News stories from Saturday November 26, 1977

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

The family is under challenge in an age of transition. New standards and values are causing confusion and sending repercussions throughout American society, from children's games to education, courtship and the labor market. The dynamic trends include a doubling of the divorce rate in the last 10 years, along with an increase by more than a third in the number of households headed by women. More than half of all mothers with school-age children now work outside the home. [New York Times] Alternatives to abortion are only "suicide, motherhood and, some would add, madness," the head of the Carter administration's study group on such alternatives said before disbanding the group. In a memorandum, Connie Downey, leader of the panel, said it did not have the direction, scope, authority or funds needed to resolve the problems of unwanted pregnancies. [New York Times] Shoplifting is being organized into what is estimated to be a $150-million-a-year business around the country. The authorities and private detectives say that well over a thousand South Americans -- Chileans, Colombians and Peruvians -- devote full time to shoplifting, netting as much as $1,000 each in a four-hour "working day." Most of the South Americans operate in the New York area, but they have also been stealing in other large cities. [New York Times] Egypt invited all parties to the Middle East conflict -- including Israel, the United States and the Soviet Union -- to send representatives to Cairo for preparatory talks designed to clear obstacles to a peace conference in Geneva. In a major speech to the Egyptian Parliament, President Anwar Sadat announced that Egypt was ready to act as host to the meeting as soon as next Saturday. He said he was proposing the Cairo conference to resolve procedural differences "so that we do not go to the Geneva conference and discuss matters for years." [New York Times] Israel promptly accepted President Sadat's invitation to take part in a Cairo conference for planning substantive Geneva peace talks. The wording of Israel's brief response seemed to imply that acceptance of the invitation was never in doubt.Washington reacted with unusual caution to Egypt's invitation. The Carter administration, declining to elaborate, replied to inquiries that "we will be consulting with those involved to determine their willingness to meet in Cairo to prepare for the Geneva conference." Syria rejected a Cairo conference and said it would attend instead an Arab meeting on Thursday in Tripoli, Libya, to counter President Sadat's policies. The statements by Syria's Foreign Minister to reporters represented the strongest condemnation yet by Damascus of Egypt's peace moves and was interpreted as tantamount to a rupture in relations between the two countries. [New York Times] Talks on a Rhodesian settlement based on universal adult suffrage were agreed to by Bishop Abel Muzorewa, a key black leader. But he said that his party must first be certain that Prime Minister Ian Smith, in proposing the talks, was "genuine in his offer" to negotiate "the mechanics of the transfer of power from the minority to the majority on the basis of one person, one vote." [New York Times] Rumania is seething with economic and political tensions. Reports of demonstrations and strikes by tens of thousands of miners three months ago in the remote Jiu Valley have just begun to leak out, and more than 2,000 government troops are patrolling the region. Rumanian officials have expressed concern that the disturbances could become widespread. [New York Times]