On the economic front - Inflation was coming down and the Unemployment rate went from 7.6% to 7.5% - not earth shattering, but encouraging.

Lillian Carter, mother of The President, was recovering nicely from surgery to repair a broken hip. Rose Kennedy, the Matriarch, was also recovering from surgery and doing nicely.

Not doing nicely were cinema legends Steve McQueen and Mae West. McQueen was diagnosed with Cancer and West was not doing well after suffering a stroke. Hollywood was wondering who Number 3 would eventually be - since it always goes in that number.

The ABSCAM trial continued with defendant John Jenrette claiming he was drunk when he made big promises to the faux-Sheiks. Also pleading not guilty by reason of John Barleycorn was staunch Ethics and Family Values Representative Robert Bauman, who was caught trying to solicit sex from a 16 year old boy. Bauman was ordered to hit a few AA meetings on his way to rehab and to kindly shut the closet door on his way out.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reportedly were checking into the possibility that the rifle used in the sniper attack on Vernon Jordan was also used in similar sniper attacks on Blacks in other cities, since the suspect in the case had put an ad in the Classifieds a few weeks before the attack, offering the rifle at a bargain.

Southern California was hacking and wheezing its way through a third straight day of Alert-level Smog. And Tehran Radio, blissfully ignorant of World Music, ran Stars And Stripes Forever as a segue from one of it's chart-burning Death To America tunes. Doubtless someone in the Music Department was dipping into the Hash-Hish. And Poland flexed its power of protest by shutting the entire country down for an hour. Harbinger of things on the horizon.

We all come - we all go.

As heard over CBS Radio 8 am network news, Newsbreak with Charles Osgood and the 9 am network news for October 3, 1980..