News stories from Saturday June 30, 1973

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

In one of the longest eclipses of modern times, the moon's shadow crossed the entire width of Africa. Scientists on the passenger ship S.S. Canberra in the Atlantic off the coast of Mauritania in North Africa and elsewhere worked frantically to record the event. Native populations gazed skyward in wonder, and, perhaps in some cases, trepidation. The eclipse began as the sun rose over the eastern most part of South America. [New York Times] Charles Colson and one of his former aides in the White House repeatedly attempted to improperly influence the Labor Department to aid the Nixon administration's re-election drive, highly reliable sources said. The sources, who include officials in government agencies, Congress and the White House, said that Mr. Colson's interventions with the Labor Department were undertaken in support of either the teamsters union or the New York Building and Construction Trades council, two of Mr. Nixon's labor supporters last year. [New York Times] Congress approved a 5.6% cost of living increase in Social Security benefits, effective next year, for about 30 million persons. Both houses, meeting in an unusual Saturday session before beginning a week-long Fourth of July recess, approved two other major bills and sent them to the President for his expected signature. The two other bills respectively would provide continuing appropriations to permit federal agencies to operate through Sept. 30, and would extend until Nov. 30 the present temporary debt limit of $465 billion. [New York Times] One of the boldest policy and political gambles of the Nixon presidency -- the abandonment of the draft and total reliance of young civilian volunteers for a nearly 3 million man military force -- is six months old. And it is in trouble. The last six months have, at best, yielded mixed results and mixed reviews. According to worried manpower officials, hoped-for enlistments in crucial elements of the volunteer force are falling short. [New York Times] Strong rebel forces began an offensive in Cambodia, driving close to Kompong Speu, a provincial capital and a government stronghold, which is regarded as second in importance to Phnom Penh, the country's capital. Government troops were locked in heavy fighting at a half dozen other places around Phnom Penh, especially on the banks of the Mekong River and along several supply roads leading to the capital. Kompong Speu is 29 miles southwest of Phnom Penh. [New York Times] The teams searching for clues to the fate of more than 1,300 Americans missing in action in Indochina have run into serious problems and their progress is painfully slow. In the five months since the teams were organized under the Joint Casualty Resolutions Center in Thailand they have conducted only six investigations. Brig. Gen. Robert C. Kingston, the officer in charge of the search operations, said the United States efforts had been hamstrung by a lack of cooperation from the Communists, the continued fighting in Cambodia and the failure of the Laotians to establish a new national government. [New York Times] Despite some discouraging factors, there is now a chance that representatives of Northern Ireland's Protestant and Roman Catholic communities will agree to share political power for the first time in the modern history of the British province. This sums up the forecasts of moderate political leaders and analysts following Thursday's elections for a new Assembly. [New York Times]