News stories from Sunday May 23, 1982

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

Ways to cut projected budget deficits by $375 billion to $450 billion over the next three years have been worked out by a bipartisan group of five former Treasury Secretaries and a former Secretary of Commerce who served from the Kennedy administration to the Carter administration. Details were scheduled to be announced tomorrow in Washington. They include cuts in the entitlement programs for middle and upper income people, including Social Security, while stopping or slowing the reductions in programs for the poor. [New York Times] Four people were killed in Chicago by a fire that spread through the upper floors of the 25-story Conrad Hilton Hotel. As many as 20 people were injured, Chicago officials said, and hundreds had to be evacuated. The fire was apparently started by a smoldering cigarette. [New York Times] Divorces among blacks are soaring under complex, stressful factors that are a special part of the black experience in the United States, according to experts on the black family. The increase in divorce for black women in the last decade was higher than the increase for any other single age, sex or racial group, a report by the Census Bureau on marital trends from 1970 to 1980, said. [New York Times] Six Argentine planes were shot down and probably three others in fighting over the Falkland Islands, the British Defense Ministry announced in London. The reported losses occurred as Argentine planes mounted a new attack on British ships in San Carlos Bay and on the beachhead that the British established on East Falkland. The Defense Ministry report said that a British frigate was damaged but that it was not known whether there were casualties. [New York Times] A major air attack was carried out by Argentine planes on British ships that had moved in to support a British beachhead in the Falklands, the military command in Buenos Aires reported, adding that results of the attack "are in the process of evaluation." A spokesman for the command said that preliminary reports were that one British ship was badly damaged and Argentina lost "several" planes. [New York Times] El Salvador's Constituent Assembly has effectively repealed or blocked the implementation of most of the country's land redistribution effort since the rightist-controlled body was elected less than a month ago. [New York Times] Gratitude to the Primate of Poland for his spiritual support during the martial law period was expressed by a Solidarity union official in his first public speech since martial law was declared Dec. 13. Michel Pietkiewicz, deputy chairman of a Solidarity regional organization, who had just been released from internment because of poor health, addressed a church service in Bialystok in terms that had not been heard in a public place in Poland since Dec. 13. [New York Times] A huge Japanese anti-nuclear protest, one of the largest ever held in Japan, which has a long history of such demonstrations, took place in Tokyo. Hundreds of thousands of people gathered in three parks, and thousands marched to the gates of the United States Embassy, where they demanded the total abolition of nuclear arms. [New York Times] Iranian troops fought to retake the Iraqi-occupied port city of Khurramshahr in Khuzistan Province in southwest Iran. The Teheran radio said the troops had imposed a "complete siege on Iraqi troops there" and that all means of retreat were blocked. An Iraqi spokesman quoted by the Baghdad radio said an Iranian attempt to enter Khurramshahr was repulsed and that there was a large number of Iranian casualties. [New York Times] Two small volcanoes recently erupted in Antarctica, scattering debris on part of the ice shelf on the Weddell Sea side of the Antarctic Peninsula. The two volcanoes, 30 miles apart, were recently discovered, bringing to five the number known on that continent. [New York Times]