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University Daily Kansan, February 1, 1984
NATION AND WORLD
News briefs from UPI
Protesters in Manila march want Marcos' resignation
MANILA, Philippines — About 500,000 protesters, many chanting "revolution" and "Marcos resign," packed the streets of the capital yesterday in the largest anti-government demonstration in the city since the funeral of Renmino Animo.
since the failure of Dengue Aquino. Police said the demonstration against the 18-year-old rule of President Ferdinand Marcos was the largest since 2 million people attended Aquino's funeral five months ago.
The protesters jammed rooftops, sidewalks and overpasses to welcome a crowd of about 30,000 demonstrators who joined the last leg of a 90-mile protest march the government vainly tried to stop.
It began Friday in the birthplace of the slain opposition leader in northern Tarlac province. It will end at the site of his assassination on Aug. 21 at Manila Airport on his return from three years of self-exile in the United States.
Khmer Rouge claim military victory
BANGKOK, Thailand — Khmer Rouge guerrillas yesterday claimed an important military victory over Vietnamnesse forces in Cambodia, saying they had captured and briefly held Hanoi's main logistics center in the western part of the occupied country.
in the Western part of the Occupied Paris. The Khmer Rouge said they overran Siem Reap, 150 miles northwest of Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, after an artillery and rocket attack Friday night.
The communist Khmer Rouge, whose leader, Pol Pot, presided over a brutal regime in Cambodia from 1975 until the Vietnamese invaded in December 1978, now have the largest faction of the Cambodian guerrilla resistance.
resistance. The claim, broadcast yesterday over the clandestine Voice of the National Army of Democratic Kampuchea, could not be independently confirmed.
Astronauts await launch of shuttle
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Five astronauts flew to the spaceport yesterday for launch Friday morning on a space-shuttle mission one said was "full of very spectacular novelties."
Mission commander Vance Brand, rookie co-pilot Robert Gibson and mission specialists Bruce McCandless, Robert Stewart and Ronald McNair — the second U.S. back to fly in space — landed at the oceanside launch base in four jets after a 1-hour, 40-minute flight from
Blastoff is scheduled for 8 a.m. Friday
Bishop is scheduled for a visit. The mission's major goal is to launch two communications satellites
— one for the government of rhodiashe and the duke-to-treated soldiers. On the fifth day of the eight-day mission, McCandless and Stewart will put on new jet-propelled backpacks and become the first humans to fly outside their ship without safety lines.
Pot smokers start young, study says
NEW YORK — One out of every 16 high school seniors smokes marijuana daily and about three out of five smokers had their first experience with the drug between the sixth and ninth grades, a survey showed Tuesday.
The survey was taken for the National Institute on Drug Abuse by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. The results were printed in the latest edition of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co.'s statistical bulletin.
The 1982 survey involved 17,700 high school seniors from across the United States.
results showed marijuana was the most widely used illicit drug with 6.3 percent of the seniors using it daily. The survey showed 59 percent of the seniors reported some use during their lifetime, 44 percent reported had used it in the previous year and 29 percent reported marijuana use in the previous month.
U.S. Steel suffers billion-dollar loss
RITTSBURGH—U.S. Steel Corp., the nation's No. 1 steelmaker, said yesterday that it lost $1.16 billion during 1983, its second straight yearly loss and more than triple its previous record.
The loss was more than three times U.S. Steel's previous record loss of $616 million in 1962, the domestic steel industry's worst year since the Depression.
But the Pittsburgh-based steelmaker predicted it would show this year its first profit since 1981, when it earned $1.1 billion.
"As the economy continues to strengthen, we anticipate that our three major business components in total will be profitable throughout 1984," Chairman David Roderick said. Roderick was referring to U.S. Steel's ownership of Marathon Oil Co. and its holdings in chemical companies and real estate.
VW dumping Rabbit for larger car
NEW STANTON, Pa. — The Volkswagen Rabbit, which had a sales peak when small, diesel-fueled cars were popular, will be discontinued in favor of a larger, more efficient car. Volkswagen of America Inc. officials said yesterday.
The company will spend about $200 million to retrain workers and retool its Westmoreland County plant, about 20 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, spokesman Chet Bahn said.
promotion of the Rabbit will end in June. The new car has not yet been named, Bahn said.
Jackson accident may spark lawsuit
LOS ANGELES — Singer Michael Jackson may file a negligence lawsuit in the accident that set his hair ablaze during filming of a television commercial, his attorneys said.
"We are thoroughly examining all of the facts that contributed to this traumatic injury, including the possibility of negligence," said a statement issued Monday by Jackson's attorneys.
The attorneys said a decision whether to file suit would be made after a review of five tapes and film footage of the accident, which occurred Friday during a film sequence involving pyrotechnics.
WEATHER FACTS
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE FORECAST to 7 PM EST 2-1-84
Sunshine and mild weather will dominate the Great Plains tomorrow. Locally, tomorrow will be sunny and mild. The high will be in the low 60s. Tonight's low will be around 30. Tomorrow, the sunny weather will return with a high in the mid-50s.
December new-housing sales soar
By United Press International
WASHINGTON — In an unexpected revival of the housing boom, sales of new homes soared 28.5 percent in December. The increase was the biggest monthly increase in more than five years, the government said yesterday.
The December improvement helped make 1893 the best year for new house sales since 1979, with 625,000 units sold. That was a record annual improvement. The statistics were 51.7 percent more during recession-tarnished 1982.
The rush to buy houses did not drive up prices, however. The average price of a new house remained $91,000, the same as in November.
The housing industry already knew it had enjoyed a good year, but analysts had not expected December to be by far the cheapest, economist Michael Simmichra said.
"It is a surprise month at that level," Sumitrich said, speaking for the National Association of Home Builders. "It is probably going to be strong as well."
THE INDUSTRY'S BENCHMARK annual rate of sales for December alone reached 800,000 after seasonal increases. It was also for a single month since October 1978.
The report of exceptionally strong house sales overshadowed the modest 0.6 percent gain in the government's real estate spending Friday by the Commerce Department.
"As long as interest rates remain at current levels we could have the best spring since the boom years of 1977 and 1978," said Pete Herder, Tucson, Ariz., developer. He is this year's president of the national home builders association.
ON THE STRENGTH of December's sales performance the association immediately raised its forecast for 1984 to 207 million units, 100,000 more than in 1983.
Housing starts are the first step in construction and are the best measure of the rate at which the industry gobbles up steel, glass, bricks, appliances and other supplies from the rest of the economy.
THE AVERAGE PRICE of a new house in 1983 was $9,400, 6.6 percent more than 1982's average of $83,900, the commerce department said. That was about twice the yearly inflation rate of 3.2 percent for all consumer goods.
The jump in home sales "reflects a great sense of optimism among Americans." Herder said, "Housing consumers are more confident about their own jobs as well as the general state of the economy."
"As much as anything, it tells you that the price of money is not inhibiting
the selling of houses" said William Dunkelberg, economist for the National Federation of Independent Business. Mortgage rates ended 1983 close to where they began the year, with loans running at about 13.5 percent.
The housing industry, bolstered by a decline in mortgage rates in 1982, got a head start on the rest of the economic recovery. But a tapering off of the housing industry's boom last year led most analysts to predict the industry's additional contribution to economic growth in 1984 would be negligible.
The South, where half of all new houses were sold last year, did the most to boost December sales, reporting a record one-month juml of 66.1 percent
But in the upper Midwest, where cold weather discouraged discourage people from shopping for houses, home sales were down 39.1 percent. Northeast states showed a moderate 4.5 percent. Northwestern states were virtually unchanged.
The December construction increase left an estimated 388,900 new houses on the market uninsured, a supply that would increase at December's high rate of sales.
Party chairmen disagree on school prayer
By United Press International
WASHINGTON — Democratic National Chairman Charles Manatt criticized Republicans and President Reagan yesterday for making God a partisan issue in the 1984 presidential campaign.
But his Republican counterpart, Frank Fahrenkopf, said polls indicated that the American public strongly favored making school prayer constitutional and that it was a legitimate campaign issue.
In a joint appearance at the Washington Press Club, the two chairmen
traded views on several topics likely to be debated in the presidential campaign.
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'great majority' favor a constitutional amendment permission prayer in publ
He echoed a theme sounded by President Reagan in his State of the Union message last week and again for years. He called the international Religious Broadcasters that a
He added that Congress had better begin listening to the voice of the people.
FAIRENKOPF SAID Republicans would "expand the fight for excellence and discipline in our schools, with their influence, bring the opportunity in prayer.
Manatt said, "I gather God has become a central issue in this campaign this year. Let's keep God from being a partisan issue."
Fahrenkopf said, "The president believes that school children in this nation should have a right to have a moment of voluntary prayer. How it politically is, I guess, if you agree with him perhaps you'll support him. If
Reagan said, "If we could get God and discipline back in our schools maybe we could get drugs and violence out."
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you disagree with him, perhaps you won't."
MANATT DISAGREED THAT school prayer would be an issue
"I think the issue will in certain parts of the country not be that relevant as far as voter turnout," Manatt said. "I think it just again underscores the view that the count has, which is out of step with the vast majority of voters in America."
I think schoolchildren and even adults should have a private moment of silence in their life for God or whoever they like to worship," he said. "But we don't need it institutionalized through the educational system.
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February 2
Thursday, February 2
6:30 to 9 p.m.
Big Eight Room, Kansas Union Presented by the Student Assistance Center
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