News stories from Sunday June 21, 1981

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

Efforts continued to avert a strike by the nation's air traffic controllers, set to begin with the day shifts tomorrow. A strike would ground about half the nation's 14,200 daily airline flights. When negotiators met again today for a session that continued into late evening, both sides were still hundreds of millions of dollars apart. Meanwhile, airlines and other transportation systems proceeded with plans for coping with a walkout. [New York Times] The murder of one of the 28 blacks killed or missing in Atlanta in the last 23 months hasbeen charged to Wayne B. Williams, who had recently been questioned about the killings. Mr. Williams, a 23-year-old self-employed talent scout, was arrested at his parents' home in Atlanta and taken to the Fulton County Jail. He was charged in the death of Nathaniel Cater. [New York Times] Eleven climbers were believed dead after being buried by tons on ice on Mount Rainier in Washington. A futile rescue party said that an ice wall broke off a glacier on the 14,410-foot peak and buried the climbers, leaving a swath of rubble 100 yards wide and 70 feet deep. The 11 persons were members of a climbing party of 29 people. [New York Times] Two more weeks in the hospital were prescribed for Pope John Paul II, whose doctors are trying to locate the source of a virus infection, whose principal symptom is a persistent fever. Tests eliminated as a cause the abdominal region, which was struck by a bullet in the assassination attempt May 13. [New York Times] Television programs were monitored over the last three months by about 4,000 volunteers working for the Coalition for Better Television, which includes the Moral Majority. The coalition, has said it will announce a national boycott of sponsors of TV programs that the group finds offensive because of "excessive sex, violence and profanity." The monitors viewed every prime time television series, using computerized data to determine which advertisers most frequently sponsor "objectionable" programs. The three major networks oppose the boycott plan. [New York Times] Tourists and New York are in love. Visitors are pouring into the state in record numbers and spending money as never before, a response stemming in part from the "I Love New York" advertising campaign that was begun in earnest in 1978 by the state Department of Commerce. The campaign has helped make New York the most popular tourist state for families after California. One of the newest attractions, a 1,200-acre theme park called Darien Lake Fun, not far from Buffalo, opened over the weekend. [New York Times] Israel chided the United States for joining in the Security Council's approval of a resolution condemning the Israeli bombing of an Iraqi nuclear reactor. The cabinet said in a statement read by Prime Minister Menachem Begin that the Council's vote Friday "gave expression to the double standard prevailing" in the Council, and it rejected "this unjust resolution." [New York Times] Control of France's National Assembly was won by the Socialist Party, led by the new President, Francois Mitterrand. In a sweeping victory, the Socialists and their centrist electoral allies, the small Radical Left Movement, will control between 280 and 293 of the 491 Assembly seats. The Communist Party will control 43 seats, fewer than half its previous total. The seats held by the allied parties of the right will be reduced from 274 to between 150 and 160. [New York Times] Abolhassan Bani-Sadr was impeached by the Iranian Parliament, which declared him politically incompetent. The action paved the way for his dismissal as President of Iran by the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The impeachment vote was 177 to 1, with 11 members not voting. The President was ordered arrested on sight. [New York Times]