casinocoke
Where you live seems to matter more -- and less -- today than ever before. It matters less due to technology's ability to connect the world and give us the ability to communicate like never before. Video messaging allows us to speak to friends and family who live thousands of miles away as if we are standing right next to them. It's also fairly common for people to work remotely for companies based in another state or even another country. However, where you live can still impact other parts of your life because of factors including the weather, cost of living, traffic, and your taxes. Some states don't tax any income, offering potentially a nice windfall to one's earnings and savings. The same applies to retirement income . While the majority of states do tax retirement income, 13 do not, although naturally, things aren't so black and white. Let's dive in. Nine states don't have taxes These 9 states don't levy a tax at all. This could have to do with politics in the state or the desire to boost the population, which usually leads to a faster-growing economy. This strategy has been successful with people in overcrowded states with high taxes moving to other states with no taxes. Here are the 9 that don't tax any income: Alaska Florida New Hampshire (see below) Nevada South Dakota Tennessee Texas Washington Wyoming It probably won't surprise you to learn that Florida, Texas, and Nevada are three of the top-five, fastest-growing states in the country between 2008 and 2023. There are likely other reasons to explain why this has occurred, but taxes are certainly an important one. One thing to note is that New Hampshire does tax income from investments, such as dividends, at a 5% rate, although you must make at least $2,400 if you are single and $4,800 if filing jointly. However, this tax has been eliminated and will be phased out after this year. Four states tax -- but not retirement income The four states below levy a tax on payroll income but spare retirement income: Illinois Iowa Mississippi Pennsylvania Per the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), retirement income can include Social Security benefits and income from annuities, retirement or profit-sharing plans, insurance contracts, and individual retirement accounts (IRAs). Forty-one states don't tax Social Security benefits, and others could join this group in the future. Keep in mind that you are still on the hook for federal taxes on income from sources such as Social Security. Retirees who make between $25,000 and $34,000 as a single filer still need to pay taxes on as much as half of their benefits. Retirees who make over $34,000 would have to pay taxes on as much as 85% of their benefits. These figures are not the actual tax rate but just the amount of income that taxes will be levied on. The same rules apply to joint filers, but the ranges are $32,000 and $44,000 for getting half of your benefits taxed and more than $44,000 for 85% of benefits taxed. Ultimately, even though some states tax retirement income and others don't, the situation is rarely so cut and dry. For instance, Minnesota has one of the highest tax rates on Social Security benefits but is a cheaper place to live than the national average. Washington doesn't tax any income but still has a total tax burden of over 8% due to high sales and excise taxes. Other states may charge expensive property taxes. So while important, taxes on retirement income should not be your only consideration when thinking about which state to live in.
Mount Airy soccer wins first-ever State ChampionshipNone
The Dallas Cowboys ruled out right guard Zack Martin and cornerback Trevon Diggs with injuries on Saturday, one day prior to a road game against the Washington Commanders. Martin has been dealing with ankle and shoulder injuries and didn't practice at all this week before initially being listed as doubtful to play on Friday. He also physically struggled during Monday night's loss to the Houston Texans. Martin, who turned 34 on Wednesday, has started all 162 games played in 11 seasons with the Cowboys. He's a nine-time Pro Bowl selection and a seven-time first-team All-Pro. Diggs has been dealing with groin and knee injuries. He was listed as questionable on Friday before being downgraded Saturday. Diggs, 26, has 37 tackles and two interceptions in 10 games this season. The two-time Pro Bowl pick led the NFL with 11 picks in 2021 and has 20 in 57 games. The Cowboys elected not to activate receiver Brandin Cooks (knee) for the game. He returned to practice earlier this week and he was listed as questionable on Friday. Dallas activated offensive tackle Chuma Edoga (toe) and defensive end Marshawn Kneeland (knee) off injured reserve Saturday, placed safety Markquese Bell (shoulder) on IR and released defensive end KJ Henry. Tight end Jake Ferguson (concussion) was previously ruled out. Tight end Princeton Fant was elevated from the practice squad to replace him. Cornerback Kemon Hall also was elevated from the practice squad. --Field Level MediaArticle content The great National Hockey League contradiction of sports, celebration and politics is upon us. We have already begun the daily Alexander Ovechkin watch, the giant leap as he makes his way toward the career goal-scoring lead in hockey history. This all comes at a time when the league couldn’t — or wouldn’t — find a place for a Russian team in its major in-house tournament in February. It will be Ovechkin — yay — in the days and months to come, game by game, as he chases down Wayne Gretzky for a record none of us thought was possible. It will be Ovechkin — yay and Russia boo. All in the same convoluted sentence. All happening in a season in which Kirill Kaprizov of Minnesota and Nikita Kucherov of Tampa Bay are among the leading candidates for the Hart Trophy as the most valuable player in the NHL and the Rangers’ Igor Shesterkin signing a contract making him the highest paid goaltender in hockey history. Russian hockey is alive and well, individually. But it’s not alive in any team concept internationally. Ovechkin has been a long-time supporter of Russian president Vladimir Putin. So has the Stanley Cup-winning goaltender, Sergei Bobrovsky, who was just named Russian athlete of the year. We like their hockey but don’t care much for their politics or the war that continues in Ukraine. Ovechkin has had an incredible run since entering the NHL in 2005. His 868 goals are 266 more than anyone who has played during his time. Sidney Crosby is second in goals at 602, as of Saturday. Steven Stamkos and another Russian, Evgeni Malkin, are the only others within 300 goals of Ovie’s totals. In Gretzky’s career, he finished 186 goals ahead of Mike Gartner, 281 and 284 ahead of Mario Lemieux and Mark Messier. Ovechkin, in his time, is individually more of a dominant goal-scorer than Gretzky was in his time. And there’s a certain discomfort that goes along with it all in current times. I can cheer for Ovechkin the hockey player, while at the same time feel disdain for his politics and those of his leader and country. Sports and politics mix, whether we want them to or not. Rarely are they as separate as they should be or as they seem right now while Ovechkin works his way to a mark that may never be equalled. THIS AND THAT There is nothing wrong with Mitch Marner that a playoff series against Detroit or Buffalo or Pittsburgh wouldn’t solve. Marner has 13 goals this season, 10 of them against teams that won’t be in the playoffs. He has six playoff goals in his past 37 playoff games ... Marner, having a terrific season, still ranks below Mikko Rantanen and Kucherov in scoring among right wingers ... The Florida Panthers’ second line has Sam Bennett centring Matthew Tkachuk and Carter Verhaeghe. Not sure anyone would relish playing against them in a best-of-seven series in April ... If Auston Matthews doesn’t play for Team USA in the 4 Nations Face-Off, the Americans will still have Jack Hughes, Jack Eichel and Dylan Larkin at centre. But it becomes a tougher matchup, depending on what Canada does with Nathan MacKinnon, Connor McDavid and Crosby as either their first three centres, or two of the top three with one of Crosby or MacKinnon going to the wing ... Nearing the halfway point of the NHL season, Cale Makar leads all defencemen in scoring. But he’s also been on the ice for 37 even-strength goals-against. That’s significantly more than Victor Hedman and Gustav Forsling with 24, and Darnell Nurse, if you can believe this one, at just 15 ... A Canadian network would be wise to snap up fired Red Wings coach Derek Lalonde for panel work, at least for the short term. Lalonde was sharp on TV in the playoffs between periods a few years back ... Outdoor hockey games are wonderful spectacles for the city in which they take place. But as a must-see TV event, they’ve kind of lost their way. I can’t imagine there are a lot of people waiting for this Chicago-St. Louis outdoor event ... When I first met Scott Arniel, he was playing left wing on a line in Winnipeg with Dale Hawerchuk and Paul MacLean. All three of them became coaches, and Arniel is now a coach of the year candidate in the NHL with the Jets ... The last talk I had with Hawerchuk was when he was coaching Barrie of the OHL. He was telling me all about his underrated centre, Mark Scheifele. He said NHL scouts had him rated too low and he was going to be a good one. The great Hawerchuk, who passed away in 2020 at the age of 57, was right on Scheifele. HEAR AND THERE I had this conversation with a Blue Jays front office man after they traded Teoscar Hernandez to Seattle following the 2022 season. “Would you pay Teoscar $20 million a year?” I was asked. I said I would not. He said neither would the Jays. Since then, Hernandez has won a World Series in Los Angeles and has recently signed to remain with the Dodgers for the next three years at an average of $22 million a season. And the Jays remain in need of a power bat for the outfield. Which means two things: 1) Don’t expect financial advice from me; 2) don’t trust whatever financial advice you might get from the Blue Jays front office, either ... A question to ask yourself, Mr. Edward Rogers. How is it the Blue Jays keep offering more money for free agents, but aren’t signing any? What does that say about the perception of the franchise around Major League Baseball and those operating it? ... This has not been the best of years for shareholders of Bell or Rogers Communications, the former majority owners of Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. Bell stock is down 36.5% on the year. Rogers stock is down 35%. Netflix stock, by the way, is up 85% on the year and 227% over the past two years ... This was Thursday in the NBA: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander scored 45 points for Oklahoma City and teammate Lu Dort had 13 against Indiana. Meanwhile, Andrew Nembhard and Ben Mathurin combined for 41 for the Pacers. That’s 99 points scored by four Canadians in the same game. Not sure that’s ever happened before ... Some things in life don’t make sense: The Raptors are a better three-point shooting team on the road than the 24-5 first-place Thunder is ... Simon Benoit is hardly a sexy name among NHL defencemen, but few are on the ice as much as he is while being scored upon so infrequently. SCENE AND HEARD My favourite sporting things of 2024, in no particular order: The Paris Olympics; Paris itself; Roland Garros Stadium; everything that is Summer McIntosh ; the American League Championship Series; the Patrick Mahomes comeback in the Super Bowl; the Stanley Cup final, never mind the result; Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani and Vladdy Guerrero Jr.; the unlikely Argos; Matthews’ almost 70-goal season; Andre De Grasse and his 100-metre teammates in the 4 x100 relay at the Olympics; Team USA vs. Serbia in men’s basketball, the greatest game I’ve ever seen; Steph Curry ... Terrible time to be a sports fan in Chicago. The Bears stink. The Blackhawks stink. The White Sox stink. The Bulls aren’t any good. Not much to care about in one of the great sporting towns in America ... It’s wonderful for the hammer thrower Ethan Katzberg to be named The Canadian Press male athlete of the year. But I don’t quite understand how you can compare a hammer thrower — a singular event in athletics with a very small competitive field — with an NBA star such as Gilgeous-Alexander, who plays 82 games, plus playoffs. Or McDavid or MacKinnon, who played more than 100 NHL games in the calendar year ... The challenge for Leafs coach Craig Berube in the second half of the NHL season: Finding the right defensive partner for Morgan Rielly. He hasn’t had the right partner since Ron Hainsey was a Leaf ... First baseman Pete Alonso, a good player, not a great one, seems to be pricing himself out of the free-agent market in baseball. Even the high-priced Mets seem to be willing to walk away from Alonso ... Brendan Shanahan takes a lot of heat for his time running the Leafs, but consider this: Steve Yzerman is six years in as GM in Detroit, nowhere near the playoffs; Buffalo hasn’t made the playoffs in a lifetime. Shanahan missed the playoffs once, hasn’t missed since drafting Matthews ... Don’t know where Darko Rajakovic rates as an all-time coach — probably near the bottom — but his tantrum in Memphis the other night is an all-time unforgettable Raptors moment ... So many tough questions this time of year. What presents to keep, which to return, which games to watch when you’re not screaming about junior hockey. Are you watching the Bad Boy Mowers Pinstripe Bowl or the Snoop Dogg Arizona Bowl? ... And good luck to all those playing fantasy football championship games on Sunday. I started the wrong kicker two weeks ago. Cost me and my partner a title shot. AND ANOTHER THING There are four sound candidates for MVP in the NFL, although if you watch enough television these days, you would think there is only one: Josh Allen. It’s a quarterback’s job to produce wins and Patrick Mahomes and Kansas City have the most in the league. Two-time MVP Lamar Jackson has combined yardage of 4,807 passing and rushing in Baltimore, which blows everyone else away. The giant Allen is unstoppable, having run for 11 touchdowns and passed for 3,549 yards with the Bills. And Saquon Barkley is in contention for all-time numbers as a running back, leading the Philadelphia Eagles. In any given year, any one of the four could, or should, be MVP. This year it will come down to Allen or Jackson, and a sound case could be made right now for either quarterback ... It drives me a little batty when I see Tkachuk or Steelers wide receiver George Pickens dangling or chewing on their mouthguard, rather than keeping it where it should be. We try to convince kids about the necessity of mouthguard usage. This kind of example doesn’t help ... Wonder how many owners in sports are paying attention to what the Suns are doing in Phoenix, charging $2 at concession stands for water, soda, hotdogs, and popcorn? A small popcorn at Cineplex is $9 now. And you wonder why people don’t go to movies anymore ... It’s highly possible that Cody Bellinger will be batting next to Giancarlo Stanton in the Yankees batting order this coming season. Bellinger, by the way, is married to Stanton’s old girlfriend ... The NBA was excited to have five million people watching games on Christmas Day on television, especially those up against NFL games on Netflix for the first time. But follow me here for a second: The U.S. is 10 times the size of Canada. A five-million-person audience in the U.S. is about half a million Canadians. By my translation, the NBA audience in the U.S. at Christmas is basically equal to the average CFL audience in Canada throughout the season ... Happy birthday to Ray Bourque (64), Myles Garrett (29), Bill Lee (78), George Parros (45), Julio Rodriguez (24), Sean Payton (61) Theo Epstein (51), Adam Vinatieri (52) and B.J. Ryan (49) ... And hey, whatever became of Jonathan Toews? ssimmons@postmedia.com twitter.com/simmonssteve
Diablo 4 's season 7 PTR is coming for your broken Spiritborn build, Blizzard has confirmed with newly revealed details about its plans for class balance in the next season. We knew this was coming. From the moment Diablo 4 players figured out how to deal literal quadrillions of damage using exploits unique to the new Spiritborn class , we could hear the clattering of keyboards from within Blizzard's offices portending the arrival of a massive nerf. However, to the delight of Spiritborns everywhere, Blizzard said it would leave the class alone so long as it didn't cause any performance issues with the game... at least until season 7 when an "upheaval" would arrive . Well, now we have a decent idea of what that upheaval will look like. In the latest Diablo 4 Campfire Chat livestream, community director Adam Fletcher was joined by design director Colin Finer and game designer Charles Dunn to talk everything that's coming to the PTR 2.1 update, which will let players test and provide feedback on the big changes coming to season 7. Unsurprisingly, the glaive-wielding elephant in the room came up at some point in the livestream, and the trio previewed the major changes that'll bring the Spiritborn class down to Earth. "We warned at the start, Spiritborn we recognize has been one or multiple steps above most other classes," Dunn said. "Players have fun, people love playing Spiritborn, very powerful, and we really like that, but we do have to recognize that for the long-term health of the game it's important that we have a little bit better class parity across the born, so you don't feel like you're doing it wrong if you're not playing Spiritborn." Blizzard correctly identified the Rod of Kepeleke as "one of the biggest offenders, or one of the biggest power points, rather" that's been making Spiritborn builds so overpowered. After the nerf, its bonus critical strike damage will be "substantially less" than before, specifically from 1-3% down to 0.1-0.5 per point of Vigor. "We think this will bring it to a much healthier spot, but still retain the core fantasy and the core build implications of this item," Dunn added. "It just won't be pushing quite the same trillions of damage we were seeing before." Finer added that the devs fixed various issues with other items, including the Viscous Shield Legendary Paragon node, which perhaps coincidentally was just this week being used in conjunction with bugged Elixers to gain millions of life . The Ring of Writhing moon is also being nerfed down to a more reasonable level. "Definitely some unintended bugged interactions that were maybe double dipping or scaling too high," Dunn said. "We've taken a pass to make those more in line with our expectations." The season 7 PTR starts December 3 and the full patch notes will be published on November 27, presumably detailing all of the more minute changes to the Spiritborn class as well as other class balancing tweaks. In the meantime, here are some games like Diablo we'd recommend checking out.
American kids got a D- in physical fitness. What does that mean? What can we do about it?First Trust Nasdaq Cybersecurity ETF (NASDAQ:CIBR) Position Boosted by Caprock Group LLC
'Really good': Manchester United summer signing has already spotted an impressive Ruben Amorim trait