The Val di Stava Dam collapse killed 268 people in Val di Stava, Italy. An earthen dam burst in north Italy, releasing a wall of mud and water and killing at least 80 people. Italian officials said they expected the death toll to exceed 200. The dam collapsed at about 12:20 PM and sent water sweeping through the mountain village of Stava, washing away everything in its path. The 150-foot-wide wave of mud and water destroyed three hotels, part of a fourth and two dozen houses in one of Italy’s greenest and most popular mountain resort areas.
The British police are pressing an investigation into the involvement of British soccer fans in a stadium riot in Brussels in May in which 38 people died. Working from videotapes of the violence at Heysel Stadium, the police have so far detained 29 men for questioning on suspicion of manslaughter, and were reported this week to be still looking for six others. The violence occurred May 29 before the European Cup final between Liverpool and Juventus of Turin, Italy. The majority of those who died were Italian fans. Most of the deaths occurred when a wall at Heysel Stadium collapsed after a melee that was believed to have been started by Liverpool supporters.
A defense lawyer asked today that Mehmet Ali Ağca be ordered to undergo psychiatric tests to determine whether the Turk, the chief witness for the prosecution, is capable of giving valid testimony. Mr. Ağca and seven other men, including three Bulgarians, are accused of having taken part in what he has called a Soviet bloc conspiracy to assassinate Pope John Paul II in 1981. It was the first time in the eight-week-old trial that any member of the defense team had asked for medical tests to determine the mental condition of Mr. Ağca, who has repeatedly startled the court with bizarre statements, including claims of being Jesus Christ and predictions that the world was coming to an end. Mr. Ağca has also often reversed or retracted testimony. Asked about this, he said today that the reversals were designed to “create some suspicion about the involvement of the Soviets and Bulgarians.”
About 100 demonstrators who were protesting United States policy toward Nicaragua stoned police cars and set fires today in a street in West Berlin, a police spokesman said. The police used clubs and tear gas to break up the demonstrators, but there were no injuries or arrests, the spokesman said. The police said the demonstrators, apparently members of Berlin’s radical squatter groups, began their protest shortly before midnight in the Kreuzberg district of the city.
Turkish authorities lifted martial law today in 6 of 24 provinces after six and a half years, but they showed no sign of ending it in the southeast of the country where Kurdish rebels skirmish almost daily with troops. Ankara was one of six provinces where martial law was ended by Parliament, an official statement said. Martial law was imposed on Ankara and 12 other provinces on December 26, 1978, after political clashes in the southeastern town of Kahramanmaras that left at least 117 people dead and 1,000 wounded. It remains in force in 17 of the country’s 67 provinces.
The fourth artificial heart patient, in his first public statement, said he was living proof that a mechanical heart, placed in his chest in April, could lengthen and improve the quality of life. Leif Stenberg, a 53-year-old Swedish businessman, told reporters in Stockholm he had taken walks in a park near his hospital and had driven to a restaurant for supper.
A Soviet spokesman accused human rights advocates in the West today of being slave traders who run networks of houses of prostitution where they debauch young girls. The emotional accusation by the chief of the Foreign Ministry’s press department, Vladimir B. Lomeiko, appeared to add a new dimension to the often repeated Soviet charges of hypocrisy in the West over human rights. At a news conference devoted to the human rights provisions of the 1975 Helsinki accords, Mr. Lomeiko also suggested that Jews had difficulty in leaving the United States, while asserting that such problems do not exist in the Soviet Union. In answer to a question, he said Andrei D. Sakharov, the physicist and dissident, was exiled to the city of Gorky in 1980 to prevent him from divulging state secrets to foreigners. He said such safeguards on state secrets were common in the West as well.
In a move that conservationists said was another major step toward ending all commercial hunting of whales, the Soviet Union said this week that it would cease commercial whaling by 1987. The announcement by the Soviet Union, now the second-largest whaling nation, came at the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission, which was held this week in Bournemouth, England. The conservationists said the chief reason that the Soviet Union had decided to end whaling was the imposition of sanctions by the United States earlier this year that cut in half the amount of fish the Russians may take from this country’s territorial waters.
The Israeli state radio reported today that the Soviet Union had offered an arrangement under which diplomatic relations between the two countries could be restored. They were broken off in 1967. The report said that Moscow had in effect offered to restore the interrupted flow of Soviet Jews to Israel in consideration for Moscow’s participation in the solution of Middle East disputes, according to the report.
Tehran today urged Iran’s 150,000 pilgrims to the holy city of Mecca next month to mix their religious experience with political activism, the Iranian press agency reported. The agency quoted the President, Hojatolislam Ali Khamenei, as saying at a prayer sermon today at Tehran University: “The convention of Muslims in Mecca has both religious and political implications without either of which the ritual would be incomplete. “Mecca-bound pilgrims must thwart conspiracies by the superpowers for depoliticizing the annual haj convention.” Iranians have held demonstrations against Israel and America on earlier pilgrimage to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, leading to tension with the pro-United States Saudi guardians of the shrines.
Four people were killed and 16 were wounded today in clashes in the western Indian city of Ahmadabad. The Press Trust of India, a news agency, said crowds fought with homemade bombs and knives on rooftops and in narrow city alleys in Gujarat state’s biggest city. The police also fired on the crowds. The fighting shattered a truce signed Thursday by state authorities and leaders of a protest campaign against a government minorities policy. The renewed feuding has forced authorities to extend indefinite curfews to new areas of the city. The agency said a group of students heading the protests against a policy reserving jobs and places in college for underprivileged castes had opposed the truce.
Washington offered a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to “the effective prosecution and punishment” of the people responsible for killing six Americans, four of them Marines and two businessmen, in San Salvador last month. The six men were among 13 people slain in the attack. It is the first time the Administration has used a section of a 1984 counterterrorism act that allows the Government to pay up to $500,000 in rewards to those who help catch terrorists. Earlier this month Secretary of State George P. Shultz said the Administration was considering offering a reward for the two Shiite Muslim hijackers who beat and then shot to death Robert Dean Stethem, a Navy diver, aboard Trans World Airlines Flight 847 in Beirut. But the announcement today was limited to the killers of four off-duty marines and two businessmen slain June 19 along with seven other people near a restaurant in San Salvador.
President Daniel Ortega Saavedra, addressing a vast crowd on the sixth anniversary of the Nicaraguan revolution, asserted today that it was the United States, not Nicaragua, that was supporting terrorism. The Nicaraguan leader rejected Reagan Administration charges, the latest of which were made in a diplomatic note delivered this week, that Nicaragua was backing terrorists. “Nicaragua has neither practiced nor supported terrorism, nor has it been involved in any terrorist act,” Mr. Ortega said. He said Nicaraguans were “victims of United States terrorism” because anti-Government guerrillas backed by the United States had attacked targets inside Nicaragua.
A car packed with explosives blew up tonight across the street from the United States Consulate in Santiago, Chile, killing a man in a passing car and wounding two policemen who had been standing guard outside the consulate, the police reported. The explosion, which took place shortly after 9 PM, caused extensive damage to several nearby buildings and broke most of the windows in the consulate building, which is across the street from a public park.
A washed-out rail link between the central and western regions of the Sudan has been restored, and shipments of emergency food supplies to famine-affected provinces will be resumed soon, United States officials said this week. On July 7, rains washed out a railway bridge, causing two locomotives to derail and halting food shipments to tens of thousands of famine victims in Darfur and Kordofan Provinces. Relief officials said then that a major disaster was imminent.
A Federal magistrate found probable cause to hold a relative of Ghana’s leader on espionage charges and rejected a request that a Ghanian national accused of conspiring to commit espionage be released to the custody of the Ghanian Ambassador to the United States. The man, Michael Agbotui Soussoudis, was ordered held without bail by Federal Magistrate W. Harris Grimsley. “Mr. Soussoudis appears to be an effective, if not agent, intelligence-gatherer for the Ghanian Government,” the magistrate said. Mr. Soussoudis, whom the authorities have said is either a cousin or nephew of the Ghanaian leader, Flight Lieut. Jerry J. Rawlings, was arrested July 10 at a motel in Virginia and was charged with conspiracy to commit espionage. The U.S. Government asserts he persuaded Sharon M. Scranage, a clerk for the Central Intelligence Agency stationed in Ghana to turn over secrets about C.I.A. operations in that country, including the identities of the C.I.A. station chief and Ghanian nationals cooperating with the agency there.
Arson, looting and stone-throwing continued across South Africa today, the police said. In the Johannesburg region, the police reported that at least three whites were injured by blacks stoning vehicles. They included a 14-year-old boy who was in a car passing Soweto. About 500 people have been killed in rioting over the last year and a half. All but two of them were black. The police in Pretoria reported unrest at 12 townships nationwide. At Guguletu, near Cape Town, four vehicles, including a bus, were set on fire and several people were hurt.
President Reagan meets with Secretary of State George Shultz to discuss the Secretary’s recent trip around the world.
President Reagan will return home to the White House tomorrow from the Bethesda Naval Medical Center, one week after he underwent surgery in which a cancerous growth was removed from his colon. Mr. Reagan is scheduled to go home in the early afternoon, soon after he makes his weekly Saturday radio speech.
The first citizen space traveler is to be Sharon Christa McAuliffe, a 36-year-old high school social-studies teacher from Concord, New Hampshire Mrs. McAuliffe was chosen by the national space agency from among 11,000 teachers who applied. Mrs. McAuliffe, 36 years old, is to report to the Johnson Space Center in Houston in September to begin training for the weeklong mission, set for January 22 aboard the shuttle Challenger. Vice President Bush, in making the announcement at a ceremony at the White House, called Mrs. McAuliffe the “first private citizen passenger in the history of space flight.” Last August, in the midst of the election campaign, President Reagan said he wanted to send a teacher into space as the first citizen passenger on the shuttle in order to signify the importance of the profession. His action resolved a debate within the National Aeronautics and Space Administration over whether the first citizen passenger should be chosen from among journalists, educators, poets, artists or other fields.
The Senate majority leader and the Budget Committee chairman said today that Senate Republicans would make a legitimate counteroffer on the budget to the House next week. Pete V. Domenici, chairman of the Budget Committee, said that if there was an agreement the resulting 1986 Federal budget would not be a good one. But he said it would be better than no budget. Mr. Domenici, a New Mexico Republican, said the budget framework agreed to by President Reagan last week “was calculated not to get you a very good budget.” Under the framework, the President dropped his support for the Senate’s one-year freeze on Social Security benefits, a move that acceded to the demands of the House and angered Senate Republicans.
The budget director nominated by President Reagan to succeed David A. Stockman is James C. Miller 3d, a conservative economist who heads the Federal Trade Commission. The appointment is subject to Senate confirmation. In the late 1960’s, when Miller was a graduate student in economics at the University of Virginia, he wrote a doctoral thesis in which he set forth reasons for deregulating the airline industry. It was an unfashionable view at the time. “He’s the quintessential free-marketeer,” said John M. Albertine, who is president of the American Business Conference and was one year behind Mr. Miller when they were undergraduates at the University of Georgia. In the interim, Mr. Miller’s free-market economics have gained currency, and in the past decade he has been able to promote his advocacy of deregulation through several Government posts, notably as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission since 1981.
Federal prosecutors said today that information obtained from Government wiretaps led directly to the arrest of John A. Walker Jr., the former Navy man accused of running a spy ring. While providing few details on the wiretaps, the prosecutors said electronic surveillance of Mr. Walker, a retired communications specialist, had been approved by a Federal court April 5 and continued until his arrest May 20. The wiretaps are expected by prosecutors to provide key evidence against Mr. Walker and his son, Michael, a Navy yeoman who has been accused of smuggling secret documents to his father from the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz.
Charles Ng, who is wanted in California on charges of murder, will appear in a lineup in Canada that will be viewed by a witness to a San Francisco slaying, the authorities said Thursday. Mr. Ng, 24 years old, is suspected of being an accomplice of Leonard Lake, who committed suicide while being questioned by the San Francisco police in a shoplifting case. The police believe Mr. Lake committed at least 11 murders and possibly as many as 22 near his cabin in Calaveras County. The witness who will see the lineup in Calgary, where Mr. Ng has been held since his arrest July 6 on charges of robbery, is Richard Carrazza, who saw his roommate murdered.
Cable TV companies won a victory and local broadcasters were set back by a decision by a Federal appeals court panel in Washington. The three-judge panel struck down as unconstitutional Government regulations that require cable systems to carry without charge all television stations watched by a significant number of people in their communities.
A Caribbean ex-leader was convicted of six counts of drug dealing but acquitted of more serious smuggling charges. The defendant, Norman Saunders, is the former chief minister of the Turks and Caicos Islands. A second former minister, Stafford Missick, was found guilty of participating in drug trafficking.
Claus von Bülow’s stepchildren filed a $56 million suit against him, renewing assertions that he tried to kill his wife, Martha, with insulin injections to inherit part of her estate. A Rhode Island jury acquitted Mr. von Bülow of such charges last month. The state had accused him of injecting his wife with insulin that rendered her comatose in 1979 and again in 1980. She has remained in the second coma, and doctors at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, where she is a patient, say they do not expect her to recover.
An official at Trans World Airlines said today that the airline had credited a former hostage for the miles he traveled when the airline’s hijacked Flight 847 was flown four times between Algeria and Lebanon in June. Larry Hilliard, director of corporate communications for T.W.A., said Debra Toga, wife of a former hostage, Arthur Toga, had inquired about credit for the mileage under the airline’s Frequent Flier program. Mrs. Toga said she had written the airline but did not recall specifically inquiring about the hijacking mileage. The St. Louis couple were aboard the flight when it was hijacked by Shiite terrorists June 14 while on the way from Athens to Rome. Mrs. Toga was released early, but her husband was one of the 39 hostages freed June 30.
Fort Wayne, “the city that saved itself,” from three disastrous floods in the last seven years, is now riven because of politics. It started last October, when Mayor Win Moses Jr. was indicted on charges of violating election laws. On July 8 he pleaded guilty to reduced charges, paid a fine, resigned from office and immediately announced he would be a candidate in the special Democratic caucus to choose his successor. This evening in what was a surprise to no one Mr. Moses was overwhelmingly chosen over four challengers, by 86 of the 99 precinct committee members who met in the caucus. He was immediately sworn in.
There are some who said Mr. Moses should be Mayor because he is the best this city has had in a long time. Others had said he was an admitted lawbreaker and should have had the decency to step aside. The special prosecutor, Daniel J. Sigler, who was appointed because officials disqualified themselves from the case, was caught off guard when Mr. Moses announced his candidacy, following it up with television advertisements, meetings with the precinct officials who would meet in the caucus and letters to 24,000 city residents. Mr. Sigler, himself a Democrat, said he did not think Mr. Moses had the “gall” to run. His re-election, Mr. Sigler had said, would be the equivalent of “Richard Nixon taking off in a helicopter from the south lawn, landing on the north lawn, and then walking back into the White House.”
The music of the Army Band was punctuated by the firing of the four cannon. Minutes later, the helicopters were seen in the distance. They came in low, their 10 sets of propellers beating furiously. As they climbed the small hill and prepared to fly over the Pentagon, one suddenly peeled off, trailing a plume of purple smoke. The crowd below saw, heard, felt the other nine streak overhead. It was yet another episode in a war that President Reagan has said has never ended, at least for the families and friends of the 2,464 Americans still officially listed as unaccounted for, most of them in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Today, by the President’s declaration, was National P.O.W./M.I.A. Recognition Day.
In an 11th-hour attempt to avert a threatened strike, Federal mediators today entered the stalled negotiations between the Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation and its unionized employees. But spokesmen for both sides said the talks were deadlocked and they predicted that 8,200 workers at nine plants in three states would walk off their jobs at 12:01 AM Sunday. The company is operating under the protection of bankruptcy law.
Sydney Biddle Barrows, a socialite charged with operating a prostitution ring out of three Manhattan-based escort services, pleaded guilty yesterday to promoting prostitution. She was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine.
The Postal Service is losing $1 million a day and faces a potential loss of $500 million this year despite rate increases in February, officials of the agency said.
NBA player Isiah Thomas (24) weds Lynn Kendall in Chicago.
Major League Baseball:
The Royals routed the Orioles, 10–3. Dane lorg had batted only 53 times this season and driven in only 7 runs before Manager Dick Howser put him in left field in this game at Baltimore. lorg responded by driving in five runs, two of them in a six-run fourth inning that wiped out the Orioles. Iorg had two two-run singles and a run-producing ground-out in his first three times at-bat. Willie Wilson and Steve Balboni each had three hits for the Royals, Balboni getting his 15th homer in the ninth.
The New York Yankees got two-run homers from Mike Pagliarulo and Don Baylor tonight, and they received a fortunate break from the artificial turf in beating the Minnesota Twins, 6–4, only their third victory in their last 14 games here. The Yankees overcame home runs by Randy Bush, Gary Gaetti and Mark Salas of Minnesota, all off the starter Joe Cowley. But Rich Bordi pitched two innings of superb relief, and Dave Righetti, apparently back to his familiar form, registered his 17th save. He struck out the side in the ninth.
Ernie Whitt hit a bases-empty home run and Rance Mulliniks doubled and scored twice as Toronto ended its four-game losing streak, whipping the A’s, 5–1. Jimmy Key (8–4) gave up eight hits, struck out one batter and did not walk any in eight and two-thirds innings. After Mike Heath and Mickey Tettleton doubled in the ninth to break up the shutout, Bill Caudill got the last out. Mulliniks went 3 for 3, two of them doubles, scored two runs and drove in another to help the Blue Jays end a four-game losing streak. Mulliniks raised his average to .324.
Ron Romanick out-dueled Oil Can Boyd as the California Angels edged the Boston Red Sox, 3–2. Romanick allowed just two runs on five hits in eight innings of work. Donnie Moore pitched the ninth for his 18th save.
The White Sox’ Carlton Fisk hammered his 24th home run, tops in the majors, tonight at Chicago to provide the only run as Tom Seaver beat Cleveland, 1-0, to win his 298th career victory. The 40-year-old Seaver (10–7) barely out-pitched Bert Blyleven, a mere 34, who gave up five hits and pitched his ninth consecutive complete game. Fisk’s home run came in the second inning, and it was the eighth time he provided the game-winning hit. It was Seaver’s first shutout of the season, but the 61st of his career.
The Rangers edged the Tigers, 2–1. A former team member, Dave Rozema, had a hand in continuing the Tigers’ slump at Detroit. Rozema had some anxious moments, but pitched three scoreless innings to earn a save for Burt Hooton. It was the Tigers’ fifth loss in the last six games.
Paul Molitor hit a home run and a three-run double at Milwaukee to lead the Brewers to a 9–7 win over the Mariners. Robin Yount had three hits to help the cause. The Mariners, trailing, 8–3, scored four times in the eighth, but Bob Gibson finally put an end to the rally and pitched a scoreless ninth for his sixth save.
The Dodgers beat the Cardinals, 5–2, as Ken Landreaux doubled home two runs to highlight a four-run third inning, backing the five-hit pitching of Bob Welch (4–1). It was the third consecutive victory for Welch, who struck out nine in his second complete game of the season. Danny Cox (11–5) failed to finish the third inning, giving up six hits and four runs.
The Mets’ four-game winning streak came to an end tonight when they managed only four hits off Zane Smith and Bruce Sutter and lost to the Atlanta Braves, 1–0. But they won an overnight reprieve on a more significant issue: Gary Carter’s damaged right knee went nine innings without breaking down, and a decision on any surgery was postponed at least until today. The game was decided in the seventh inning when the Braves bunched a walk and two singles off Rick Aguilera for the only run of the night.
Bryn Smith pitched a six-hitter Friday night at Montreal and Vance Law and Tim Wallach hit homers as the Expos beat the punchless Houston Astros, 4–0. Smith struck out seven and extended the Astros’ scoreless string to 34 innings. Joe Hesketh, who had not won in almost two months, shut the Astros out Thursday night. Last Sunday, Dwight Gooden shut them out.
The Padres shut out the Pirates, 6–0. Andy Hawkins went seven innings to improve his record to 12–2, while DeLeon, as usual, lost. He is 2–14 in 20 starts this season. Terry Kennedy hit a three-run home run and Graig Nettles also homered for the Padres. DeLeon departed after giving up four runs, including Kennedy’s three-runt blast, in four innings.
Pinch-hitters Richie Hebner and Thad Bosley knocked in runs during a three-run seventh-inning rally that lifted the Cubs to a 4–3 victory, snapping the Giants’ three-game winning streak. San Francisco right-hander Jim Gott (4–7) took a 2–1 lead into the seventh before the rally that made Lary Sorensen (2–2) the winner. Lee Smith pitched the last 1 ⅓ innings for his 20th save.
As was expected, the Texas Rangers traded Buddy Bell, the third baseman, to the Cincinnati Reds yesterday for Duane Walker, a reserve outfielder, and a player to be named later. Bell, having joined the Reds, was 1 for 4 in his debut at Cincinnati as the Reds edged the Phillies, 3–2. Pete Rose failed to add to his hit total, but he did hit two sacrifice flies to help the Cincinnati cause. However, it was a bloop double by Gary Redus with one out in the bottom of the ninth that scored Ron Oester from second with the winning run. Oester opened the inning by beating out a bunt and was sacrificed to second. John Franco pitched two scoreless innings of relief to improve his record to 7–1.
Kansas City Royals 10, Baltimore Orioles 3
California Angels 3, Boston Red Sox 2
Cleveland Indians 0, Chicago White Sox 1
Philadelphia Phillies 2, Cincinnati Reds 3
Texas Rangers 2, Detroit Tigers 1
St. Louis Cardinals 2, Los Angeles Dodgers 5
Seattle Mariners 7, Milwaukee Brewers 9
New York Yankees 6, Minnesota Twins 4
Houston Astros 0, Montreal Expos 4
Atlanta Braves 1, New York Mets 0
Pittsburgh Pirates 0, San Diego Padres 6
Chicago Cubs 4, San Francisco Giants 3
Oakland Athletics 1, Toronto Blue Jays 5
Stock prices rose sharply and the Dow Jones industrial average closed at a record level for the third time this week. The market was given its impetus by institutional investors who took part in complicated buying strategies related to options expirations. Trading volume, although lower than the previous session, was large enough to make the week the sixth busiest in Wall Street history. The Dow rose 8.62 points, to finish at 1,359.54. That bettered the previous record close of 1,357.97 set Wednesday. The index of 30 blue-chip stocks advanced 20.94 points for the week.
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1359.54 (+8.62)
Born:
LaMarcus Aldridge, NBA power forward and center (NBA All-Star, 2012-2016, 2018, 2019; Portland Trailblazers, San Antonio Spurs, Brooklyn Nets), in Dallas, Texas.
Ernesto Frieri, Colombian MLB pitcher (San Diego Padres, Los Angeles Angels, Pittsburgh Pirates, Tampa Bay Rays, Texas rangers), in Arjona, Colombia.
Evan Scribner, MLB pitcher (San Diego Padres, Oakland A’s, Seattle Mariners), in New Milford, Connecticut.
Hebron Fangupo, NFL defensive tackle (Seattle Seahawks, Pittsburgh Steelers), in Santa Ana, California.
Died:
Janusz A. Zajdel, 47, Polish sci-fi author (The Whole Truth about Planet Xi).
History Diaries 