Soviet athletes will not compete in the Olympic Games in Los Angeles this summer, Moscow announced. It attributed the decision to a “gross flouting” of Olympic ideals by United States officials. In particular, the statement cited plans by anti-Soviet groups to hold demonstrations during the Games and a United States refusal to prohibit such protests.
The Soviet decision not to attend the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles was deplored by the Reagan Administration as “a blatant political action for which there was no real justification.” Administration specialists on the Soviet Union said they believed that Moscow’s action was at least partly in retaliation for the American boycott of the Moscow Summer Games in 1980.
The quality of competition at this summer’s Los Angeles Olympics would be drastically diminished by the absence of a Soviet team. If other Soviet bloc nations also stay away, many of the most famous and successful athletes in international sports will be absent — far more than when the United States boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980.
Soviet troops have consolidated their positions in the southern half of the Panjshir Valley in Afghanistan but still face stiff hit-and-run resistance from Afghan guerrillas. Western diplomats in New Delhi said. The Soviets reportedly have parachuted more troops into the strategic valley, which is used by guerrillas attacking convoys between the Soviet Union and Kabul.
Yelena G. Bonner is under investigation for “defaming the Soviet system” and has been barred from leaving the city of Gorky, where her husband, Andrei D. Sakharov, was banished four years ago, a friend of the couple said. She said the dissident physicist had begun a hunger strike in an effort to get medical treatment for his wife abroad. Soviet Nobel laureate Andrei D. Sakharov has gone on a fast to the death and his wife, Yelena Bonner. has been charged with anti-Soviet slander and could face treason charges, a friend said after visiting the couple in exile at Gorky. Irina G. Kristi said that Sakharov, 62, began his hunger strike last Wednesday. vowing to continue until his wife is allowed to go to the West for medical treatment. Kristi said Bonner has been prohibited from leaving Gorky, 250 miles east of Moscow, until the case against her is heard.
An Iraqi missile hit a fully loaded Saudi Arabian oil tanker in the Persian Gulf, setting the vessel ablaze. Iraq said its planes attacked two large vessels, but there was no immediate report of a second damaged ship. The Saudi vessel, the 117,000-ton Al Ahood, was hit and abandoned by its crew 80 miles south of Kharg Island, Iran’s main oil terminal. On April 25, the Saudi tanker Al Arab was hit and damaged in almost the same area.
Muammar el-Qaddafi apparently survived the latest attempt to overthrow him. At least 20 gunmen reportedly attacked a barracks usually used by the Libyan leader as a residence. After several hours of fighting, Libyan troops overcame the attackers, according to sketchy reports from diplomats.
An American cleric was abducted outside his home in West Beirut. The Presbyterian minister, the Rev. Benjamin Thomas Weir, was the fourth American to be kidnapped in Lebanon in the last three months.
An Italian prosecutor reportedly recommended that three Bulgarians and four Turks be tried in the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II on May 13, 1981. Italian news agencies said that the Bulgarians include Sergei I. Antonov, former Rome station manager of the Bulgarian airline. The Pope was shot by Turkish terrorist Mehmet Ali Ağca, now serving a life sentence.
The biggest trial ever of anti- British guerrilla suspects in Northern Ireland opened today with 39 defendants facing 190 charges on the word of an informer who had belonged to the Irish Republican Army. The 36 men and 3 women from Londonderry were arrested after Raymond Gilmour, a 23-year-old member of the I.R.A., turned informer in August 1982. Outside Belfast Crown Court, protesters waved placards saying “Stop the show trials” and denouncing Mr. Gilmour. Mr. Gilmour was granted immunity from prosecution in return for his collaboration.
President Reagan proposed a $250-million reconstruction fund for Cyprus if the rival Greek and Turkish communities on the Mediterranean island can settle their differences. The money, which would have to be approved by Congress, would be available when the two sides either agree to a fair solution or make “substantial progress” toward that end. U.S. aid to Cyprus this year is $18 million, plus $9 million for the U.N. force on the island.
Nineteen Yugoslav intellectuals have appealed to Interior Minister Stane Dolanc to either clarify the violent death of one of 28 people who were detained last month or resign. Radomir Radovic, a 33-year-old technician from Belgrade, was one of the 28 people who were detained by the police on April 20 while attending a gathering in a private apartment in Belgrade. The group had gathered to hear Milovan Djilas, Yugoslavia’s former Vice President and the country’s most prominent dissident. Mr. Radovic was released the following day but summoned for questioning one day later. He was again released and disappeared. He was found dead by his aunt in a cottage outside Belgrade a week later.
The Thames Barrier to stop flooding in London is officially completed.
Three Quebecers were killed and 13 were wounded when a Canadian soldier who said his objective was to assassinate Quebec Government officials burst into the provincial assembly chamber and fired volleys of shots with a submachine gun. For four and a half hours, the corporal held the Assembly’s sergeant-at-arms hostage. Then the police, including a specially trained crisis team from Montreal, overwhelmed the corporal and freed the hostage unharmed.
France performs a nuclear test at the Mururoa atoll test site.
Japan approved another delay in the procurement and deployment of weapons and equipment that it said in 1976 should have been in operation then. The new target date will be March, 1991. The move amounted to a rejection of repeated pleas by U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger for Japan to assume responsibility for the defense of its sea lanes out to a distance of 1,000 miles and to improve weapons standards.
India has agreed to suspend the erection of barbed wire fencing along its border with Bangladesh, a Bangladeshi military spokesman said today. Border security officials of the two countries met at the frontier town of Haridaspur Monday in an effort to reduce tension after shooting incidents last month in which two people were reported killed and several others injured. The shooting across the border started after Bangladeshi soldiers and villagers stopped Indian workers from building fences along two stretches of the border. India originally said it planned to put up the fence to stop the illegal movement of Bangladeshis into the eastern state of Assam. Bangladesh has denied its citizens are migrating illegally into Assam.
A group of retired senior officers said increased U.S. military involvement in Central America shows that the Reagan Administration is speeding up preparations for war in the area. The officers, members of a private research group called the Center for Defense Information, directed by retired Rear Admiral Gene LaRocque, pointed to a U.S. buildup including airfields and storage depots and a series of military exercises.
Asians and “Coloreds” — people of mixed race — remain at a grave disadvantage in South Africa despite constitutional changes last year that include them to a degree in the political process, the director of the International Labor Organization said. In an annual report on apartheid, South Africa’s system of racial separation, Francis Blanchard. said the changes do not fundamentally alter race relations. The report noted that South Africa’s black majority continues to be excluded. from decision-making.
President Reagan learns that the Soviets released a statement that they won’t be coming to the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, California.
President Reagan hosts a lunch in the State Dining Room observing the 100th birthday of President Truman.
Primary results were mixed in four states. Walter F. Mondale won the Democratic Presidential primaries in Maryland and North Carolina, but in Ohio and Indiana Gary Hart clung to narrow leads as he battled to gain industrial state victories needed to sustain his candidacy. Strategists for Mr. Mondale counted on a victory in Ohio to virtually assure his nomination.
The prime lending rate was raised half a percentage point, to 12½ percent, by the nation’s leading banks. It was the third increase in the key interest rate in two months and brought it to its highest level in 18 months. Economists said the rate increase merely underscored the recent rise in other interest rates.
The Senate Democrats’ plan to cut projected budget deficits by $204 billion over three years was rejected in a tie vote, with two Democratic Senators absent. The Republican leadership’s $144 billion plan, which is backed by President Reagan, is now expected to be approved, possibly this week.
Congress passed and sent to President Reagan legislation that would raise penalties for convicted child pornographers at least tenfold, and give prosecutors additional legal tools to combat sexual exploitation of children. The measure would raise the maximum fine for a first offense from $10,000 to $100,000. For subsequent convictions, the maximum would jump from $15,000 to $200,000. The bill, applying to still and moving pictures, would eliminate the provision in current law that prosecutors prove the pictures obscene before obtaining convictions.
A U.S.-manned, civilian space station moved closer to the launch pad when a Senate committee approved spending $151 million to determine what it will look like and what it will do. The proposal was included in next year’s regular authorization bill for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. An expenditure for a fifth orbiting space shuttle is also included in the bill. The legislation specifies that the space station cannot be used for military applications of space technology.
Federal judges approved 208 telephone taps and hidden microphones by law enforcement officials in the United States last year — the largest number since 1971 and a 60% increase over 1982, according to a report issued by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. The number of law enforcement applications for electronic surveillance granted by state judges dropped from 448 in 1982 to 440 in 1983, the report found. Of the 208 federal interceptions last year, 140 involved alleged drug trafficking. California, along with 22 other states, does not allow its officers to conduct electronic surveillance.
The Environmental Protection Agency, armed with evidence that a common chemical inhaled as a gas by 65,000 workers in U.S. refineries and factories causes cancer, took steps toward a ban of the substance. The EPA said high rates of cancer have been found among laboratory rats and mice exposed to 1,3-Butadiene, a byproduct of petroleum refining used to make tires, footwear, toys and other consumer products. The EPA said detectable levels of the chemical were not found in the finished products, so there was no evidence of danger to consumers.
FBI wiretaps recorded a Libyan diplomat at the United Nations discussing financial aid with two unnamed black activist ministers in this country, but no violation of federal law has been uncovered in more than a year of investigation. according to several federal sources who declined to be identified. The sources said the wiretapped conversations concerned the possibility of the ministers receiving financial support for black voter registration drives from the radical North African nation led by Colonel Moammar Qaddafi. One source said the ministers had no connection to any national or local U.S. political candidate.
Florida lawyers asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a temporary stay blocking the execution of James Adams, a black sharecropper’s son scheduled to die today for killing a retired white sheriff’s deputy. A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court in Atlanta voted 2 to 1 to grant the temporary stay and Florida Attorney General Jim Smith immediately asked U.S. Supreme Court Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. to vacate the appeals court’s stay and let the execution proceed. Powell referred the request to the full court.
The director of the movie “Twilight Zone” and two members of his crew pleaded not guilty today to charges that their negligence led to the deaths of three actors in the course of filming the movie in 1982. The pleas followed a finding last month by Judge Brian Crahan of Municipal Court that there was sufficient evidence to warrant a trial on charges of involuntary manslaughter for John Landis, the movie’s director; Paul Stewart, the special effects coordinator, and Dorcey Wingo, who piloted the helicopter that crashed July 22, 1982, killing Vic Morrow, 53 years old, Myca Dinh Le, 7, and Renee Shin Chen, 6. Following the appearance by Mr. Landis and the crew members at today’s arraignment in Superior Court of Los Angeles, Judge Ronald George transferred the case to Superior Court Judge Gordon Ringer, who scheduled a pretrial hearing for June 25.
Childbearing is increasing among women in their 30s, a group that has its careers under way and wants children before it’s too late, a new government study indicated. Women aged 30 to 34 averaged 13.8 first births per 1,000 women in 1983, up from 12.8 in 1980, a Census Bureau report on the fertility of American women showed. First births among those aged 35 to 39 rose to 5.2 per 1,000, up from 3.6.
Motorists who take defensive driving courses have the same automobile accident rate as those who take no such lessons, researchers said today. “Reliance on such courses to reduce highway losses is unwarranted,” reported the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a private organization, after evaluating 16 studies on the merits of defensive driving courses. The courses are designed to reduce the rate of auto crashes and often are offered to traffic violators as an alternative to penalty points on their driver’s licenses.
Presiding Judge Anthony A. Giannini of the Superior Court of Rhode Island today ordered a special statewide grand jury empaneled to investigate charges of municipal corruption in Providence. Judge Giannini issued the order at the request of Rhode Island Attorney General Dennis J. Roberts 2d. Mr. Roberts said Monday that the special grand jury is needed because “there are multiple investigations into multiple departments by multiple law-enforcement agencies.”
Flood waters as tall as traffic lights surged through the cities and towns of Appalachia and the Deep South, where 5,000 people have been driven from their homes. Severe thunderstorms spreading from the Gulf Coast to the Virginias a third day also unleashed more tornadoes, damaging homes in several communities, including the Georgia town of Holly Springs, north of Atlanta.
Air quality has improved significantly in recent years, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The assessment was made as Congress was debating a proposed reauthorization of the 1971 Clean Air Act, which expired in 1981.
Harry S. Truman was remembered on his 100th birthday at an emotional joint meeting of the House and Senate. In a ceremony marked by fanfare and folksiness, the modest but determined President who guided the nation through the closing months of World War II and shaped its postwar policies was recalled as an “uncommon common man.”
Minnesota’s Kirby Puckett collects 4 singles in his first Major League game, a 5–0 blanking of the Angels. He is the 9th player in history to collect 4 hits in his first 9-inning game.
In a barnburner at Wrigley, the Giants score 2 in the 9th to tie against the Cubs, but Chicago scores in the bottom of the 9th to win, 12–11. Keith Moreland’s single plates the winner after Jack Clark’s 2-out solo off Lee Smith ties it. Ron Cey has a grand slam for Chicago.
Alan Trammell connects for a 7th inning grand slam and Jack Morris (6–1) allows 7 hits as the Tigers defeat the Royals, 5–2.
Tonight’s game between the White Sox and the Brewers is suspended after 17 innings because of a curfew with the score tied, 3–3. It will resume tomorrow and will not find a winner until the 25th inning. Carlton Fisk caught all 25 innings of the Chicago White Sox’s 7–6 win over the Milwaukee Brewers, setting the Major League record for the longest game by a catcher. The former record, 24 innings caught, was held by five catchers: Mike Powers (September 1, 1906), Buddy Rosar (July 21, 1945), Bob Swift (July 21, 1945), Hal King (April 15, 1968), and Jerry Grote (April 15, 1968).
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1176.30 (+9.74).
Born:
Martin Compston, Scottish actor (“Line of Duty”), in Greenock, Scotland, United Kingdom.
Nadine Chandrawinata, Indonesian actress, producer and model (2006 Miss Universe Pageant), in Hanover, Germany.
Adam Moore, MLB catcher (Seattle Mariners, Kansas City Royals, San Diego Padres, Cleveland Indians, Tampa Bay Rays), in Longview, Texas.
Corey Locke, Canadian NHL centre (Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers, Ottawa Senators), in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Brian Calhoun, NFL running back (Detroit Lions), in Atlanta, Georgia.
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