News stories from Sunday December 6, 1981

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

Muammar Qaddafi denied plotting to assassinate President Reagan or anyone else in an interview from Tripoli televised by ABC News. "We are sure we haven't sent any people to kill Reagan or any other people in the world," said the Libyan leader. In Washington, the State Department responded with a statement that it had evidence of such plans, saying that "Qaddafi has been planning the murder of American officials both here and overseas." [New York Times] Frustration with Washington and a feeling that severe restraints on public services are coming preoccupied a weekend conference in Durham, N.C. of leaders of the National Governors Conference. "The federal government is doing nothing to help clarify the proper roles of the state and federal governments, the governors said in statement summarizing their discussions. [New York Times] A vastly reduced federal aid role, going beyond even the budget cuts and consolidation of 57 programs into nine block grants to states, is the aim of President Reagan's appointees, who have been moving pervasively to fulfill the President's campaign pledge. However, both liberals and conservatives agree that the drive for federal disengagement had not yet been deep enough to alter the basic structure of the government. [New York Times] New England's biggest snowstorm since 1978 covered the region with two feet of snow, closed Boston's airport, cut off power to 60,000 people and was responsible for the deaths of two persons. The storm was driven by winds of up to 50 miles an hour. [New York Times] Thomas Corcoran died in Washington following surgery. He was a lawyer in Washington for many years and had been a protege of Felix Frankurter and an adviser in President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration. Called "Tommy the Cork," he was one of President Roosevelt's principal strategists in the development of such historic innovations as the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. He was 80 years old. [New York Times] Frederick Richmond's income outside his congressional salary as a Representative from Brooklyn is being reviewed by him, he said, "to make sure I am fully complying with all rules of the House Ethics Committee." His outside earnings have been estimated at $100,000 annually. The review follows a decision by a federal judge in St. Louis that the Democratic Congressman had "feigned" retirement from the manufacturing company he had founded in order to collect the pay as a pension. Such unearned inome from past services would be exempt from ethics rules that limit outside income to 15 percent of a Congressman's salary, or about $9,600 a year. [New York Times] State aid for Madison Square Garden is necessary if the Rangers hockey team and the Knickerbockers basketball team are to be kept in New York City, according to Corporation Counsel Allen Schwartz, the city's negotiator with officials of the financially troubled arena. According to Mr. Schwartz, it has become clear that, for financial and other reasons, Garden officials want to get out of the business of owning an arena. The city, for its part, is concerned about the economic, political and social consequences of losing the two teams. Mayor Koch said the Gulf & Western Corporation, owner of the Garden, would have to share its financial burden, and so would labor unions. [New York Times] Quebec's leader threatened to resign as president of the Parti Quebecois, the principal pro-independence force in the province. Premier Rene Levesque stunned the party by rejecting the conclusions of its biannual convention and said he was on the point of resigning as the party's president. He wanted to take a more cautious approach on independence issue because of Canada's economic troubles, the worst in 50 years. [New York Times] Solidarity was again warned of a confrontation with the government, which accused the union's leadership of breaking its agreements and refusing to negotiate for a national accord, choosing instead "a road that may bring about confrontation." Nevertheless, Solidarity's Warsaw regional organization voted to call for a day of protest on Dec. 17 against the raid last Wednesday by policemen, backed by army units, on a firefighters' academy in Warsaw to break up a sit-in by 300 students. [New York Times] In more military defiance in Spain, 100 junior army officers in a communique bitterly attacked the Spanish press -- accusing it of besmirching the military -- defended officers who participated in the unsuccessful coup last February and warned politicians not to interfere in the affairs of the armed forces. The statement coincided with and upset celebrations of the third anniversary of approval of the Spanish Constitution. [New York Times] Chronic malnutrition persists despite the production of sufficient grain to provide the world's population with 3,000 calories a day, more than the average level of consumption in the United States and about 50 percent above what is now considered to be a minimum acceptable level of caloric consumption. To the question that, if basic food is plentiful, why are so many people hungry, a surprising number of international food experts respond with the answer that hunger is the overwhelmingly the result of inequality of income and poverty. They say that no amount of relief and population control programs will eradicate world hunger. [New York Times]