News stories from Saturday January 7, 1978

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

The N.A.A.C.P. wants two million new members to help fight the undermining of recent gains made by blacks. Benjamin Hooks, the association's executive director, told a conference of local chapter officials in New York to get that many new members, saying "You are not going to get the help from the white community that you once got." The 69-year-old association now has 400,000 members. Mr. Hooks told reporters that the "obvious signs of discrimination no longer confront us," but "there is a concerted and unified effort to roll back the meager progress that was made" in the 1960's and early 1970's. [New York Times] Connecticut plans to let 16-year-olds drop out of school, starting next September, but still earn high-school equivalency diplomas under a program approved by the State Department of Education. It thus becomes the first state in the Northeast to adopt the "early out" principle pioneered in California two years ago to cope with restlessness among older high school pupils. [New York Times] Alleged misuse of federal research funds is widespread in colleges and universities around the country, according to audits by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Careless bookkeeping is also common, the audits found. Congress provides the schools with $4.4 billion a year for scientific research. The government audits, concluded in 1976 and 1977, covered earlier periods in the 1970's. They were made public under the Freedom of Information Act through the efforts of a former researcher at Harvard. He wanted to know whether the abuses he had seen in the use of research funds at Harvard existed elsewhere. [New York Times] President Carter said the United States would endorse a limited-choice referendum for Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to help them determine their political future. The referendum would not include the choice of an independent Palestinian state, Mr. Carter said, but the Palestinians could vote on whether they would align themselves with Jordan or proceed with a plan for international administration of the two regions, occupied by Israel since 1967. The President suggested that the referendum proposal would bring broader Arab participation in the Egyptian-Israeli negotiations. [New York Times] France's Communist Party disclosed its strategy for the March elections at the opening of its national conference. The Communists will run hard against the Socialists in the first round of the elections, to regain their position as the country's dominant leftist party, which they have lost to the Socialists in recent years. The Communists will leave the door open for a possible coalition in the second round of voting a week later. The Communists, meanwhile, accused President Carter of "unacceptable interference" in French politics with his expression of concern in Paris Friday about an alliance between the two parties. [New York Times]