News stories from Saturday February 5, 1972

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

A draft version of the administration's proposed value-added tax showed that families with incomes up to $20,000 a year would be given rebates of at least part of the tax. The rebate plan was designed to blunt one of the main arguments against the tax -- that it hurts the poor more than the middle class and the rich least of all. [New York Times] As nearly 5,000 British troops guarded the town and helicopters fluttered overhead, thousands of Catholic civil rights demonstrators flooded into Newry, Northern Ireland, for the illegal civil rights march planned for Sunday. Newry appeared frightened at what might happen, and dozens of families were reported to have fled for the weekend. [New York Times] Demonstrations, church services and other protests over the situation in Northern Ireland took place in New York City, and sentiment seemed to be running against the British. A number of public figures denounced the Nixon administration for what they termed its failure to take a public stand on the issue, and three Congressmen called for a nationwide boycott of British goods. [New York Times] Well-placed administration sources said that the United States will sell Israel 42 Phantom jets and 90 Skyhawk jets over the next two to three years. Officially, there was no connection between the American decision and Israel's willingness to participate in indirect negotiations with Egypt, but Defense and State Department sources said privately that the issues were "not unrelated." [New York Times] Attorneys for an environmental coalition charged that Atomic Energy Commission officials had been in effect muzzling commission employes who are testifying at a public hearing on new safety standards for nuclear power plants. A document allegedly prepared by the commission and given its technical experts who were to testify says, among other things, "Never disagree with established policy." [New York Times] Urbanization is happening so fast that even the concept of metropolitan governments is becoming obsolete, according to a report made to the Federal Commission on Population Growth and the American Future. The report, by Jerome P. Pickard, an expert on metropolitan growth, said broad regional governments were now needed. [New York Times]