Paper checks issued for tax refunds, Social Security payments and other government benefits have been dwindling and will soon be eliminated, potentially affecting hundreds of thousands of Americans. President Trump signed an executive order on March 25 directing the federal government to stop issuing paper checks as of Sept. 30. Instead, government agencies must make payments electronically, by direct deposit to a bank account, debit card or digital wallet. “This executive order will defend against financial fraud and improper payments, increase efficiency, reduce costs and enhance the security of federal payments,” a White House spokeswoman, Liz Huston, said in an emailed statement. Most monthly Social Security payments and annual tax refunds are already paid by direct deposit, agency statistics show. Yet the administration said it was further “phasing out” paper to modernize how the government handled money. A fact sheet about the order said the government aimed to switch “from old-fashioned paper-based payments to fast, secure electronic payments.” Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The order gives the Treasury Department just six months to carry out the mandate — “a very aggressive time frame,” Steve Kenneally, senior vice president of payments with the American Bankers Association, said on an ABA Banking Journal podcast. The order is nevertheless “welcome,” the association said, because electronic payments are “a much faster, cheaper and safer choice” for consumers and the government. The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment. Jennifer Tescher, chief executive of the Financial Health Network, said that doing away with paper checks was the right thing to do but that “consumer awareness and help making the shift” would be critical to making the change go smoothly. “It’s all in the execution,” she said. The White House fact sheet said the government planned a public awareness campaign to inform federal payment recipients of the change and to offer guidance. Kathleen Romig, director of Social Security and disability policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said she agreed that direct deposit was a “best practice” for secure payments. But, she said, newly announced verification requirements for creating online Social Security accounts could mean more people may need government help to set up the payments. That could be challenging, given that federal agencies like the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service are facing significant staff cuts under the Trump administration. How many paper checks are issued by the government? The government’s use of paper checks has long been in decline as a result of various federal efforts and the evolution of payment technology. The government tried to make most federal payments, other than tax refunds, electronic in the 1990s, in an initiative known as EFT ’99. But the effort faced resistance, Mr. Kenneally said in the podcast, often from members of Congress who received complaints from constituents who preferred paper checks. Over time, though, reliance on paper checks has fallen. More than 99 percent of the roughly 69 million monthly Social Security payments are made by direct deposit, according to the latest statistics from the Social Security Administration. Beneficiaries are already required to receive electronic payments except in “rare” circumstances, such as receiving a hardship waiver because of a mental impairment or geographic location, according to the agency’s website. “The government is largely out of the check business,” Ms. Tescher said. Still, about 486,000 paper Social Security checks go out monthly. Another 238,000 paper checks are mailed each month to recipients of Supplemental Security Income, available to people with low incomes who are blind or disabled. Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner of Social Security, said in an emailed statement, “We support this executive order and will comply.” How many people get tax refunds by paper check? The majority of federal income tax refunds are sent by direct deposit. As of March 21, the I.R.S. had issued about 55.7 million refunds for 2024 tax returns, of which about 1.9 million, or about 3.5 percent, were paper checks. (The president’s order isn’t expected to affect refunds for this spring’s tax season, which is nearing its April 15 deadline for most filers, an I.R.S. spokesman said.) The Treasury Department has recently taken other steps to reduce paper, including eliminating the option to use tax refunds to buy the paper version of I bonds, federal savings bonds that protect against inflation. Are paper checks less secure? While some people still prefer paper, checks can go astray in the mail and are increasingly subject to fraud. They can be stolen from mailboxes and cashed by someone forging a signature. In one scheme, stolen paper checks are “washed” with chemicals, to remove the recipient’s name and the amount of the check. The thief then inserts his or her own name and a larger dollar amount. Last summer, two former Postal Service employees were indicted on charges that they stole $4 million in Treasury checks from a mail facility at Kennedy Airport in New York, then sold them to others. What if I don’t have a bank account? The president’s order specified that “limited exceptions” would be made, such as “for people without banking or electronic payment access.” “We’ll have to see how the exceptions play out,” said Lauren Saunders, associate director of the National Consumer Law Center. The number of Americans who are “unbanked,” or lack access to a traditional checking or savings account, has fallen in recent years. Just over 4 percent of households were unbanked in 2023, down from about 8 percent in 2011, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT One reason for the drop is that people can now find low-fee bank accounts through the Bank On program, run by the nonprofit Cities for Financial Empowerment Fund, Ms. Tescher said. The program works with banks nationally to certify thousands of safe, low-cost accounts. You can search online to find one that meets Bank On’s standards. And Ms. Saunders noted that people without formal bank accounts could already get federal payments via the Direct Express program, through which the government puts payments on a prepaid debit card, allowing recipients of Social Security, disability or veterans benefits to withdraw cash or pay bills. Direct Express serves about 3.4 million people, most of whom don’t have bank accounts. Its longtime administrator has recently come under scrutiny for poor customer service, and a new bank, the Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, will start running the program this year. Does the order affect payments made to the government? The executive order also requires that payments to the government — such as for income taxes and passport applications — must also be made electronically rather than by physical check.

I went to Costco on a tariff run, and did not stock up on anything. It was tempting. Mark Cuban was on social media telling people it was not a “bad idea” to stock up on consumables as President Trump’s trade war unfolded. I love beating the system as much as the next person — it’s my literal beat in journalism. But let’s really think this one through for a minute. First of all, these tariffs may not persist at anything like the amounts currently in the headlines. For stocking up to make sense, you have to assume that price increases will be significant and last for at least a medium amount of time. But let’s assume that both these things happen. Say you have a $1,000 grocery bill each month, and it somehow goes to $1,500 by Memorial Day. While predicting a 50 percent spike feels like a stretch, that extra $500 would be real money. But you also need to have real money — extra real money — to lay a bunch of things away in your residence. Many people don’t, and going into debt to buy extras of everything will probably erase any savings. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Mr. Cuban, via email, said he had made buying shampoo, soap and razor blades in multiples work somehow, even when he wasn’t wealthy. “I started doing it in college when I read the book ‘The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need,’” he said. “When you can save money by buying more than one of something, that’s a guaranteed return.” It can be, if you use it. Most of what we eat, however, is perishable. Many of us waste some of what we purchase. Buying more could mean wasting more food — and more money. Then there’s the practical problem, where we need to invoke the deadpan comedian Steven Wright. “You can’t have everything,” he once said. “Where would you put it?” In an extra freezer maybe, but then you’re spending hundreds of dollars more. As for larger goods, speeding up a car or furniture purchase if you are going to need either thing in a year or two feels risky, especially if you’re borrowing sooner than you might have or pulling money out of beaten-down stocks to do so. That said, some opportunities to save money may present themselves unexpectedly. On Thursday, Ford dropped many prices, seeking headlines and competitive advantage. It could reverse those prices just as easily. We do not know what is going to happen next, and neither does Mr. Trump or the people who surround him. You may be worried about the shortages that occurred in 2020. The supply chain is indeed vast and unpredictable, since toilet paper requires wood pulp and berries need packaging. It is also possible that niche manufacturers will choose not to produce or export if it is unprofitable to do so. Mr. Trump’s advisers, however, are mostly thinking about the money. Peter Navarro, a senior trade adviser, is out in public making 10-year, $6 trillion tariff revenue projections, while Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick believes the stock market will do “extremely well” over the medium and long terms. You see what Mr. Lutnick did there, right? The short term might be bad. Or not, though so far it sure seems that way. He doesn’t want to make a short-term prediction, because he has no earthly idea what the markets will do tomorrow or next week, let alone what will happen to the prices consumers pay. What he does know is that in a year or three, most people will have forgotten what he said on Thursday. The futility of forecasting (and the limited utility in listening to people who engage in projectile projections) comes in part because we don’t know how countries are going to react to the U.S. tariffs, or how much courage Mr. Trump will have in maintaining them. Remember, he backed down pretty quickly not long ago when President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico got tough in response to his attempt to rough up her country. On Thursday, she boasted of her “preferential treatment.” At a Costco in Brooklyn, it was business as usual. I watched a few hundred carts exiting, none of which contained unusual amounts of toilet paper or anything else. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT There was just one person I could find trying to get ahead of the tariffs. Mizan Rahman had a dolly filled with Ensure and PediaSure, which he was buying to resell at Fresh Halal Meat and Grocery a few miles away. He had already loaded up on basmati rice. Unlike many Brooklyn residents, he has a basement below the store that he can use. He also has a credit card with zero percent interest for the rest of the year to pay for this bit of hedging. “You have to do something,” he said. “Trump is getting crazy now.” Maybe you have to do something if you’re a business owner and you have the basement and the credit. But in general, the first rule of unexpected news moments is this: Don’t just do something. Stand there. So I stood there, watching, and found little hoarding. Then I sat there with the hordes at the store’s red benches and had one of Costco’s $1.50 hot dogs. The price has not risen in decades. Three years ago, an executive said it never would, either. If it does, that might be a reason to panic.

Even by the standards of watch boxes — typically oversized for the objects they hold — Chopard’s latest leather case, unveiled at watch fair Watches and Wonders, is strikingly large. But the grandeur is justified. Open it, and it reveals not one, but twelve L’Heure du Diamant watches, arranged like precious petals. Each piece features the same diamond-studded bezel, framing twelve different dials crafted from thin, round slices of hard-stones including apple-green jade, cobalt blue agate, cinnamon brown tiger’s eye, white mother-of-pearl, pink opal, onyx, carnelian, and more. The result is an elegant, unmistakably feminine collection with just the right dose of color and sparkle. “My father, Karl Scheufele, introduced exquisite goldsmithing techniques that enabled the use of hard-stone dials when he took over Chopard in 1963,” explained Caroline Scheufele, Chopard’s co-president and creative director, over a phone call. “By the late 1960s, Chopard was already creating bold, colorful timepieces with these beautiful stones. Reviving them now is our way of celebrating that joyful creativity — while staying true to our heritage.” Chopard’s latest creation may be the most eloquent example yet and perhaps the peak of the hard-stone dial craze that has been sweeping the world of luxury watches over the past couple of years. It’s evident at Rolex, which reimagined its beloved Oyster Perpetual Day-Date 36 in uplifting tones of apricot carnelian, sky-blue turquoise and shimmering green aventurine. The watchmaker also updated its iconic Oyster Perpetual collection with a 28mm style, debuting in lavender and a matte finish, a first for the brand. Gucci gave its avant-garde, hands-free Grip timepiece a bold new look in sandstone-hued jasper, while Dior’s Grand Bal Histoire Naturelle features sodalite, aventurine and aragonite. Chanel ventured into the cosmos to fetch meteorite for one of its elegant Monsieur watches. Elsewhere, Cartier’s elongated oval-shaped Baignoire watch has a mesmerizing, hypnotic dial featuring an irregular mosaic of mother-of-pearl, turquoise, and onyx stones. Colorful mood-boosters This year, Piaget is also making a colorful splash with hard-stone dials. In one model from the Hidden Treasures collection, a green-hued opal dial peeks out from an intricately engraved white gold cuff, its outer frame rimmed with delicate emeralds. In another piece, a lavish sautoir with a rope-like chain is adorned with a 17-carat pink tourmaline and a white opal of over 12 carats, and holds a dial made of fiery red ruby root — the raw base material to which rubies are attached. The dial’s vivid color is echoed by ruby root beads in juicy cerise and raspberry tones, interspersed throughout the chain. One might associate such colorful hard-stones with ladies’ watches, which have historically featured softer colors or delicate details, but they’re popular in men’s timepieces, too. Piaget recently reimagined its iconic Andy Warhol watch in four striking variations, each featuring a different ornamental stone: blue opal veined with iridescent green, warm brown tiger’s eye, vivid green meteorite, and silvery meteorite. “The distinctive shape of this case offers an ideal canvas for showcasing exceptional slices of ornamental stone,” says Jean-Bernard Forot, head of patrimony at Piaget. “At Watches and Wonders, we’re reintroducing the tiger’s eye on a white gold case — an exquisite pairing that magnifies the stone’s graphic, magnetic stripes.” At the end of last year, Hublot added a bold twist to its muscular Classic Fusion model, unveiling dials crafted from lunar meteorite, pink jasper, turquoise, sodalite and nephrite jade. Now, at the Geneva fair, Gerald Charles — founded by the legendary designer Gerald Genta, who was often dubbed the “Picasso of watchmaking” — presented the Maestro with a radiant lapis lazuli dial. “Lapis lazuli was chosen because it was Mr. Gerald Genta’s favorite stone,” explained the brand’s CEO Federico Ziviani. “We hold the rights to his original sketch, so this design is completely aligned with our brand’s DNA.” A revival of ’70s aesthetics But why has the world of horology fallen for colorful hard-stone dials? “Collectors love these dials because they bring individuality to a watch,” explained Scheufele, noting that each stone varies in hue, with unique streaks, inclusions, and shimmering effects that give every piece its own distinct character. The appeal also goes beyond aesthetics.“These stones aren’t just beautiful — they carry meaning,” Scheufele continued. “From birthstones to lucky charms, they hold an almost mythical energy. That emotional connection makes them irresistible.” Alba Cappellieri, head of the jewelry and fashion accessories program at Politecnico University in Milan, believes that collectors’ growing fascination with hard-stone dial watches is closely tied to the broader revival of 1970s aesthetics. This resurgence has been particularly visible in luxury fashion: see the flared trousers, long sautoirs and bold mix of colors and prints seen at the latest shows of Valentino, Chloé and Chanel. “The 1970s marked a break from modernist austerity, ushering in a more fluid, emotional, and decorative aesthetic,” Cappellieri explained, citing Emilio Pucci’s “palazzo pajamas” as a perfect expression of that era’s “relaxed yet sophisticated spirit, with kaleidoscopic prints and lightweight fabrics that drape naturally over the body.” Much like in the 1970s, current rising inflation and geopolitical tensions globally may prompt consumers to seek solace in color as a quick and uplifting antidote. “Saturated hues and vibrant combinations are taking center stage,” Cappellieri continued, adding that the appeal of hard-stones such as lapis lazuli, malachite and mother-of-pearl “goes beyond decoration” and “reflect a desire to celebrate nature and its uniqueness.” However, for all their visual appeal and seemingly effortless ability to inject color into a watch, setting a dial using hard-stones is a delicate and complex process. Despite being classified as “hard,” these stones are, in fact, fragile, explained Piaget’s Forot. “Opal dials are especially tricky — even after passing all the stress tests, the real moment of truth comes when the watch hands are applied to the dial,” he said. “There’s a tiny pressure at the center of the dial, and even the strongest slice can crack.” Still, the risk is worth it. “One glance at a hard-stone dial instantly evokes images of a hedonistic, flamboyant lifestyle,” said Forot. “You can almost feel the warmth just by looking at it.”

Florida is experiencing a housing affordability crisis and high insurance rates Florida's real estate market has been hammered by high home prices and surging insurance costs. Home values nationwide are also expected to rise modestly this year, adding to the current affordability crisis in the state, according to a recent report. But despite the uptick in prices, at least three cities in Florida are projected to see a decline, according to a report from Realtor.com, which cited real estate analytics company Cotality. HOW ELIMINATING PROPERTY TAXES IN FLORIDA COULD AFFECT THE STATE'S REAL ESTATE MARKET Those cities, Tampa, Winter Haven and West Palm Beach, have a 70% chance of seeing prices fall, according to the real estate analytics company. The report categorized them at "very high risk" of price declines, underscoring how the market is adjusting after a run-up in prices in recent years due to soaring demand. Migration to the state has since slowed. High home prices, rising mortgage rates and increasing insurance costs have significantly dampened buyer demand since 2022, according to Hannah Jones, senior economic research analyst at Realtor.com. Insurance costs in many parts of the state have jumped due to the risk of property damage from a climate-related event. ValuePenguin — a personal finance website and a subsidiary of LendingTree — reported that homeowners in Florida pay some of the highest rates in the country, with the average cost of home insurance sitting at $2,207 per year. "Piling expensive insurance costs on top of still-high home prices and elevated mortgage rates has pushed the cost of homeownership in Florida out of reach for many would-be buyers," Jones said. "Last year's catastrophic weather events in Florida may remain front-of-mind for home shoppers, which could lead them to consider other places to put down roots." As residents face so much financial strain, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hinted on social media that he would support abolishing such taxes throughout the Sunshine State, but that it would require a constitutional amendment. "Property taxes are local, not state. So we’d need to do a constitutional amendment (requires 60% of voters to approve) to eliminate them (which I would support) or even to reform/lower them…" DeSantis posted on X. Meanwhile, Jones said that inventory has built up significantly across Florida "as newly built residences worked their way through the pipeline." This could be a good sign for prospective buyers as "ample for-sale inventory relative to buyer demand suggests that home prices will continue to fall as sellers try to attract buyer attention." Jones said that home prices will likely continue to level off as the market searches for balance, but since Florida is a large housing market, it will take time for dynamics to shift.

The idea of getting her eldest child a smartphone had long felt inevitable, said Daisy Greenwell. But by early last year, when her daughter was 8 years old, it filled her with dread. When she talked to other parents, “everyone universally said, ‘Yes, it’s a nightmare, but you’ve got no choice,’” recalled Ms. Greenwell, 41. She decided to test that. A friend, Clare Fernyhough, had shared her concerns about the addictive qualities of smartphones and the impact of social media on mental health, so they created a WhatsApp group to strategize. Then Ms. Greenwell, who lives in rural Suffolk, in the east of England, posted her thoughts on Instagram. “What if we could switch the social norm so that in our school, our town, our country, it was an odd choice to make to give your child a smartphone at 11,” she wrote. “What if we could hold off until they’re 14, or 16?” She added a link to the WhatsApp group. The post went viral. Within 24 hours the group was oversubscribed with parents clamoring to join. Today, more than 124,000 parents of children in more than 13,000 British schools have signed a pact created by Smartphone Free Childhood, the charity set up by Ms. Greenwell, her husband, Joe Ryrie, and Ms. Fernyhough. It reads: “Acting in the best interests of my child and our community, I will wait until at least the end of Year 9 before getting them a smartphone.” (Year 9 is equivalent to the American eighth grade.) The movement aligns with a broader shift in attitudes in Britain, as evidence mounts of the harms posed to developing brains by smartphone addiction and algorithm-powered social media. In one survey last year the majority of respondents — 69 percent — felt social media negatively affected children under 15. Nearly half of parents said they struggled to limit the time children spent on phones. Meanwhile the police and intelligence services have warned of a torrent of extreme and violent content reaching children online, a trend examined in the hit TV show Adolescence, in which a schoolboy is accused of murder after being exposed to online misogyny. It became Britain’s most watched show, and on Monday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer met with its creators in Downing Street, telling them he had watched it with his son and daughter. But he also said: “This isn’t a challenge politicians can simply legislate for.” Other governments in Europe have acted to curb children’s smartphone use. In February, Denmark announced plans to ban smartphones in schools, while France barred smartphones in elementary schools in 2018. Norway plans to enforce a minimum age on social media. So far Britain’s government has appeared wary of intervening. Josh MacAlister, a Labour lawmaker, attempted to introduce a legal requirement to make all schools in England smartphone free. But the bill was watered down after the government made clear it would not support a ban, arguing that principals should make the decision. Some parents feel the need to act is urgent, especially as technology companies, including Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and X, formerly Twitter, have ended fact-checking operations, which many experts say will allow misinformation and hate speech to flourish. “We don’t have years for things to change,” said Vicky Allen, 46, a mother from Henfield in southern England. “It does feel like it needs to be us.” She and a friend, Julia Cassidy, 46, successfully campaigned for their children's elementary school to limit phone use after Ms. Cassidy watched a Channel 4 documentary about smartphones in schools, and then came across Smartphone Free Childhood. Ms. Cassidy was going to give her son a phone when he turned 11, but said, “I’ve just done a very big U-turn.” Now, she plans to give him a phone that can be used only for calls and texts. The power of parents collectively delaying smartphones is key, Ms. Greenwell said, because it insulates children from peer pressure. “This problem isn’t that complicated,” she said. “If you have other people around you who are also doing the same thing, it’s actually amazingly, beautifully simple.” ‘Most people just want to keep their children safe’ On a recent Friday morning, dozens of parents gathered in the auditorium of Colindale Primary School in north London for a presentation by Nova Eden, a regional leader for Smartphone Free Childhood. She described startling data — that the average 12-year-old in Britain spends 21 hours a week on a smartphone, for example, and that 76 percent of 12- to 15-year-olds spend most of their free time on screens. She also talked about emerging research on the impact of smartphone use. Ms. Eden cited studies showing rates of anxiety, depression and self-harm among teenagers spiking dramatically since social media was introduced. “These children are struggling and they need our help,” Ms. Eden said. “I know how hard it is, but we need to be the ones that stand up and say, this is not good for you.” Ms. Eden, 44, described struggling to find the right balance for her own children, ages 5, 10 and 13. She said it was the campaigning of Ian Russell, whose daughter Molly took her own life after viewing suicide-related content on Instagram and other social media sites, that drove her to get involved. She had just given her own 13-year-old a phone. “At that time, I was going through this with my child, and seeing the change in him and his friends,” she said. Jane Palmer, the principal of the Colindale school, acknowledged that some parents have been skeptical of limiting smartphone use, or of banning the devices from school entirely, as her school will do from September. Some argue the devices can provide social independence and allow them to contact their children in an emergency. Others feel parental controls go far enough in ensuring safety online. But the conversations among parents had begun to make way for change, Ms. Palmer said. During the presentation, she described how a former student had died by suicide after being bullied online. “It can be tricky, and of course not everyone is going to support it,” she said of the ban. “But at the end of the day, I think most people just want to keep their children safe.” Colindale is in the borough of Barnet, which in February announced plans to become the first borough in Britain to ban smartphones in all its public schools. The initiative will affect some 63,000 children. Eton, one of Britain’s most elite private schools, announced last year that new students would be banned from bringing smartphones and would instead be issued with Nokia handsets that can only text and make calls. In Suffolk, the founders of the Smartphone Free Childhood initiative are aware that their success in attracting parents to their cause is partly thanks to social media and messaging apps on which they have spread the word. “There are loads of positive things about this technology,” Mr. Ryrie said. “We’re not trying to say that technology is bad, just that we need to have a conversation as a society about when it’s appropriate for children to have unrestricted access to this stuff.”

Housing costs, including insurance rates, in the US have continued to rise 'Mansion Global' host Katrina Campins on whether she sees a housing market 'crash' on the horizon and one midwestern city seeing a market boom. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hinted on social media that he would support abolishing such taxes throughout the Sunshine State, but that it would require a constitutional amendment. Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com, said that it could benefit Florida's market in the short term by helping to resolve the buildup of inventory. Easing the burden of property taxes could alleviate some of the strain on homeowners who have been grappling with high housing costs, including skyrocketing insurance rates, and encourage more people to move, according to Berner. Berner said that now there are a higher number of unsold homes and homes taking longer to sell compared with years past due to affordability concerns. People who were locked into low mortgage rates for several years are finally looking to move, but the demand isn't where it was compared with a few years ago when the state had a hot housing market. SEVERAL STATES SEEK END TO PROPERTY TAXES: SHOULDN'T HAVE TO 'RENT FROM THE GOVERNMENT' "Getting rid of property taxes would essentially increase everybody's home budget a little bit and allow people to buy a first home or buy a move-up home, or buy their dream home that maybe they couldn't afford before because it's a property tax," Berner said. However, this would effectively raise buyers' budgets and cause a bit of a demand surge, driving prices up in the short term, he said. This move could also negatively impact communities in the long run. "If locally-levied property taxes are replaced with an increased state-level sales tax, there will be less local control for cities and school districts to raise their own tax revenue in a way that meets their specific needs," Berner said. PA REPUBLICANS SEEK TO LEVY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT REMITTANCES TO FUND PROPERTY TAX RELIEF He said different municipalities have different requirements, and "a blanket tax revenue at the state level would be less specialized than property taxes for those requirements." Chen Zhao, economic research lead at real estate brokerage Redfin, said there would be "knock-on effects of eliminating property taxes." For example, Zhao said buyers could "perceive that local services, such as schools, would suffer as a result," which "would also dampen the benefits of eliminating property taxes." Zhao and Berner said it is also still unclear how the state would raise revenue in replacement of property taxes. If the state offsets it by raising sales taxes, for instance, that "might also be off-putting to potential migrants to Florida," Zhao said. Still, the issue of high insurance costs remains. "If the cost of insurance due to intensifying climate risks is high enough to offset the property tax savings, buyers may still hesitate to buy in Florida," Zhao said. But Florida isn't the only state considering plans to abolish property taxes. Fiscally conservative leaders in several states are looking to do so, with one Pennsylvania lawmaker arguing that homeowners shouldn’t have to "pay rent" to the government. "Property taxes are an issue that is not exactly partisan, because in some areas, it’s more of a big deal than in others," Rep. Russ Diamond, R-Lebanon said, citing varying relationships between taxes and school district funding. "For me, the ‘big deal’ is that I want people to own their homes and not have to rent from the government, all across Pennsylvania," he said.

Three years later, Khadija Zaidi-Rashid still remembers the screams of other passengers, the unsettled expression on the flight attendant’s face and the helplessness she felt holding her infant on her lap. Dr. Zaidi-Rashid, 34, then a doctoral student, was flying from Washington to Doha, Qatar, with her mother and two children when their airplane encountered severe turbulence. Her other child, a toddler, was in a seat next to her, and the half-hour of roller-coaster shaking and bucking felt like hours. Since then — though everyone emerged unscathed — she cannot get over the sense of worry on every flight she takes. “The turbulence has caused me to feel claustrophobic, all kinds of motherhood-related anxiety,” she said, adding that she no longer sleeps during flights. She’s worried that her children, now older, will slip out of their seatbelts they are now required to have. She often keeps her hand on them as a precaution. She’s not alone. In recent months, after a series of terrifying plane crashes and accidents on the tarmac, parents have swarmed online message boards and lit up group chats to unload their anxieties about upcoming flights and longstanding safety norms for family travel. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The accidents, which included a midair collision in Washington and a flipped-over plane in Toronto, have fueled concerns about whether young children on airplanes, particularly infants, are sufficiently protected. The worry has compelled some parents to rethink how they fly, with many considering options ranging from bringing car seats to canceling trips. Keeping Babies Safe in the Air Holding your small child on your lap has been acceptable in air travel for decades. The practice, which airlines allow for travelers under 2 years old to fly free or at a steep discount, saves parents or caregivers airfare. Parents list convenience and their child’s comfort as other key motivators. But the safety of the practice has been debated for decades. Aviation safety agencies around the world have made their position clear: Children are safest in airplanes when they’re secured in their own seats in approved child restraint systems, such as car seats certified for airplane use. “Your arms aren’t capable of holding your in-lap child securely, especially during unexpected turbulence,” the Federal Aviation Administration warns on its website. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency states that several studies have concluded that child safety seats provide “a level of safety equivalent to that provided to adult passengers.” Pediatricians, flight attendants and academics agree. They emphasize the elevated risks of lap children becoming injured. They could be struck by the in-flight service carts or by objects falling from the luggage bins. A 2019 study in the journal Pediatric Emergency Care found that of about 114,000 medical events that occurred on flights between 2009 and 2014, more than 12,000 included children. Of these, roughly 2,000 involved lap children, making them more than “twice as likely to sustain an in-flight injury compared with other in-flight medical events.” But if parents want to use car seats or other safety equipment on board, the rules differ by airline (or even by the seat in the aircraft). What equipment is available also can vary. Some airplanes have bassinets, which can be requested but not guaranteed on the day of travel. Not all car seats fit on smaller planes. In Europe, infant seatbelts that secure a child to a parent are available, though they aren’t permitted in the United States and Canada because of concerns that a child’s abdomen could be severely injured by the seatbelt or the parent. There are even rules that infants cannot be worn in carriers during takeoff and landing, the most dangerous periods of a flight. Lack of Legislation The official language from the F.A.A. about children flying in laps is only a warning, with no legal weight. Legislation even to authorize a new study of children’s safety while flying, introduced in Congress nearly two years ago, has stalled. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The lack of federal regulation about lap children gives parents “the wrong assumption that if it’s allowed it must be safe,” said Jan Brown, a former United Airlines flight attendant. In 1989, Ms. Brown survived an airplane crash in Iowa in which 111 of 296 people on board, including passengers and crew, died. Flight attendants advised parents to place their children by their feet, the standard safety guidance at the time. There were four lap infants on the flight and one, a 23-month-old, died. It is incredibly rare for any passenger to die in a commercial airplane accident, and aviation remains far safer than driving. This was the conclusion of a study on car seat use in airplanes conducted in 1994 by the F.A.A. The report maintained that while car seats were the safest place for children to be, requiring parents to purchase an extra seat would deter them from flying. Instead they’d resort to driving, a statistically more lethal form of transit. However, there hasn’t been substantive research into whether a significant number of families would drive rather than fly because of the cost of buying a seat for their infant, said William McGee, a senior fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project, a nonprofit research and advocacy group. “It should be noted that at no time has the F.A.A. actually studied its own theory,” he said. “Instead it has always just been assumed, without any statistical analysis, surveys, public comments or meaningful research, which runs contrary to federal government rule-making procedures.” Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT A Shift in Culture? Lia Tuso, an expert in aviation child passenger safety, said that child safety remains a “deficiency in the airline industry.” Airlines generally don’t note the safety risks of lap children on their websites, just that they are allowed. Hannah Walden, a spokeswoman for the trade group Airlines for America, said in a statement that U.S. airlines “follow the guidance and regulations set by our safety regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration.” But a palpable shift in the culture, Ms. Tuso said, may be occurring: Parents are becoming increasingly aware of the risks, using car seats and other alternatives more often on flights. They are increasingly crowdsourcing for guidance on equipment and best practices to avoid flying with their children on their laps. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Though there are plenty of rules for adults flying on airplanes, said Chelsea Nicholls, the mother of a 16-month-old child, it’s as if there are “no rules for the kids.” Ms. Nicholls, 35, a marketing executive from New Canaan, Conn., previously believed flying with a car seat was unwieldy and impractical. Ahead of a recent flight to Florida, however, she purchased her daughter a seat and an F.A.A.-approved harness. “I never felt like I was an anxious person,” she said. “You take your own safety for granted sometimes, but when you’re caring for a young child, so many thoughts start flooding your mind.” Traveling to Florida, Ms. Nicholls said she felt “comfortable and safe” seeing her child strapped into her own seat, especially during the flight’s occasional bumps. “It definitely let me relax a little bit,” she said. Delaney and Jake Steele, of Vancouver, Wash., were on the Alaska Airlines flight in January 2024 with their daughter, Quinnette, when a door plug blew out of the cabin as the plane was ascending. They were sitting five rows back and on the opposite side of the gaping hole. Quinnette, then 9 months old, was on Ms. Steele’s lap. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The sudden loss of air pressure was the “loudest thing you’ve ever heard,” Mr. Steele, 36, said. They struggled to keep the oxygen mask on their daughter, who was screaming and turning redder by the minute. The possibility that her child could have been sucked out of the plane didn’t hit Ms. Steele, 30, until after they landed. She has not set foot in an airplane since. “I don’t know how comfortable I’m going to be taking little ones,” said Ms. Steele, who, along with her husband, filed a lawsuit against Alaska Airlines and Boeing, the manufacturer of the plane. The couple now has a second child, age 5 months. “Now, if we fly before they’re 2, it’s a given that they will somehow be strapped in.”

Tax day is nearly here. If you haven’t filed your return for 2024, you’re running out of time. While it has been a fraught time at the Internal Revenue Service, with the Trump administration weighing huge staff cuts and the agency’s head resigning on the eve of tax season, tax returns are still due. Tax professionals report that so far, the agency appears to be functioning fairly well, with returns being processed and refunds being sent. “I’m not hearing anything about delays,” said Susie DiMaggio, board secretary of the National Association of Enrolled Agents, a group for federally licensed tax professionals. Ms. DiMaggio said some clients had asked if they should wait to file, citing President Trump’s musings about doing away with income taxes. Such a plan is improbable, she said. “People should file, no matter what President Trump is saying.” So for those who have yet to file, here are some last-minute tips to consider. When is the 2025 tax deadline? The federal filing deadline is April 15, but there are some exceptions. For example, if you were a victim of a recent natural disaster, such as wildfires in parts of California or severe storms in Kentucky and West Virginia, you have an automatic extension until later this year. Check the Internal Revenue Service website for details. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Most states follow the federal filing schedule, but a few have later deadlines. If I’m not ready to file my tax return, can I get an extension? You can get an extension until Oct. 15 by filing Form 4868 by the April deadline. But note: An extension gives you more time to file, but it doesn’t give you extra time to pay if you owe tax, Ms. DiMaggio said. You should estimate what you owe and send a payment with your extension form. Otherwise, you may face penalties on the balance due for paying late — 0.5 percent of the tax owed for each month the bill remains unpaid, up to a total of 25 percent. That can add up. If you owed $10,000, your penalty would be $50 a month, until the total reached $2,500. If you make a payment toward your tax bill via the I.R.S. website, you can click a box that marks it as a payment for an extension, and a form will automatically be filed for you, she said. Even if you can’t pay all that you owe, you should file and pay what you can. The reason: The I.R.S. needs to receive your return before helping you with a possible payment plan, said Tom O’Saben, director of tax content and government relations at the National Association of Tax Professionals. “You need to file the return so they have something to react to,” he said. You can even include Form 9465 with your return, requesting an installment plan and suggesting a monthly payment amount. If your suggested amount will pay off the debt within five to seven years, he said, there’s a good chance the agency will approve it. If you’re expecting money back but are pressed for time because of personal circumstances — say, an unexpected health issue — there’s no need to panic and rush to file a return by the deadline, Mr. O’Saben said. That’s because in general, if you don’t owe tax, no penalties apply, he said. But file when you can to claim your refund. What if I didn’t receive a W-2 form? If you’re missing a W-2 form — a wage statement that your employer sends to both you and the I.R.S. showing what you earned and what was withheld in taxes — you should contact the employer right away to ask about it, Ms. DiMaggio said. Many employers make W-2 forms available online, instead of mailing them, so you might simply need to log on to a special portal to retrieve it, Mr. O’Saben said. The I.R.S. says that if you haven’t received a W-2 by now, you should call the agency (have your dates of employment handy), which will contact the employer and request that it send you one. If you don’t receive it in time to file your taxes, you can use your final 2024 pay stubs to complete Form 4852 as a substitute and submit it with your return. Are there still options to lower my 2024 taxable income? If you qualify, you can make tax-deductible contributions to an individual retirement account or a health savings account by the April 15 tax deadline and have them apply to tax year 2024, said Eva Simpson, vice president of member value, tax and advisory services with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. You can contribute up to $7,000 to a traditional I.R.A. for 2024 and an extra $1,000 if you’re 50 or older, the I.R.S. says. The size of your deduction depends on several factors, such as your filing status and whether you or your spouse, if you are married, is covered by a retirement plan at work. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Contributions to H.S.A.s are also tax-deductible, if you have a specific type of health insurance plan with a high deductible. If you’re eligible, you can contribute up to $4,150 (including any employer contributions) for 2024 if you have individual coverage, plus an extra $1,000 if you’re 55 or older, by the filing deadline. Is there a tax break for college savings accounts? There’s no federal tax deduction for contributing to 529 college savings plans, but some states offer deductions or credits on your state taxes. Most of them require the contributions to be made by the end of the calendar year to qualify, but eight (Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Wisconsin) let you make contributions up until the tax deadline and get a tax break for the prior year, according to the website Saving for College. What if I was owed a refund for 2021 but still haven’t filed a tax return for that year? If you were owed a refund on your 2021 return, which was supposed to be filed in April 2022, time is running out for you to file and claim the money. The I.R.S. generally gives filers three years from the original filing date to submit their returns and receive refunds. So you have until April 15 of this year to file. If you miss the deadline, the Treasury Department keeps the money. More than a million people have unclaimed refunds for 2021, the I.R.S. says. (That year and the next one fell during the Covid pandemic, when people may have been focused on things other than their taxes.) The typical amount is estimated at $781, but it is more than $900 in some states (Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island). In addition, some people may be due even larger refunds because several tax benefits, like the child tax credit and the earned-income tax credit, were increased that year because of the pandemic. So 2021 may be a particularly costly year to leave money on the table. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Are there free options for filing my tax return? The I.R.S. offers several options. If you live in one of 25 participating states and meet certain criteria, you can use the Direct File program to file your taxes online directly with the I.R.S. Taxpayers in any state who had income of $84,000 or less are eligible to file free electronic returns through the separate Free File program, a partnership between the I.R.S. and several do-it-yourself tax software companies. The I.R.S. also offers free online forms that filers can use, regardless of income, to file federal returns.

Last year, Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive, and Tom Alison, one of his top lieutenants, were discussing how they wanted to reshape Facebook for the future of social networking. Mr. Zuckerberg, who had grown Facebook from a dorm room project to a $1.5 trillion company that he renamed Meta, wanted to bring back some of the original rationale for the social network, or what he called “OG Facebook” vibes, Mr. Alison said in an interview. After years of adding features, the executives felt that some of Facebook’s key functions were being drowned out. So they asked themselves: Why not try building some features that resembled the Facebook of yore a bit more? On Thursday, Meta did just that with a simple tweak. The company said the Facebook app would now include a separate news feed for users that featured posts shared exclusively by people’s friends and family. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT The feature, called the Friends Tab, will replace a tab in the app that showed new friend requests or suggested friends. Friends Tab will instead show a scrolling feed of posts, such as photos, video stories, text, birthday notifications and friend requests. For now, it will be available to Facebook users only in the United States and Canada. “This idea of having a central place of what’s going on with your friends, that was like the magic of the early days of social media,” said Mr. Alison, who is head of the Facebook app. “We’re making sure that there’s still a place for this stuff on Facebook. It is something that shouldn’t get lost in the modern social media mix.” The new feed is a sharp departure from the way social media has evolved over the past decade. The rise of apps like TikTok habituated users to seeing posts in their feeds from influencers and content creators, who were often people they had never met. Other companies followed suit. Meta’s apps, which also include Instagram, began leaning more heavily on recommended content to keep people engaged for longer periods. Now people view apps like YouTube, Instagram and TikTok as something more akin to television — a lean-back experience fueled by a smaller number of creators who produce hours of entertainment for the rest of the internet to consume. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT Not everyone has welcomed the shift. When Mr. Zuckerberg founded Facebook in 2004, it was aimed at helping college students connect with their friends on campus. As the app grew more popular, it became about helping every user keep up to date with posts from friends and family. So when Mr. Zuckerberg announced in 2022 that Meta would insert recommended content on Facebook from people who were not connected to the user, many users revolted. Many initially found the recommended content — which relied on artificial intelligence to surface suggestions — jarring. After some criticism, Mr. Zuckerberg slightly scaled back the amount of such content added into people’s Facebook feeds. Still, that did not stop Meta from embracing algorithmically recommended content. In recent years, more of people’s feeds on Facebook and Instagram became dominated by creators, businesses and brands. Recommended content like Reels, Meta’s video product, led people to spend more time on the apps, the company has said. Meta has no plans to stop adding recommended content to users’ feeds, Mr. Alison said in the interview. For now, the company does not expect the Friends Tab to be more popular than the Home feed of recommended content. And more changes to Facebook are likely coming. Meta plans to introduce other features and updates to Facebook in the coming year to make social media still “feel social,” Mr. Alison said. “It is, frankly, core to Facebook,” he said.

On Jan. 18, I was one of millions of Americans scrolling through TikTok when service for the all-you-can-binge video buffet suddenly halted just before a federal government ban went into effect. It was a breathtaking moment that had me in mourning. Where will I go now, I wondered, for my daily dose of Hollywood gossip, video game news and anime updates? TikTok, which is owned by a Chinese company, ByteDance, and had run up against a legal deadline to find a U.S. owner or face a ban, came back to life the next day. President Trump then quickly signed an executive order extending the window for TikTok’s sale to April 5. With that new deadline fast approaching, the fate of TikTok, which claims more than 170 million American users, remains uncertain. But at least for now, a repeat of January’s blackout appears unlikely. Last month, Mr. Trump told reporters that he could extend the deadline again. And while ByteDance hasn’t confirmed any plans to sell, Oracle, the data center company, and others have emerged as potential suitors. The latest deadline offers an opportune moment to reflect on the app’s role in society. Here’s what I found. TikTok is still the best short video app TikTok started out 11 years ago as Musical.ly, an app for users to post lip-sync videos, but over time it evolved into a general-purpose video app where people could scroll through short clips of news and entertainment. It now has more than one billion users globally. In the last five years, as TikTok surged in popularity worldwide, Meta, Google and others produced clones that let users endlessly scroll through video clips. But younger users still prefer TikTok for watching short videos, according to a survey by eMarketer, a research firm. The preference for TikTok may be linked, in part, to the quality of the product. Videos made on TikTok generally look better — clearer, more tightly edited and catchy — than videos produced with similar apps like Instagram’s Reels. (Why drink a tepid cola when you can have classic Coke?) TikTok’s tools, including the editing app CapCut, streamline production of videos for the app. For me, when TikTok was briefly down, switching to Reels felt maddening. Many users posted videos that felt incomplete, such as a video of sourdough bread that asked me to read the caption to learn how to bake the perfect loaf. Why not just explain it in the video instead of a caption written in tiny text? Meta, which owns Instagram, is playing catch-up to TikTok’s editing tools. An Instagram spokeswoman referred to the company’s announcement of Edits, a competitor to CapCut for editing Reels videos, which is expected to debut in the coming weeks. The tool will allow Instagram users to upload video in a higher resolution, which will improve picture quality, among other perks. TikTok’s secret sauce, which others have also not replicated, is its algorithm for determining what video people want to see next. Many have said in surveys that TikTok is more attuned to surfacing the types of videos they want to watch, about everything from meal ideas to video games, keeping them glued to their screens for hours a day. Mental health concerns are mounting TikTok’s effectiveness at keeping people scrolling has been a topic of widespread concern among parents and academic researchers who wonder whether people could be considered addicted to the app, similar to video game addiction. Studies on the topic are continuing and remain inconclusive. One, published last year and led by Christian Montag, a professor of cognitive and brain sciences at the University of Macau in China, examined TikTok overuse. Very few people in the study, which involved 378 participants of various ages, reported feeling addicted to TikTok. Yet broadly speaking, the consensus from multiple studies on TikTok and other social media apps is that younger people are more likely to report feeling addicted, Dr. Montag said in an interview. “I think children should not at all be on these platforms,” he said about TikTok and similar apps. People’s brains can take at least 20 years to mature and self regulate, he added. A TikTok spokeswoman said the app included tools for people to manage their screen time, including a new setting for parents to block TikTok from working on their children’s phones during certain hours of the day. It’s a growing marketing platform for brands TikTok has become a major hub for businesses to promote their products through posted videos and wares sold through the TikTok Shop, an in-app store. The company is working hard to make Americans aware of its impact on the economy, running a splashy advertising campaign in newspapers and billboards portraying itself as a champion of small businesses. A TikTok spokeswoman cited a study claiming that TikTok drove $15 billion in revenue for small businesses in 2023, a figure that should be taken with a grain of salt because TikTok commissioned the study. But it’s clear just from scrolling through TikTok that many brands enjoy using it to spread videos demonstrating their quirky products. I confess that TikTok videos prompted me to buy an overpriced tool for removing dog fur from car seats and an automatic scrubber for cleaning the kitchen sink. As for so-called creators, the influencers posting TikTok videos that often go viral, the platform is typically more useful for self-promotion than for making money, said Alyssa McKay, an actress in New Jersey with more than 10 million TikTok followers. A video that gets two million views could earn her a few dollars, she said. That’s because TikTok pays only for views coming from people who do not already follow you, she added. It’s still a national security concern TikTok was banned in the first place because American government officials worry that ByteDance could share the data it has collected on its American users with the Chinese government for espionage purposes. Those concerns culminated in a Supreme Court hearing in January, where the Biden administration made its case for banning the app, citing concerns that TikTok could create a new pathway for Chinese intelligence services to infiltrate American infrastructure. But officials did not present evidence that TikTok was connected to such threats. TikTok has, however, been linked to smaller data scandals in the United States. TikTok confirmed in 2022 that four of its employees had been fired for using the app to snoop on several journalists in an effort to track down their sources. A TikTok spokeswoman referred to a video explaining how the app safeguards data of American users in a server system protected by Oracle, the U.S. database giant it teamed up with, to prevent unauthorized foreign access. Matthew Green, a security researcher and an associate professor of computer science at Johns Hopkins University, said the U.S. government’s security concerns about TikTok were exaggerated since no major scandal had surfaced yet but also valid because the hypothetical harms could happen. Plenty of apps made by American companies collect and share our information with data brokers, the firms that sell insights about us to marketers, including some in China. But TikTok, in particular, can collect sensitive data about Americans that would be useful for an adversarial government, such as their address books, Dr. Green added. Advertisement SKIP ADVERTISEMENT “We’re leaking so much information that you don’t need TikTok to make things worse, but things do get worse when you have millions and millions of different phones running this app,” Dr. Green said.