News stories from Sunday January 12, 1975

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

House Democrats have prepared a crash program for economic recovery, scheduled to be announced tomorrow, that calls for House committees to have tax-cutting and other strong measures ready for action by the full House within 90 days. The Democratic program also calls for lower interest rates, more public service jobs, an emergency housing program, drastic energy-saving measures and some standby measures that would impose price and possibly wage controls on a selective basis. [New York Times] The National Academy of Sciences warned in a "Report to the Nation" that the upward trend of farm production was faltering at a time of increasing worldwide concern over food supplies. Though "for the next decade or so we think we perceive that the supply of food will be adequate," the report said, there are clouds on the horizon that should be noted. Sylvan Wittwer, chairman of the academy's board on agriculture and renewable resources, said in stressing the importance of energy resources for food production, said that the country needed a special project on solar energy. [New York Times] The current procedures for congressional financing of the Central Intelligence Agency cannot be justified by national security and therefore "are unconstitutional and should be replaced," according to an analysis in the Yale Law Journal. Much of the C.I.A.'s budget, estimated at $750 million, is believed to be hidden among the disbursements of the Pentagon's budget. The analysis in the journal of the controversial issue of C.I.A. financing may be the first that has been published. [New York Times] Earthquake prediction has reached a sufficiently reliable stage to demand serious consideration of how to apply such a capability to a major city like San Francisco. The National Academy of Sciences in Washington has formed a committee to explore how predictions can be used to save lives and property without causing panic or economic chaos, and how indifference based on false alarms can be reversed. [New York Times] The Shah of Iran and President Anwar Sadat of Egypt in a joint statement at the end of the Shah's state visit to Egypt, called for an early resumption of the Geneva conference and said that the Palestine Liberation Organization would have to speak for the "Palestinian nation" at the conference. The Shah and the President also asked for a complete Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab territories and a halt to "changes now being made in the city of Jerusalem." They rejected Western charges that worldwide inflation was caused by Arab oil-producing nations. [New York Times]