News stories from Sunday February 6, 1977
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Many people will return to work and gas-heated schools will open tomorrow in upstate New York. New gas supplies will permit the reopening of 1,576 plants employing more than 117,000 people, which were closed for a week because of the severe cold and lack of fuel. But 883 factories employing 100,000 workers in Buffalo and 10 western counties will apparently delay their re-opening until Wednesday. In New Jersey, 2.500 factories with 100,000 employees will reopen tomorrow. [New York Times]
- Schoolchildren in Columbus, Ohio, will be offered lessons on television, radio and in newspapers while their schools are closed for the next month because of a natural gas shortage. High school seniors and juniors will be invited to Ohio State University, and recreation officials will offer such courses as "outdoor survival." Regular television programs will be canceled four hours daily on WBNS-TV to make room for the lessons. [New York Times]
- Moderating temperatures are allowing many people in New York and New Jersey to return to work this week, but widespread unemployment elsewhere because of the natural gas shortage is likely to continue for the rest of the winter, possibly into the spring, according to industry and government officials. [New York Times]
- California made a significant change in the way the state government will work with the swearing-in by Gov. Jerry Brown of 60 new members he appointed to state regulatory boards that control licensed professions and occupations. None of the new members, who have a wide range of background and expertise in related fields, are certified in the occupation they will help administer. They will be "lobbyists for the people,'' the Governor said. [New York Times]
- One of the still-to-be-confirmed appointees to the President's three-man Council of Economic Advisers is William Nordhaus, a Yale professor, who will be responsible for international economics. He has had little experience in the field, which he concedes, but which is something few members of the council have had. Another appointee is Lyle Gramley, a senior Federal Reserve Board economist and an associate of Arthur Burns, the Federal Reserve's chairman, who sees no need for President Carter's economic stimulus program. They would serve under the council's chairman, Charles Schultze, who came from the Brookings Institution. [New York Times]
- Colleges and universities are moving quickly to improve their teaching of writing in the belief that there has been deterioration in the ability of students to write well. Cornell University has appointed a full-time dean for writing, the first institution to do so. The College Entrance Examination Board has announced that next fail it will reinstate a 20-minute essay in its English composition achievement test. Students themselves have asked for help, too. [New York Times]
- "Wholesale corruption" exists at ports throughout the country, sources close to an investigation by the Justice Department say. The corruption being investigated by the F.B.I. and the grand juries, according to the sources, involved "a majority" of the 30-member executive council of the International Longshoremen's Association, officers of I.L.A. locals and officials of shipping companies and other concerns doing business on the waterfront. [New York Times]
- The apparent suicide of Foster Parker, the 58-year-old president of Brown & Root of Houston, an international engineering and construction concern and the country's largest producer of offshore oil rigs, has caused serious managerial problems for his company. On Jan. 14, six days after Mr. Parker's death, his company announced that it had received a subpoena from a federal grand jury in New Orleans that is investigating the booming offshore equipment industry. [New York Times]
- The Liberal Party's 35-member policy committee voted unanimously to endorse as its candidates for Mayor of New York City, state Senator Roy Goodman of Manhattan, a Republican, and Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, a Democrat. Mr. Goodman welcomed the endorsement. Mr. Morgenthau declined it. [New York Times]
- Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's principal political opponents in the March 16 parliamentary elections held a rally at the same fairground in New Delhi a day after Mrs. Gandhi addressed a throng there. The crowd was large, more enthusiastic and more responsive than the one that heard Mrs. Gandhi. Jaya Prakash Narayan, who 19 months ago had called for a campaign of passive resistance against Mrs. Gandhi's government, said the future of democracy in India would be decided at the elections. He was accompanied by Jagjivan Ram, who resigned from Mrs. Gandhi's cabinet on Wednesday. He attacked the Prime Minister in personal terms. [New York Times]