News stories from Sunday September 7, 1980

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

Three Haitian refugees drowned when a sailboat capsized just as a Coast Guard cutter found it 120 miles south of Miami. The cutter rescued 103 people. An immigration official said the Haitians had said that some members of the group died, apparently from lack of food and water, during 15 days at sea, and their bodies were put overboard. [New York Times] The government's first attempt to protect worker fertility and the health of the unborn under the occupational health and safety law was defeated in rulings by two administrative law judges. They threw out government citations against an American Cyanamid Company plant where five women had said that they had felt compelled to have themselves sterilized to keep their jobs. The government had challenged a company policy excluding women from a certain department because of potential hazards in lead exposure levels. [New York Times] Los Angeles is apparently No. 2 in population among the nation's cities as it begins a yearlong bicentennial celebration. Preliminary 1980 Census data indicate that Los Angeles has eclipsed Chicago as the "Second City," a title it has held since 1890. Los Angeles, which was founded by 44 Mexicans on Sept. 4, 1781, has been transformed from a semi-desert to the economic center of a region with a population of more than 10 million. [New York Times] The New York senatorial campaign entered its final hours before the primary Tuesday with two debates largely free of the rancor of previous encounters. The four candidates were even tempered until a principal combatant, Bess Myerson, commented at the end of one debating session on how "relieved" she was that for the "first time" she had not been personally attacked by Representative Elizabeth Holtzman or former Mayor John Lindsay. Miss Myerson then attacked Miss Holtzman, accusing her again of having "never voted one nickel for defense." Miss Holtzman responded with the charge that Miss Myerson misunderstood the legislative process. [New York Times] A third of Iran's cabinet nominees were removed by President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, who had doubts about their qualifications, before presenting the list to Parliament for approval. He accepted only 14 of the 21 members proposed for the Cabinet by Prime Minister Mohammed Ali Rajai. The rejected nominees were mostly the younger candidates that Mr. Rajai had sponsored for the ministries of economics, finance, planning and budget and labor and social affairs. [New York Times] Hua Quofeng resigned as Prime Minister of China and asked the National People's Congress to replace him with Zhao Ziyang, the former Communist Party leader of Sichuan Province. His resignation was a triumph for Deng Xiaoping, China's paramount leader, and had been rumored since early this year. He was handpicked for the Prime Minister's post by Mao Zedong shortly before he died in 1976, will remain as chairman of the Communist Party, but his hold on that job may also prove to be tenuous. [New York Times] Poland's Roman Catholic Primate, Stefan Cardinal Wyszynski, and Lech Walesa, the strike leader, met in what was regarded as an unusual effort by the church to get closer to the workers whose walkouts brought about liberalizing changes. Mr. Walesa attended a mass offered by the Cardinal at his residence in Warsaw and later attended a reception there with a group of colleagues from Gdansk, where the key settlements were made. [New York Times] Canada's constitutional conference, which begins Tuesday in Ottawa, is regarded by some Canadians as a turning point in their history. Ten provincial premiers will meet with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to work out an agreement on a national constitution free from control by the British Parliament. Prime Minister Trudeau's effort to establish a truly Canadian constitution is considered one of the boldest moves ever made by a Canadian government leader. [New York Times] Prospects for a bountiful grain harvest in the Soviet Union have diminished because of bad weather. Consequently, the already decreasing supply of feed grain, the controlling factor in the government's hope of increasing meat production, will be scarcer, and the impact of the United States embargo on grain sales will be much sharper. [New York Times]