News stories from Sunday July 18, 1976

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

Neither President Ford nor Ronald Reagan has been able to muster a clear majority of the 2,259 delegates to the Republican National Convention. The final delegates were picked Saturday night in Salt Lake City and Ronald Reagan got all 20 in Utah, which, with Connecticut, held the last of the state conventions. President Ford won all 35 Connecticut delegates. The New York Times national delegate tabulation gives the President 1,102 of the 1,130 delegate votes needed for nomination. Mr. Reagan has 1,063 and 94 are uncommitted. [New York Times] A "major break" in the kidnapping of 26 schoolchildren and their bus driver was expected by law enforcement officials in Chowchilla, Calif., and neighboring counties. "For the first time we are in a concrete position with solid leads to follow," the sheriff of Madera County said. He released a drawing of two of the three kidnapping suspects, based on descriptions by two of the children, and the license plate number of a van used in the abduction. [New York Times] The first of two Viking landing craft completing a journey from earth of nearly half a billion miles that took nearly a year is preparing to land Tuesday on the surface of Mars, where it will take and transmit the first photographs from the surface of another planet. The scheduled landing time is 7:53 A.M., Eastern daylight time, but because of the time it takes radio signals traveling at the speed of light to cross the 240 million miles from Mars to Earth, it will be 19 minutes later -- 8:12 A.M. -- before the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena receives signals from the landing craft. [New York Times] Mexican officials, concerned for the lucrative American tourist business, sent armed troops on border patrol over the weekend to prevent terrorist attacks and robberies, The troops patrolled the Baja California coast in jeeps to protect American citizens camping on the beaches in Ensenada, Calif., near the Mexican border. The beaches attract two million American tourists each year. The victimizing of Americans appears to be only a small part of an increasingly ugly mood along the border. [New York Times] The African boycott of the Olympic Games in Montreal got support from the Caribbean when Guyana withdrew, bringing the total withdrawal to about two dozen teams involving 600 athletes, as the first day of competition began. The International Olympic Committee will not invoke sanctions against the protesters. Officials of the I.O.C. say that disciplinary measures would only aggravate a "very emotional" situation. The I.O.C. is not expected to try to arrange a reconciliation either, since it regards the dispute as being beyond its jurisdiction. [New York Times] Christian rightists started a new attack on the isolated Palestinian camp of Tell Zaatar, on the outskirts of Beirut, which has been under siege for nearly a month. Meanwhile, residential areas of Moslem-controlled western Beirut were shelled by mortars, apparently in revenge for the shelling of Christian areas outside Tell Zaatar by Palestinian and leftist Moslem artillery. The rightist-controlled radio reported that many Palestinian fighters and civilians at the camp had surrendered, but it did not repeat earlier reports that the camp had fallen. Palestinian sources said that two rightist attacks had been repulsed and that troop reinforcements had reached the camp. [New York Times] Hardly 24 hours after the Spanish government promised amnesty to some political prisoners, bombs were exploded in eight cities, including Madrid, Barcelona, Seville and Bilbao, damaging public buildings and monuments and injuring seven persons. Interior Minister Rodolfo Martin Villa believed the bombings were the work of two extreme leftist groups, Basque nationalists and the Popular Antifascist Revolutionary Front. These groups were suspect, he said, because their jailed members and others held responsible for violence against persons would not be amnestied. The bombings coincided with the 40th anniversary of the start of the Spanish Civil War. [New York Times]