News stories from Friday April 13, 1979

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

Final steps to a safe, cold shutdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant were begun in Pennsylvania by federal nuclear experts, who said that they did not know how long the process would take. [New York Times] There is less and less gasoline in the country's service station pumps as the tourism season begins Easter weekend. Enormous losses in tourist business in the United States were forecast by the travel industry if President Carter's gasoline economy proposals were carried out at gasoline stations. [New York Times] A move to prevent the C.I.A. from censoring a magazine article on Uganda was rejected by a federal judge in Portland, Ore. The article, a humorous account by a former C.I.A. agent of his experiences as a spy, was written for Oregon Magazine. The C.I.A. said it contained 16 words that would endanger national security. [New York Times] A faculty union and Boston University agreed on a contract, the first with a teaching staff at a major university. The union members had been on strike for nine days, but it was not clear whether classes would resume next Tuesday as scheduled. Two other unions whose members are librarians, clerks and technical workers are still on strike, and the faculty union has pledged to help them. [New York Times] As the 25th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation in public schools approaches, the leaders of the N.A.A.C.P. and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc., each of which believes it is responsible for the landmark decision, will attempt to settle differences arising from their mutual competition. [New York Times] The merger of the mostly white Nashville campus of the University of Tennessee with the predominantly black campus of Tennessee State University, ordered by a Federal District Court, was affirmed by a 2 to 1 vote of the United States Court of Appeals in Nashville. The University of Tennessee will appeal the ruling, its officials said. The merger is effective July 1. [New York Times] A Jersey City parish outraged by neighborhood crime re-enacted Christ's Passion on Good Friday with a two hour procession that was meant to draw parallels between the sufferings of Christ and those of the city's Lafayette section. Several of the 14 stations of the cross were observed at places in the neighborhood where robberies and murders had occurred, and at each station the Rev. Thomas Olsen appealed for brotherhood, compassion, self-help and a unified cry against crime. [New York Times] More aid for the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, N.Y., which has large cost overruns, will come from the Carter administration if the state or local sponsors take responsibility for the balance of the overruns. The administration has agreed to contribute $7 million to $11 million more to the $57 million that the government has given for the games. [New York Times] Rhodesian commandos were sent into Zambia and Botswana to attack centers of guerrillas who have vowed to disrupt elections to be held in Rhodesia next week. The attack in Lusaka, Zambia's capital, by commandos disguised as Zambian soldiers, was apparently aimed at capturing or killing the guerrilla leader Joshua Nkomo, who escaped. At least 10 people were reported killed and 12 wounded. [New York Times] Uganda's new government was installed on the steps of the Parliament building in Kampala before a jubilant crowd of several thousand people. The new President, Yusufu Lule, who will head a provisional government. and 14 cabinet members took the oath of office from Chief Justice Samuel Wambuzzi who, like the men he swore in, had just returned from exile. [New York Times] The United States retaliated against South Africa's expulsion of three American attaches on charges of aerial espionage by ordering two South African military attaches in this country to leave. [New York Times] A "super-ambassador" to the Mideast is planned by the Carter administration. President Carter and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, according to aides, decided that they were spending too much time on Middle East problems and that a special envoy could do much of the negotiating work. [New York Times]