First Run News

We all know that the world is going to hell. Given the rising risk of nuclear war with North Korea, the paralysis in Congress, warfare in Yemen and Syria, atrocities in Myanmar and a president who may be going cuckoo, you might think 2017 was the worst year ever. But you’d be wrong. In fact, 2017 was probably the very best year in the long history of humanity. A smaller share of the world’s people were hungry, impoverished or illiterate than at any time before. A smaller proportion of children died than ever before.

For every change in tax law, there are scores of people who want to outrun it and beat the system. Especially when it happens with less than three weeks left in the year. Since the final federal tax bill appeared on Friday, many people have had questions about prepaying taxes, a wide-ranging strategy that encompasses various efforts to save money by paying some taxes early. It seems counterintuitive, but sometimes, if you pay taxes in one year instead of another, you can come out ahead financially.

For every change in tax law, there are scores of people who want to outrun it and beat the system. Especially when it happens with less than three weeks left in the year. Since the final federal tax bill appeared on Friday, many people have had questions about prepaying taxes, a wide-ranging strategy that encompasses various efforts to save money by paying some taxes early. It seems counterintuitive, but sometimes, if you pay taxes in one year instead of another, you can come out ahead financially.

President Ronald Reagan over such questions. While this is the first time Trump has directly engaged on the topic of his mental fitness amid new claims in the “Fire and Fury” book, the White House has forcefully denounced such questions as “disgraceful and laughable.” “If he was unfit, he probably wouldn't be sitting there and wouldn't have defeated the most qualified group of candidates the Republican Party has ever seen,” White House press s

The Latest on President Donald Trump's meetings at Camp David with congressional leaders (all times local): 11 p.m. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise says there are no final decisions on the fate of a program that shields young immigrants brought to the country illegally as children. But the Louisiana congressman says top leaders — both Republican and Democrat — have been negotiating for months over immigration issues including the program and is hopeful they "can get this resolved soon." President Donald Trump last year end

Plainly agitated by a new book portraying him as dysfunctional, President Donald Trump is bemoaning his country's "very weak" liberal laws and making the case that he's "like, really smart" and, indeed, a "very stable genius." Trump defense of his mental fitness in a series of tweets was a singular episode in a presidency rife with moments unlike any that have come before in that office. He was pushing back against "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, a few hours before a strategy

Camp David on Saturday. “I think it's a disgrace that somebody's able to have something, do something like that,” Trump said of the book released Friday. “The libel laws are very weak in this country.

Lynn Tran and Richard Hazen built a Florida beachfront treehouse that would be the envy of any child. It's got two levels, hammocks and windows looking out on the Gulf of Mexico. But the hangout has cost the couple a handsome sum: about $30,000 to construct and probably five times that in legal fees as they've fought local authorities over it, Tran said. Now, they're at their last stop, the Supreme Court.

DATA: Twitter Daniel McLaughlin / Globe Staff © 2018 Boston Globe Media Partners, LLC

Capital Source Joseph Gargan, Kennedy’s close cousin, died Dec. 12 at age 87 at his Virginia home.  capital source He’s back, and he is not letting a stretch in a federal penitentiary get in the way of his political activities.   For pols who shunned Donald Trump’s candidacy, 2017 has been an annus horribilis. Except, of course, for Governor Baker.