News stories from Sunday February 10, 1974
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- NASA doctors reported that Skylab 3 astronauts Edward Gibson, Gerald Carr and William Pogue are in excellent physical condition. The astronauts appeared in public today in San Diego. Carr discussed the accomplishments of the Skylab program. Pogue said he's extremely glad to be home again. [NBC]
- The British coal miners' strike has officially begun. Britishers are afraid of violence and a possible general strike throughout Britain. The all-out strike raises the threat of a severe power shortage and an industrial standstill.
A survey shows that Britain's Conservative party currently leads in the national election campaign. A coal strike is likely to hurt the Labour party. Labour leader Harold Wilson criticized the Heath government and claimed that the campaign centers on overall economic problems. British Prime Minister Edward Heath replied that the economic troubles are being caused by militant union leaders, and he declared that voters will decide whether they desire militant or rational rule. A bitter political battle lies ahead.
[NBC] - West Germany's public workers began walking off their jobs today. Talks have been scheduled to head off the spreading strike. [NBC]
- Israeli and Syrian forces fought in the Golan Heights. Israeli foreign minister Abba Eban reported that the Soviet Union is attempting to get Syria to release a list of its POWs and arrange for the Red Cross to visit them. [NBC]
- The United States is equipping the Jordanian army with sophisticated antitank missiles of the sort used by Israel during the October war, reliable sources in Amman said. It is the first time that the United States has provided such weapons to an Arab country. The Soviet Union delivered large supplies of a comparable antitank missile to Egypt and Syria before and after the October fighting. The sources said the Jordanian army had used the weapon in training. [New York Times]
- More and more independent truckers returned to the highways. [NBC]
- American farmers expect to plant the largest corn and wheat crops in history this spring, as well as a soybean crop only slightly smaller than last year's record-breaker. If so, despite a fertilizer shortage and the uncertainties of the fuel shortage, the crops could lead to a leveling off of soaring retail beef prices by late summer and stabilize pork and poultry prices. [New York Times]
- Representative Peter Rodino, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said that the committee members would "be shirking our responsibility" if President Nixon were not personally summoned -- if deemed necessary -- to answer questions on his conduct of the presidency. In a television interview, he contended that the House has given his committee the authority to investigate "impeachment in totality" by overwhelmingly voting it broad subpoena powers, and that the vote gave the committee the right to override any future claim of executive privilege by the President. [New York Times]
- Delegates from the world's leading oil-consuming countries gathered in Washington today for the energy conference that begins tomorrow. They agreed on an agenda for the meeting, which is being held to find ways of easing the current and long-range fuel crisis. But on the basis of preliminary talks, most American and European officials seemed to agree that the results of the two-day conference called by President Nixon would probably be limited to general declarations and would fall short of the "action conference" contemplated by Washington in the first place. [New York Times]