Word: direness
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...agent need fear again dire consequences if caught in the act. The principle has been established: if the U.S. arrests a Soviet spy, the Soviets can retaliate and create a crisis situation. Unlike some of his predecessors, including--gasp!--Jimmy Carter, this president does not believe in the principle of not trading innocent Americans for foreign spies...
TIME's economists noted that OPEC's pact is vulnerable. OPEC nations will face powerful temptations to "open up the spigots" in violation of their production quotas, said Greenspan. Virtually every OPEC member is financially strapped and thus in dire need of income from oil sales. For that reason, the economists do not now foresee a continued run-up in oil prices...
...real life, Geller's eventual demise need not produce such a dire result. The truth is that, by now, much of his daily broadcast is canned. He has recorded more than 400 hours of programming, and he broadcasts these tapes in a cycle that is repeated every few months. The deadpan patter is there, and so is the music, the voice of angels, Geller's own secret voice. It is a thought that must give the people over at Grandbanke the willies: WVCA-Geller could go on like this -- forever...
Such pests are invading the U.S. in increasing numbers, with sometimes dire effects on agriculture, forests, public health and even people's homes. The Mediterranean fruit fly, which threatened California citrus crops in 1980-82, is thought to have arrived in a tourist's peach. Africanized "killer" bees, sighted for the first time on U.S. soil last year near Bakersfield, Calif., probably hitchhiked there from Latin America aboard a ship laden with oil- drilling equipment. Asian tiger mosquitoes, carriers of dengue, a viral infection that causes chills, headache and muscle pains, were intercepted near Houston last year. They have since...
Within half an hour, the building had been forcibly cleared and 184 students arrested; 45 were taken to the hospital. The students responded with a three-day protest strike, much argument, many furious demands and dire prophecies. "It's hard to believe," said one dismayed dean, "that something put together over a third of a millennium by Harvard men can be destroyed in a few days in April...