Congress had stabilized the federal budget deficit and that was “the good news”, according to the director of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. But there was another side to the government’s red-ink epic, Rudolph Penner, CBO director, said in a Kansas University talk. “The bad news is that the deficit has been stabilized at an extraordinarily high level and a big deficit during relatively good economic times is extradordinary (and undesirable).”

School bells sounded some notes of relief for the Douglas County and Kansas unemployment rates during September. The county rate dropped .6 of 1 percent from August and the state’s rate fell .5 of 1 percent to 4.6. The local rate was around 4 percent.

The local United Fund drive was lagging with only 44 percent of the goal of $470,882 collected or pledged. The formal drive had less than three weeks to run and there was concern about reaching the goal in time.