News stories from Sunday October 9, 1977
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Increased tax cuts for business have been proposed by Carter administration officials as part of a tax reform package that the President will ask of Congress, according to administration sources. The reason is increasing concern about the sluggish pace of investment. The overall tax cut over several years is now expected to exceed $20 billion rather than $17.2 billion tentatively set Sept. 2. Nearly all of the increase would aid business to spur investment, the sources indicated. [New York Times]
- Attorney General Griffin Bell said that the Justice Department was studying the possibility of an extension of the March 22, 1979 deadline for ratification of the equal rights amendment, which must be approved by three more states for its adoption. The measure to bar discrimination because of sex has been approved by 35 states, but recent setbacks have made many backers doubtful of its chances of winning ratification by the deadline set by Congress when it was proposed. [New York Times]
- Economic expansion will be slower next year than the 1977 rate, but growth will probably cease and the nation's economy will dip by late 1978 or 1979, according to a survey of business economists. The predictions, which accord basically with those of other business groups, were made by the National Association of Business Economists, which will convene tomorrow in Philadelphia. [New York Times]
- Gas producers and energy economists in Texas, who strongly support price deregulation, charge that the Carter administration has grossly exaggerated cost projections for unregulated new gas and has assumed incorrectly that there is not much natural gas left to be discovered. Producers assert that Mr. Carter's energy advisers have manipulated statistics in the administration's fight to retain federal price controls on natural gas. [New York Times]
- Sources of Howard Hughes's drugs, which may have been obtained illegally, will be sought by investigators who plan to take their inquiry before a federal grand jury with subpoena powers, persons familiar with the case said. About 10 to 15 close aides to the late reclusive billionaire, along with doctors who attended him, are the subjects of investigation, the sources said. [New York Times]
- Reforms in the regulatory system that affects virtually every aspect of American life have been approved in principle by President Carter. One provision would require all agencies to publish semiannual notices describing the areas in which new regulations were being weighed. Another would require agencies to make brief analyses of problems calling for major new rules, their economic impact and possible alternatives. [New York Times]
- A Lebanese monk was proclaimed a saint by Pope Paul VI. Sharbel Makhlouf, a hermit who died in 1898 at the age of 70, thus became the first Lebanese to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church. Celebrating a solemn high mass at St. Peter's Basilica, the Pontiff said that the hermetic vocation was once again gaining "a certain amount of favor," which now "seems very important to us."
Thousands of the faithful went to the rocky peak of Annaya on Mount Lebanon to pay homage to the peasant monk who was canonized in Rome. Many thousands had trudged the steep 17-mile road from the ancient port of Byblos. Religious fervor reached a peak when onlookers said they had seen the bronze statue of Saint Sharbel bless the crowd, after which several paralytics had risen and walked and a blind girl had regained her vision.
[New York Times] - Contrasting positions emerged when Israel's Foreign Minister, Moshe Dayan, and Ismail Fahmy of Egypt were interviewed separately on a television program. Mr. Dayan said Israel would walk out of any Middle East peace conference where Arab nations suggested creation of a Palestinian homeland, while Mr. Fahmy said that Israel should accept a Palestinian state as part of a peace agreement. [New York Times]