News stories from Saturday July 7, 1979
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Energy experts and President Carter will hold discussions at Camp David tomorrow, and they will be followed this week by economic officials and other consultants outside the administration to help with the energy and economic decisions that confront the President. Mr. Carter's aides are expected to submit an energy memorandum on Monday. They are said to disagree sharply on the question of decontrolling gasoline prices.
President Carter remains firmly against wage and price controls as an anti-inflation measure, a delegation of Governors said after talks with Mr. Carter at Camp David on energy and economic issues, but the group said he appeared to favor greater government authority to monitor oil company inventories and actions.
[New York Times] - The best weekend for motorists in weeks was shaping up in the New York metropolitan region as gasoline supplies increased and lines of cars waiting to fill up diminished to the vanishing point. Ailing resort areas picked up dramatically. However, gasoline distributors said additional allocations were needed later this month to prevent another shortage. Governor Carey, returning from a talks with President Carter at Camp David, said that he had urged Mr. Carter to change the gas allocation regulations immediately to give further relief to the metropolitan region. [New York Times]
- Mishandling of gasoline supplies appears to be more responsible for its shortage than a scarcity of crude oil, according to a New York Times assessment of petroleum data issued by the government and the industry. [New York Times]
- Enforcement of the bilingual election law is scant or nonexistent in parts of the Southwest and California, the Federal Election Commission has found in an investigation. Lack of compliance was found most common in Texas, whose Spanish-speaking population is second in size to California's. [New York Times]
- Ted Bundy's murder trial got under way in Miami, with opening statements by the attorneys for the prosecution and defense. The defendant is charged with the murder of two Florida State University sorority sisters. Judge Edward Cowart denied a defense motion that a television camera be barred from the court. [New York Times]
- The Nicaraguan leader's resignation is being delayed by stalled negotiations between the guerrilla-backed provisional government and the United States, diplomatic sources in Managua said. The United States is insisting on the addition of two political moderates to the five-member rebel junta. President Anastasio Somoza was said to have agreed to delay his resignation until a broadly-based government is ready to take over. [New York Times]
- China signed a U.S. trade pact in a ceremony in Peking and looked to congressional action to grant lower American tariffs. under most-favored-nation treatment. Ambassador Leonard Woodcock said that President Carter would soon submit the agreement to Congress for approval. The treaty is for three years and is renewable. It could double the volume of trade with China, American officials say. [New York Times]
- Vietnam blamed "United States imperialism" and China for the exodus of Indochinese from their countries in an official response to a charge by the Foreign Ministers of five Southeast Asia countries that Hanoi was responsible for the exodus. Hanoi said that it was ready to cooperate with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to arrange legal departures for Vietnamese but they would have to obtain permission. [New York Times]