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The battle against homelessness in the Portland, Oregon, area reportedly came with a high cost in 2023, with most of the money going to temporary shelter, services, and housing placement. ECOnorthwest’s analysis found in the counties of Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas, “local governments and nonprofits” shelled out $531 million for homeless interventions, Fox News reported on Thursday. “The huge increase was driven in part by nearly $90 million in federal pandemic relief funds, as well as a regional homeless tax approved by voters in 2020, the report shows,” the outlet said.

The growth of the U.S. economy in the second quarter was revised lower on Wednesday, as weaker business spending more than offset stronger consumer spending. The government said that gross domestic product grew at a 2.1 percent annual pace in the the three months from April through June. The first estimate had the economy growing 2.4 percent in the quarter. Even after the downward revision, the economy is still growing faster than what many economists consider its long-run potential. Officials at the Federal Reserve have said that they thin the economy needs to grow by less than potential—which they estimate...

Consumers spent a record amount of money on online purchases on Black Friday, surpassing $9 billion, according to Adobe Analytics data. Adobe found that $9.12 billion was spent on Friday, marking a 2.3 percent rise year over year. Electronics sales were a large driver of the increase, with such online sales up 221 percent from the average day in October. Items such as audio equipment, toys and exercise equipment also sold well, with sales of each up more than 200 percent from an average day last month.

State governments spent more money in the last fiscal year than ever before, bolstered by federal funds meant to help avert an economic catastrophe as businesses shuttered to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Total state spending topped $2.6 trillion in Fiscal Year 2021, up 16.2 percent from the previous year, according to the National Association of State Budget Officers.

President Joe Biden boasted of his close relationship with Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping on Friday, claiming he has spent more time with him than any other world leader. “Not a joke … I’ve had hours and hours and hours of meetings and personal conversations with Xi Jinping,” Biden said during a speech at a daycare center in Connecticut. “I’ve spent more time with him, I believe, than any other world leader has.

Under the Obama administration, embassy construction costs have exploded even while security – a major issue in the Benghazi scandal – has grown worse. Now we know why. A video released by the State Department in 2012 shows exhibits the philosophy behind a campaign begun under former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to build fancy buildings overseas to enhance the nation´s reputation. The video opens with a narrator explaining the “universally understood language of diplomacy” including “art, design and architecture” that “communicate our ideals...without speaking a word.” From there, a series of high-profile architects use embarrassingly flowery language to explain

In the hours leading up to the administration's surprise decision Tuesday to delay implementation of Obamacare, the president's team gave no indication of the course reversal, in a way hiding it by spending $32 million on children's health care and announcing plans to expand the PR campaign. One example: three and a half hours before notifying the public of the change in a Treasury Department blog post, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius held a conference call with reporters to announce a $32 million spending program to enroll poor and immigrant kids into the Children's Health Insurance Program. "Every...

CINCINNATI — U.S. House Speaker John Boehner said Monday he agrees with President Barack Obama that everyone should pay their fair share of taxes, but that "class warfare" and higher taxes won't solve the nation's economic problems. The Ohio Republican spoke to a business group luncheon at the University of Cincinnati less than two hours after Obama detailed a deficit reduction plan that includes higher taxes for wealthy Americans. "I understand that it's easy to go out there and talk about taxing billionaires," Boehner said, but he said "class warfare isn't leadership" and the big need is to get people...

Madison - The top four spenders on lobbying the Legislature during the first half of 2011 were labor unions fighting against Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to curb collective bargaining, a report released Thursday showed. The four unions spent $6.3 million in the first six months of the year, the Government Accountability Board reported. Walker introduced his plan in February and the Republican-controlled Legislature passed it in March. The unions helped organize rallies at the Capitol in protest over the bill that grew as large as 100,000 people. The debate, which captured the nation's attention, also spurred Democratic senators to leave...

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CBS News poll finds that Americans strongly prefer cutting spending to raising taxes to reduce the federal deficit. While 77 percent prefer to cut spending, just nine percent call for raising taxes. Another nine percent want to do both.

FORT HUACHUCA — Soldiers of the 69th Signal Company returned home after nearly a year in Iraq where they put in a number of communication infrastructures. The 142 men and women of the unit — most of whom are cable dogs, individuals who install communication lines — stepped off the charter aircraft at 8 p.m. Thursday, concluding a trip from Kuwait to Arizona. Waiting for the ramp to be put up to the plane, soldiers of the 11th Signal Brigade, to which the 69th belongs, were as anxious to see their fellow soldiers get off the commercial airliner as probably...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - More than $3.8 million in federal election money was spent improperly or without required documentation by former Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, federal auditors said in a report released Wednesday. The audit, commissioned by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, confirms an earlier state audit of Shelley's handling of money given to California under the Help America Vote Act. It examined spending through 2004. Auditors said about $3 million in spending lacked documentation, such as paying salaries for people who didn't submit time sheets, or was improperly awarded to consultants through no-bid contracts. The audit, conducted by the...

HADITHA, Iraq (Dec. 20, 2005) -- After ascending a narrow 45 degree-angled pathway, hundreds of feet above the ground, to the top of the Haditha Dam in Iraq, Cpl. Nicholas J. Essenmacher stops and points to a town on the curve of the horizon where he and his Marines will be moving to the following day. For Essenmacher, a load master with Transportation Support Company, Combat Logistics Battalion-2, 2nd Marine Logistics Group (Forward), being anywhere else in the world just wouldn’t seem right. “As crazy as it may sound I like being here,” said the Harbor Beach, Mich., native. “If...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Syria misspent more than $500 million in Iraqi oil money left over in its central bank after a three-year stretch of doing business with Baghdad in defiance of U.N. sanctions, U.S. investigators claimed in documents obtained Tuesday. A House of Representatives subcommittee is questioning if the money, deposited in two accounts at Syria's Central Bank, was later used to finance attacks in Iraq. The United States has repeatedly claimed that insurgents used the bank to launder cash. The documents were to be the focus of a Wednesday hearing by the subcommittee, on the Middle East and...

California politicians love to gripe about how the state gets shorted by the federal government. Those complaints sound peculiar against the background of some recent news. Over the last three years, the state Department of Health Services has received about $100 million in federal funds to fight bioterrorism, and officials there can't seem to account for it. Where has the money gone? DHS officials can't seem to say. Department officials were unable to provide Bee science writer Edie Lau last week with a detailed breakdown of how the $100 million was spent. And this comes after two recent reports that...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

As Democratic hopeful John Kerry whines about the Swift Boat Veterans questioning his Vietnam “war service,” more revelations have surfaced which challenge the legitimacy of his first Purple Heart. The Senator claims that that medal was received because of enemy fire he took, but his own personal diary contradicts that assertion. While the Senator’s supporters tried unsuccessfully to portray President Bush as being “AWOL” during the Vietnam War, they won’t address the fact that Kerry tried to defer his military service at that time for 12 months. And what would Kerry and his friends say about the fact that his...

A woman who repeatedly told her bank it had wrongly credited her with £47,000 was threatened with imprisonment when she took its advice and spent the money. Linda Parish said yesterday that although she was relieved that the charges against her had been dropped, the bank was now demanding she pay £25,000 costs and interest for its own mistake. A judge ordered the criminal case to be thrown out after the prosecution said it was no longer proceeding with a charge of theft. Nigel Daly, her barrister, told Judge Stanley Spence at Reading Crown Court: "My recollection of the Monopoly...

There's nothing risky about putting money in the bank. Let’s say that you aren’t a longshoreman who makes $150,000 a year for keeping track of the numbers on the containers unloaded or loaded by the big cranes at the docks. Let’s say, instead, that you work at a machine shop, running a lathe. You started doing that back in 1963 when you finished your hitch in the Air Force. Over the years, your salary has increased because you got raises for being more experienced at what you do, and raises just to keep up with inflation. You began at four...