News stories from Saturday September 23, 1978

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

In a parliamentary maneuver, Senate Democratic leader Robert Byrd (D-W. Va.) set the stage for Senate floor action -- possibly as early as this week -- on extending the ratification deadline for the Equal Rights Amendment. Shortly after the Senate convened at 7:45 a.m. today and with only Byrd and one other Senator on the floor, Byrd announced that he planned to bring up the ERA extension. He then moved that the Senate adjourn. Then, after a two-second adjournment, he brought the Senate back into session for another legislative day. Under Senate rules, that automatically moved the ERA measure directly to the Senate calendar, where it can be called up by Byrd at any time without challenge. [Los Angeles Times] No action will be taken by the Federal Election Commission against the Carter campaign committee for alleged record-keeping violations in the 1976 presidential race. The charges involved $1,000 payments to five ministers in Northern California and other minor accounting discrepancies. The committee has furnished further documentation as requested by the F.E.C., and a spokesman for the agency said books would be closed on the incidents. [Los Angeles Times] The Senate passed a key part of President Carter's urban aid program, approving a bill to help local governments in areas with high unemployment. The revenue sharing program was passed 44 to 8 and sent to the House after removal of a provision that would have helped many Sunbelt cities with relatively low unemployment but with pockets of poverty. The bill sets a ceiling of up to $2.25 billion over a two-year period. [Los Angeles Times] President Carter will present the Congressional Space Medal of Honor Oct. 1 to its first six recipients -- Neil Armstrong, Frank Borman, Charles Conrad, John Glenn, Virgil Grissom (posthumous) and Alan Shepard, all former astronauts. Carter will make the presentations at Cape Canaveral, Fla., on the 20th anniversary of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. [Los Angeles Times] Massive flooding devastated much of the Mekong Delta, the rice basket of Vietnam, killing at least 74 people and leaving 1.5 million in need of urgent relief, Hanoi radio said. The floods, beginning Aug. 12, swept through nine southern provinces. A government report estimated that more than 1 million acres of rice fields were abandoned, 200,000 homes submerged, and 60,000 oxen and 168,000 pigs drowned. Flooding was also reported in Thailand and Cambodia. [Los Angeles Times] Soviet defector Viktor Korchnoi sacrificed a rook before the 25th game of the world chess championships was adjourned for the day. He already trails the champion, Russian Anatoly Karpov, with two victories to Karpov's four. The match is being held in Baguio, Philippines. [Los Angeles Times] Pope John Paul I shook hands with the Communist mayor of Rome, Giulio Carlo Argan, and urged wealthy Italians to help the poor and not offend them through wasteful spending. "The poor are the real treasures of the church," the Pope said at ceremonies in which he formally became bishop of Rome. Argan gave the new Pope his best wishes [Los Angeles Times] Iran's natural gas company reported that an explosion destroyed a 500-foot section of the Iranian-Soviet natural gas pipeline, disrupting the supply of gas to the Soviet Union. The company spokesman blamed the damage on terrorists, but gave no basis for the allegation. He said the explosion occurred Thursday about 17 miles south of Qom, which has been a center of violent anti-government protest. Crews were working to repair the 694-mile pipeline by tomorrow, he said. [Los Angeles Times] Syrian armor pounded militia positions in the Christian sector of Beirut and rightist forces near the Lebanese-Israeli border fought an artillery duel with Palestinian guerrillas. Police in Beirut said the four-hour battle there left six Lebanese dead and 37 wounded, and several buildings were set afire. No Syrian casualties were reported. Meanwhile, in the towns of Nabatiyeh and Marjayoun in southern Lebanon, fighting continued for the fifth day between Israeli-backed rightists and the Palestinians. There was no immediate report on casualties in that area. [Los Angeles Times] Daniel Arap Moi, the vice president of Kenya for 12 years, became the successor to the late President Jomo Kenyatta when he was the only candidate to submit his name for the presidency of Kenya's only political party. A number of formalities remain to seal his selection: The party's executive committee will meet Oct. 6 to nominate him by acclamation, and as the only contender he will be declared president Oct. 21. Mai, 54, has been acting president since Kenyatta's death Aug.22. [Los Angeles Times] British Prime Minister James Callaghan and Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda completed six hours of talks in Nigeria, and Kaunda made it clear afterward that Zambia no longer feels cheated over the breaking of economic sanctions against Rhodesia by British oil companies. Kaunda had expressed anger after it was disclosed that the firms -- with the British government's knowledge -- had arranged a swap with a French company which supplied oil to Rhodesia. But Kaunda and Callaghan said they now are more concerned with future developments in southern Africa than in inquests on the past. [Los Angeles Times] David Walters, President Carter's personal envoy to the Vatican, has resigned for personal reasons, according to the State Department. The Miami Herald reported that Walters quit because the federal government was investigating his Miami law firm in connection with alleged immigration irregularities. His firm, Walters and Costanza, specializes in immigration matters. The Herald said the Carter administration had asked Walters to resign to spare the White House embarrassment. Walters, 61, denied the charges. [Los Angeles Times] Test animals have been placed in the St. Louis home of Robert Boyer in an attempt to determine what killed his wife and son and left him and his daughter seriously ill. When found by a relative Tuesday, Bonnie Boyer, 36, was dead; Barry, 13, was lying on a couch; Tanya, 16, was in convulsions, and Boyer, 36, sat dazed on a couch. The son died two days later. Tanya remained in a coma and Boyer's condition was improving. Investigators hope that test animals will yield clues when their tissues are examined after they have been killed. [Los Angeles Times] Sticky-fingered military personnel are stealing supplies ranging from sunglasses to stethoscopes, the House Appropriations Committee said, so it is docking the Pentagon $155 million to cover some of the losses. The committee voted a $50 million cut, each, in supply appropriations for the Army, Navy and Air Force and smaller reductions for the Marines and other defense agencies. [Los Angeles Times] Country Singer George Jones was ruled in contempt of court in Nashville for failing to pay his ex-wife, Tammy Wynette, also a country singer, $36,000 in child support payments for their daughter. Judge Hamilton Gayden said Jones was subject to arrest if found in Tennessee. [Los Angeles Times]