06-16-2025  1:59 am   •   PDX and SEA Weather

  • U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents detain a man outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs building during a protest Saturday, June 14, 2025, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)

    Anti-Trump demonstrators crowd streets, parks and plazas across the US

    PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Demonstrators came out in cities across the U.S. to protest President Donald Trump. Organizers of Saturday's “No Kings” demonstrations said millions marched in hundreds of events. Huge, boisterous crowds marched in Philadelphia, New York, Denver, Chicago, Houston and Los Angeles. Atlanta’s 5,000-capacity rally quickly reached its limit in front of the state Capitol. In Minnesota, organizers canceled demonstrations as police tracked a suspect in the shootings of two Read More
  • Pictured, clockwise from top left: Michael Alexander, Donovan Scribes, Intisar Abioto, Devin Boss will appear onstage during the Power of Place Roadshow for Juneteenth. (Image courtesy PAM)

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  • Trump Administration’s DEI Rollback Leaves Black Women in Federal Jobs Vulnerable

    Trump Administration’s DEI Rollback Leaves Black Women in Federal Jobs Vulnerable

    The Education Department previously had a staff that was majority nonwhite, with Black women making up about 28% of the workforce. Since the Trump administration’s return, the department’s staff has reportedly been reduced by 46%. Read More
  • U.S. National Guard are deployed outside the federal prison in downtown Los Angeles, Sunday, June 8, 2025, following a immigration raid protest the night before. (AP Photo/Jae Hong)

    Trump Sends National Guard Troops to Los Angeles - Why?

    Around 300 National Guard troops arrived in Los Angeles early Sunday on orders from President Donald Trump. They were stationed outside a federal complex that remained largely quiet and without major protests following two days of clashes with immigration authorities. The deployment marked the first time in six decades that a state’s national guard was activated without a request from its governor, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. On Read More
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NORTHWEST NEWS

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WA Launches Police Use-of-Force Database

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OPINION

Policymakers Should Support Patients With Chronic Conditions

As it exists today, 340B too often serves institutional financial gain rather than directly benefiting patients, leaving patients to ask “What about me?” ...

The Skanner News: Half a Century of Reporting on How Black Lives Matter

Publishing in one of the whitest cities in America – long before George Floyd ...

Cuts to Minority Business Development Agency Leaves 3 Staff

6B CDFI affordable capital for local investment also at risk ...

The Courage of Rep. Al Green: A Mandate for the People, Not the Powerful

If his colleagues truly believed in the cause, they would have risen in protest beside him, marched out of that chamber arm in arm with him, and defended him from censure rather than allowing Republicans to frame the narrative. ...

AFRICAN AMERICANS IN THE NEWS

ENTERTAINMENT

U.S. & WORLD NEWS

Jim Abrams the Associated Press

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich



WASHINGTON (AP) -- Thousands of companies that cashed in on President Barack Obama's economic stimulus package owed the government millions in unpaid taxes, congressional investigators have found.

The Government Accountability Office, in a report being released Tuesday, said at least 3,700 government contractors and nonprofit organizations that received more than $24 billion from the stimulus effort owed $757 million in back taxes as of Sept. 30, 2009, the end of the budget year.

The report said the tax delinquents accounted for nearly 6 percent of the 63,000 contractors and grantees examined and cautioned that the real number might be higher because the known tax debt does not measure such factors as income underreporting.

Among the examples was an engineering firm that received a $100,000 stimulus act contract but owed $6 million in taxes. The IRS called it "an extreme case of noncompliance." A social services nonprofit that received more than $1 million in stimulus funds owed taxes of $2 million.

The GAO referred those two cases and 13 others to the IRS for further investigation.

On Tuesday, a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee will hold a hearing on the report.

Federal law does not prohibit tax delinquents from getting government contracts or grants, though there are provisions that enable the government to withhold payments in some cases. While the federal government requires contractors to present documentation that their taxes are paid, some recipients escaped federal review because the money was disbursed at state or local levels.

Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., chairman of the investigations subcommittee holding the hearing, said it's been known for years that a few federal contractors and grantees don't pay their taxes.

He said a program to recover funds from tax delinquents has been strengthened, and "the executive branch has made it clear" that nonpayment of tax can be grounds for denying a specific contract or barring a contractor from bidding on any contract. He added that the executive branch should "get on with it" and bar "the worst of the tax cheats from the contractor workforce."

"It is a matter of basic fairness that those who take government money should be required to pay their taxes like everyone else," said Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, the panel's top Republican. "That such a huge amount of the stimulus money went to known tax cheats should be a wakeup call for Congress.'"

The stimulus package, enacted in February 2009, funneled some $821 billion into the recession-hit economy. Of that, about $275 billion was designated for contracts and grants, of which nearly $200 billion had been paid out as of March 25, 2011.

The report noted that about 35 percent of the unpaid taxes were for debts incurred prior to 2003 and that more than half of the apparent violations, $417 million, were from unpaid corporate taxes. Another quarter, $207 million, came from unpaid payroll taxes.

The most serious documented case was a security firm that owed $9 million, mainly in unpaid payroll taxes from the mid-2000s. IRS records indicated that the company paid other creditors while shirking its tax obligations. The company, which received more than $100,000 in stimulus money, had a history of being uncooperative, missing deadlines and repeatedly filing appeals, according to the records.

Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., chairman of the Finance Committee, said every unpaid tax dollar was "added to our deficit or taken from future generations, so I will certainly use the conclusions from this report to look for new ways to ensure everyone pays their fair share."

For Republican the report provided another way to criticize Obama's recovery package. "This shows how fundamentally flawed the failed stimulus has turned out to be when Washington jams through almost a trillion dollars in spending with little scrutiny," said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee.

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Associated Press writer Stephen Ohlemacher contributed to this report.

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