News stories from Friday May 19, 1978

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

A 15-cent first-class stamp, effective May 29, was approved by the United States Postal Service's Board of Governors. The governors accepted without comment a series of postal rate increases recommended recently by the Postal Rate Commission, an independent panel, that also will affect second-class newspaper and magazine mail and fourth-class parcels. [New York Times] Slot machines at the Resorts International Hotel-Casino in Atlantic City were put through a dress rehearsal for the casino's formal opening next Friday. The casino held practice sessions with several thousand specially invited guests. Most of the machines take silver dollars. [New York Times] At least 17 senators are millionaires, but there are other senators who have no substantial holdings except their homes and pension assets, according to financial disclosure reports. Among the richest senators are Edward Kennedy, John Danforth, John Heinz and Claiborne Pell. No substantial assets, besides their homes and pension contributions, were reported by Paul Sarbanes, John Durkin, Gary Hart and John Tower. Robert Byrd, the majority leader, reported no assets except his house, valued at $135,000, and $81,710 in savings accounts. [New York Times] Over 100 million acres of Alaska -- an area larger in total than California -- would have protected status under a bill passed by the House, 277 to 31. This 124.6 million acres, added to the 45.7 acres already protected from exploitation, would place nearly half of the nation's largest state under government control. [New York Times] Margaret Costanza is battling to save her White House office. Miss Costanza, a $56,000-a-year presidential assistant, has been in charge of public liaison, but those duties have been given to Anne Wexler, a new member of the White House staff, and Miss Costanza, a former Mayor of Rochester, N.Y., has been asked to concentrate on women's issues. Hamilton Jordan, the President's top aide, has asked Miss Costanza to move to the Executive Office Building so his new assistant, Tim Kraft, can occupy her office. [New York Times] France sent 400 paratroopers to Zaire to rescue foreigners trapped behind rebel lines in the Kolwezi area, and the troops reported that they had found the bodies of 44 Europeans, apparently shot to death by the rebels. Belgium announced that it was sending a paratroop force to Kolwezi to hold the airport and to evacuate the area's foreign residents, who are mainly Belgians. The Belgian Prime Minister said that a number of whites had been captured and taken to Angola and Zambia.The United States provided 18 Air Force C-141 transport planes to aid the French and Belgian rescue missions in Zaire, the White House said, to demonstrate a readiness to counter Soviet and Cuban military involvement in Africa. The State Department asserted that Cuba had trained Katangan invaders of Zaire and that the invaders were armed with Cuban-supplied Soviet weapons. [New York Times] Tokyo's new International Airport formally opened in ceremonies guarded by 13,000 riot policemen. Left-wing students opposed to the $2.9 billion airport's construction have attempted to prevent its opening. The radicals said they would be out in full strength. [New York Times] An apartment in Rome had been a meeting place of the Red Brigades, the police said. The owner of the apartment in the building at 19 Via Palombini was arrested Thursday with nine other persons suspected of being members of the terrorists group or having associations with it. The police also said they had information about two other operations centers of the Brigades in Rome, one in Rome University, and the other within the national telephone company. [New York Times] Two Soviet dissidents, both from Soviet Georgia, were sentenced to three years imprisonment in addition to two years of Siberian exile for "anti-Soviet agitation." Zviad Gamsakhurdia, a writer advocated Georgia's secession, and Merab Kostava, a musicologist who helped him organize a committee to monitor the government's fulfillment of human rights pledges, pleaded guilty. [New York Times] A verdict of guilty was delivered against a former official of the United States Information Agency and a Vietnamese graduate student accused of spying for Vietnam. Ronald Humphrey, who had been with the U.S.I.A., and David Truong, the student, face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment on their conviction of espionage and on all but one of the other charges brought by the government. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 846.85 (-4.07, -0.48%)
S&P Composite: 98.12 (-0.50, -0.51%)
Arms Index: 0.82

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	580	13.20
Declines	893	16.69
Unchanged	433	4.47
Total Volume		34.36

* 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*
May 18, 1978	850.92	98.62	42.27
May 17, 1978	858.37	99.60	45.49
May 16, 1978	854.30	99.35	48.17
May 15, 1978	846.76	98.76	33.93
May 12, 1978	840.70	98.07	46.60
May 11, 1978	834.20	97.20	36.64
May 10, 1978	822.16	95.92	33.33
May 9, 1978	822.07	95.90	30.86
May 8, 1978	824.58	96.19	34.68
May 5, 1978	829.09	96.53	42.68