News stories from Sunday February 26, 1978

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

President Carter prayed with the rest of the congregation of Washington's First Baptist Church that the 160,000 striking coal miners would agree to the terms of Friday night's tentative settlement. Labor Secretary Ray Marshall, in a television interview, said this was "a hands-off time" for the government and that the decision was up to the miners. Arnold Miller, the United Mine Workers president, predicted that the miners would vote yes. [New York Times] A handwritten Textron memorandum uncovered by the Senate Banking Committee casts doubt on the testimony of at least one highly placed official of Bell Helicopter, a Textron division, who appeared before the committee during its investigation of $2.9 million in payments made by Bell to an Iranian sales agent. [New York Times] Domestic bank accounts in foreign currencies would be available to Americans under a petition the Bank of America, the nation's biggest bank, has filed with the Federal Reserve Board. The bank's request to offer credit and accept deposits in such currencies as Swiss francs and West German marks presents a problem for the central bank during its transition between chairmen. Approval could put further pressure on the dollar during a period of international monetary strain. [New York Times] Three separate societies -- white, poor black and middle-class black -- appear to have developed in the 10 years since the Kerner Commission warned that whites and blacks were moving toward two separate societies. But a lack of unanimity on almost any aspect of the tangled relationship between blacks and whites in America was also a finding in an informal survey in a number of cities where racial strife in the mid-1960's led to violence. Anything approaching black solidarity on basic issues, or even on assessments of social, economic and political progress, has disappeared. [New York Times] Booming business at mental health counseling centers on campuses reflects how heavily increased competition for grades, jobs and graduate school admission is weighing on college students. The centers, staffed by psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers, are now integral in helping them to cope with academic life and in recognizing the realities that await them in a world in which they may have to re-assess their educational and career goals. [New York Times] The Israeli cabinet decided to proceed with its controversial policy on the establishment of Israeli settlements in occupied Arab territory. The decision was announced after an eight-hour debate that began on Monday. There had been speculation that the government might freeze or alter its settlement policy to ease the strain it has caused with Washington. The cabinet statement said that it had been decided that there was no need at this time for any new decisions regarding the settlements or with respect to the current political situation. [New York Times] Peking's new commitment to rapid economic development, better living standards and a richer cultural life was outlined to China's National People's Congress by Hua Kuo-feng, chairman of the Chinese Communist Party. Officially, Mr. Hua reaffirmed China's allegiance to the "great banner of Chairman Mao," but he also stated the need for modernization to overcome China's backwardness and the necessity for foreign trade, a technological revolution and the use of what amount to material incentives to motivate China's work force. [New York Times] Moscow accused Washington of "premeditated distortion" in the State Department's assessment over the weekend of Soviet military aid to Ethiopia, which said that the aid had reached a scale that could impair Soviet-American relations. The Soviet response, reported by Tass, the official Soviet press agency, said that Moscow was providing assistance to the Ethiopian government to rebuff aggression from Somalia and that it supported an end to hostilities once Somali troops withdrew from Ethiopia. Any other interpretation, Tass said, was "premeditated distortion." [New York Times]