News stories from Saturday February 5, 1977
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Four separate investigations were begun into the collision of two elevated trains in Chicago Friday evening in which four cars leaped the tracks, two of them falling 30 feet to the street. Eleven persons were killed and more than 180 injured. It appeared that the accident was caused by "man failure." The Chicago Transit Authority surmised that its $25 million automatic safety system might have been neutralized as the motorman of a crowded train "nudged" it around a sharp curve into another train that had stopped. High speed apparently was not a factor in the crash. [New York Times]
- Lower fertility and mortality rates in the United States have combined to produce a population that, while increasing for many decades hence, will have a larger proportion of elderly people and a smaller proportion of the young. By the year 2030, the median age of Americans will be 37.3 years, or 8.4 years more than it is today, if the birth rate continues to decline. Government figures expected to be issued in a few weeks will show that fertility rates dropped in 1976 to a new low for the fifth consecutive year. [New York Times]
- The $1.9 billion project to improve passenger service through the Washington-to-Boston corridor will start this year as soon as "the snow breaks," Secretary of Transportation Brock Adams said, "even if I have to go out myself with a pick and shovel." He made his views known on a number of transportation issues in the first interview he has given since he took office. [New York Times]
- A $1 million fee and a guarantee of undetermined additional income was given by the National Broadcasting Company to Lothar Bock, a West German theatrical producer, for helping the network acquire the rights to the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow. NBC's total payment to the Russians, it was also learned from television sources, is $85 million -- $35 million for the television rights and $50 million for production and equipment costs. [New York Times]
- When the Soviet Union spurned an urgent high-level request by the Carter administration to reconsider its order expelling an Associated Press reporter, the United States ordered the expulsion of a Tass press agency correspondent who works in Washington. The State Department issued a statement that said: "We regret this course of events, which is a step backward from the objective of improving working conditions for journalists contained in the Helsinki Final Act, and from the more fundamental interests of promoting a freer flow of information." [New York Times]
- The Soviet Union's arms buildup in the last decade was aimed at catching up with, not surpassing, the United States, according to Moscow's leading specialist on American affairs. In an article in Pravda, Georgi Arbatov, director of the Institute of U.S.A. and Canada Studies, said that the two great powers had achieved approximate parity and that the Soviet Union had increased its military strength in response to the United States' weapons development. [New York Times]
- Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India began her re-election campaign with a speech at a huge outdoor rally in New Delhi in which she apologized for the "inconvenience and hardship" that some people suffered in the 19-month-old state of emergency. The Prime Minister delivered an impassioned defense of her party, the Congress Party, and ridiculed the Janata Party, which was formed through the merger of the four principal opposition parties. The election will be held March 16. [New York Times]