News stories from Saturday August 25, 1979

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

A two-year delay in emission rules for cars was granted by the Environmental Protection Agency for some engines made by three automobile manufacturers in Detroit and two foreign manufacturers, British Leyland and Toyota. The federal anti-pollution standards aimed at cutting down the emission of carbon monoxide were to become effective in 1981. [New York Times] Rebuffing a Soviet protest, American authorities continued to hold a Soviet jetliner at Kennedy International Airport to determine whether Lyudmila Vlasova, a soloist with the Bolshoi Ballet and the wife of Aleksandr Godunov, who defected last week, was being forced to return to Moscow. Miss Vlasova remained in the plane while American and Soviet officials conducted tense talks in the terminal building. Immigration and State Department officials said the plane would not be allowed to leave until Miss Vlasova was permitted to get off and tell American authorities or her husband whether she was leaving voluntarily. [New York Times] Vice President Mondale is in Peking, beginning a weeklong visit to China that the administration hopes will move Chinese-American relations to a "new level of political intimacy." This is Mr. Mondale's first visit to China, and the first visit by a senior American official since President Ford's in December 1975. [New York Times] Among residents of Laguna Beach these days there is a feeling that something has gone wrong. Clinging to three miles of the western edge of America, Laguna Beach is a community near Los Angeles that seems to be the epitome of the good life. In spite of their prosperity, residents are worried about inflation, high taxes and what the future holds. They are gripped by the "crisis of confidence" recently described by President Carter. [New York Times] More people are traveling by bus as a result of the recent gasoline shortage and the high cost of gasoline. Long distance bus lines had been averaging 45 percent of capacity before the gasoline shortage persuaded people to keep the car in the garage and take the bus instead. Bus travel has increased 14 percent over 1978, according to the American Bus Association, and it does not expect that it will be a temporary increase. The chairman of the Greyhound line said that "July put us well into the black for the year." [New York Times] Officials are worried in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut that despite the $1.6 billion in special assistance proposed by the Carter administration, that large numbers of poor and elderly people living on fixed incomes will not be able to meet the rapidly rising cost of heating oil, placing a major burden on the cities this winter. The $1.6 billion is to come from President Carter's proposed windfall profits tax on the oil industry, but the approval of Congress is far from certain and city officials fear that they may not get enough money and that what they do get will come too late. [New York Times] Iranian troops broke through Kurdish rebel lines and reached a besieged garrison in Saqqiz in western Iran. A Kurdish leader promised "all-out war" to make the Kurds autonomy-minded province "the graveyard" of Iran's Islamic regime. The fighting around the Saqqiz military garrison began Thursday. The state radio appealed urgently for doctors and nurses to volunteer to be flown to the area. [New York Times] The United Nations urged Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization to call a truce in southern Lebanon. Lebanese officials announced that a cease-fire was to be declared at noon tomorrow, but United Nations sources said that no final agreement had been reached but "talks are continuing." [New York Times] The U.S. Africa policy will not change when Andrew Young's resignation as chief United States delegate to the United Nations becomes effective next month, administration specialists on Africa insist. They concede, however, that it will be difficult to convince African leaders that the administration's commitment to majority rule in southern Africa will remain strong. [New York Times]