News stories from Saturday July 16, 1977

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

Ignoring a congressional mandate, the administration has adopted a policy that has excluded thousands of smaller communities from the $4 billion public works job program. This has caused a new dispute between the President and lawmakers, some of whom have encouraged communities in their districts to take legal action to compel the administration to comply with the intent of Congress. [New York Times] Outraged storekeepers told Mayor Beame that he should have requested the National Guard during the looting in the New York City power blackout last week. They met the Mayor, who, with a group of Congressmen, made a tour of the city to assess the harm that had been done. In the meantime, more than half of the nearly 3,800 people arrested for looting and arson were still being held in courthouse detention pens and police station lockups. The Legal Aid Society, the New York Civil Liberties Union and other groups said that cells were desperately overcrowded and that the prisoners lacked necessities. [New York Times] Consolidated Edison announced that it was immediately taking a series of steps to "reduce the possibility" of further extensive power failures and to help restore power more quickly if another one occurred. The measures, announced by the company's president, Arthur Hauspurg, include the staffing of hitherto unmanned facilities, increased staff at the company's energy control center, revised emergency and precautionary procedures and additional stand-by equipment. [New York Times] Homosexuals are generally being accepted by the majority of the population, according to checks in various cities by the New York Times. The findings seemed to be supported by the most recent Gallup Poll, which shows that a majority of Americans approve of equal job rights for homosexuals. Nevertheless, a big majority disapproved of homosexuals in specific professions, such as the clergy and elementary school teachings. [New York Times] Poverty is far less persistent but much more pervasive in American life that has been apparent to most people, according to a study conducted over the last decade by University of Michigan economists. A major finding was that poverty is not always a permanent situation. Only one in five people considered poor in 1975 were poor in all of the nine years they were interviewed by the researchers. [New York Times] No existing aircraft imminently threatens the atmosphere's protective ozone layer, according to the head of the Federal Aviation Administration's high altitude pollution staff, Anthony Broderick. His conclusions differ sharply from those of earlier American, British and French studies, including the multimillion-dollar Climatic Impact Assessment Program conducted under the Department of Transportation. [New York Times] North Korea gave the United States the bodies of the three American crewmen shot down in an Army helicopter over North Korea last Thursday, and released a fourth crewman who had been captured. The return of the bodies and the release of Chief Warrant Officer Glenn Schwanke followed negotiations with United States representatives in the truce area of Panmunjom. [New York Times] An agreement on preliminary steps for a new Geneva peace conference on the Middle East is expected by high-ranking administration officials from the talks this week between President Carter and Prime Minister Menachem Begin of Israel. The officials said they were sure that there would be substantial differences in views, but that there would be no stalemate. [New York Times]