News stories from Saturday February 14, 1981

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

A disco fire in Dublin that killed at least 49 persons will be investigated by the government. The disco building, in Dublin's Artane section, was destroyed by flames that engulfed it in a few minutes, according to survivors. About 800 young people were attending a dance competition. At least 129 were injured. [New York Times] Space shuttle Columbia is ready for a critical ground test at Cape Canaveral that will put it through all the contingencies it will face in its maiden orbital voyage, now scheduled for early April. The test is expected to begin tomorrow night, with all systems activated and provided with fuel. [New York Times] Taxpayers should pay the $1 billion it will cost to decontaminate the highly radioactive reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, a committee has recommended to President Reagan. The Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee, an advisory panel established by the Carter administration, thus entered the debate over who should the bear the financial responsiblility for the worst accident in the nation's nuclear industry. [New York Times] Other factors beside the lack of rain have contributed to the current water shortage in the Northeast. In 1975, when there was abundant rainfall in the region, a government report warned that the gap between supply and demand was narrowing and that shortages could develop from the Virginia tidewater to New England. A principal cause of the current shortage, water specialists say, is that consumption per person, like energy use, is extraordinarily high compared with that of other industrial nations. [New York Times] Moscow Is not arming leftist guerrillas in El Salvador, the Soviet Embassy's second-ranking diplomat in Washington said, but the diplomat, Vladilen Vasev, acknowledged that the Soviet Union sent arms to Cuba and their being sent on to other countries. [New York Times] Lech Walesa was confident that his union would cooperate with the Polish government's appeal for 90 days of labor peace. "I'm confident everything will work out," he said following a meeting with Mieczyslaw Rakowski, the new Deputy Prime Minister in charge of local affairs. The Solidarity union has scheduled a special meeting Wednesday to consider the government's appeal. Union leaders said privately that they believed it would be accepted. [New York Times] The National Abortion Rights Action League is meeting in Washington to plan its fight against a proposed anti-abortion constitutional amendment. Former congressman Elizabeth Holtzman addressed the meeting. Surgeon General nominee Dr. C. Everett Koop admits he has been on the board of directors of pro-life, anti-abortion groups. Health and Human Services Secretary Richard Schweiker defended the choice of Koop as Surgeon General, and said that the administration's stance on the anti-abortion amendment is a prerogative of President Reagan. [CBS]