News stories from Sunday September 3, 1978

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

An Air Rhodesia airliner with 56 persons aboard disappeared on a domestic flight after sending a distress signal indicating its two starboard engines had failed, the airline said. The plane was en route from Kariba, in northwestern Rhodesia, to Salisbury. A military spokesman said the aircraft's disappearance was "not at the moment a military matter." [Chicago Tribune] America's labor leaders and their allies hailed Labor Day with reminders of past union victories, but warned of dangers threatening the lot of working people. AFL-CIO president George Meany, in his annual Labor Day message, said workers have "a special pride" in knowing their country "not only sets aside a day in their honor, but has also given them the opportunity to improve their working and living conditions through the democratic process." However, Douglas Fraser, United Auto Workers president, and David Fitzmaurice, president of the International Union of Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers, complained of the influence of business on society. [Chicago Tribune] The Full Employment Action Council, a coalition of 82 labor and civil rights groups, announced a major push for the Humphrey-Hawkins full employment bill. The bill would set an "interim" goal to reduce the national unemployment rate to 4 percent by 1983, 3 percent for those 20 and older. It also would set up new policy-making machinery under which the President, Congress, and the Federal Reserve System would seek eventual full employment. [Chicago Tribune] Money can be hazardous to children, according to a government study. At least 9,017 money-related injuries were recorded in 1976 to children less than 10 years old. More than 40,000 children suffer injuries associated with small objects each year, usually by choking on objects such as balloons, according to the agency's study. [Chicago Tribune] William Freund, chief economist at the New York Stock Exchange, says inflation is the stock market's chief nemesis. "A slowdown in inflation, I believe, would work wonders for the stock market," he said. He adds: "There's no question that more favorable tax legislation would get people back into the market." In the past, rising interest rates and the prospect of an economic slowdown would send stock prices tumbling, but now Wall Street prefers an outlook for slow growth because it will remove some inflationary pressure, the economist says. [Chicago Tribune] About 1,500 people were feared swept away in the swirling waters of the flooded Kangsabati River in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal, the Press Trust of India news agency reported. A correspondent also quoted officials in Midnapore district as sailing that more than 1,000 people were injured when hundreds of houses collapsed. About 300,000 people have been affected by the floods. Officials said standing crops worth $12.5 million were destroyed. [Chicago Tribune] West Germany and parts of four neighboring countries -- France, Switzerland, Austria, and East Germany -- were shaken by an earthquake recorded at between 5 and 7.5 on the Richter scale. Fifteen injuries were reported, but no deaths. The quake was centered in the Black Forest near the Rhine and did extensive damage to Hohenzollern Castle, ancestral home of the last kaisers. [Chicago Tribune] Soviet cosmonaut Valera Bykovsky and Sigmund Jaehn, the first East German to be sent into space by the Soviets in their Intercosmos cooperation program, returned to Earth after a week's visit to the orbiting Salyut G space lab. Bykovsky and Jaehn returned in a Soyuz vehicle already attached to the lab, leaving behind their own Soyuz 31 and the supplies it contains for Alexander Ivanchenkov and Vladimir Kovalenok, who have been orbiting in the lab for nearly 80 days. [Chicago Tribune] Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, arriving in New York City on his way to the Camp David summit, said he wants "peace more than anything on Earth," and pledged "every possible endeavor" to solve differences in the Middle East. Begin is being accompanied by Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan and Defense Minister Ezer Weizman for the meeting Wednesday with President Carter. [Chicago Tribune]