Subscribers to the Lawrence Daily Journal-World were reading daily reports from the Los Angeles courtroom where Charles M. Manson and three of his followers were on trial for the Tate and La Bianca murders, which had occurred almost a year previously. Manson was claiming that the Beatles were “speaking to him across the ocean” in their song “Helter Skelter,” and that he had been intending to incite a race war.

A report from a Washington physician said that about only about one percent of elementary school students were receiving drugs to calm their disruptive behavior. She explained that the drugs, Dexedrine or Ritalin, were only used long enough to calm their behavior, no longer than three or four years, and that they were safe and nonaddictive.

More hot and rainless weather was in store for drought-stricken Lawrence. The area was two inches below normal rainfall, and federal disaster aid was being sought.