News stories from Saturday December 4, 1982
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- A tax on health insurance benefits that employees receive from their employers is being urged by senior officials of the Reagan administration. Richard Schweiker, Secretary of Health and Human Services supports the tax as does Martin Feldstein, chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers. Proponents of the tax say it would not only generate several billion dollars of revenue, but also control health costs, which have been rising twice as fast as the Consumer Price Index. [New York Times]
- Dr. Barney Clark was taken back to the operating room after developing what the doctors said was a non-emergency complication arising from the implant of a permanent artificial heart. He had been taken off the critical list earlier in the day. Doctors diagnosed the problem as subcutaneous emphysema. [New York Times]
- Walter Mondale wants to be considered the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, taking the place that Senator Edward Kennedy gave up. The former Vice President expressed indifference to the tradition that a jinx goes with an early lead in nomination contests and said he would be willing to accept any such risks in anticipation that his stands on the issues would now get more attention than when he was "a tight second" to Mr. Kennedy. [New York Times]
- A murder case that became a stigma on the town of Milpitas, near San Jose, Calif., ended with the sentencing Friday of Anthony Broussard, three days before his 18th birthday. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the strangling of a 14-year-old girl. [New York Times]
- Central America was urged by President Reagan to end "foreign support for terrorists and subversive elements," in a speech from Costa Rica broadcast on television throughout the region. Ending a five-day visit to Latin America, Mr. Reagan then flew to Honduras for talks with President Roberto Suazo Cordova, Honduras's first civilian president in a decade, and with Guatemala's President, Gen. Efrain Rios Montt. In Costa Rica, he had talks with President Luis Alberto Monge. [New York Times]
- El Salvador's guerrilla war has badly hurt the country's economy, according to a government study. The fighting has caused tens of millions of dollars of damage to public installations, eliminated thousands of jobs and removed farmland from productive use, the report said. [New York Times]
- Chemical warfare accusations against the Soviet Union and its allies have been given heavily qualified support in a report on a United Nations inquiry. [New York Times]
- China's revival of the rule of law, begun in 1979 after its virtual extinction during the Cultural Revolution, is continuing. The Peking leadership conceded the need for a credible legal system when it promulgated a new state Constitution with greater stress on the basic rights and duties of Chinese citizens. [New York Times]