News stories from Saturday February 23, 1980

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

A United Nations Commission arrived in Teheran to begin an inquiry aimed at resolving Iran's grievances against the United States, but Ayatollah Khomeini ruled out the release of the American hostages before a new parliament is elected in April. [New York Times] A Soviet display of air strength supporting ground operations by the Afghan army and civilian militia appeared to have subdued mass anti-Soviet protests in Kabul, but many of the shops that were shut down in the demonstration, remained closed. Hundreds of people reportedly were killed. A martial law declaration banned gatherings of more than four persons on the streets. [New York Times] President Tito's ebbing hold on life has been further weakened by pneumonia, according to a medical bulletin issued by his physicians at a hospital in Ljubljana in northwestern Yugoslavia. Kidney and heart malfunctions followed a leg amputation in January. [New York Times] Eric Heiden won a fifth gold medal at the XIII Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid in the last of five speed-skating triumphs. The 21-year-old American is the first athlete to win five gold medals in any Winter Games. With a six-second lead, he broke the world record set by Viktor Leskin of the Soviet Union in 1977. [New York Times] Indictments against organized crime figures around the nation will be sought later this year by the government, federal law enforcement authorities said, culminating the most intensive federal investigation of racketeering since the early 1960's. The investigation, the authorties said, spans several states, and involves the upper echelons of the nation's largest union, public officials, lawyers and businessmen. The planned indictments are unrelated to the F.B.I.'s recently disclosed Abscam investigation. [New York Times] Ability to wage chemical warfare should be revived and bolstered, many American military experts believe, in view of the problems that have undermined Soviet-American detente. Intelligence officials say that the Soviet Union has absolute superiority over the rest of the world in its ability to use poison gases and to defend itself against them. [New York Times] Foreign students are being recruited systematically by American colleges, not only as hedge against what a college official calls "the drop-off in American students that demographers are predicting" but as a way of making American education a major "export." About 300,000 foreign students are enrolled in American colleges and universities, with the number climbing 12 to 16 percent a year. Foreigners seeking entry to the schools often report that they have been misled by ill-informed or unscrupulous recruiters. [New York Times]