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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 25, 2009)
500 Special Coverage _ ®lll' Issue Black Month Iraq Troop Removal Set Stocks Up on Remarks Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gave Wall Street a double dose of reassurance Tuesday saying the recession might end this year, and that regulators aren't planning to nationalize banks. The news lifted the stock markets off their lowest levels since 1997. 7 0 Established ir» in IQ 1970 Barkley to Serve Jail Time North Korea Plans Launch North Korea declared Tues day it is making "brisk head way" in plans to send a sat ellite into or bit as part of its space p ro g ram , a launch regional powers fear is a cover up for testing a long- range ballistic missile capable of striking Alaska and the west ern United States. Huge Ship In Portland The largest ship of its kind in the world made its first stop in America on Monday and the port of call was Portland. The Morning Lisa, a massive sea going car transporter that is about nine stories tall and longer than twofootball fields. It can haul more than 8,(XX) cars at one time. °s ^community service www.portlandobserver.com Wednesday • Februaiy 25. 2009 Tax Time H e lp Avoiding the pitfalls J ake T homas T he P ortland O bserver by ■ Former NBA great Charles Barkley was sentenced on Monday to lOdays in jail after pleading guilty to driving drunk in Scottsdale, Ariz., last New Year's Eve. He will have five days susp en d ed upon his com pletion o f a co u rt-ap proved alcohol program, traf fic school and a $2,(XX) fine. tananai r \ r » r i I Q n / 4 r \ k r a r - i z n r s'z-tm Committed to Cultural Diversity' Americans are finding themselves in the midst of one their least favorite times of the year: tax sea son. Although paying your share for the upkeep of state and national government is full of pitfalls, it doesn't have to be a taxing experience. There are plenty of ways to get free help filing your taxes. Locke to Run Commerce And if you play it right, you could come out with President Obama intends to some extra cash after filing your return by April 17. n o m in a te If you do decide to go the route of using a com form er W ash mercial tax preparer to get your taxes in, one thing in g to n G ov. to look out for is the offer of a Refund Anticipation GaiyLocketobe Loan, which is a loan given by the preparer for the commerce sec amount of the refund with interest. re ta ry on Consumer advocacy groups have reported that W ednesday in the Locke, refund loans have been used to prey on people his third try to fill thejob. a D em o crat, b ecam e the their return in a hurry. People seeking a needing nation's first Chinese-Ameri quick refund are lured in with the offer of a loan can governor when and he then took watch it evaporate as they are charged up office in 1997 and served two to 500 percent in interest. terms. Aimee Olin, the director of the Oregon branch of Vancouver Sex Offender the Association of Community Organizers for Re Admits to Killing Girl form Now, said that getting a RAL might be a good A transient sex offender admit option for some taxpayers, but stresses that they ted to police that he beat a 13- should always read the fine print of the loan agree year-old Hazel Dell girl todeath ment and should shop around for a good interest after attempting to rape her and rate. then moved her body after Olin hasn't received any recent reports of com wards to "an area where she m ercial tax preparers using RAL's to put the would be found," according to squeeze on desperate people in the area, but she a court document. said it's possible. Mardl Gras Shooting "The risk is definitely out there,* she said. A Mardi Gras parade erupted into chaos on Fat Tuesday in New Orleans when a series of gunshots nearby struck six people, incl uding an infant. The infant was not seriously in jured and two suspects were in custody, police said. HU See story, page A5 Pcf o h i VolumeXXXVIV. Number« President Barack Obama plans to remove all U.S. combat troops from Iraq by August 2010, administration officials said Tuesday, ending the war that defined his presidential campaign three months later than he had promised. See story, page A6. f 'he Left Bank is a new development, but fo r many it will always be remembered as the Dude Ranch, a black nightclub <ind l ‘City of Roses’ Week ¡n The Review Neighborhood Reincarnation Tressa Graham is all smiles after getting her 2008 tax forms completed with the help of Jeff Malmquist, one o f the volunteers offering free tax help for those who qualify through a coalition sponsored by CASH Oregon, KeyBank, AARP and the United Way. Free Tax Help ACORN Oregon 503-771-0396 E-mail: oracom@acom.org CASH Oregon 503-243-7765 AARP tax preparation website locator: aarp.org/money/taxable Flu Hits Hard Outbreak reaches epidemic level Influenza has arrived in full force in Oregon and state health officials are urging anyone who wants to avoid the illness to get vaccinated. Oregon medical laboratories have reported marked increases over the last few weeks in the num ber of positive flu speci mens they’ve identified. M ed ical o ffic e s aro u n d the state that routinely report the level of influenza activity in their prac tices first reported epidem ic lev els of flu transmission during the last week of January. The num bers have been rising steadily in the last three weeks. “Given that in three of the last four years influenza activity has peaked in either the last week in F eb ru ary or the firs t w eek in If you don't want to shell out money for a com mercial preparer, it may be tempting to do it your self. However, you might be missing out on some tax credits that could give your refund a significant boost. There are a number of tax credits millions of eli gible people overlook each year. According to infor mation provided by the 1RS, these are some of the more common: The Earned Income Tax Credit is the big one. It's continued March in Oregon, I would not be surprised to see the numbers con tinue to climb over the next few weeks,” said Dr. Ann Thomas, a public health physician with the O regon D epartm ent of Human Services Public Health Division who oversees influenza activity for the state. Nationally, the Centers for Dis ease Control and Prevention re port a good match between the circulating strains of influenza A and the two strains contained in this year’s vaccine. While the strain of influenza B in this y e a r’s vaccine does not on page A5 match as well, that strain ac counts for only 20 percent of influenza cases nationally and in Oregon, health officials said. T he in flu e n z a v a c cin e is known to provide some cross protection against strains not contained in the vaccine, often reducing the severity of illness. With the flu season is heating up, Thomas urges people who haven’t gotten flu shots to do so. It takes about two weeks for the vaccine to become effec tive. About 450 O regonians die from the flu each year. Entrepreneur Lives Dream with Clyde’s Popular night spot had racist past by L ee P erlman T he P ortland O bserver Today Clyde’s Prime Rib at 5474 N.E. Sandy Blvd. is, among other things, one of the city’s premier live jazz venues. When Clyde Jenkins bought the building in 2004 it was a venerable purveyor of prime rib and other fine dining. Prior to that, it was the Coon Chicken Inn. The third of a chain of restaurants that started in Salt Lake City and Seattle, Portland’s Coon Chicken Inn opened in 1931. Each of the res taurants were known for their giant murals of a black face at the en trance of the establishments in what is now considered one of the most insulting of all anti-black carica tures. Lester Maxon Graham and his continued on page A2 photo by M ark W ashington /T hf Pomi xnd O bsf . rvkr Portland native Clyde Jenkins is living his dream as the owner and operator of Clyde s Prime Rib at 54 74 N.E. Sandy Blvd.. a popular venue for dining and live jazz, but also a building with an infamous past when the worst racial stereotypes were accepted as normal. t «