News stories from Sunday November 14, 1982

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

An oil find off the California coast appears certain to be the biggest since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay field was discovered in 1968. Sources familiar with the early exploration results say that the new Point Arguello field, 1.5 miles off Point Conception in southern California, may well contain a billion barrels of recoverable crude, perhaps far more. [New York Times] The public's access to Information held by the government has been reduced by several actions taken by the Reagan administration. Information about the operation of the government, the economy, the environment and public health is harder to get because of the increasing authority of government officials to classify data, cutbacks in the collection of statistics, the elimination of hundreds of government publications and the reduction of the staff of the National Archives. [New York Times] The nuclear arms buildup, especially the issue of deterrence, will be debated by the Roman Catholic bishops of the United States at their annual meeting in Washington beginning tomorrow. In an anti-nuclear pastoral letter, the bishops have put aside differences in theology and policy to take a stand that places them at odds with the government and some of their colleagues in the church. [New York Times] Women are working at men's jobs in increasing numbers in the United States. Despite the jobless rate, the number of employed women has risen 21 million or 95 percent over the the last two decades, a study by the Department of Labor has found. Many of the jobs now occupied by women were once done by men. [New York Times] Why 43 freight cars were derailed in Livingston, La., on Sept. 28 is being investigated by the government, which will begin hearings Monday in Baton Rouge, La. The derailment of the Illinois Central Gulf cars, which contained dangerous chemicals, drove 2,700 people from their homes. The police said the derailment occurred after a clerk took the controls from an engineer who had been drinking. [New York Times] The Columbia's astronauts were said to be ready for a walk in space tomorrow. The excursion was delayed a day because Dr. William Lenoir, one of the two mission specialists, had motion sickness. Project officials said he had recovered, and that the three other astronauts were doing "exceptionally well." [New York Times] Lech Walesa returned to his family in Gdansk after more than 11 months of detention by the Polish government. The leader of the outlawed Solidarity union told hundreds of welcoming neighbors that "we have to reach an agreement, but not on our knees." He made the same remark in an interview on the Polish television, the contents of which have not been issued by the authorities, just before he was released from a government-owned hunting lodge near the Soviet border. [New York Times] Hope for a turn to better Soviet ties was expressed by Vice President Bush and Secretary of State George Shultz on their arrival in Moscow for the funeral of Leonid Brezhnev. When they were about to leave the Soviet leader's bier, they were invited by the Soviet protocol officer to speak with Mr. Brezhnev's widow, Viktoria. The American delegation then moved to chairs placed near the bier for family members and Mr. Bush expressed the condolences of the American people. [New York Times] Proliferation of nuclear weapons by the year 2000 is forecast in a recent United States intelligence report that says that by then 31 countries will be able to produce such weapons. It also said that American military forces would have to be prepared for nuclear battles with countries other than the Soviet Union, the adversary being prepared for by most American military strategists. [New York Times] France contradicted a statement by President Reagan Saturday that he was lifitng sanctions against the Soviet natural gas pipeline because Western European governments had agreed to new curbs on trade with the Russians. France insisted that no new agreement on East-West trade had been made so tar during the pipeline talks that Britain, France, West Germany and Italy have been holding with the United States. "Progress has been made in these talks, but no definite conclusions have been reached," the Foreign Ministry said. [New York Times]