News stories from Saturday August 27, 1977
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Bert Lance seems to have violated the spirit and intent of President Carter's conflict-of-interest guidelines for administration officials. An investigation of records and interviews with Mr. Lance's business associates found that he apparently failed to disclose all of his financial holdings and debts in a net-worth statement submitted to the Senate Government Affairs Committee before his confirmation hearings as budget director last January. The interviews also disclosed that Thomas Mitchell, Mr. Lance's trustee, has not taken control over some of Mr. Lance's investments. [New York Times]
- The sniper who killed a boy and five men from ambush in Hackettstown. N. J., Friday evening and killed himself as he was about to be captured, was identified as Emile Pierre Benoist, a 20-year-old son of a local politician. He was a former Marine. Using a .44-caliber semi-automatic rifle equipped with a telescopic sight, he selected his victims at random as they jogged, strolled or rode motorcycles near a railroad track. [New York Times]
- On Wednesday, 85,000 whites in Rhodesia will vote in a general election that almost certainly will be the last in which their ballots will determine the country's course. Prime Minister Ian Smith has sought a mandate in the election campaign to turn the government over to the black majority. The indications are that he will get it with a sweeping margin. [New York Times]
- Outbreaks of salmonellosis food poisoning in four Northeastern states have been linked by federal health officials to contaminated pre-cooked roasts of beef sold in delicatessens, restaurants and supermarkets. Food poisoning caused by the contaminated meat is "a significant public health problem" in this country and in Canada, said officials of the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. The outbreaks were in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. [New York Times]
- China, which under Mao Tse-tung scorned Yugoslavia as "revisionist" because of its stress on profits, is looking to that country for guidance in motivating dissatisfied factory workers and aiding economic growth. A source in Peking said that a Chinese delegation headed by an alternate member of the Politburo had visited Yugoslavia and examined its system of worker self-management, in which workers share responsibility for running an enterprise and the distribution of profits. Relations between the two countries have warmed to the point where President Tito will visit China for the first time. He is expected in Peking this week. [New York Times]