News stories from Sunday February 5, 1978
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- A compromise on natural gas pricing appeared to be emerging from Senate energy conferees. A decision one way or the other is expected by the middle of the week by congressional and federal officials, The discussions are now concerned with a new gas pricing formula proposed by Senator Henry Jackson, the Senate conference delegation's chairman. His proposal calls for continued regulation of gas prices until Jan. 1, 1985, when regulation would end. [New York Times]
- Griffin Bell ran into many problems in the Department of Justice when he became Attorney General a little more than a year ago and most were administrative ones -- he heard about them from staff members at a department meeting in December. Since then, Mr. Bell's problems have been complicated by the controversy over the dismissal of David Marston, the United States Attorney in Philadelphia. [New York Times]
- All radioactive material has been removed from one of the sites in northern Canada where parts of the disintegrating Soviet satellite, Cosmos 954, fell on Jan. 24. Two scientists from Canada's Atomic Energy Control Board searching at Great Slave Lake in the Northwest Territories, picked up the "hottest" satellite debris that has been discovered so far. They were exposed to radiation, but it was less than that from a chest X-ray. [New York Times]
- The Republican National Committee has budgeted nearly $2 million to help elect state legislators around the country. The Democrats have no comparable plans. Bill Brock, the committee's chairman, said the $1.75 million drive had two purposes -- to thwart Democratic gerrymandering after the 1980 census and to rebuild the Republican candidate base. [New York Times]
- The kidnapping of 11-year-old Marci Klein on Friday, police officials said, was a badly planned, virtually spur-of-the-moment operation that relied heavily on pretense and the close cooperation of two of the three alleged kidnappers who did not know each other's name. Two men and the child's former baby sitter were arraigned on first degree kidnapping charges. Bail of $100,000 was ordered for each man, and $50,000 for the woman. [New York Times]
- Airlines are cutting fares and offering a profusion of discounts in an attempt to improve their narrow profit margins. The rapid growth of discounts in the last several months mainly reflects an intensifying struggle by transcontinental carriers to attract new passengers to their half-filled flights. The rate cutting also has been fostered, airline analysts and executives say, by a newly permissive attitude at the C.A.B. under Alfred Kahn, its chairman, and by the prospect of legislation bringing about deregulation. [New York Times]
- President Carter and President Anwar Sadat said they had agreed to make "unremitting efforts" to get the stalled Middle East negotiations going again. They pledged to do all they could to achieve "tangible results and the broadening of negotiations looking toward the realization of a comprehensive settlement." [New York Times]
- A controversial new Israeli community at Shiloh on the West Bank is an "archeological dig" and not a new settlement, the Cabinet Secretary, Aryeh Naor, said. Press reports about Israel's intentions for Shiloh were incorrect, he said. There are about 40 yeshiva students and 10 families at Shiloh, members of the strongly nationalistic Faith Bloc. Mr. Naor said that the Israelis at Shiloh had received a permit from the military governor only for excavation work. [New York Times]
- Vietnam's chief delegate to the United Nations will return home on orders from Hanoi. Until receiving the order today he had been saying that he would defy a United States expulsion order. Dinh Ba Thi was ordered to leave the United Slates Friday after a federal grand jury named him in an espionage case involving an American and another Vietnamese. [New York Times]
- Reports of torture in the Philippines and "severe intrusion on individual rights" will not interfere with American plans to maintain military aid to the Philippines, according to a State Department report. Some officials contend privately that the credibility of the administration's human rights program may be jeopardized by keeping up the aid to the Philippines and other countries charged by the State Department with human rights violations. [New York Times]
- A steel town is dying in West Germany. Once a prosperous town of 55,000, Neunkirchen now has a 10 percent unemployment rate, more than twice the national average. Last year alone, 900 steelworkers were laid off and 400 more are due to go this year. The town's troubles reflect a decline in West German steel production, off 27 percent since 1974. West German steel producers, like United States manufacturers, have complained that they have been hurt by increased price competition with Japan and the decline in world shipbuilding. [New York Times]