By FATIMA HUSSEIN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Treasury Department is moving closer to making President Donald Trump’s “ no tax on tips ” promise a reality. But new guidance released Friday tends to limit the number of tipped workers who will be able to claim the benefit.

The agency on Friday submitted proposed regulations to the Federal Register that includes greater detail on the occupations covered by the rule and who will qualify and what counts as a “qualified tip.”

The “no tax on tips” provision in Republicans’ massive tax and spending law signed by Trump in July eliminates federal income taxes on tips for people working in jobs that have traditionally received them and allows certain workers to deduct up to $25,000 in “qualified tips” per year from 2025 through 2028. The deduction phases out for taxpayers with a modified adjusted gross income over $150,000.

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To qualify as a tip, the tips must be must be earned in an occupation on Treasury’s list of qualified occupations. Among the jobs exempted from tax on tips are sommeliers, cocktail waiters, pastry chefs, cake bakers, bingo workers, club dancers, DJs, clowns, podcasters, influencers, online video creators, ushers, maids, gardeners, electricians, house cleaners, tow truck drivers, wedding planners, personal care aides, tutors, au pairs, massage therapists, yoga instructors, skydiving pilots, ski instructors, parking garage attendants, delivery drivers and movers.

The tip must be voluntarily given, so mandatory tips or auto-gratuities would not qualify for the “no tax on tips” benefit. However, tip pools and similar arrangements qualify, so long as they are reported to the IRS and voluntary. The benefit is not available to married individuals who file their taxes separately.

The tip must be given in cash, check, debit card, gift card or any item exchangeable for a fixed amount of cash, unlike digital assets. And any amount received for illegal activity, prostitution services, or pornographic activity does not qualify as a tip, according to the Treasury Department.

The “no tax on tips” provision will be implemented retroactively to Jan. 1, 2025.

The Yale Budget Lab estimates that there were roughly 4 million workers in tipped occupations in 2023, which amounts to roughly 2.5% of all jobs.

Congressional budget analysts project the “No Tax on Tips” provision would increase the deficit by $40 billion through 2028. The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation estimated in June that the tips deduction will cost $32 billion over 10 years.

Only tips reported to the employer and noted on a worker’s W-2, their end-of-year tax summary, will qualify. Payroll taxes, which pay for Social Security and Medicare, would still be collected along with state and local taxes.

By Blake Farmer, Nashville Public Radio, KFF Health News

Any evidence of lice was once a reason for immediate dismissal from school, not to return until the student’s head was lice-free. But what are known as “no-nit” policies have been dropped in favor of “nonexclusion” rules, prioritizing class time over any nuisance caused by parasites the size of sesame seeds. That leniency, of late, is coming back to bite some schools.

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Parents in Massachusetts, Texas, Ohio, and Georgia are petitioning for their districts to revive strict rules on nits and live lice. They blame recent outbreaks on the inclusive recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that allow students with live lice to remain in class. Before the start of this school year, the Hernando County School District, north of Tampa, Florida, acted to reinstate a policy abandoned in 2022.

“It’s a reinfestation, over and over and over,” said Shannon Rodriguez, who chairs the Hernando school board. In July, she told fellow board members that she’s seen the vicious cycle among families. “What do you do as a parent? Put them back in school with the same kid or kids that are in the classroom who have it? It’s just a never-ending battle.”

Public health officials consider lice a nuisance, not a health threat. Outside of small studies, data collection is scarce. With very little data on infestations, it’s hard to know whether more inclusive policies have anything to do with isolated outbreaks.

The latest estimates of annual infestations in the U.S. are broad and unreliable since so many cases go unreported. The CDC puts the number between 6 million and 12 million, affecting mostly preschoolers and elementary-age children.

“It really is about education because there are so many myths and so many misunderstandings about lice out there,” said Cathryn Smith of the National Association of School Nurses chapter in Tennessee. “This isn’t a topic that most people talk about.”

NASN and the American Academy of Pediatrics have supported nonexclusionary head lice management since at least 2002. But the recommendations were taken more seriously after the covid-19 pandemic affirmed the importance of face-to-face schooling.

“I think that people are starting to realize the value of in-person school and that really anything that takes them out of that should be scrutinized,” pediatrician Dawn Nolt of Oregon Health & Science University told NPR and KFF Health News. “Head lice is not a valid reason to keep a kid out of school or be dismissed from school.”

Nolt co-authored the latest guidance issued by the AAP in 2022, which incorporated new research but largely echoed prior recommendations. It discourages widespread lice checks in schools, as a study published in the Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal found that lice are frequently misidentified, which leads to unnecessary treatment and isolation of lice-free children.

It takes four to six weeks for lice to go from nits to a full-blown infestation. Only then would a child be seen head-scratching uncontrollably, caused by an allergic reaction to the parasites’ saliva.

“Kicking them out on a Wednesday when they’ve been having it for the past four to six weeks is not going to do anything. But it’s going to take that kid out of school and shame that kid and shame that family,” Nolt said. “I just think that’s not acceptable.”

Inclusion is the priority, even if it may inconvenience others or sow financial costs. Over-the-counter remedies, such as creams, gels, or shampoos, can add up. Professional treatment, which often involves manually picking out lice and nits, can run into the hundreds of dollars per person. And sometimes lice hits an entire household.

This summer, a preschool outside Nashville, Tennessee, endured its biggest outbreak yet. Roughly a third of the kids at the Creative Youth Enrichment Center ended up with lice.

Owner Tonya Bryson knew the latest recommendations were to play it cool. So she kept everyone in school, and they faced the dreaded four-letter word together. And then she talked openly about the experience.

“It’s not as bad as you think it is,” Bryson said. “I mean, yes, we had quite a few kids with it, and it went to parents and siblings. But it’s manageable.”

Among the affected families was Stephanie Buck, who also teaches at the day care. Lice ran through her household, requiring pricey treatments to rid them all of the infestation.

Buck said she’s torn about the best approach to combat lice, balancing the shame and stigma with the practical matter of containing an outbreak.

“Because my daughter was really embarrassed when she found out that she was the first one who got checked and she had it,” Buck said. “It’s hard. You want to protect your babies’ hearts, but you also want to keep them from getting lice.”

This article is from a partnership with WPLN and NPR .

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By Karen Bennett, Bankrate.com

Artifical intelligence (AI) is likely to reshape our lives in as big a way as the internet did in the 1990s and smartphones did in the 2000s (scary or exciting as that may be). That means changes to your regular life and your banking life, too. You’re likely encountering AI in your financial life already, with or without knowing it.

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Banks sometimes use AI to help prevent fraud, for example, and while some people may be nervous about using AI, others are largely on board. In fact, 62% of bank customers said they’d immediately try AI-driven alerts to help avoid service charges and fees, according to a 2024 J.D. Power report.

Here are a few ways AI is already transforming how we bank, including helping you manage your money and keep it safe, and some potential downsides to watch out for.

Fraud detection

Fraud is a pervasive issue right now. More than half (60%) of financial institutions and fintechs reported seeing an increase in fraud in 2024, according to a recent State of Fraud report from Alloy, an identity and fraud prevention platform provider.

AI-powered fraud-prevention software can help detect when fraudsters attempt to open fake accounts or take over a consumer’s existing account, and thwart them in real time. It can also identify patterns to help prevent future attacks, says Sara Seguin, director of advisory at Alloy.

Seguin provides some examples of how AI can aid in preventing bank fraud:

—Flagging when a known customer’s behavior is out of the ordinary, such as a large funds transfer

—Analyzing customer requests to change their information, such as whether a new email address has been associated with fraud in the past

—Identifying and reporting anomalies such as a large increase in the number of accounts opened in a single day at a given bank

Barclays, a multinational financial-services firm, is using generative AI (which learns patterns in data and creates something new) to manage fraud and money-laundering risks. Barclays’ AI system generates a warning when behavior takes place that’s not typical for a given customer. “Generative AI means that risk assessments for the customer are being brought to an individual and safer level,” the Barclays website reads.

Enhanced customer service

In addition to helping banks keep you safe from fraud, AI is being used to enhance customer service offerings in various ways.

—24/7 actually helpful chatbots

Chatbots are a common bank offering powered by AI, and the use of natural language processing is helping these 24/7 customer service bots to better interpret human language and provide a more personalized experience.

An example of a chatbot that uses AI is Bank of America’s virtual assistant Erica. Erica can be used for purposes that include monitoring recurring charges, staying on top of upcoming bills and tracking your spending.

—Fewer fields on application forms

In addition to incorporating AI into chatbots and customer service channels, some companies are also utilizing AI to make it easier for people to fill out forms online, such as for loan applications, says Sal Rehmetullah, CEO of Worth AI. Worth AI’s business clients use the company’s software to provide their customers with application forms on which only a few fields need to be entered manually — while AI takes care of the remainder of the data collection.

—More tailored financial advice from your financial adviser

While the human touch remains vital to a financial adviser’s role, some providers are utilizing AI to augment their services, says Michelle Bonat, Chief AI Officer at Squared. Examples she provides include using AI-powered tools for how to best approach a client or prospect, identifying cross-sell or up-sell opportunities, and researching portfolio recommendations.

JPMorgan Chase is an example of a bank whose private client advisers are using AI tools to conduct research to inform client conversations, according to a recent Reuters article.

—Personalized recommendations

Banks can use AI for predictive personalization, which harnesses machine learning and data-driven insights to predict what features or products a given customer wants to see, and then tailors the customer’s experience accordingly.

Bonat compares this type of opportunity for banks to the way companies like Amazon and Spotify recommend products or songs based on what people similar to you have chosen. “It’s like Spotify for your money,” she says. “It sees what you’ve been doing and makes recommendations to you based on that.”

For instance, a bank may give a customer with a rewards credit card an offer to open a rewards checking account.

The majority of consumers and business leaders see some benefits to such personalized offer suggestions, according to data from Zendesk. It states that 62% of consumers agree that personalized recommendations are better than general ones, while 77% of business leaders believe that deeper personalization leads to customer retention.

But if you feel wary of having AI give you money advice or generally be “in” your money business because you don’t understand how or why it’s making its recommendations, you’re not alone. “I think we have to do more work as an industry on making AI more trustworthy,” says AI Squared’s Bonat.

Lack of transparency in how AI works can foster mistrust

Often, there can be a lack of transparency in how an AI system is producing its content or making its decisions. This problem has commonly been referred to as “black box AI.” Examples include Open AI’s ChatGPT and Meta’s Llama, both of which can answer a user’s questions but don’t show how the answers were generated.

What’s next for AI in financial services?

We asked a few experts about what they saw as the future of AI in financial services:

If you use AI program ChatGPT to create a budget right now, you’re likely to get a “very static, very one-time” result, often through the generation of a spreadsheet, says Bonat. The real promise of AI in banking and financial planning is to have it be predictive and hyper-personalized, she says.

“Consumers will have AI bots,” says Ronit Ghose, Head of Future of Finance at Citi Global Insights, who likens these bots to J.A.R.V.I.S., the AI assistant to the character Tony Stark in Marvel’s Iron Man films.

Such autonomous agents could be used by everyday people to help manage their lives, Ghose says. The bots could handle tasks such as data gathering and comparison shopping, which ultimately could save you time and effort when making decisions.

“AI could basically become your own personal financial butler or personal financial adviser, ” Ghose says.

Bottom line

Whether you’re looking to budget your money or manage investments, AI may start to play a bigger role in helping you make decisions. Banks are increasingly using AI-powered technology to provide customer service and match their customers with personalized features and offers.

However, there’s room for improvement when it comes to increasing transparency so that users of this technology can understand and trust it more.

©2025 Bankrate.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By LORNE COOK, Associated Press

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union should slap new sanctions on Russia’s exports of liquefied natural gas, its shadow fleet of aging oil tankers and major energy companies over its war on Ukraine, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday.

“It is time to turn off the tap” on LNG, von der Leyen said in a video statement outlining her commission’s new sanctions proposals. They must be endorsed by the 27 EU countries before they can enter force.

“I now call on member states to quickly endorse these new sanctions. We want Russia to leave the battlefield and come to the negotiation table, and this is the way to give peace a real chance,” she said.

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The bloc has already agreed on 18 packages of sanctions against Russia, but getting final agreement on who and what to target can take weeks.

More than 2,500 “entities” including banks, ministries, energy companies and officials have already been hit.

The officials include President Vladimir Putin and his associates, scores of Russian lawmakers and several oligarchs. Travel bans and asset freezes are the most common measures.

Energy revenue is the linchpin of Russia’s economy, allowing Putin to pour money into the armed forces without worsening inflation for everyday people and avoiding a currency collapse.

Von der Leyen insisted that EU sanctions are having an impact. “Russia’s overheated war economy is coming to its limit,” she said, noting in particular constant high inflation in Russia.

The commission proposed targeting 118 additional vessels from Russia’s shadow fleet of ships transporting oil, bringing the total hit to over 560.

“Major energy trading companies Rosneft and Gazprom Neft will now be on a full transaction ban, and other companies will also come under an asset freeze” if the measures are endorsed, the head of the EU’s executive branch also said.

Part of the plan would be to go “after those who fuel Russia’s war by purchasing oil in breach of the sanctions,” she said. Von der Leyen said that the commission wants to “target refineries, oil traders, petrochemical companies and third countries including China.”

The sanctions would also include export restrictions on “items and technologies” that can be used on the battlefield. A further 45 companies in Russia and elsewhere would be hit, for “providing direct or indirect support to the Russian military industrial complex,” the commission president said.