News stories from Saturday July 5, 1980

Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:

President Carter said Moscow's offer to start talks with the United States and its allies on limiting intermediate-range nuclear missiles was "worthy of our serious consideration" but that it was "too early to tell" whether the proposals were acceptable. Mr. Carter, visiting his home in Plains, Ga., for the first time in nine months, said that he presumed that Leonid Brezhnev was "sincere" in proposing the talks. [New York Times] Egyptians sought to allay reports that the deposed Shah of Iran's condition is worsening following an operation at an Egyptian hospital. An official announcement confirmed the operation was necessary to drain a cyst in his pancreas, a complication arising from the cancer he has been suffering from. A spokesman for the Shah denied reports in Cairo that preparations have begun on a tomb for him in the garden of Rifai Mosque, where his father's body had been interred before being returned to Iran. [New York Times] Pope John Paul II warned Brazilians against what he described as the growing manipulation of the human mind by radio and television. He reiterated tradtional Roman Catholic precepts on education at Porto Alegre at the midpoint of his 12-day visit. [New York Times] The accuracy of the 1980 Census in counting people and gathering housing information will be greater than had been expected, according to local census managers who had expressed deep discouragement several months ago. But for any certain idea of its success will depend on the Census Bureau's preliminary report on population and housing totals, due this month. [New York Times] New England's fishing boom has ended with an abrupt crash in prices that started to rise with the passage of the 1976 law setting down the 200-mile fishing limit on Georges Bank. The 1,400 fishermen, in New Bedford, Mass., one of the East Coast's major fishing ports, are thinking about resuming their four-week strike, which ended in a defeat last month, and talk about the flood of cheap, government subsidized Canadian fish they say is driving them out of business. [New York Times] The apparent reluctance in the White House to dismiss Herman Sillas, a United States Attorney in Sacramento, Calif. who has been accused of taking a $7,500 bribe, is troubling law enforcement authorities who believe that political considerations in an election year -- Mr. Sillas is prominent American-Hispanic leader --might be delaying the dismissal recommended by the Justice Department. [New York Times] Guilty pleas by road building concerns and their executives have followed a wide-ranging federal inquiry of alleged price-fixing, bid-rigging and bribery schemes that are estimated to have cost six Southeastern states millions of dollars a year for decades. More than 30 companies and officials filed guilty pleas. Scores of additional indictments are expected in the next 12 months, official sources said. [New York Times]