News stories from Sunday July 4, 1976

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

Philadelphia, where the nation was born 200 years ago, joyously celebrated July 4 with the traditional bells, flags and fireworks. Al least one million people were on the festive streets, and President Ford delivered a commemorative address. The original cracked Liberty Bell was softly sounded with a rubber mallet and hundreds of other bells in Philadelphia's many steeples and towers rang out in response. [New York Times] The rest of the country celebrated its 200th birthday with pageantry and prayer, games and parades, picnics and fireworks and with the peal of bells and the chant of protests. The day began with the flagraising at dawn on Mars Hill Mountain in Maine and ended nearly a day later with a festival in American Samoa. [New York Times] Jimmy Carter has asked Senator Edmund Muskie of Maine to visit him at home in Plains, Ga., to discuss the possibility of the Senator running for Vice President on the Carter ticket. Mr. Carter said that he expected to talk to several other persons about the vice-presidential nomination before the Democratic convention starts next Monday. He said that it would be wrong to assume that there was any special significance in Senator Muskie's being the first to be invited. Senators John Glenn of Ohio, Frank Church of Idaho and Walter Mondale of Minnesota were said by a highly knowledgeable source to have the best chances of being selected. [New York Times] The police estimated that six million people visited Manhattan for the Fourth of July festivities and that two million people gathered south of City Hall, almost filling up the area down to the Battery. It was a friendly crowd, and there seemed to be a minimum of friction. [New York Times] The Israeli commando unit that made a daring air raid Saturday night on Entebbe airport in Uganda flew home with the 103 hostages they had rescued. Military officials said that four Israelis -- three hostages and an army officer -- had been killed and that seven of the 10 hijackers who had held the hostages captive at the airport and about 20 Ugandan soldiers had also been killed. The success of the raid, which surprised most Israelis, electrified the country. Flags were brought out and people rejoiced in the streets."We heard a voice in Hebrew. It was about 11:30, but I could not be sure. The Israeli said for everyone to remain on the ground, don't move, and wait. There was more gunfire. Then we heard somebody say 'It is O.K. now. Get ready to move to the door. You are going home.'" This was an account by one of the hostages rescued from Uganda. [New York Times] French officials and hostages who had been released last week by hijackers of the Air France plane said in Paris that they had substantial evidence that President Idi Amin of Uganda had been in collusion with the hijackers, both in the seizure of the plane and after it landed in Uganda. The hijackers' negotiations with Israel reportedly got much tougher Saturday night after Mr. Amin retuned to Uganda from a meeting of the Organization of African Unity. [New York Times] President Ford congratulated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin of Israel on the rescue of the hostages in Uganda and said that a senseless act of terrorism had been thwarted. A State Department official said that United States first learned of the Israeli raid at about 5:30 P.M. Saturday when the Israeli Ambassador, Simcha Dinitz, telephoned Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in New York. [New York Times]