WMAQ Channel 5 - NewsCenter5 Update, Break & Today Excerpt (1975)

Here's a NewsCenter5 update on WMAQ Channel 5 anchored by Royal Kennedy, followed by a commercial break and the first two minutes of the second half-hour of the Today show, featuring Jim Hartz, Barbara Walters and Lew Wood. Includes:

Royal Kennedy reporting the following local items:

- Tail end of story on Illinois primary

- Chicago Board of Election Commissioners investigating charges that Alderman Tyrone Kenner's petition contained 50 signatures from the same person - one of his precinct workers, Mrs. Manny Walker

- State Board of Elections to hear objections next Monday to petitions of two people (67-year-old Frank Rinaldo(sp?) and Collinsville lawyer Dakin Williams) seeking nominations for next year's Illinois gubernatorial election, over allegations of forged signatures

- Small Business Administration says Illinois businesses are short of inventory because of unexpected Christmas season buying boom

- Over a million filled the Loop area shopping districts of State Street and North Michigan on the 22nd for holiday shopping, with traffic so heavy at one point that six policemen were stationed at State and Madison, and the city's eight downtown parking garages were filled to capacity; the new Water Tower place boosted sales along North Michigan Avenue 40% over the previous year

- A reminder that January and February income tax return filing will ensure refunds in 4-5 weeks, according to IRS; delayed filing until March or April will lead to filers getting refunds 8 weeks later

- Two 18-year-old Chicago youths indicted by a Cook County grand jury on charges of possessing nearly $1 million worth of Mexican heroin

- Evanston Mayor Edgar Vanneman vetoes ordinance that would have established a Police Review Commission

- Chicago Department of Consumer Sales investigating whether cab drivers are receiving kickbacks from massage parlors and bars for delivering customers to their doors

- Four Kankakee area men plead guilty in Federal court to firearms violations in connection with a ring that distributed sawed-off shotguns

- Still no suspects in double murder on Elm Street three weeks ago; survivor of hammer attack still too incoherent to speak with police

Brief Chicago area forecast through the next day, with current temperature readings

Royal then ends the local news update by wishing everybody a good day

NewsCenter5 slide with Today show return announcement (voiceover by Henry Cooke)

Station ID/PSA for CARE Chicago - "Holiday Giving" (voiceover by Henry Cooke)

Commercial: Karoll's Red Hanger Shops - "When You Think of Christmas, Think of Karoll's"

Commercial: Hollands Jewelers ("Our 65th Year") - "Diamonds - A Gift Worth Giving"

WMAQ Station ID with illustrations of Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, set to a sped-up orchestral rendition of the song of the same name

Title sequence for Today show with long shot of set

Jim Hartz previews an upcoming segment with Dr. Murray Feingold of Tufts New England Medical Center on the issue of genetic life-and-death decisions for parents with respect to spotting disease and deformations in unborn babies

Barbara Walters previews a discussion on the danger of small private colleges disappearing despite an increase in enrollment, and an interview with the president of one such college

Jim introduces Lew Wood (who replaced Frank Blair in the news desk earlier in the year), who reads the following items:

- 41 hostages (including top Arab oil ministers) freed in Algiers, after being taken captive at an OPEC oil meeting in Vienna

- President Ford heading to Vail, Colorado for a week-long vacation including skiing before returning to Washington December 30th; the previous night, he signed an energy bill and announced his intention to veto a bill expanding picketing rights of construction workers; Labor Secretary John Dunlop threatens to resign over this (Wood cites NBC's Irving R. Levine in that last part)

- Former Manson family member Sandra Good to be arraigned on charges of sending death threats by mail to various government and business leaders; she had shared an apartment with would-be Ford assassin Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme

- New Jersey Teamsters official Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano pleads innocent to charges relating to a loan and kickback scheme involving union pension funds; he had been questioned by a grand jury in September in connection with the disappearance of former Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa (tape cuts out in middle of this report)

This aired on local Chicago TV on Tuesday, December 23rd 1975 between 7:26am and 7:32am.

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