Student loan borrowers whose debt is canceled in 2026 or later may face a significant tax bill. A law that shielded student loan forgiveness from taxation at the federal level — part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 — expired on Dec. 31, 2025. President Donald Trump's "big beautiful bill" did not extend or make permanent that provision. Enacted in the 90s, IDR plans cap people's monthly payments at a share of their discretionary income and excuse any remaining debt after a certain period, typically 20 or 25 years. "A lot of people are very close to their 20- or 25-year mark," said Ethan Miller, a certified financial planner and founder of Planning for Progress in the Washington area. "Those are the folks who really need to be thinking about how the so-called tax bomb ... is going to impact them," he said. Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a program for government and nonprofit employees that eliminates federal loans after 120 qualifying monthly payments, remains tax-free. The federal tax bill on student loan forgiveness could be substantial. The average loan balance for borrowers enrolled in an IDR plan is around $57,000, said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz. Lower earners, or those in the 12% tax bracket, would still owe around $7,000. Plus, some borrowers could incur state tax liability on their forgiven balance, experts say. More than 42 million Americans hold student loans, and the outstanding debt exceeds $1.6 trillion. The new potential tax liability comes at the same time many student loan borrowers have faced delays in accessing debt forgiveness. But in a recent settlement between the American Federation of Teachers and the Trump administration, Education Department officials clarified that borrowers who became eligible for student loan forgiveness in 2025 won't owe federal taxes on the relief, even if their debt isn't officially discharged until later. That means if you received confirmation that you're eligible for debt cancellation in 2025, you should save that dated record, said Nancy Nierman, assistant director of the Education Debt Consumer Assistance Program in New York. Starting in 2026, student loan forgiveness counts as income, which could "thrust your tax bracket up," depending on the size of your eliminated balance, said CFP and certified student loan professional Landon Warmund with Reliant Financial Services in Kansas City, Missouri. "The biggest thing that I'm stressing for borrowers is that if you know this is going to come, be proactive with the planning," said Warmund, who is also a member of CNBC's Financial Advisor Council. That could now be harder without the tracking tool previously available on StudentAid.gov, which was removed earlier this year, experts say. However, you can work with an advisor to figure out when you are eligible for forgiveness and start estimating the tax impact, depending on that year's income. Then you can begin setting money aside and explore IRS payment plan options. "You need to be prepared for these tax liabilities," Warmund said. But you can "get ahead of it and plan accordingly." Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

Toward the end of the year, many of us commit to ambitious, concrete goals like cutting your screen time in half or running three miles every morning. That approach often backfires, according to neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff, PhD. Linear goals like these are popular because they give people "the illusion of certainty," according to Le Cunff, author of "Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World." But real life rarely adheres to our best-laid plans, which is why so many people end up repeating their New Year's resolutions "over and over again every year" without making progress, she says. Instead, she recommends approaching your goals with an "experimental mindset." Just like scientists collect data and use the results to inform their next choices, "you can do the exact same thing with your career and your life in general." If you're hoping to start a new routine this year, Le Cunff recommends conducting "tiny experiments" with the habits you'd like to try, instead of setting lofty, unrealistic goals. Tiny experiments follow a very simple formula, according to Le Cunff: "I will [do X action] for [Y duration]." Some examples could be "I will write 250 words every day for two weeks," or, "I will take a walk on my lunch break every day for one month." A good tiny experiment meets four criteria, according to Le Cunff: It must be "purposeful, actionable, continuous and trackable." To be purposeful, the experiment has to involve something you are "deeply curious about," Le Cunff says, and an actionable experiment is one that you can conduct "right now with your current resources." It's crucial to run the experiment continuously in order to collect enough data, she explains, and tracking your consistency will help you determine how well the experiment is working for you. The key is to "withhold judgment until you're done conducting your experiment," Le Cunff says. Trying something new can be uncomfortable, but that's part of the process. Many of us have a tendency "to always want to go for the bigger, more impressive, more ambitious version of a goal," Le Cunff says, but that mentality has several pitfalls. For one, long-ranging goals like "I will work out every day this year" or "I will read one book a week" are often "too overwhelming or unrealistic." Tiny experiments help shift people from an outcome-based mindset to a curious, explorative one. With this perspective, "success is not reaching a particular milestone that you have defined in advance. Sign up for CNBC's new online course, How to Raise Financially Smart Kids. CNBC Select is editorially independent and may earn a commission from affiliate partners on links.

Democratic Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders and right-wing Gov. But they found common ground this year as leading skeptics of the artificial intelligence industry's data center boom. Sanders, I-VT, has called for a national moratorium on data center construction. "Frankly, I think you've got to slow this process down," Sanders told CNN in a Dec. 28 interview. What are they going to do when people have no jobs?" DeSantis unveiled an AI bill of rights on Dec. 4 that would protect local communities' right to block data center construction among other provisions. The staunch Republican's proposal could run afoul of the White House, which is pushing to scale up AI as quickly as possible. President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Dec. 11 to prevent "excessive state regulation" of AI. You do not have enough grid capacity in the United States to do what they're trying to do," DeSantis said of the AI industry's data center plans at an event in The Villages, Florida. "As more and more information has gotten out, do you want a hyperscale data center in The Villages? "I think most people would say they don't want it." Florida and Vermont are not major data center states. But rising utility bills played a key role in the landslide victory of Democrat Abigail Spanberger in the governor's race this year in Virginia, the world's largest data center market. Residential electricity prices are forecast to rise another 4% on average nationwide in 2026 after increasing about 5% in 2025, according to the federal Energy Information Administration. With cost of living at the center of American politics, the impact of data centers on local communities will likely play a role in the mid-term elections next November. "We have gone from a period where data centers were sort of seen as an unmitigated good and as an engine of growth by a lot of elected officials and policymakers to people now recognizing that we're short," said Abe Silverman, who served as general counsel for the public utility board in New Jersey from 2019 until 2023 under Democrat Gov. "We do not have enough generation to reliably serve existing customers and data centers," Silverman said. The grid will be six gigawatts short of its reliability requirement by 2027, according to PJM. This makes blackouts more likely, he said. "Instead of a blackout happening every one in 10 years, we're looking at something more often," the analyst said. "It's at a crisis stage right now. PJM has never been this short," said Joe Bowring, president of Monitoring Analytics, which serves as the independent market monitor for PJM. PJM Interconnection serves more than 65 million people across 13 states in the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest. It includes pivotal swing states for the mid-term elections like Pennsylvania and Virginia. Those costs are ultimately passed on to consumers. "I don't think we've seen the end of the political repercussions," said Rob Gramlich, president of Grid Strategies, a power sector consulting firm. "Every politician is going to be saying that they have the answer to affordability and their opponents' policies would raise rates." The shortage will be exacerbated by Trump's recent decision to pause all offshore wind farms under construction off the East Coast, Silverman said. This includes Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, a massive 2.6 gigawatt project that would help supply the huge data center market in northern Virginia. "By stopping a project that had line of sight to coming online in the very near future, you are directly increasing the prices that we all pay for electricity and not by a little bit," Silverman said. Data centers are facing pushback on multiple fronts now. The PJM watchdog has called for the grid to reject data centers that it does not have the power to serve or require them to bring their own generation. Virginia's utility regulator is now requiring data centers to pay a majority of the cost of new transmission and generation that serves them beginning in 2027. Data center developers next year will likely start moving to build more power plants onsite, called co-location, as they struggle to secure supply on the grid quickly, said Brian Fitzsimons, CEO of GridUnity, a company that uses software to help utilities navigate connection requests. But Silverman said "co-location" has problems that will also face political scrutiny. "Co-location is effectively taking a generator off the market," he said. "It would be unethical to end up with a situation where data centers are able to buy private power plants that expose the rest of us to a greater chance of blackouts." Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

Created by Congress in 2014, ABLE accounts allow beneficiaries to save for qualified expenses like education, housing, health care and more without affecting their Medicaid or Social Security income eligibility. The expanded age requirement brings the total number of Americans eligible to open ABLE accounts up to around 14 million, per NDI's estimates. ABLE accounts are "a powerful wealth planning, financial and tax planning vehicle," Juliana Crist, head of ABLE programs at Vestwell, a financial technology company that manages 19 of the country's ABLE plans, tells CNBC Make It. Crist describes it as "kind of a super-powered Roth" individual retirement account. Beneficiaries can invest the money in a portfolio which grows tax-free, and qualified withdrawals are not subject to income taxes. But with ABLE accounts, beneficiaries can set aside more money per year and can use the funds whenever they want, rather than needing to wait until they hit a certain age. ABLE account withdrawals for qualified expenses are not taxed as income. However, withdrawals for non-qualifying expenses are subject to income tax and a 10% penalty. Account holders can have up to $100,000 saved in an ABLE account without losing access to Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid benefits. Here's how ABLE accounts work and who can open one. ABLE accounts are available to U.S. citizens in all 50 states who are either eligible to receive Supplemental Security Income or Social Security Disability Insurance or can self-certify that they have a qualifying medical condition. "A lot more people can qualify for an ABLE account than realize it," Crist says. "People hear that this is an account for people with disabilities, and that person might actually have a qualifying medical condition, but they don't think of it as a disability ... a lot of our eligible people just don't realize that this could be a tool they could even use." Qualifying conditions include blindness, as defined by the Social Security Administration, along with a variety of other physical and mental conditions such as Autistic Spectrum Disorder and Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Beneficiaries can contribute up to $20,000 a year into an ABLE account in 2026. Virtually anyone can contribute to a beneficiary's ABLE account including parents and other family members or employers. But total contributions may not exceed the annual limit. Depending on where you live and your personal financial situation, it may make sense to shop around between different states' plans — a search which could benefit from the help of a financial professional. If you're looking to open an ABLE account, Crist suggests starting your search with your home state's plan if one is available. That's because some states offer state income tax deductions for ABLE account contributions. From there, you'll want to compare investment options and costs for different ABLE accounts. Generally, ABLE accounts have management fees that can run around $30 a year, Crist says. Some plans offer more investment options than others, which could be a deciding factor. If you want a debit card attached to your account, some plans offer that as well, but not all, she adds. Sign up for CNBC's new online course, How to Raise Financially Smart Kids. CNBC Select is editorially independent and may earn a commission from affiliate partners on links. Learn more about the world of CNBC Make It

Italy's foreign ministry said on Thursday the United States had sharply lowered proposed duties on several Italian pasta makers following a reassessment of their U.S. activities. In October, the United States said that 13 Italian pasta companies would face an extra 92% duty — on top of the regular 15% rate on most EU imports — from January 2026, accusing two producers in particular, La Molisana and Garofalo, of selling pasta at unfairly low prices. The United States collected more $200 billion in tariffs in 2025 as a result of new duties, according to Customs and Border Protection. However, after a review, the U.S. Department of Commerce cut the tariff for La Molisana to 2.26%, while Garofalo's rate was set at 13.98%, the Italian foreign ministry said in a statement. The remaining 11 producers, which were not individually examined in the review, face a tariff of 9.09%. The threatened pasta tariffs had been an embarrassment to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who had hoped that her close ties with U.S. President Donald Trump would shield Italian companies from any additional tariffs. Italy's total pasta exports were worth over 4 billion euros ($4.7 billion) in 2024, according to data from national statistics agency ISTAT. The U.S. market was worth almost $800 million to Italian firms. We want to hear from you. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox Get this delivered to your inbox, and more info about our products and services.

Many U.S. workers are ringing in the new year with a raise as new minimum wage increases take effect in states and localities across the country on Thursday. More than 8.3 million workers are expected to benefit from minimum wage hikes in 19 states, which will collectively add an estimated $5 billion in earnings nationwide, according to a December report by the Economic Policy Institute. On top of changes to state minimum wages, many cities and municipalities with local wage standards increased their minimum wages Thursday as well. For example, Seattle's minimum wage rose to $21.30 an hour, and the minimum wage in Minneapolis is now $16.37 an hour. The state's minimum wage rose by $2 per hour, from $14 to $16. The federal minimum wage remains at $7.25 an hour, where it has stood since 2009. Minimum wage levels vary widely depending on where workers live, with state and local laws often setting significantly higher standards. Sign up for CNBC's new online course, How to Raise Financially Smart Kids. CNBC Select is editorially independent and may earn a commission from affiliate partners on links. Learn more about the world of CNBC Make It

Every time Tom publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In an end-of-year message posted on Threads, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said that the platform would have to evolve to cope with a coming flood of AI-generated content — and warned that the rise of AI had killed off Instagram's polished aesthetic. The aesthetic is polished: lots of make up, skin smoothing, high contrast photography, beautiful landscapes," wrote Mosseri on Wednesday. People largely stopped sharing personal moments to feed years ago," the Meta executive said, adding that users now kept friends updated on their personal lives through unpolished "shoe shots and unflattering candids" shared via direct messages. Mosseri said the growing ubiquity of AI images meant creators would have to embrace this trend, and shy away from curated grids and professional-style photography in favor of a "more raw aesthetic." Every time Tom publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! Stay connected to Tom and get more of their work as it publishes. By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. Social media platforms like Instagram are grappling with a flood of AI-generated content, with tools like Midjourney and Sora making it easy to produce images and videos of almost anything. At the same time, Meta has raced to integrate AI tools into Instagram and Facebook. Instagram rolled out an AI studio last year that lets users create custom chatbots, including digital versions of themselves, and has previously experimented with AI Instagram influencers based on real celebrities. Mosseri said social platforms will get worse at identifying AI-generated media over time as the technology improves, adding that one solution could be for camera companies to cryptographically sign photos when they are taken to prove they are real. The former Facebook executive said Instagram needed to label AI-generated content clearly, provide more transparency about who is posting on the platform, and build better creative controls so human users could compete with content made entirely by AI.

Every time Tess publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. It's not necessarily work, just anything that's taking up mental space in your brain. Coming out of Thanksgiving, I was feeling pretty overwhelmed. An admin night seemed like the perfect way to combine both of those activities, so I decided to host one. People are already texting me about when the next one will be. I sent out invites on Partiful with a link to an article about admin nights, and people were game. Several people thought it was really funny, and some had clarifying questions, like whether they could do actual work. I didn't want people to feel like they were extending their workday at my house, but I didn't set a ground rule. Every time Tess publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! Stay connected to Tess and get more of their work as it publishes. By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. My plan was to invite a lot of people, expecting some to drop off, but I think 12 or 13 people showed up. It really showed how interested people were in the concept. I told everyone to dress cozy and bring their favorite snacks. I would just be adding another one to my list." I wasn't trying to be the best hostess of all time. People were trickling in for a while and just catching up. I thought it would be good to provide some structure, so I decided to use intervals: 30 minutes of work and 10 minutes of rest or chat. That being said, I didn't want to be so rigid about the rules that I'd be telling people to put their phones away or stop talking. Some people continued talking even during working periods, while others returned to their to-do lists. I shortened the working period slightly on the third and final round because it seemed like people were getting fatigued, especially since it was a weeknight. After that round, some people hung around to chat for a bit longer before heading out. After each round, we'd talk about what we knocked out, and it was a real motivator for me to do more in the next round. It was a feedback loop of productivity and motivation that I think we all responded to very well. I submitted medical paperwork, downgraded a credit card that I had been paying the recurring annual fee for, and cleaned up my Gmail accounts. Another friend told us they were using the admin party to tackle their living will. The administrative tasks themselves were boring, but the ideas surrounding those tasks sparked interesting conversations about bigger life ideas. For this first admin night, I think it was great to let people work on whatever they wanted to, but some of us started tossing around different ideas for the next one. We think it could be cool to have a night dedicated to one task, like canceling subscriptions or doing taxes. I feel like everybody should have an admin night. Please reach out to this editor, Tess Martinelli, at tmartinelli@businessinsider.com.

Dozens of people were killed and around 100 injured, most of them seriously, after fire tore through a crowded bar during a New Year's Eve party in the upscale Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana, officials said on Thursday. Swiss police said "tens" of people were presumed dead with around 100 injured, and the Italian foreign ministry said information from Swiss police indicated about 40 deaths. Swiss officials declined to give a specific figure. "They had jackets over their faces—well, that's what I saw, nothing more." Video footage showed lines of ambulances queuing and helicopters landing to take victims to nearby hospitals and specialist burns units in other Swiss cities. Video footage verified by Reuters showed fire spreading from the building, with people outside the club, some of them running and screaming. Italy's ambassador to Switzerland, Gian Lorenzo Cornado, told Sky TG24 local authorities had told him the blaze was started by someone letting off a firework inside the bar which set fire to the ceiling. He was in Crans-Montana, where he said a number of Italians had gathered seeking information about missing relatives or friends. He declined to say if there were any Italian victims but witnesses said many of those in the bar appeared to be from other countries. Witnesses described injured being treated in improvised triage centres set up in a nearby bar and in a branch of UBS bank and said many suffered after coming out of the heat of the bar into the freezing night air. "And then it was just ambulances coming back and forth as much as possible," said Dominic Dubois, who witnessed the frantic scenes as the bodies were brought out. A waiter in a restaurant near to the bar who declined to be named said that first responders approached staff overnight asking for table cloths to cover the bodies to conceal them from onlookers. On Thursday morning, hours after the explosion, footage from the street outside showed the area cordoned off, with forensic tents behind white screens set up in front of the bar, one of many in Crans-Montana, a fashionable ski centre with an array of boutiques, luxury hotels and restaurants. "I know someone who might have been among the victims and I can't reach her. I'm very worried," said local resident Karine Spreng. The daytime scene, with small groups of people, some in tears or carrying flowers, was a stark contrast to the panic and confusion that officials said faced first responders who arrived when the alarm was raised. "The first responders — the firefighters and police officers — arrived at a scene of chaos, at a dramatic scene," Stephane Ganzer, head of security for Valais canton, told reporters. He said some of the victims were from other countries, hundreds of personnel were working on the case and a helpline had been opened for relatives. Officials said the grim task of identifying badly burned bodies would take a considerable time. "I can't hide from you that we are all shaken by what happened overnight in Crans," the canton's head of police, Frederic Gisler, told the press conference. "Our count is about 100 injured, most seriously, and unfortunately tens of people are presumed dead," he said, adding that patients had been dispatched to hospitals in Sion, Lausanne, Geneva and Zurich. Local prosecutor Beatrice Pilloud said a full investigation had been opened into the incident at the bar, which Swiss company records indicated was owned by a French couple. "At the moment we are considering this a fire and we are not considering the possibility of an attack," she told a press conference. Swiss Federal President Guy Parmelin expressed shock at the scale of the disaster, which came less than a year after a fire in a club in North Macedonia killed 59 people. "What was meant to be a moment of joy turned, on the first day of the year in Crans-Montana, into mourning that touches the entire country and far beyond," he said on the social media platform X, expressing condolences. Prosecutor Pilloud said authorities were trying to get the bodies of the victims to their families. "A lot of resources have been put into forensics to identify the victims. Earlier, police said many people were being treated for burns and that the area had been completely closed off, with a no-fly zone imposed over Crans-Montana, which is due to host next year's Alpine World Ski Championships. Authorities said 10 helicopters and 40 ambulances had been deployed. Sign up for free newsletters and get more CNBC delivered to your inbox

Every time Pranav publishes a story, you'll get an alert straight to your inbox! By clicking “Sign up”, you agree to receive emails from Business Insider. In addition, you accept Insider's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Amazon is allowing employees who are stranded in India because of visa delays to work remotely there until early March, according to an internal memo viewed by Business Insider. The catch: They're not allowed to code, make strategic decisions, or interact with customers. The additional screening has delayed processing, and some embassies and consulates have rescheduled visa appointments by several months, leaving some employees stranded outside the country. Amazon allows employees traveling abroad for visa renewals to work remotely for up to 20 business days, an exemption from the normal requirement that they work in their office five days a week. Now, any Amazon employee in India as of December 13 and who awaits a rescheduled visa appointment may work remotely until March 2, according to the memo, which was posted to Amazon's internal HR portal on December 17. The permission to work remotely comes with a long list of constraints. "All reviews, final decision making, and sign offs should be undertaken outside India," the memo says. The memo also said that "in compliance with local laws, there are no exceptions to these restrictions." The memo does not provide guidance for employees whose visa appointments have been rescheduled beyond March 2, 2026, or for those stranded in a different country. Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider. For employees in technical roles, the restrictions raised questions about what work they can actually perform. "Seventy to eighty percent of my job is coding, testing, deploying, and documenting," one Amazon software engineer told Business Insider. A State Department spokesperson in December told Business Insider that the purpose of the social media reviews is to use "all available tools" to flag visa applicants who are inadmissible, including those who pose a risk to national interests. During the 2024 government fiscal year, Amazon filed 14,783 certified H-1B applications, including 23 for Whole Foods, according to Business Insider's analysis of publicly available data from the Department of Labor and US Citizenship and Immigration Services.