From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for May 2, 1989:

• White House reporter Helen Thomas, visiting Kansas University this week, said that President Bush had not yet “come down to earth” since his election and was facing issues for which he was not prepared. “At last he has the job he coveted for so long,” Thomas told a crowd of 200 at a lecture sponsored by Student Union Activities. “The president is euphoric and he is wallowing in the heavy atmosphere of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. When he comes down to earth he will face many problems. The unfinished business — the hangover — of the Reagan administration. Particularly, the monumental national debt and deficit,” Thomas noted.
• Contract talks with the city firefighters resumed this week as a city plan to increase firefighters’ wages by 4 percent in 1990 and another 2 percent in 1991 received a cool response. The firefighters, in their initial bargaining session, had asked for a one-year work agreement with a 6 percent wage increase. “We think our firefighters are compensated very well, and we’re looking at what it will take to maintain that level of compensation,” said Ray Hummert, personnel services administrator and chief negotiator for the city. Hummert pointed out that in 1989 the average salary for a firefighter in Lawrence was higher than the average salary for a city police officer.