News stories from Friday April 12, 1974

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

The United Steelworkers of America accepted -- more than three months before their old wage contract expires -- a new three-year agreement providing substantial increases in pay, cost-of-living allowances, pensions and other benefits. The agreement will increase hourly wages by 60.9 cents over the three-year period, with the first raise going into effect on May 1, and it includes a cost-of-living adjustment. It affects 386,000 workers. [New York Times] The California franchise tax board, which recently ruled that President and Mrs. Nixon were not California residents for state income tax purposes, nonetheless levied an assessment of $4,342 for 1969 and 1970 on that part of their income earned in California. The assessment included a pro-rated portion of the President's salary based on the time he was at his San Clemente estate on various '"working vacations." [New York Times] In Morgantown, West Virginia, a small college town on the northern rim of Appalachia, the federal government has invested more than $57 million to build a showcase rapid transit system and is now studying how to blow it up. What was meant to become a centerpiece of Nixon administration efforts to provide a renaissance in urban transportation has become a costly and embarrassing white elephant. [New York Times] Dr. Kenneth Edelin, chief resident for obstetrics and gynecology at Boston City Hospital, was indicted for manslaughter in the death of a fetus in connection with a legal abortion, and four other physicians were accused of violating a 19th century grave-robbing law for using tissue from aborted fetuses for medical research. The indictments caused dismay and indignation in Boston's huge medical research establishment. [New York Times] Arthur Krock, one of the great figures of American journalism, died at his home in Washington tonight. He was 86 years old. He had been a Washington correspondent for 60 years and in 34 years association with the New York Times he had been a reporter, chief of the Washington bureau, and columnist. He had been in poor health for nearly six months, and death was attributed to natural causes. [New York Times] Secretary of State Kissinger virtually ruled out another comprehensive agreement on limiting strategic arms with the Soviet Union this year, but said "a more limited" accord curbing some offensive arms might be signed during President Nixon's expected visit to Moscow in June. He told newsmen after a meeting at the White House with the President and Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko that the strategic arms talks were so "complicated" that it was possible that not even the "limited" accord could be achieved by the time Mr. Nixon ends his visit to the Soviet Union. [New York Times] Israeli forces raided several villages in southern Lebanon and blew up houses that were said to belong to Arab guerrilla sympathizers, the Israeli command announced in Tel Aviv. It said that the raid had been made in retaliation for the Arab terrorist attack Thursday on the Israeli town of Qiryat Shemona. The residents of Qiryat Shemona poured out their grief and anger in an emotional and violent funeral for 16 of the victims of the attack. [New York Times] After considering the matter for more than 20 years, the United Nations finally came up with a definition of "aggression." A ripple of properly subdued excitement ran through the meeting chamber where the Committee on the Definition of Aggression agreed on a hazy three-page definition of the concept, which has been a diplomatic issue since the Versailles peace conference of 1919. [New York Times]