Trump might face fight over planned move from NYC to Florida
NEW YORK — Donald Trump a Florida man? Not so fast.
Despite a stinging “good riddance” tweet from New York’s governor, the president’s home state may not let him go to Florida without a fight.
Trump’s plan to shift his permanent residence to Palm Beach will likely be heavily scrutinized by New York state officials, who are notorious for auditing wealthy residents seeking to flee to lower-tax states to make sure such moves are real and not just on paper. Those cases can go on for years.
“New York says just because you fill out a piece of paper, that doesn’t make you a Floridian,” said Mark Klein, a tax lawyer who has handled hundreds of tax-residency audits. “People have this misunderstanding that if you go to Florida and fill out an affidavit, you register to vote and you get a driver’s license, that is all it takes.”
Even though it appears Trump has a strong case — he’s only spent a few nights at his Trump Tower penthouse overlooking Fifth Avenue since he became president — tax experts say it’s not a matter of if he will be audited but when.
Brexit Party wants to team up with Tories; Johnson says no
LONDON — Nigel Farage, the minor-party leader who played a major role in Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, is trying to throw his weight around again in the U.K.’s Brexit-dominated election.
Farage on Friday piled the pressure on British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, saying his Brexit Party will run against Johnson’s Conservatives across the country in the Dec. 12 early election unless Johnson abandons his divorce deal with the EU.
Farage spoke a day after U.S. President Donald Trump barged into the British election campaign, urging his friend Farage to make an electoral pact with Johnson’s Conservatives. Trump told Farage on the Euroskeptic politician’s own radio phone-in show Thursday that he and Johnson would be “an unstoppable force.”
Johnson on Friday gently rebuffed Trump’s suggestion and ruled out an electoral pact with Farage.
“If I may respectfully say to all our friends around the world … the only way to get this thing done is to vote for us,” Johnson told ITV News. “If you vote for any other party, the risk is you’ll just get Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour Party, dither and delay.”
All 650 seats in the House of Commons are up for grabs in the election that is coming more than two years early, with winners to be chosen by Britain’s 46 million voters. If the Brexit Party runs in only a small number of seats, that would help the Conservatives, who are vying with Farage for the support of Brexit-backing voters.
Utility re-energized power line before fire
LOS ANGELES — Southern California Edison said Friday that it re-energized a 16,000-volt power line minutes before a nearby hilltop exploded into a blaze that is threatening thousands of homes.
SCE and other utilities cut off power this week to hundreds of thousands of Californians to prevent windstorms from knocking down or fouling lines and sparking devastating fires.
As the winds eased in most locations, SCE began restoring power. It was re-energizing a circuit 13 minutes before a fire erupted nearby on a hilltop northeast of Los Angeles, the utility told state regulators.
Erratic winds continued to bedevil firefighting efforts Friday at the Maria Fire, which has burned some 13 ½ square miles, threatens about 1,800 homes and other buildings, and prompted evacuation orders for nearly 11,000 people.
Eastern Ventura, Camarillo, Somis and Santa Paula were at risk, Ventura County fire officials said.
Warren vows no middle class tax hike for $20T health plan
WASHINGTON — Elizabeth Warren on Friday proposed $20 trillion in federal spending over the next decade to provide health care to every American without raising taxes on the middle class, a politically risky effort that pits the goal of universal coverage against skepticism of government-run health care.
The details of Warren’s “Medicare for All” plan aim to quell criticism that the Massachusetts Democrat and presidential candidate has been vague about how she would pay for her sweeping proposal. Her refusal to say until now whether she would impose new taxes on the middle class, as fellow progressive White House hopeful Bernie Sanders has said he would, had become untenable and made her a target in recent presidential debates.
However, her detailed proposal was quickly attacked by her moderate rivals, including former Vice President Joe Biden, whose campaign said it amounts to “mathematical gymnastics.” Some independent experts also questioned whether her numbers were realistic.
In a 20-page online post, Warren said a cornerstone of her plan would require employers to transfer to the government almost all the $8.8 trillion she estimates they would otherwise spend on private insurance for employees.
“We can generate almost half of what we need to cover Medicare for All just by asking employers to pay slightly less than what they are projected to pay today, and through existing taxes,” she wrote.
Trump says Chad Wolf to be next acting DHS secretary
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday said Chad Wolf, a longtime Homeland Security official, would be the new acting head of the department, the fifth person in the job for this administration.
But Trump’s casual announcement, made in response to a reporter’s question outside the White House, temporarily created more uncertainty about who was in charge of the sprawling department.
There have been weeks of speculation over whom would be named the next leader, and Kevin McAleenan, the current acting secretary, has agreed to stay on temporarily. The department initially wouldn’t confirm Wolf was next in line, saying only that McAleenan was acting secretary.
When a reporter asked Trump directly whether Wolf was to be the next DHS secretary, the president responded, “He’s acting, and we’ll see what happens.”
White House spokesman Hogan Gidley later clarified.