News stories from Sunday December 9, 1979

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

Ayatollah Khomeini's followers retook Iran's radio and television station in Tabriz from dissident Azerbaijani Turks who had seized it on Thursday, but were driven out again in a battle that reportedly left three people dead and 60 injured. [New York Times] Iran will conduct an investigation of alleged wrongdoing by the United States in Iranian affairs by "outstanding international figures" and it was doubtful that any of the American hostages could be released before the inquiry is made, Foreign Minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh said. [New York Times] Archbishop Fulton Sheen died at his home in Manhattan at the age of 84. His radio and television ministry made him one of the most prominent figures in the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. As director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, he helped guide many people in their conversion to Catholicism. [New York Times] The New Democratic Coalition backed Senator Edward Kennedy's candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. At a meeting in New York, 193 delegates of the liberal organization gave Senator Kennedy 65.8 percent of their vote. He needed 60 percent for endorsement. President Carter received 11.8 percent, and Gov. Jerry Brown, 4.4 percent. [New York Times] The fate of the Winter Olympics site in Lake Placid, N.Y., after the 1980 games are over is uncertain. Millions of tax dollars have been spent on facilities for the games, but state and federal officials acknowledge that they have no plan for operating, maintaining or selling the complex, and there are reports, officially denied, that part of the complex will run into deficits. [New York Times] Alternative sources of fuel are being sought by scientists experimenting with organic animal and vegetable waste, referred to as biomass. Some scientists believe that such sources, when combined with other means of energy production, might provide adequate fuel supplies. In addition to biomass, scientists are experimenting with such alternative fuel sources as fermentable cereals from which fuel alcohol can be produced, desert bushes with sap consisting of hydrocarbon oil, and a Brazilian tree that reportedly yields diesel oil of such purity that it needs no refining. [New York Times] David Treen apparently won the election for Governor of Louisiana, but so closely that the Republican Representative ordered his campaign workers to continue a round-the-clock watch on voting machines until the state's official tabulation Tuesday to prevent tampering. If he wins, he will be the state's first Republican Governor since the 1870's. [New York Times] The future of American farming is the subject of a "national dialogue" being held by Agriculture Secretary Bob Bergland in farm communities, but the sessions raise far more complaints about the government's farm policy than suggestions on how to improve it. The current farm law expires in 1981. Mr. Bergland tells farmers that they should at least begin to think about what the government should and should not do in the coming decade. [New York Times] Black lung sufferers or their survivors are getting larger federal benefits under new, more liberal eligibility rules. The government now "presumes" that anyone who dies after working more than 25 years in a coal mine has breathed enough microscopic coal dust to contract "miner's asthma." [New York Times] Zimbabwe Rhodesia's planes attacked Patriotic Front guerrilla bases in Mozambique and Zambia, military headquarters in Salisbury said. A communique said that the raids were begun when intelligence agents reported that guerrillas were still trying to infiltrate the Zimbabwe Rhodesia border to step up the fighting. [New York Times] Discord in the P.L.O.'s relations with Libya broke into the open when Yasser Arafat appealed to Col. Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan leader, to end a siege of the P.L.O. branch in Tripoli, which Palestinian sources say is part of Libya's effort to make the guerrilla organization follow a more radical policy toward Israel and Egypt. [New York Times]