News stories from Sunday September 26, 1982

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

The N.F.L. players' strike, after only seven days, has resulted in losses of more than $70 million. The first in-season walkout in professional football history put 15,000 people out of work, damaged restaurant and hotel businesses and caused television stations to broadcast reruns. [New York Times] The man being held in the murders of 13 people in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., was described as a mulatto who felt persecuted by both whites and blacks. The prisoner, 40-year-old George Banks, was said to be plagued by resentments. The victims included four girlfriends and five children they had by Mr. Banks, a prison guard and Army veteran who served seven years in jail for attempted robbery. [New York Times] A senior federal budget official says that the Reagan administration is regarded by many Americans as "uncaring, perhaps even cruel" and that the President should reply more forcefully to those who question the fairness and morality of his economic and social policies. [New York Times] Major changes in the conduct of trials in federal courts would occur if Congress accepts proposals adopted last week by the Judicial Conference, the courts' top policy-making body. The recommendations call for providing trial judges with new ways to limit the massive pretrial "discovery" that often accompanies complex civil lawsuits. Discovery, involving mutual demands for documents and testimony, adds significantly to both the time and expense of a lawsuit. [New York Times] The slight rise in S.A.T. scores reported last week seems to reflect "a bottoming-out that is not a cause for self-congratulations," William Bennett, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, said. Discussing the modest rise in the Scholastic Aptitude Test scores, he said the drop in the number of students studying the humanities was due to "false notions of careerism." [New York Times] New York City is luring more immigrants than at any time since the early years of this century. Since 1965, when the federal immigration law was loosened, more than a million immigrants are estimated to have come to the city in search of economic gain or political security. The new surge is altering the city's ethnic texture, revitalizing many neighborhoods and reaffirming that the rags-to-riches promise of New York is still alive. [New York Times] A man who testified he took payments from an organized crime figure to keep non-white workers off construction jobs has been hired by New York state's Urban Development Corporation as a consultant on minority hiring. The consultant, Moses Harris, is the executive director of Black Economic Survival of Brooklyn, a group that says it seeks to find construction jobs for minority workers. [New York Times] The main obstacle to the landing of American Marines in Lebanon is Israel's refusal to withdraw all its forces from Beirut International Airport as well as from East and west Beirut, according to the Reagan administration. An administration spokesman said the number of Palestinians estimated to have died in the Beirut massacre was "now around 600." [New York Times] Israeli forces withdrew from urban west Beirut, leaving only a squad of troops at the port and a small unit at the international airport. An Israeli spokesman said the last Israeli soldiers would leave Beirut on Wednesday. He attributed the delay to the start of Yom Kippur. [New York Times] Pressure on Menachem Begin to permit an independent inquiry into the Israeli military conduct during the massacre of Palestinians by Christian militiamen continued in Jerusalem. Three key government ministers were insisting on such an inquiry. Several members of Prime Minister Begin's fragile coalition government said they expected him to approve such an investigation at a special cabinet meeting Tuesday. [New York Times] The senior Israeli commander in Lebanon said he had no "specific information" that a massacre was taking place in the Shatila refugee camp until after it was over. [New York Times] Helmut Schmidt was upheld by West German voters in Hesse. In a setback for the new alliance that hopes to seize power from the Chancellor and his Social Democrats, the voters denied the Christian Democrats a majority and eliminated the Free Democrats from the state legislature. [New York Times]