News stories from Thursday November 25, 1976
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- A shootout in which three F.B.I. agents were wounded, apparently by other agents of the bureau, while trying to stop a robbery of a bank in Wood Ridge, N.J., last week is being investigated by F.B.I. inspectors from Washington. Sources said that agents deployed outside the bank had apparently mistaken three agents inside the bank for would-be robbers. The three wounded agents were hospitalized in good condition. [New York Times]
- To get better gas mileage, the American auto industry is using more aluminum and plastic and less steel to make cars lighter. Analysts say that an extra mile can be gained from a gallon of gasoline for every 400 pounds cut from a car's weight. Under law, new American cars must average 20 miles a gallon by 1980 and 27.6 miles by 1985. [New York Times]
- The Agriculture Department under the Carter administration is almost certain to make a more systematic effort to manage the farm economy than did the last two Republican administrations. The four prospective nominees for Agriculture Secretary all believe in price supports high enough to encourage farmers to produce plentifully. [New York Times]
- To stimulate economic growth and bank loans, the Federal Reserve Board wants interest rates to decline, The credit markets have responded with their biggest surge in five years, raising bond prices and pushing many interest rates to their lowest levels in more than two years. [New York Times]
- Applications are ebbing from record levels at the nation's professional schools. The reversal is attributed to fierce competition for admission and a feeling among students that the time and money spent on professional education may have fewer benefits because of rising tuition costs and decreased job prospects. [New York Times]
- Worried Mexicans carried hundreds of millions of dollars across the border into Texas before Mexico's Central Bank acted Monday to stem the flow, Texas bankers said. Some bankers estimated that at least $3 billion was taken from Mexico to the United States and Europe after the value of the peso plummeted Aug. 31. [New York Times]
- Increased oil prices are raising the price of uranium and causing a worldwide contest to stockpile nuclear fuel, according to officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. In the last four years the price for crude oil has quintupled and the price for uranium has jumped eight times. [New York Times]
- Under pressure by environmentalists, a controversial plan to build a coal-burning power plant atop the Kaiparowits Plateau in southern Utah was dropped earlier this year. Since then, the three sponsoring utilities that spent $13 million to develop the plan have advanced a number of more modest alternative proposals to use the 15 billion tons of coal in the mesa. Now, the utilities doubt any plan will be accepted. [New York Times]
- Turkish troops and civilian relief workers struggled through snow and freezing temperatures to reach isolated regions of eastern Turkey where, officials feared, more than 3,000 persons had been killed in an earthquake. Government estimates of the number of homeless reached 200,000, and there were fears that up to 5,000 persons had perished in 109 villages. President Ford offered American aid. [New York Times]
- To avert any Israeli military action, Syria is pressing Lebanese right-wing leaders in Beirut to get local commanders to leave the Israeli border region and to lay down their arms, Syrian sources said. At the same time, the sources said, the Syrian government is ready to prevent armed Palestinian units from establishing positions in the border area. [New York Times]
- Chinese troops have been sent to Fukien Province under "extremely important instructions" from Chairman Hua Kuo-feng, according to broadcasts monitored in Hong Kong. Analysts said the action was aimed at halting factional quarrels that erupted into armed clashes and that Peking had established quasi-military control over the southeast coastal province. [New York Times]
- Forced repatriation of Indochinese refugees will apparently be a policy of Thailand's new military government. A Thai military spokesman said that 26 Cambodian refugees had been delivered to the Cambodian government on the ground they were a threat to national security. Thailand has up to now refrained from forced repatriation of Indochinese refugees, but a government spokesman said that "provincial governors will from now on not let any refugees stay in Thailand." [New York Times]