the marriage of his daughter Jane to Tudur ap Robert Fychan, of Berain in modem Denbighshire

He was an associate of Sir Thomas Gresham, and had made much money in trade with the Netherlands. When he did die, Catherine did take Maurice Wynn as her third husband, thereby becoming step-mother to the writer Sir John Wynn of Gwydir

By that time the Tudors had been on the throne for a hundred years, and such Welsh sentiment as they had ever possessed was already worn thin.

Europeans, in contrast, simply gave each other the very things Americans forced one another to compete for — healthcare, retirement, and so on.

The stakes in American life are therefore life and death, every single day — lost that job? Bang! You’re dead. European life is gentler — because social democracy is fundamentally more humane.

Europeans have much — much — more human contact than Americans do. They are much less isolated — but they are also able to be together not just more, but in better ways. The contact that they have with one another is fundamentally different, of a far richer and and more substantial and fundamental kind

It’s not just “warm cultures”, as the sociologists say: even in staid Germany or fusty Holland or cold Scandinavia, the American stereotype is wrong: far from being unfeeling, long, passionate, sophisticated discussions and interactions will ensue at the drop of a hat.

(What do we Americans do? We are always working. Working away in solitude. Not just on our jobs. But at our lives.

Life itself has become a kind of capitalist project for us, endless labour to produce the perfect self — and that way stand atop everyone else. But what’s the point?

Happiness as a hyperindividualistic quest to become the perfect, prettiest, richest, uberperson hasn’t worked, self-evidently.

How do Americans relate to each other? The first question, inevitably, is “what do you do?”, followed quickly by “where are you (really) from?” We’re trying to place the other person on our little ladder of status, our mental model of social structural power.

if I asked these question at my local dog park in London — or the one in Paris or Nice or Berlin or Barcelona — people would pretty quickly roll their eyes, stop talking to me, and avoid me whenever they could. They’d see me as a kind of gross simpleton, someone best not associated with. But why? What unsaid social norms have I violated?I’ve violated the norms of equality and dignity. It doesn’t matter what the other person does. Not in this space. In this park, cafe, bar, restaurant, square. Here, we are equals

Europe is more alive than America — in these very concrete terms. People are more alive. Life is more lively. There is more life to be lived there. That is because I have more to live — I am not just a consumer, producer, competitor. I am a human being, first — and so are you. Just being is OK — in fact, crucial, vital, necessary.

equality and dignity and nourished, maintained, sustained. People are able to relate to one another as true equals, with equivalent levels of dignity.

Life itself comes to be a much, much bigger thing than we Americans grant ourselves the power to enact, express, live.

These attitudes of equality and dignity, which are so firmly, gently, and beautifully woven carefully and delicately into not just the European project, but European culture, attitudes, values, norms. That sense of aliveness.

n America, we don’t have those norms. We have two forces that have produced just the opposite: capitalism and supremacy. We have centuries of slavery and segregation, and we have centuries of capitalism — so much so that they’re indistinguishable.

We’re asking: where do you sit on two hierarchies, two ladders. One, capitalism’s ladder of money, and two, whiteness’s ladder of purity. Together, we can quickly assess someone’s status — their utility, their usefulness to us.

Japan's vaccine rollout remains the slowest among developed economies with just 6% of residents having received at least one dose.

An article this week in the New England Journal of Medicine, meanwhile, questioned organizers' fundamental argument that the games can be held safely. "We believe the IOC's determination to proceed with the Olympic Games is not informed by the best scientific evidence," the authors wrote.

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach told a conference on Thursday that athletes should "come with full confidence to Tokyo and get ready," lauding the Japanese capital as "the best-prepared Olympic city ever."

The IOC has asked Olympic athletes to sign waivers absolving the organizers of legal liability for COVID-19-related risks. Bach acknowledged this was an issue of concern for some athletes, but the IOC calls it "standard practice."

Japan requires that imported vaccines undergo domestic clinical testing, slowing down the approval process.

Japan's second-largest newspaper by circulation, The Asahi Shimbun, became the first major Japanese media outlet to publish an editorial calling for the games to be canceled. The 142-year-old publication, one of Asia's oldest newspapers, is also an Olympic sponsor.

Sponsors are especially jittery about the prospect of the games' cancellation, which could cost Japan an estimated $17 billion.

another state of emergency in response to a fresh wave of infections after the Olympics could cost the country several times that amount.

the Chinese government is strictly controlling all research into its origins, clamping down on some while actively promoting fringe theories that it could have come from outside China.

it is monitoring their findings and mandating that the publication of any data or research must be approved by a new task force managed by China’s cabinet, under direct orders from President Xi Jinping,

The clampdown comes from the top

a pattern of government secrecy and top-down control that has been evident throughout the pandemic.

this culture has delayed warnings about the pandemic, blocked the sharing of information with the World Health Organization and hampered early testing. Scientists familiar with China’s public health system say the same practices apply to sensitive research.

The pandemic has crippled Beijing’s reputation on the global stage,

China’s leaders are far from alone in politicizing research into the origins of the virus

severing ties between Chinese and American scientists and complicating the search for virus origins