News stories from Sunday August 2, 1981
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Progress was reported in talks between the federal government and the air controllers union as the two sides worked to avert a strike set by the union for 7 A.M. tomorrow. The progress was described as "serious negotiations." The government had warned the union that there would be "no amnesty" if it violated federal laws against a walkout and that there would be no contract negotiations during a strike. The government has offered new benefits worth $40 million. [New York Times]
- A 5 percent cut in military spending on a contingency basis in the 1983 budgets of the armed forces has been ordered by the Reagan administration. The cuts might be taken to help achieve a balanced federal budget in 1984 if the administration's economic assumptions prove incorrect. [New York Times]
- Explorers of the Andrea Doria's wreck off Nantucket, Mass., hope to find the answers to two mysteries that have surrounded the liner since it sank in 1956 after colliding with the Swedish liner Stockholm: Is more than $1 million in gold, jewelry and currency in the first-class foyer's safes, and was the ship not seaworthy because it had not been built to specificiations by the Italian Line? The wreck's exploration is being filmed for television. [New York Times]
- A heart recipient died of complications in a Houston hospital, a week after the transplant was made by Dr. Denton Cooley, the heart surgeon. [New York Times]
- A substantial rise in book sales across the country has been reported by publishers, who believe the industry's year-long recession may be ending. The resurgence is apparent even in hardcover fiction, which had been in the doldrums except for blockbuster novels, and it has occurred when hardcover sales often go into a slump, even in a strong economy. [New York Times]
- With the death of Kieran Doherty, a 25-year-old member of the Irish Republican Army, eight hunger strikers have died in Northern Ireland's Maze Prison. Mr. Doherty, who was elected in June to the Irish Parliament, died after 73 days without food, and less than 48 hours after Kevin Lynch's death, the seventh man to die in the hunger strike begun five months ago to protest Britain's refusal to give them political status in prison. [New York Times]
- El Salvador's land redistribution program, which has been turning over to peasants farmland expropriated by the government, has so far been more successful politically than economically, according to Salvadorans and American officials. Americans are participating through the United States Agency for International Development, which has been working closely with the Salvadoran government in planning and carrying out the program. [New York Times]
- The U.S. appeared to be willing for the first time to participate in a global round of talks at the United Nations on the economic problems affecting the third world. A preliminary meeting over the weekend in Cancun, Mexico, set the agenda for a meeting there in October between the leaders of the leading industrialized nations and 14 developing countries. Secretary of State Alexander Haig indicated that while the the Reagan administration was giving priority to strengthening the American economy, it was "impossible" to wait for an American economic recovery before dealing with the questions of international cooperation. [New York Times]
- A military meeting in Warsaw was reported to have been held by Prime Minister Wojciech Jaruzelski and senior commanders, a day after Poland's Communist Party sharply warned the independent trade union Solidarity about the danger of new strikes and demonstrations over food shortages. The official announcement of the meeting of the military leaders said it was called "in connection with the increasingly unfavorable and dangerous phenomena within the country's internal situation." [New York Times]