News stories from Saturday April 3, 1976
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Senator Henry Jackson's strategy of parlaying primary victories in major industrial states into the Democratic presidential nomination faces a major test in the New York Democratic primary Tuesday, in which he is widely conceded to be the front-runner. His major opponents are Representative Morris Udall and Jimmy Carter. The crucial question is whether Senator Jackson will regain the momentum in the presidential race by winning a decisive majority of the 206 delegates at stake in New York, the landslide that he had predicted after winning the Massachusetts primary. [New York Times]
- Jimmy Carter easily outdistanced his rivals as Virginia and Kansas began the selection of their delegates to the Democratic national convention. But he failed to score the sweep he had expected in Virginia, where uncommitted slates showed surprising strength. The two states will send a total of 88 delegates to the convention, almost twice as many as will be elected in the Wisconsin primary on Tuesday. Mr. Carter was the only presidential candidate who invested time and money in their primaries. In both states, Senator Hubert Humphrey appeared to have substantial support among the delegates who were uncommitted. [New York Times]
- Consumer protests across the country against sharply rising electric utility bills have resulted in a number of organized efforts to achieve reductions. The protests have also brought about changes in regulatory bodies, laws and policies but so far have had only a slight effect on rates, which continue to rise. Consumers are working to place consumer advocates on the public agencies that regulate utility rates, organizing new consumer groups, attending public hearings on utility costs and lobbying to make regulatory agencies more responsive to the public interest. [New York Times]
- A Library of Congress survey of committee activity in the Senate in 1975 has found that almost half the 138 Senate subcommittees held four meetings or fewer last year and that 28 of the panels did not meet at all. The exact numbers of people assigned to the subcommittees and the amounts of their budgets are unknown. But according to some Senate records, the 28 subcommittees that were apparently inactive last year employed a total of at least 25 staff aides and had autonomous budgets of over $750,000, but it was believed that the actual figures are much higher. The study was made at the request of Dale Bumpers, Democrat of Arkansas, who had complained that the inactivity of many of the subcommittees was another example of Congress's inefficiency. He is seeking changes in the Senate rules that would abolish the subcommittees if they did not become more productive. [New York Times]
- Reacting to a suit by the New York Civil Liberties Union and the Legal Action Center, a nonprofit group, New York City police officers, under a new policy, are drastically reducing arrests of prostitutes. The prostitutes, aware of this, are becoming more numerous and more aggressive in street solicitations, particularly in mid-Manhattan. The new policy, which rules out the periodic roundups of street walkers by "sweeps," a police term, means that an officer will virtually have to overhear a streetwalker solicit a customer. The suit that brought about the change alleged the false arrest of a woman in a sweep and demanded $75,000 damages. Two police officers, Police Commissioner Michael Codd, Mayor Beame and Sidney Baumgarten, assistant to the Mayor, were named as defendants. [New York Times]
- Intermittent shelling and sniping in Beirut marked the second day of the armed truce in the Lebanese civil war. Gunmen pillaged and killed while Beirut's airport was jammed with people who took advantage of the truce to flee the country. There was no apparent progress in the search for a new president to be elected by Parliament during the truce period. President Suleiman Franjieh reportedly declared from his refuge in the town of Juniye that his resignation "will not be a simple matter." L. Dean Brown, a Middle East specialist, and the special envoy of Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, has been making the rounds of Lebanon's political leaders and appears to be confining himself to gathering information. His mission is regarded as being complementary to Syria's mediation efforts in the civil war. [New York Times]
- The International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the trucking industry agreed on a settlement that, if ratified by the union membership, would protect them against inflation and increase their wages and benefits by 30 percent over three years. The agreement was announced by Secretary of Labor W.J. Usery, who had a key role in bringing the two sides together to end a strike that began Wednesday. Mr. Usery said that he had talked with President Ford and that Mr. Ford was delighted with the agreement. [New York Times]