News stories from Saturday March 12, 1977
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Congress's Joint Economic Committee said in a report that President Carter's economic stimulus program for 1978 will not bring the unemployment rate down fast enough. The report, signed by the Democratic majority, recommended new tax reductions and job-creating programs that would increase the projected budget deficit by $11 billion. It was issued as Congress was preparing its first budget resolution on preliminary spending and revenue targets for the fiscal year 1978. The majority who signed the report indicated a distaste "for the continuation of such large deficits," but said the "alternative is worse." [New York Times]
- The Food and Drug Administration has been caught in the middle of conflicting demands. The overwhelming flow of new products coupled with demands for their total safety have not only put the F.D.A. at the center of controversy but also strained its role as moderator between the industries that develop products, and the consumers. The agency's proposed ban of saccharin and the controversy it has aroused is typical of its problems. [New York Times]
- A glass-sheathed, 73-story cylindrical structure, billed as the world's tallest hotel, will open Tuesday in Detroit. The Detroit Plaza Hotel is the centerpiece of the city's $337 million Renaissance Center, a cluster of skyscrapers that provide a spectacular contrast to the drab city, and may be a symbol of hope in Detroit and the aging Industrial Crescent that sweeps around the southern rim of the Great Lakes. [New York Times]
- President Carter met with the members of the commission he appointed on the eve of their departure for Vietnam and Laos to continue to search for about 2,500 American soldiers and civilians still missing in Southeast Asia. He was not optimistic about the mission's success and suggested that there might never be a final, complete accounting. He said that the commission's work, however, could provide a foundation for the eventual normalcy of relations with Vietnam. [New York Times]
- In the congregation at the Sabbath service at Washington's Temple Adas Israel were two women and a man who had been among the hostages held by Hanafi Moslems for 38 hours last week. Thanks were given for the hostages' release and prayers were said for Maurice Williams, a young black radio reporter who was shot to death by one of the Moslem gunmen. "Our cup of joy is diminished by his death," said Rabbi Stanley Rabinowitz. [New York Times]
- With the exception of Western European countries and a few others, human rights are violated in varying degrees by the 82 countries that receive some form of security aid from the United States, the State Department has told Congress. Individual reports on the 82 countries were given by the department to the Senate and House two weeks ago and were made public today by the Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee on foreign assistance. Reports on human rights in the countries receiving American aid were required under a new law enacted by Congress last year over the Ford administration's opposition on the ground that they would be regarded as an interference in other nations' domestic affairs. [New York Times]
- President Anwar Sadat vowed that Egypt would not allow a single inch of Arab territory to remain under Israeli occupation. He made the statement, flanked by Yasser Arafat and other Palestinian leaders, at the start of a crucial meeting of the Palestine National Congress in Cairo. The 290 members of the Congress applauded wildly. Many of them regarded President Sadat's pledge as an answer to President Carter, who last week made a distinction between Israel's future "legal boundaries" and forward "defense lines." [New York Times]