News stories from Sunday October 17, 1982

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

Social Security's old age trust fund will borrow money for the first time to provide pension payments in November. Without the loan of $1 billion to $2 billion, which will be provided by Social Security's disability and health funds, the old age fund will not have enough money to cover $11.9 billion in payments. The borrowing, authorized last December by Congress, is necessary because monthly benefit payments have been exceeding revenues from the payroll tax, resulting in a chronic deficit that has become so severe that the fund's cash balance is less than a single month's expenditures. [New York Times] Another revolutionary weapon for the United States has been proposed to President Reagan by Edward Teller, the nuclear physicist widely credited with inventing the hydrogen bomb. The device might be stationed in space or launched into space at a moment's notice. Its core would be a small nuclear bomb, whose explosive power would activate the lasers to instantaneously destroy vast numbers of enemy missiles in flight. Space technology scientists are not certain whether such a weapon could actually be made to work. But the fact that its possibililties are being discussed seriously by one of Mr. Reagan's most eminent scientific advisers illustrates the pressures that are building for an arms race in space. [New York Times] A plane carrying skydivers crashed near Taft, Calif., and the 14 people aboard were killed, the officials said. Witnesses said the plane, a twin-engine Beechcraft, crashed and exploded shortly after takeoff from the Gardner Field area, where the Taft School of Sport Parachuting has a landing strip. [New York Times] One of the toughest Senate races is being run by Gov. Jerry Brown of California, a two-term Democractic governor and twice a presidential candidate. He is battling to keep alive a dream of occupying the White House. According to the California Poll, the state's most closely watched opinion survey, Mr. Brown and his Republican opponent, Mayor Pete Wilson of San Diego, are virtually even. Other polls indicate that Mr. Wilson may have taken a slight lead since the last California Poll early this month. [New York Times] Greece's right and left parties appeared to have made inroads in urban areas on the governing Socialist Party. Substantial but incomplete returns from the first round of municipal elections in Athens and other major cities seemed to reflect some voter disenchantment with the government of Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou. The losses for the Socialists means that they will be forced to depend heavily on Communist Party support in a runoff next Sunday. [New York Times] Sweden retaliated against repeated intrusions by foreign submarines by ordering its navy to change tactics and seek to capture and humiliate future intruders, according to military specialists in Washington. The new rules are to become effective next July 1, when a new anti-submarine weapon, being developed in Sweden, will be ready. [New York Times] China officially resumed relations with the pro-Soviet French Communist Party, whose leader, George Marchais, has been visiting China, and its Communist leaders suggested that they wanted party-to-party relations with Moscow. However, members of an Italian delegation in Peking were reportedly told by Deputy Prime Minister Wan Li that conditions did not exist for a real improvement with Moscow and that the Kremlin had ignored Peking's conditions for ending the rift with Moscow. [New York Times] President Amin Gemayel of Lebanon arrived in the United States for a five-day visit that is to include talks with President Reagan and an appearance tomorrow at the United Nations. [New York Times]