July 29, 1971

Sen and HR conf com agrees to appropriate $61.21-million for Natl Arts and Humanities Endowments in fiscal '72, thus doubling 71 allocations for both endowments; allocation is expected to be passed by both houses and signed by Nixon; conf agreement provides $29.75-million to arts, $28-million to humanities and $3.46-million for adm of both; many feel chances are good that Cong will approve $80-million for fiscal '73; arts endowment chmn N Hanks and humanities acting chmn W B Edgerton hail com action; note some plans for expanded programs

Repub Airport (Farmingdale, NY): MTA chmn Ronan announces plans for $27.5-million rail-air-bus-auto center at airport; plans detailed; map

NYC Consumer Affairs Comr Myerson discloses that 87% of 2,296 food items purchased by Consumer Affairs Dept at city's leading chain supermkts were short-weighted, news conf; illus; says there seems to be 'epidemic of short weight, short count and short measure going through the city', and that problem is costing consumers $17-million annually in overcharges; says of 2,296 pkgs selected by team of investigators in recent wks 1,998 turned out to weigh less than weight stated on label and none weighed more than listed weight; illus; she maintains merchants might be trying to make up for lost profits by deliberately short-weighting certain items, but notes most short weights are fault of food mfr or processor who originally labels item; says violations are 'petty larceny', and that dept will seek legis to allow posting of signs in windows of stores that are found to be persistent violators; says dept will pub wkly list of violators and might start bringing suits in civil ct; spokesman for supermkt chains says although short-weighting does occur because of human errors there was no intention on their part to cheat consumer; supermkts and some items found short-weighted listed

NYC Police Dept repts that P Rosillo, described by FBI as Colombo's bodyguard, is prime suspect in killing of J A Johnson; details

Connally and Shultz, discussing Govt rept that total budget outlays for fiscal '71 were $211.6-billion, emphasize that expenditures remained a little below full employment revenues, estimate of receipts if econ had been operating with 4% jobless rate