News stories from Monday February 16, 1976

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

Patricia Hearst and the jury in her bank robbery trial visited the two places in the San Francisco area where she has said she was held by her kidnappers in a closet for almost two months. They were accompanied by the alternate jurors, Federal Judge Oliver Carter, staff members of the Federal District Court, Albert Johnson, one of the defense lawyers, and two members of the prosecution staff. Mr. Johnson said, "When she first saw the closet at Golden Gate Avenue, she sobbed. At one point I had to hold her up. I thought she was going to faint." [New York Times] President Ford changed his mind about keeping appropriations for elementary and secondary education at present levels, as he proposed in his budget, and will increase them instead. He also announced that he was submitting legislation to Congress to help keep the Federal Election Commission functioning. The commission has been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. [New York Times] Under pressure from Representative Peter Rodino, Democrat of New Jersey and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, the Federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration is continuing to finance an experimental crime-fighting project in Newark. The project's local director described it as a demonstration of "what not to do to reduce crime in the cities." Officials of the federal agency said that Mr. Rodino, whose committee reviews the agency's operations, had threatened to cut off congressional appropriations if the agency killed the project. The program was subsequently extended to the end of this year at a cost of $400,000. Mr. Rodino denied having made his support of the agency contingent on continuation of the Newark project. [New York Times] A descent of more than two miles in a submersible craft into the Cayman Trough on the Caribbean floor was recently made by members of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, accompanied by science observers. The walls of the trough, in places 22,000 feet high, are believed to expose layers raised from the earth's deep interior. The trough has been created by continuing movements in the earth that generate earthquakes from Guatemala to Haiti. [New York Times] An influential Japanese business executive who is a director of All Nippon Airways denied that he had helped to sell Lockheed airbuses to the domestic airline. The executive, Kenji Osano, a confidant of former Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka, was the first witness called before a parliamentary committee in Tokyo, which is holding a hearing on whether Japanese officials were improperly influenced and bribed to favor the purchase of Lockheed aircraft. [New York Times] The European Market approved in principle a $1 billion loan to Italy, whose foreign currency reserves are down to $591 million as a result of speculation against the lira, and a $300 million loan to Ireland. An official of the E.E.C. said that the organization's finance ministers told its executive commission to examine the conditions for the loan to Italy in bilateral talks. If the talks succeed, the loans to Italy and Ireland would be made at current rates by an international banking consortium with capital mainly provided by Saudi Arabia. [New York Times]