General news

HONOLULU (AP) — A Coast Guard rescue swimmer whose disappearance led to a massive search in Hawaii pleaded guilty to desertion Tuesday, saying he left work one day, decided never to return and spent the next three months camping in the mountains of Oahu.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew says the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative political groups was "unacceptable and inexcusable" and he has directed the agency's acting director to hold people accountable.

Lew told the Senate Banking Committee that he has also asked acting director Daniel Werfel to fix any flaws in management of the IRS to make sure there is no recurrence of the problems.

An inspector general's report released May 15 found that IRS employees had inappropriately targeted conservative political groups.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Apple Inc. employs a group of affiliate companies located outside the United States to avoid paying billions of dollars in U.S. income taxes, a Senate investigation has found.

The world's most valuable company is holding overseas some $102 billion of its $145 billion in cash, and an Irish subsidiary that earned $22 billion in 2011 paid only $10 million in taxes, according to the report issued Monday by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

In another case of the Obama administration investigating classified information improperly disclosed to reporters, the government is prosecuting a State Department expert on North Korea in a probe that appears to step into uncharted territory — by declaring that a journalist is committing a crime in disclosing leaked information.