News stories from Sunday July 27, 1980

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

The deposed Shah of Iran died of complications arising from lymphatic cancer at 3:50 A.M. Eastern daylight time in an Egyptian military hospital. He was 60 years old. Mohammed Riza Pahlevi, who for nearly 40 years had been the absolute ruler of Iran until he was overthrown 18 months ago, had lived in Egypt since last March, given political asylum by President Anwar Sadat. The Shah's wife, Empress Farah, and several of his children, were at his bedside. One of his physicians said that among the Shah's last words was a plea that his life not be artificially prolonged. [New York Times] The Shah's death will not affect Iran's relations with the United States or the situation of the American hostages in Iran, a spokesman for President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr said. The official spokesman said that "since the Shah's death was predictable, it won't change anything. Concerning Iranian-American relations and the hostages, it won't have any considerable effect." [New York Times] The Shah's death was acknowledged quietly by the Carter administration. A brief statement from the State Department, which had been reviewed by President Carter and Zbigniew Brzezinski, his national security adviser, said that "history will record that he led his country at a time when profound changes were taking place." It did not mention the Shah's close alliance with the United States. [New York Times] George Bush changed his mind about discussing his differences with Ronald Reagan, something he had said repeatedly that he would not do after he was nominated for the Vice Presidency. He said in an interview that he had become convinced one of the reasons he could be helpful to the ticket was "because there are some differences." [New York Times] John Anderson is closer to his goal of appearing on enough state ballots to be taken seriously as an independent Republican presidential candidate in November following a series of recent legal victories and successful petition drives. His special counsel for constitutional issues, Prof. Laurence Tribe of the Harvard Law School, said, "It's very likely that we'll be on the ballot in every state." [New York Times] An earthquake in Kentucky sent shock waves up to Michigan and parts of Canada, over to New York and down to South Carolina. No injuries were reported, but property damage was widespread in Kentucky. The Geological Survey's National Earthquake Information Service said the "very rare" earthquake originated at a point about 45 miles southeast of Cincinnati and 50 miles northeast of Lexington, Ky. It registered 5.1 on the Richter scale, the agency said. [New York Times] Another derailed tank car ignited near Fort Knox in Kentucky, sending clouds of poisonous smoke into the air over nearby Muldraugh. The town's 2,000 residents had to be kept away for the second day. The car was one of 15 of an Illinois Central Gulf freight train that derailed Saturday on the town's outskirts. Six of the cars carried vinyl chloride and another contained liquid chlorine. [New York Times] A prosecutor in Boise, Idaho, said he would consider seeking a second search warrant to obtain a local television station's original videotapes of last week's riot at the Idaho State Penitentiary. On Saturday, investigators with a search warrant seized copies of the tapes for use in prosecuting prisoners who took part in the uprising. Today, however, the prosecutor said the copies might have been edited. Station officials said they were not. [New York Times] Italy's Prime Minister was cleared in Parliament of charges that he had given government secrets to a party colleague whose son is a fugitive and suspected terrorist. Francesco Cossiga was cleared by a vote of 535 to 370, and Parliament also declined to send the matter back to a Special Commission of Inquiry for further investigation. The move amounted to a dismissal of the charges. [New York Times] American aid is being offered to Egypt under the new relationship between Washington and Cairo faster than the country can absorb it. From 1975 through this September, the United States will have allocated $5.3 billion in civilian assistance for Egypt in the largest such program undertaken since the Marshall Plan that helped Europe recover from World War II. The disbursements from Washington are totaling $100 million a month. [New York Times]