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Today, President Donald Trump introduced a “National AI Legislation Framework” as it aims to gain federal oversight of the development of artificial intelligence. Multiple states have already enacted rules to guide AI use and development, with some fearing a patchwork approach in which 50 states apply rules that could stifle AI development and its potential benefits.
The AI policy seeks to address six “key objectives.”
The White House added:
The Trump Admin is all-in on WINNING the AI race—for American prosperity, security, & a new era of human flourishing. Achieving these goals demands a commonsense national policy framework: unleashing American industry to thrive, while ensuring ALL Americans benefit.
White House AI Czar David Sacks said they look forward to turning the principles into legislation.
While a broad outline with many details to be filled in, it is a starting point for the White House to work with Congress to get legislation signed into law.
House leadership, led by Speaker Mike Johnson, posted a comment in support of the framework:
“AI has begun to demonstrate its potential to improve Americans’ lives. To ensure we continue to harness its potential and beat China in the global AI race, Congress must take action. Today, the Trump Administration took a critical step in releasing a framework that gives Congress a roadmap to pursue legislation that provides innovators with much-needed certainty, while protecting consumers and prioritizing kids’ online safety.”
Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council (SBE Council) President Karen Kerrigan welcomed the framework, describing it as one that prioritizes innovation and economic growth under a unified federal approach to governance.
“At a time when more than 1,500 AI-related bills have been introduced at the state and local levels, President Trump’s recognition that a fragmented regulatory patchwork would undermine innovation and raise compliance costs is both timely and essential,” said Kerrigan. “A consistent national framework and policies focused on supporting AI’s adoption and deployment will provide small businesses and entrepreneurs – the primary drivers of innovation and job creation in the U.S. economy – with added confidence and support to continue their investments in AI.”
Stuart Lacey, CEO of Labrynth—an AI-native regulatory intelligence company focused on permitting and approvals—commented that the US doesn’t have an AI innovation problem; it has an execution problem.
“AI policy is finally moving at speed. The systems that approve what gets built are not. If we don’t modernize permitting, we’re putting a governor on the entire AI economy.”
Concerns about AI running amok and the potential for tech to become “self-aware,” just like in the movies, have raised alarms across many sectors of the electorate. This, and the potential for models to be guided by bias rather than balance, remain difficult variables in the development of AI. As the technology is quickly being incorporated into all aspects of individual and business activity, a well-thought-out approach is key to sustaining benign development. At the same time, effective AI policy will be quite hard.
Traditionally, townhomes were often starter homes for singles and young couples, becoming rentals by default when the owners decided to upgrade to a single-family home. That is changing.
Previously, the additional cash from a townhouse starter pad-turned-rental and its tax benefits were crucial first steps toward building wealth. Now, however, amid the affordability crisis, Realtor.com reports that they have played an increasingly important role in homebuying, serving as both starter homes and long-term residences for owners due to their lower price points.
With a greater number of townhouses on the market and those looking to live with lower housing costs, such as the 55+ community and singles, increasing in number as well, townhomes’ role as investment vehicles could also take on greater significance.
“Townhomes now make up the largest share of the for-sale homes on the market in our data history,” explained Realtor.com senior economist Joel Berner. “And they appear to be picking up steam as builders push forward with smaller and more affordable projects to meet the demand of buyers who are struggling to make a purchase in the detached home (single-family) space.”
New Census construction data showed townhouses are being built fast and steady, up 3.8% year over year, offering investors the chance to buy new homes that require less maintenance at far lower price points than single-family homes.
From a wide lens, townhome starts were up 37% from the second quarter of 2019 to August 2024, according to homebuilding research and data platform Zonda.
“In today’s challenging housing market, consumers’ growing interest in townhomes is a direct response to two primary pressures: affordability and lifestyle preference,” said Ali Wolf, chief economist at NewHomeSource, which is owned by Zonda.
Realtor.com’s Berner explained:
“Townhomes are generally lower-priced than single-family homes and sometimes offer community services and amenities that single-family homes (especially those outside HOAs) may not. They also tend to be concentrated in more urban areas and closer to city centers. The drawbacks are that they are generally smaller and, by definition, share walls with other homes.”
The low cost of construction has made townhouses a winner with builders. According to the National Association of Home Builders, after the second quarter of 2025, the previous four quarters saw 179,000 homes built. The four-quarter moving average market share is the highest on record for data going back to 1985.
Townhomes work as rentals for the same reason that they work as owner-occupied homes. Affordability and low maintenance make them appealing to a wide demographic. They also have some advantages over single-family homes.
Here are some of the demographics who are looking at townhomes and why.
According to NewHomeSource, single women often prefer the sense of community and safety that a townhome offers, with shared walls and neighbors close at hand. Data from the American Enterprise Institute’s Survey Center on American Life shows more Americans, particularly young women, are single.
Single-parent families are on the rise in the U.S. According to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, as cited by NPR, 40% of all babies in the U.S. were born to single mothers raising children on their own, often without partners. Increasingly, these women are over 30, can afford to buy or rent on their own, and are opting for townhouses.
Millennials enjoy living in walkable communities with access to amenities.
Empty nesters enjoy the low-maintenance lifestyle that living in a townhome offers, especially those that appeal to their aesthetic values with high-end design, while also being a part of a community.
Not every townhome community is a great investment. One downside of living in an older townhome community with poor management is that, as an owner, you are clustered with other homes. So, even if your rental is in great shape, if the surrounding homes are beat up, it’s not a good look for potential tenants.
On the upside, townhomes generally have lower property taxes than single-family homes, but they usually have HOA fees, so you’ll have to weigh the two against each other, along with additional expenses, to work out your final cash flow numbers.
For investors looking to build a manageable portfolio of doors near one another, approaching a building to negotiate a pre-construction price for multiple units might be a viable opportunity. You’ll own brand-new rentals next to one another, requiring minimal maintenance.
There might be some caveats to this approach, however, if the HOA laws state that investors can only own a certain percentage of homes in the development.
While dealing with HOA fees eats into your cash flow, it also means that owning a townhome is great for passive investors who don’t want to be bothered with day-to-day upkeep issues like lawn mowing, roof cleaning, landscaping, pest control, HVAC inspections, trash collection, and snow removal.
According to AirDNA, the platform that analyzes the short-term rental market, some townhome markets offer homes costing less than a single-family property and—for STR purposes—earn more.
It might sound too good to be true, but AirDNA whittled down the list to the following:
For purely short-term rental purposes, townhomes located in popular vacation spots can be high earners. AirDNA did the number crunching to analyze the top townhome STR markets in the U.S in terms of annual revenue. In May 2024, when the survey was compiled, they were:
Like any investment, townhomes as rentals are highly dependent on location. Being near universities, hospitals, and other employment hubs means you’ll have a steady supply of tenants. This is where the advantage of owning a townhome kicks in—they are about 10% less expensive than single-family homes, require less maintenance, and can earn decent rental income.
If you own a townhome in a popular tourist area, you might be able to purchase it as a second home and deduct some or all of the mortgage interest, under the limits that apply to your main home, providing you live in it for more than 14 days of the year or 10% of the days you rent it out, whichever is greater. That means you can benefit from rental income and depreciation of the rental portion, even if it is classified as a second home, provided you meet specific conditions.
For hands-off investors or those considering a short-term rental, townhomes offer a wide range of opportunities.
Idziak has received many calls from clients wondering if there would be any immediate changes based on the executive order.
“When clients call me asking about what’s going on, first words out of my mouth are ‘Well, nothing’s actually changed yet,’” he said. “’So, keep doing business the way you’ve been doing it, especially from the compliance and risk management side.’”
He expects that Congress will eventually get a reconciled housing bill passed, but nobody is really sure what will be in that final bill. Another issue Idziak is keeping an eye on for potential addition to the housing bill is the president’s proposed institutional buyer ban.
“You’ll get something passed through Congress, but what the final form is can be somewhat different from what’s been proposed so far,” Idziak said. “The big issue on that would be the build-to-rent ban for institutional investors, which will be a main sticking point. That has been a significant driver of marginal home sales over the last few years.
“If that ban remains in place, what you’ll see, at least initially, is you have a lot of homes that are already under construction that maybe now don’t have that institutional buyer demand. So hopefully, from a borrower-buyer standpoint, you will see increased affordability.”
Watch the length of the conflict and how shocks compound.
Israel’s defense minister threatened a surge in attacks against Iran on Saturday and Britain condemned Iran for targeting a joint U.K.-U.S. base in the Indian Ocean as the war in the Middle East entered its fourth week.
The Iranian attack on the Diego Garcia air base — about 2,500 miles (4,000 kilometers) from Iran — suggested Tehran has missiles that can go farther than it had previously acknowledged.
Also Saturday, Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment facility was hit in an airstrike, an official Iranian news agency reported, saying there was no radiation leakage.
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a video statement that next week, “the intensity of the attacks” by Israel and the United States against Iran’s ruling theocracy will “increase significantly.”
He spoke shortly after fragments from an Iranian missile slammed into an empty kindergarten near Tel Aviv. Israeli army spokesman Nadav Shoshani posted a video on X of the kindergarten building. The school was empty at the time and no casualties were reported.
Overnight and into the morning, Iran’s capital saw heavy airstrikes, residents said. The attacks — and threats of more to come — indicate the Iran war shows no sign of abating.
The U.S. and Israel have offered shifting rationales for the war, from hoping to foment an uprising that topples Iran’s leadership to eliminating its nuclear and missile programs. There have been no public signs of any such uprising.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told Japan’s Kyodo news service Friday that Iran wanted “not a ceasefire, but a complete, comprehensive and lasting end to the war.”
U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that he was considering “winding down” military operations in the Mideast, which seemed at odds with his administration’s move to bolster its firepower in the region and request another $200 billion from Congress to fund the war.
The U.S. is deploying three more amphibious assault ships and roughly 2,500 additional Marines to the Mideast, an official told The Associated Press. Two other U.S. officials confirmed that ships were deploying, without saying where they were headed. All three spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the military operations.
In a move aimed at wrangling soaring fuel prices, the Trump administration announced it was lifting sanctions on some Iranian oil. The pause in sanctions applies to Iranian oil already loaded on ships as of Friday and is set to end April 19. The license has limits including a restriction on sales involving anyone in North Korea or Cuba.
The new move does not increase the flow of production, a central factor in the surging prices. Iran has managed to evade U.S. sanctions for years, suggesting that much of what it exports already reaches buyers.
Saudi Arabia said it downed 20 drones in just a couple of hours Saturday in the country’s eastern region, home to major oil installations. No injuries or damage were reported.
U.K. officials have not given details of the strike that targeted the ocean air base Friday, which was unsuccessful.
Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Saturday that Iran’s “lashing out across the region and holding hostage the Strait of Hormuz, are a threat to British interests and British allies.”
Britain has not participated in U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran but has allowed American bombers to use U.K. bases to attack Iran’s missile sites.
On Friday, the British government said U.S. bombers can also use U.K. bases, including Diego Garcia, in operations to prevent Iran attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran targeted the base before that U.K. statement.
Iran’s official news agency, Mizan, said there was no leakage after Saturday’s strike on the Natanz nuclear facility, nearly 220 kilometers (135 miles) southeast of Tehran.
The facility, Iran’s main uranium enrichment site, was hit in the first week of the war and several buildings appeared damaged, according to satellite images. The United Nations nuclear watchdog — the International Atomic Energy Agency — had said “no radiological consequence” were expected from that earlier strike. Natanz had also been targeted in the 12-day war last June.
On Saturday, the IAEA said on X that it was informed by Iran about the Natanz strike and about there being no increase in off-site radiation levels. The agency said it was looking into the incident.
Iran’s top military spokesperson, Gen. Abolfazl Shekarchi, warned Friday that “parks, recreational areas and tourist destinations” worldwide will not be safe for the country’s enemies.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei praised Iranians’ steadfastness in the face of war in a written statement read on Iranian television to mark the Persian New Year, or Nowruz. Khamenei has not been seen in public since he became supreme leader after Israeli strikes killed his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and reportedly wounded him.
With little information coming out of Iran, it was not clear how much damage its arms, nuclear or energy facilities have sustained in the punishing U.S. and Israeli strikes, which began Feb. 28 — or even who was truly in charge of the country.
But Iran’s attacks are still choking off oil supplies and raising food and fuel prices far beyond the Middle East.
The Israeli military said its forces were conducting a “targeted ground operation” Saturday with the support of Israeli aircraft and that at least four militants were killed.
Hezbollah also released a statement saying its fighters clashed with Israeli troops in the southern village of Khiam.
So far, Israeli strikes targeting Hezbollah in Lebanon have killed more than 1,000 people and displaced more than 1 million, according to the Lebanese government.
More than 1,300 people have been killed in Iran during the war. In Israel, 15 people have been killed by Iranian missiles and four others have died in the occupied West Bank. At least 13 U.S. military members have been killed.
🔃 Update: This promotion is available again for 2026.
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Welcome to the 3rd episode of our Mutual Fund Series for 2026.
The video explains the dual-cost framework of Gold FOFs, why it differs from index mutual funds, and how expense ratio and tracking error together decide investor outcomes. You will also see a data-backed comparison of leading Gold ETFs, practical illustrations on tracking efficiency, and why a higher-cost fund can still deliver better returns.
The focus stays on execution quality, tracking discipline, and choosing the right structure based on brokerage, liquidity, and long-term efficiency.
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Key Points
Millions of Americans leave the workforce each year — to raise children, care for aging parents, or simply because one income is enough. But stepping away from a paycheck does not have to mean stepping away from retirement savings.
The spousal IRA is a provision in the federal tax code that allows a non-working or low-earning spouse to build a retirement account in their own name, funded by the household’s shared income. It is one of the most underused tools in personal finance, and for many couples, it can add up to tens of thousands of dollars in tax-advantaged retirement savings over time.
A spousal IRA is not a separate type of account. It is a standard Traditional or Roth IRA opened in the name of the non-working spouse. What makes it different is the eligibility rule.
Normally, you can only contribute to an IRA if you have earned income (wages, salaries, self-employment income) of at least the amount you contribute. The spousal IRA is the exception: it allows a spouse with little or no earned income to contribute to an IRA based on the other spouse’s earned income.
The account belongs entirely to the non-working spouse. It is subject to the same rules, contribution limits, and distribution requirements as any other IRA. This distinction matters at retirement and in cases of divorce or death.
To use a spousal IRA, three conditions must be met:
The contribution limits in 2026 are $7,500 per person, or $8,600 for anyone age 50 or older. That means a couple where one spouse works and one does not could collectively contribute up to $15,000 (or $17,200 if both are 50 or older) across two separate IRA accounts.
Whether a Traditional IRA contribution is deductible depends on two factors: whether either spouse is covered by a workplace retirement plan (such as a 401(k) or 403(b)), and the couple’s combined MAGI. This is where the rules get specific — and where many households leave money on the table by not understanding the thresholds.
Neither spouse has a workplace retirement plan
If the working spouse does not have access to a 401(k), pension, or other employer-sponsored plan, both spouses can deduct their full Traditional IRA contributions regardless of income. There is no income phase-out in this scenario.
The working spouse has a workplace plan — deduction for the non-working spouse
This is the most common scenario for single-income households. If the working spouse participates in an employer retirement plan, the non-working spouse can still deduct their full spousal IRA contribution — unless the couple’s MAGI exceeds a threshold.
The working spouse’s own deduction — if covered by a workplace plan
For the working spouse’s own Traditional IRA contribution, a separate and lower phase-out range applies when they are covered by a workplace plan.
Couples who exceed the Traditional IRA deduction thresholds often find the Roth IRA a better fit. Roth contributions are not deductible, but qualified withdrawals in retirement are tax-free — a meaningful advantage for spouses who expect to be in a higher tax bracket later, or who want to minimize required minimum distributions (RMDs). Traditional IRAs require RMDs starting at age 73; Roth IRAs currently have no RMD requirement during the owner’s lifetime.
The spousal IRA matters for three reasons that go beyond the annual tax break. First, it builds retirement savings in the non-working spouse’s name — protecting their financial independence. If the marriage ends in divorce or the working spouse dies, those funds belong to the IRA holder. Second, it doubles a couple’s tax-advantaged retirement savings capacity. A household contributing to both a 401(k) and two IRAs can shelter a significant portion of income from taxes annually. Third, it builds Social Security gaps. A spouse who spends years out of the workforce may have a lower Social Security benefit in retirement. Consistent IRA contributions partially offset that gap.
Consider a married couple where one spouse earns $90,000 and the other stays home. Both are under 50. The working spouse contributes to a 401(k) at work. Under 2026 rules, the stay-at-home spouse can contribute $7,500 to a spousal Traditional IRA and deduct the full amount — reducing the household’s taxable income.
The working spouse can contribute up to $24,500 to their 401(k) in 2026. Together, the couple can shelter $32,000 from federal income tax in a single year, before accounting for any employer match.
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Editor: Colin Graves
The post Spousal IRA: How Non-Working Spouses Can Still Save for Retirement appeared first on The College Investor.
Colostrum supplements are exploding in popularity, fueled by celebrity endorsements and loose regulation. But what does the science actually say?
