News stories from Sunday January 23, 1977

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

As annual winter shortages of natural gas worsen, companies across the United States are putting pressure on their energy experts to find ways to reduce their dependence on gas, mainly by developing their ability to use alternate fuels. One of these companies is the Scovill Manufacturing Company, whose new plant in Rantoul, Ill., has a special boiler fueled by surplus sawdust that can generate all the factory's steam. [New York Times] The Pentagon's top echelon will be thoroughly reorganized by Defense Secretary Harold Brown, according to congressional and administration officials who said he wanted to replace the present structure of 10 assistant secretaries and 11 other division directors who have been reporting directly to the Secretary's office. Mr. Brown, it is said, will establish instead three administrative groups headed by under secretaries for resources, policy and evaluation. [New York Times] California, especially the northern parts, is having a worse drought than last year's. Water levels in many major reservoirs are the lowest that they have ever been, and 29 communities have been warned that they should prepare to ration water this spring. Farmers have been warned that irrigation water will be cut back. [New York Times] Congress is showing strong, probably insurmountable, opposition to a request by New York banks for a five-year extension of $2.3 billion worth of emergency federal loans to New York City. The Senate Banking Committee is preparing a report urging that the loan program be continued through its present termination date, June 30, 1978, but not longer. [New York Times] Refinancing proposals for $5 billion of 8 percent government notes that will fall due Feb. 15 are expected to be announced by the Treasury Wednesday. Wall Street believes that the government's new team of debt managers will try to conduct the refunding and borrow some additional cash without putting a big drain on the credit markets. The Treasury will undertake the refunding with a substantial cash balance. [New York Times] Chicago's new Apparel Center, a 2.2 million-square-foot structure built at cost of about $50 million by the Joseph P. Kennedy family near the Kennedy-owned Merchandise Mart, is expected to put Chicago in a top position nationally in fashion merchandising. The country's top fashion designers and clothing manufacturers have leased showroom space there. "It's the most modern and visually arresting retailing complex in the world," Jerry Silverman said. He is one of New York's top women's clothing manufacturers. "I only wish New York, which is still the nation's fashion capital, could offer its equal." [New York Times] Some futures traders were stunned by the Agriculture Department's report on farmers' spring planting intentions of last Friday -- which with weather and export figures is a key trading guide -- because it almost in no way supported their anticipations. Farmers were expected to take as much as 3 million acres out of corn and use them for soybeans. Instead, the report indicated that 500,000 acres of corn land would be added to last year's 84 million acres and that soybean acreage would increase by 6 percent to 53 million. The increases would be at the expense of spring wheat crops. Farmers are known to be guided by market prices before seed time. [New York Times] In most Southern towns there is hardly a trace of civil rights activity but obvious white hostility is virtually gone as well, a report on activism in the South since the 1960's has found. A group of black Mississippians has built a $10 million business that operates four manufacturing plants and a Delta plantation. It operates without fanfare because, the president says, "We're not in the sympathy market." [New York Times] A strong affirmation of the Carter administration's commitment to the Atlantic alliance was made by Vice President Mondale when he arrived in Brussels on the first stop of a tour of Europe and Japan. He was welcomed by officials of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the European Economic Community and the American and Belgian governments. [New York Times] "The choice is nothing less than between democracy and a fascist type of dictatorship," said Jaya Prakash Narayan, one of India's opposition leaders, in the formal opening of their election campaign against Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Mrs. Gandhi, who last week proposed that elections for Parliament be held in March, accused the opposition of a negative attitude and of having no platform except their attitude toward her. [New York Times]