News stories from Saturday September 10, 1977

Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:

Ratification of the Panama Canal treaties by the Senate this year appears to have been ruled out. Senate Majority Leader Robert Byrd said that the debate will be put off until next year. "Anyone who thinks I'm going to call up the Panama Canal treaties before January or February is living in a dream world," he told reporters. One of the reasons given for the delay is the Senate's preoccupation with the energy program. [New York Times] Bert Lance should quit as budget director after his appearance Thursday before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, the Senate Democratic leader, Robert Byrd, suggested. Mr. Byrd, speaking to reporters, said that "it is inevitable that he will resign. I think he should have his say before the committee Thursday and then resign." [New York Times] President Carter campaigned in New Jersey for Governor Byrne, whose re-election campaign, some Democrats say, is faltering. The President occasionally heard boos from opponents of the state income tax. He spent five hours with Mr. Byrne, going from Newark to Trenton, where he gave a speech before a crowd of 30,000. It was his first partisan appearance since taking office. [New York Times] Sterility and cancer have been linked to a chemical ingredient in a pesticide used on vegetable farms across the country. Sixteen years after it was found in a research laboratory that the chemical my have harmful effects, the government moved to restrict its use. The chemical is called dibromochloro-propane (DBCP). That it could make men sterile was found in fertility tests on some employees of Occidental Chemical Plant at Lathrop, Calif., where DBCP was blended with other ingredients to produce a pesticide used by vegetable growers. Fertility tests on six men found very low sperm counts or none at all. [New York Times] Exports of technology to China may follow the easing of restrictions on the sale abroad of some American defense-related equipment by Defense Secretary Harold Brown. The transfer of technical design and manufacturing skills -- as distinct from end products -- will be restricted, however. The Secretary's decision mentioned no country by name, but it was interpreted by specialists within and outside the government as a signal that the United States would act favorably on the sale of some military products sought by the Chinese. [New York Times] Mao Tse-tung's policies may he reinterpreted by China's new leaders. An editorial in the three major official publications said that Mao's directives were sometimes contradictory and warned that they must be placed in a proper context. Analysts believed it was the first time China had conceded such contradictions and that this was another subtle step in the current process of redefining Maoism. [New York Times]