Deficit down 20% from last year
The federal deficit through June is running well below last year’s pace, helped by strong growth in revenues, the Treasury Department reported Thursday.
Through the first 10 months of this budget year, the deficit totaled $239.7 billion, an improvement of 20.8 percent from the same period a year ago, when it was $302.8 billion.
The deficit in July totaled $33.2 billion, down sharply from an imbalance of $53.4 billion in July 2005.
The narrowing of the deficit this year reflects a surge in government revenues from higher corporate and individual tax receipts.
The administration is now forecasting that the deficit for the 2006 budget year, which ends Sept. 30, will total $296 billion.
The Congressional Budget Office is even more optimistic, forecasting the deficit for this year will fall to $260 billion. The 2005 budget deficit was $319 billion and the 2004 deficit was an all-time record of $413 billion.
Cape Canaveral, Fla.
Astronauts strap in for test countdown
Atlantis’ astronauts strapped into the space shuttle Thursday for a practice launch countdown more than two weeks before they are scheduled to blast off on a mission to resume construction of the International Space Station.
The six crew members, dressed in their orange spacesuits, waved to photographers as they walked out of crew quarters at the Kennedy Space Center and boarded a van that took them to the launch pad. The launch window opens Aug. 27.
The practice went smoothly with the countdown clock stopping at 4 seconds, said NASA spokesman Bruce Buckingham.
There have been only two shuttle flights since 2003’s Columbia disaster killed seven astronauts.
Bay St. Louis, Miss.
Wife suspected of cooking-oil murder
A woman accused of killing her husband by pouring hot cooking oil on him turned herself in to authorities Thursday after more than a week on the run.
Edna Mae Sanders, 45, faces a murder charge and was the focus of an intense search by authorities, including the FBI.
Police believe Sanders heated about two quarts of household cooking oil to a simmer, then poured it over Sherman Sanders’ head, face, chest and arms while he slept July 28. Police say she then fled the couple’s home in Diamondhead, in southern Mississippi, with her two children from a previous marriage.
Sherman Sanders, 53, suffered third-degree burns over more than half his body. The Navy veteran clung to life for a week before dying Aug. 4 in the burn center of an Alabama hospital.
Police had not been able to find a motive, but investigators have said that Sherman Sanders, who had been married to Edna for about a year, recently considered getting a divorce.