News stories from Saturday November 15, 1980
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- The transition process was stepped up by President-elect Ronald Reagan. He was preparing to fly from his California home to Washington Monday for a series of meetings with congressional leaders, President Carter and his senior staff officials. Mr. Reagan had a two-hour meeting at his Pacific Palisades home with John Connally, whose invitation to Pacific Palisades led to speculation that he might be in line for a high post in the Reagan administration. [New York Times]
- Many voters changed their mind about whom to vote for in the last few days of the campaign or were undecided about whether to vote, and most of those who made a change hurt President Carter, according to the final New York Times/ CBS News Poll of the campaign. About one registered voter in five made a last-minute switch, and about three-fifths of that group decided against Mr. Carter. [New York Times]
- Coal's prospects as oil's replacement are not as bright as those who are relying on it as America's strategic resource believe they are. Productivity in the coal industry has plunged. Public utilities, where the real increases in coal consumption could be made, are moving slowly, blaming the cost of anti-pollution equipment. [New York Times]
- Tons of dangerous toxic wastes are being hurriedly dumped into city sewer systems, dripped along highways and abandoned in shopping center parking lots around the country before a federal "cradle to grave" waste monitoring system goes into effect this week. The new system of government-approved dumping sites mandated by Congress in 1976 is intended to eliminate the improper disposal of wastes that has polluted the water supply in hundreds of communities in recent years. [New York Times]
- An accused murderer was convicted in Pennsylvania of killing five young men and teenage girl in an effort to prevent exposure of his million-dollar interstate burglary ring. Bruce Johnston faces life imprisonment for each of six counts of murder. His two brothers, David and Norman, who were implicated in some of the killings, were convicted of murder in March. [New York Times]
- Pope John Paul Il is in West Germany, beginning a five-day tour he said he hoped would strengthen the Roman Catholic Church there and bring Catholics and Protestants closer together. He said in welcoming ceremonies in Cologne that his visit was entirely "pastoral and religious," and that he had come to honor "the entire German nation." [New York Times]
- Iraq announced that its troops killed 282 Iranian soldiers in a day's fighting, mainly around the town of Susangird, northwest of Ahwaz, the capital of the Iranian oil-producing province of Khuzistan. It was largest daily casualty figure reported by Iraq since the war with Iran began. [New York Times]