News stories from Friday August 6, 1982

Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:

Nearly 11 million Americans are unemployed. The nation's jobless rate in July rose three tenths of a percentage point to 9.8 percent of the labor force, a postwar record. The Labor Department reported that the number of people working held steady at 99,732,000 last month, partly as a result of an increase in the number of service jobs. But 360,000 more people were unemployed than in June, bringing to 10,790,000 the number of those without jobs and still looking for work. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that there 1.5 million "discouraged workers" who had given up seeking jobs and thus were not included in the unemployment figure. [New York Times] The Iron Range is in deep depression. The mining region in Northern Minnesota that provided the basic iron ore for the nation's industrial growth is almost dormant, and nearly all of the area's 12,000 mine workers have been laid off. Unlike other parts of the country, where people can sometimes find other work, the Iron Range often offers no other employment opportunities. [New York Times] Gulf Oil dropped efforts to buy the Cities Service Company for about $5 billion. It said antitrust objections from the Federal Trade Commission was the principal reason. [New York Times] The Reagans' Los Angeles home figures in the indictment of two Southern California businessmen who have been charged with fraud in their almost successful attempts to buy the property. A federal grand jury charged that the two businessmen falsified escrow papers in order to obtain a loan larger than the $1.03 million purchase price. [New York Times] The death penalty was restored in New Jersey -- the 37th state to do so. The bill, which permits the death sentence for certain types of murder, was signed by Governor Kean. It does not specify the manner of execution. But Mr. Kean said he would ask the legislature to enact a bill permitting a lethal injection, which he said was the "'most humane form" of capital punishment. [New York Times] A pact on the P.L.O.'s withdrawal from Lebanon has been agreed on by the organization and the special United States envoy, Philip Habib, senior Lebanese officials said. Agreement was reached on all major points, they said, but Syria, Jordan and Egypt had yet to agree formally to accept the guerrillas. The officials said that Mr. Habib hoped to complete the final details by Sunday, when he wants to have a meeting of French, American and Lebanese military specialists to set the day the withdrawal would begin. [New York Times] Despite reports of progress in talks on a Palestinian withdrawal from Lebanon, United States officials stressed that the reluctance of Arab governments to accept substantial numbers of the guerrillas remained a critical problem. They said that the withdrawal could take place "within a week," but there were three immediate problems still to be resolved. These were the timing of the withdrawal of the 6,000 guerrillas in west Beirut, the final destination of the guerrillas and assurances of the maintenance of a cease-fire. [New York Times] China's top female tennis player, who is seeking political asylum in the United States after taking part in a tournament in California, may be doing so because she had been politically attacked in China for being too Westernized and bourgeois. Players from Taiwan who talked to the champion, Hu Na, who is 19 years old, said she complained that when she returned from several earlier tours abroad she had been forced to undergo self-criticism sessions. [New York Times] Italy's ruling coalition was weakened seriously by the withdrawal of the small but powerful Socialist Party, and a new government is expected to be formed. Prime Minister Giovanni Spadolini called a cabinet meeting tomorrow at which he is expected to announce the resignation of his government. The issue that led to the Socialist withdrawal was the rejection by the Chamber of Deputies of a decree that would have eliminated tax privileges for oil companies. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 784.34 (-11.51, -1.45%)
S&P Composite: 103.71 (-1.45, -1.38%)
Arms Index: 2.08

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	448	7.58
Declines	970	34.19
Unchanged	424	6.89
Total Volume		48.66

* in millions of shares

Arms Index is the ratio of volume per declining issue to volume per advancing issue; a figure below 1.0 is bullish.

Market Index Trends
Date	DJIA	S&P	Volume*
August 5, 1982	795.85	105.16	54.69
August 4, 1982	803.46	106.14	53.44
August 3, 1982	816.40	107.83	60.48
August 2, 1982	822.11	108.98	53.48
July 30, 1982	808.60	107.09	39.27
July 29, 1982	812.21	107.72	55.67
July 28, 1982	811.83	107.73	53.84
July 27, 1982	822.77	109.43	45.73
July 26, 1982	825.44	110.36	37.73
July 23, 1982	830.57	111.17	47.28