News stories from Saturday January 14, 1978
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Senator Hubert Humphrey's body lay in state in the Capitol Rotunda in Washington. He died of cancer Friday night at his home in Waverly, Minn., at the age of 60. President Carter described Mr. Humphrey as one of those rare persons who "help us see a better vision of what we can become." Mr. Carter will attend a memorial service tomorrow morning in the Rotunda. Former President Richard Nixon, who narrowly defeated Mr. Humphrey for the presidency in 1968, will also attend in his first appearance in Washington since his resignation in August 1974. [New York Times]
- Secretary of State Cyrus Vance postponed at the last minute his departure for Jerusalem because Egyptian and Israeli officials had failed to agree on how to describe the Palestinian issue in the agenda for the meeting of foreign ministers that was due to begin Monday. A State Department spokesman said Mr. Vance wanted to discuss only substantive issues in Jerusalem. The spokesman said Mr. Vance was ready to leave Sunday if the differences could be worked out. [New York Times]
- President Anwar Sadat was pessimistic about the prospects for a Middle East settlement in an interview with a Cairo magazine. He said he had "absolutely no hope" that the political meeting in Jerusalem on Monday would produce a declaration of principles for a peace settlement, and that Egypt would have to adopt another strategy. Mr. Sadat also spoke harshly of the Israelis, including Prime Minister Menachem Begin. He called the Israelis "stiff-necked" and "clever merchants" who had failed to grasp the significance of his peace initiative. [New York Times]
- Off-the-books jobs -- with no record of wages or taxes -- are held by many people. They may cost the government billions of dollars in uncollected taxes and in social welfare benefits. They may also distort unemployment and income figures, which are used to determine national economic policy. The off-the-books jobs mean, some economists say, that unemployment figures are overstated, and that the poor, and middle income and well-to-do people earn more money than statistics indicate. [New York Times]
- Miami has been rescued from an economic decline by Latin American investments. Money is pouring in from the Caribbean region and countries farther away, turning Miami into a banking and shopping center for Latin Americans. Much of the foreign cash is going into southern Florida real estate investments. [New York Times]