News stories from Wednesday December 24, 1980

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

The hostages prepared for Christmas, their second in captivity, as Iranian officials appeared undecided how to handle the American rebuff to their latest proposal. The prospect of trying the hostages as "spies" has resurfaced in recent days, following the Carter administration's rejection of a plan to exchange the 52 hostages for $24 billion in "guarantees."Ronald Reagan broke his silence on the recent negotiations with Iran to release the 52 hostages, saying the Iranian captors were "nothing better than criminals and kidnappers." The President- elect made his comments at a time when Carter administration officials have suggested that, with their own efforts to release the hostages at an impasse, they are trying to insure that Mr. Reagan will have as many options as possible when he takes office. [New York Times] An Algerian delegation is expected to arrive in Washington on Sunday to discuss the form the official American response to Iran's latest demands should take. The United States, which asked Algeria to send its three-member team of intermediaries, has already publicly rejected Iran's demand that $24 billion be deposited in Algeria, calling it unreasonable, but Washington is wary of sending too peremptory an official rejection to Iran. [New York Times] An adviser to Mr. Reagan is controlled by organized crime figures, according to Aladena Fratianno, an admitted Mafia murderer turned government witness. Mr. Fratianno said in a new book that Jackie Presser, an official of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters who was appointed as a Reagan labor adviser, operated under the control of organized crime. [New York Times] Doubt was cast on vetoes by the Congress of executive branch actions in a decision by a United States appeals court. President Carter called the decision, which throws into question hundreds of laws providing for such vetoes, "profoundly significant," and said he would issue an executive order instructing government departments to ignore such vetoes. [New York Times] A Census Bureau request was granted by Associate Justice Potter Stewart for a temporary stay of an order by a federal court in Detroit that barred the final certification of the 1980 census figures. But the Census Bureau's plan to transmit the final state-by-state count to Congress by the statutory deadline next Wednesday nonetheless remained clouded by another ruling made by a federal judge in New York City.New York state's population dropped by 4.2 percent over the last 10 years, according to figures released by the Census Bureau. A computer analysis indicated this would mean a loss of five of the state's 39 seats in the House of Representatives. The bureau also released data showing that the population in New York City has declined by 11.1 percent since the 1970 census. [New York Times] Missouri may be sued now that its voluntary school desegration plan for St. Louis and neighboring school districts has been rejected by a federal judge. The Justice Department, the St. Louis Board of Education and the N.A.A.C.P. are each weighing the merits of suing the state to force officials to develop a strong desegregation plan that would include St. Louis and the 23 other school districts in St. Louis County. [New York Times] A motion for a mistrial was denied to the defense by the judge in the murder trial of Jean Harris. While the judge said he saw "no bad faith whatsoever" in the prosecution's failure to turn over police photographs, some of which had never been printed, he ordered that all of the photographs in police custody be made available to the defense. [New York Times] Chairman Mao's widow said she was innocent of charges of persecuting large numbers of Communist Party officials during the Cultural Revolution because everything she had done was at Mao's order. Jiang Qing also argued that her attacks on some officials as counter-revolutionaries were substantiated by material in party files. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 963.05 (+4.77, +0.50%)
S&P Composite: 135.88 (+0.88, +0.65%)
Arms Index: 0.71

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	947	16.67
Declines	637	7.97
Unchanged	383	4.85
Total Volume		29.49

* 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*
December 23, 1980	958.28	135.00	55.25
December 22, 1980	958.79	135.78	51.96
December 19, 1980	937.20	133.70	50.67
December 18, 1980	930.20	133.00	69.57
December 17, 1980	928.50	132.89	50.81
December 16, 1980	918.09	130.60	41.62
December 15, 1980	911.60	129.45	39.69
December 12, 1980	917.15	129.23	39.53
December 11, 1980	908.45	127.36	60.24
December 10, 1980	916.21	128.26	49.31