News stories from Saturday March 14, 1981
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Upper-income taxpayers would benefit more from President Reagan's proposed tax cuts than middle and lower-income taspayers despite claims to the contrary by some advocates of the plan, according to tax experts and Democratic members of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. The disparity becomes evident when the effect of inflation on taxpayers is considered, according to an analysis by the committee. "The actual percentage of reductions conferred upon the rich will be much greater than those conferred upon the middle class, said Represent-ative Henry Reuss. [New York Times]
- President Reagan, visiting Manhattan, unfroze federal money for two of New York City's cherished rehabilitation projects -- the industrial conversion of the Brooklyn Army Terminal and the Elgin Theater in the Chelsea section of Manhattan, which will be occupied by local dance companies. The President announced the reversal of the freeze at meeting with Mayor Koch at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. [New York Times]
- Only a few of the slain Atlanta children were the victims of the same killer, and as many as nine or 10 persons might be responsible for the disappearances and deaths of the 20 black youths, according to new theories of law enforcement officials and forensic scientists. Their investigation of the most recent several deaths sugests that if a determined "stalker" was not loose in Atlanta before late 1980, he is now. [New York Times]
- Nineteen persons died in a Chicago hotel fire. A fire official said that all 72 units in the four-story, recently renovated residential hotel in the city's Edgewater district had a smoke detector, but that many did not work properly. Most of the residents were said to be single elderly or middle-aged persons living on public assistance or Social Security payments. [New York Times]
- Oil from a potentially huge deposit off the Newfoundland coast may decrease North America's dependence on petroleum imports. But development of the $7 billion project, known as Hibernia K-18, which has captured the keen attention of Wall Street investors, is complicated by tough technical problems posed by icebergs and other environmental hazards, as well as political squabbling between American oil companies and Canada. [New York Times]
- Pakistani hijackers surrendered in Damascus, and the more than 100 passengers and crew members they had been holding hostage in a Pakistani jetliner for 13 days were freed. The surrender, obtained by Syrian and Pakistani negotiators, followed Libya's reversal of its decision to accept 54 prisoners freed by Pakistan in compliance with the hijackers' demands. [New York Times]
- El Salvador's land program is taking hold a year after it began with United States aid. Despite predictions of economic disaster, harvests from the newly formed cooperatives are about the same as under their former owners last year. The program also appears to be fulfilling its political objectives of undercutting the power of righist oligarchs and winning peasants from leftist guerrillas. [New York Times]
- South African military officers arrived in Washington last week apparently to visit State Department and Defense Department officials, but were preparing to return home after the State Department raised questions about their status and canceled an appointment. The trip by the five senior military officers was made under "misleading circumstances," according to an administration official. [New York Times]