News stories from Sunday May 18, 1980
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Less stringent sanctions against Iran than had been proposed by the United Nations Security Council in January will be imposed Thursday by the Common Market countries, their foreign ministers said. Instead of halting all sales to Iran, except for food and medical supplies, as called for in the Security Council plan and urged by President Carter, the ministers decided to ban only contracts signed since the Nov. 4 seizure of the United States Embassy in Teheran. Virtually all major European contracts with Iran will be unaffected by the new sanctions, Common Market officials said at their meeting in Naples. [New York Times]
- Fourteen persons died In a race riot in Miami over the weekend. Scores of people were injured in the looting, fires and shooting that broke out after the acquittal Saturday by an all-white jury of four former police officers, all white, charged with beating to death a black insurance man. Members of the Justice Department's Community Relations Service were sent to Miami to arrange a series of meetings between local black leaders and city and state officials. City officials said schools would not open today, and they suspended public transportation services.
Violence in Miami had been expected for months by black leaders there. They said resentment had been growing over a series of cases of alleged police brutality against blacks that were not prosecuted, while the metropolitan area's top school official, a black, and other black officials had recently been convicted of corruption charges. The arrival of thousands of Cuban refugees, who will compete with blacks for jobs, also contributed to the rioting, the leaders said.
[New York Times] - Volcanic Mount St. Helens exploded in Washington, sending up a burst of ash and steam 60,000 feet into the atmosphere and killing at least five people. The cloud turned day into night in Walla Walla, Wash., 160 miles to the east. Most residents of the sparsely settled mountainsides had been evacuated in recent weeks when it appeared the volcano might erupt. [New York Times]
- The United States blamed Cuba for the deaths of 14 refugees whose overloaded boat sank in heavy seas 25 miles off Cuba in the worst accident at sea since the exodus began. The dead were among 52 passengers aboard a 36-foot cabin cruiser. The Coast Guard sent a message to the Cuban authorities rebuking them for permitting the boat to be overloaded. [New York Times]
- A Love Canal resident who had been told that she and her husband had "chromosome irregularities" is worried that the cancer she had five years ago might recur, and that her five children might have inherited the chromosome damage. Cancer has been prevalent in the Niagara Falls, N.Y., neighborhood where Phyllis and Leonard Whitenight live.
Governor Carey questioned the results of a federal study that found that chromosome damage had afflicted some residents of the Love Canal area in Niagara Falls, where toxic chemicals were buried. He said, however, that the state "will do whatever has to be done to save lives," if the Environmental Protection Administration decided that hundreds of additional families had to evacuated.
[New York Times] - The Statue of Liberty is in better shape than had been thought following its ascent by two demonstrators who used climbing equipment a week ago, an architectural conservator of the National Park Service said. The park service has a four-deck scaffold to assess the damage. Harm that may have been done to the monument by the climbers is causing less concern than its general condition, especially the apparent erosion of its copper covering. [New York Times]
- The subpoena of a key official of the Justice Department has been proposed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is investigating the department's reasons for not prosecuting certain politically sensitive cases. The department has refused to allow the official, Thomas Henderson, to testify at committee hearings. [New York Times]
- Soaring pension financing costs have forced some cities, including San Francisco, to divert funds for public services to pension funding. Specialists in municipal finances believe that municipal pension plans in New Orleans, Boston, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis and Detroit, among other cities, are in questionable financial health. [New York Times]
- The first summit-level contact between Moscow and the West since the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan will take in place tomorrow in Poland. Polish sources said that Leonid Brezhnev and President Valery Giscard d'Estaing of France will hold talks on virtually every source of tension. [New York Times]
- South Korea's President promised to continue his government's schedule for a return to democracy despite the extension of martial law Saturday that banned all political deomonstrations, closed universities and placed control of the government more firmly in the hands of the military. [New York Times]