News stories from Sunday March 19, 1978
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Extremely blunt talks between President Carter and Prime Minister Menachem Begin are expected to take place in Washington this week. Mr. Begin, accompanied by Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan, arrived in New York and will go to Washington tomorrow. The official talks will be held tomorrow and Wednesday. Administration officials made no effort to gloss over the differences on Middle East issues that have come between the administration and the Begin government.
Prime Minister Begin said that he had his own proposals for resolving the situation in southern Lebanon, but he disclosed no details while speaking to reporters at the Tel Aviv airport before departing for the United States. He did not sound enthusiastic about a United Nations Security Council proposal for a peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon.
[New York Times] - Chrysler shareholders will be asked at the annual meeting May 2 to approve an issue of 20 million shares of preferred stock and 40 million shares of common stock to finance capital improvement programs over the next five years. The preferred stock issue would be the first of its kind offered to the public by Chrysler. [New York Times]
- New York's dominance of trans-Atlantic air travel is expected by aviation analysts to diminish with the opening of 11 more American cities to international air traffic made possible by an agreement between Washington and London last week. Four regional airlines will begin international flights from the South, the West and the Middle West in coming weeks. [New York Times]
- Utility rates in Texas -- already among the highest in the nation -- will increase by at least $250 million a year by 1985 if the government agrees to a proposed railroad delivery price for coal from Wyoming. The coal will be used in the conversion of electrical generating plants from natural gas. The Texas state government is opposing the Burlington Northern Railroad's proposal to increase its coal freight rate to San Antonio from $11.94 to $18.23 a ton. The protest has been filed with the I.C.C. The outcome of the case is regarded as a test of the administration's coal conversion program. [New York Times]
- Disease has struck horse breeding in Kentucky at the height of the breeding season. Kentucky, moving to protect this multimillion dollar business, banned the movement of brooding mares between stud farms until March 28. The contagious infection, equine metritis, spread from England, Ireland and France through imported horses. The disease has been found in six stallions, and 66 mares might have it. [New York Times]
- Julian Bond plans to leave elective politics because "I'm at a level beyond which I cannot rise." The civil rights activist and Georgia state Senator said he would "love to be a United States Senator, but that's not realistic." Instead, he is negotiating for a job in television. [New York Times]
- France's government coalition won the second round of legislative elections, defeating a combination of Socialists and Communists. Returns from 423 contested constituencies -- 68 were decided by an absolute majority in the first round of voting last Sunday -- showed that surprisingly few seats were changing hands in the Assembly, and that the government might even exceed its majority. Independent projections by two companies gave the government about 290 seats, a margin of about 70 over the combined left. [New York Times]
- A quarrel over salvage money and delays in informing the French navy that the ship was in trouble may have led to the world's worst oil tanker spill, French officials said. There was growing fear that the Amoco Cadiz, which went ashore off Brittany's north coast on Thursday, spilling some 100,000 tons of crude oil into the sea, may break up in heavy seas expected next week and lose even more oil. [New York Times]
- The Israeli army took control of practically all of Lebanon south of the Litani River, moving beyond what the government had said would be a six-mile security belt. A resolution calling for Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon was adopted by the Security Council of the United Nations, which then moved to set up a 4,000-man United Nations peacekeeping force in the border area. The resolution, proposed by the United States, was approved by a vote of 12 to 0. The Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia abstained and China did not participate. [New York Times]
- Italy will go ahead with the trial in Turin of leading members of the Red Brigades, even though other members of the terrorist group are holding former Prime Minister Aldo Moro hostage and demanding that the government release their cohorts in return for his release. The terrorists said they would try Mr. Moro in a "people's court." Meanwhile, thousands of policemen and troops searched for the former Prime Minister. [New York Times]