News stories from Monday December 25, 1978

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

Prospects that Congress will approve the first comprehensive law regulating the nation's intelligence agencies have diminished. Supporters of the controversial legislation in the administration and in Congress said that they still hoped a consensus could be reached, but others said that the momentum for the proposed law had been lost. An increasingly conservative mood in Congress was said to be one of the reasons for the uncertain future of the proposed law. [New York Times] Thousands of poor women in New York and California got safe, legal abortions that were paid for by the state, but at the same time three women in various parts of the country, federal officials say, died in the last 16 months after botched, non-professional abortions. Thousands of other women in Connecticut and Texas also had legal abortions by borrowing money or by finding a doctor or clinic that would reduce or eliminate the fee. These cases show some of the effects, direct and indirect, of the drastic reductions in free abortions for the poor that have been instituted by the government and by 33 states since August 1977. [New York Times] Greta Rideout, who has accused her husband of rape, is expected to testify today at his trial in Salem, Ore., as the last prosecution witness. John Rideout, the 21-year-old defendant, who is also charged with beating his wife, is then expected to testify. [New York Times] Thieves stole paintings valued at more than $1 million from the city-owned M. H. DeYoung Memorial Museum in San Francisco. The paintings, of 17th-century Dutch origin, included a Rembrandt, "Portrait of a Rabbi," that alone was valued at $1 million. The King Tutankhamun exhibit is scheduled to open at the museum in April. The museum successfully bid for the show, apparently because it was able to demonstrate that its security system was reliable. [New York Times] If the Shah does not abdicate then all compromise attempts to solve Iran's political crisis would fail, said Karim Sanjabi, leader of the principal opposition group. "The only solution is that the Shah must go," Mr. Sanjabi, head of the National Front, told a rally in Teheran of about 4,000 supporters. Meanwhile, demonstrators fought with the Shah's soldiers in Teheran, hurling rocks and paving stones, while the troops fired shots over the protesters' heads. [New York Times] Turkish troops restored order in the southeastern city of Kahramanmaras where at least 93 persons died in fighting between two Moslem sects. Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, who made the announcement, summoned the cabinet to discuss measures to maintain calm. The final death count in the religious fighting between the rightist Sunnis and the leftist Alevis may be higher, officials said. [New York Times] Anwar Sadat told Egyptians that the refusal of other Arabs to back his peace efforts with Israel was helping Prime Minister Menachem Begin to frustrate a peace settlement between the two countries. Mr. Sadat's references to Mr. Begin were acerbic, but he still seemed optimistic that a settlement would be reached. [New York Times] A Soviet space probe on Venus beamed information back to Earth about its closest neighbor. Tass, the official Soviet press agency, said the spacecraft, Venera II, transmitted scientific information for 95 minutes before going silent. It was the second landing on Venus by a Soviet spacecraft in five days -- one of nine Soviet landings on the planet in recent years. The landing last Thursday was the most successful, having transmitted information for 110 minutes. [New York Times]