News stories from Tuesday August 29, 1978
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Pope John Paul I has chosen to begin his reign with characteristic simplicity, declining the traditional enthronement and coronation with the papal triple crown. The Vatican said, instead, the Pope will celebrate a solemn mass outside St. Peter's Basilica at 6 p.m. Sunday to mark the beginning of his ministry as supreme pastor. More than 100 countries including the U.S. will send dignitaries to attend the ceremonies. [Chicago Tribune]
- The pace of inflation was slowed in July by a drop in food prices nationwide. The overall consumer price index went up nationally by 0.5 percent for an annual rate of 6 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. [Chicago Tribune]
- The Labor Department reported that almost 592,000 workers who are protected by federal wage and hour laws, were illegally underpaid by $105.1 million in the first 10 months of this fiscal year. During the same period of last year underpayments totaling $105.4 million were found due to 551,936 persons. An estimated 5.4 million workers are covered by the law which establishes an hourly minimum wage. [Chicago Tribune]
- Billions of federal dollars have had little impact on education, mainly because local officials didn't get involved and teachers weren't taught how to teach better, a Rand Corp. study says. The net return to the federal investment, the researchers said, "was the adoption of many innovations, the successful implementation of few, and the long-run continuation of still fewer." [Chicago Tribune]
- A man who wrote "the President will die Thursday" next to a picture of President Carter pasted on a hotel mirror in Idaho Falls, Idaho, is being sought by police and Secret Service agents. The man also reportedly knocked a maid unconscious with a gun and set fire to a mattress. The maid, Kathy Wagoner, said she was struck on the head after she spotted the message, written on the mirror with soap. She said the man, who spoke with an Eastern accent, told her, "You should not have walked in here." [Chicago Tribune]
- The stock market dropped for a third consecutive session. Brokers said concern about tightening credit, increased United States trade deficit, and new pressure on the dollar offset the news of a decline in the consumer price index. The Dow Jones industrial average declined 4.68 to close at 880.20.
The dollar tumbled after the United States reported a trade deficit for July that exceeded the expectations of currency traders. It had been firming earlier in the day, continuing a gradual recovery begun more than two weeks ago when the U.S. began a series of dollar-propping actions.
The United States had a deficit in its foreign trade of nearly $3 billion in July. Oil imports declined in July, but auto imports rose $206 million from June. Imports of sugar, coffee and fish also increased.
Chrysler has introduced in Atlanta its full-size 1979 cars that have been restyled and made from 5.5 to 9 inches shorter and 700 to 800 pounds lighter.
[Chicago Tribune] - The new television program "Flying High" is an insult to the intelligence and morality of every flight attendant, Patricia Robertson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, charged. "The show concentrates more on bosoms than brains, and on sex more than safety," she said. The pilot show telecast Monday night depicted the swinging life of three novice stewardesses, a portrayal that Robertson said was inaccurate and demeaning. [Chicago Tribune]
- Former Chicago horse racing figure Marjorie Lindheimer Everett, at whose Scottsdale, Ariz., home actor Charles Boyer was found dead Saturday morning, says he died of "a broken heart." She said Boyer, 78, had kept watch for five months at the deathbed of his cancer-stricken, terminally ill wife, Patricia, 68, whom he had married in 1934. It was thought at first that Boyer had suffered a heart attack, but medical examiners subsequently termed his death a suicide and said he had taken an overdose of sleeping pills. [Chicago Tribune]
- The American Cancer Society said it plans to invest $2 million to find out if interferon, a natural body substance, will slow the growth of cancerous tumors in humans. Interferon has been shown to shrink tumors in animals and already has helped some humans. Interferon is a protein substance produced by a virus-infected animal cell. [Chicago Tribune]
- Chinese Chairman Hua Kuo-feng arrived in Iran and immediately issued indirect warnings to Moscow against meddling in Iranian domestic politics, saying history never has sided with the aggressors. Addressing Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in a dinner toast at Golestan Palace, Hua spoke of the common enemy in terms that left no doubt about his target. He said China, in waging war on "superpower hegemony," also has made clear its opposition to superpower intervention in the affairs of other countries, whatever the excuse for such intervention. [Chicago Tribune]
- A Romanian official who vanished in West Germany has defected and revealed that a Communist spy is active at the highest levels of the West German establishment, the West German newspaper Bild said. The Romanian, Ion Pacepa, 50, who disappeared from his Cologne hotel early this month, has told U.S. officials that the spy is as important as was Guenter Guillaume, Bild said. Guillaume, jailed for 13 years for espionage, was a close aide of Willy Brandt, who resigned as chancellor of West Germany in 1975 after Guillaume's arrest. [Chicago Tribune]
- Two Nicaraguan air force planes bombed the country's third largest city, Matagalpa, killing four persons, and wounding others, a spokesman for the Red Cross said. The planes were apparently sent in to relieve members of President Anastasio Somoza's national guard, who had been under siege in the city, 100 miles north of Managua. [Chicago Tribune]
- Syrian peacekeeping forces disarmed Christian militiamen in northern and eastern Lebanon. At the same time, Syrian President Hafez Assad warned Israel against intervention on behalf of the Christians. In three days of fighting, 35 Christian militiamen and civilians were killed and 65 militiamen were taken prisoner, a Lebanese police spokesman said. Two Syrians were reported killed and four wounded. [Chicago Tribune]
- Former rebel leader Hissen Habre was named premier of Chad under a new "national charter" concluded last month in hopes of ending this Central African nation's 12-year civil war. The charter confirmed Gen. Felix Malloum, who came to power in an army coup in April 1975, as president. [Chicago Tribune]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 880.20 (-4.68, -0.53%)
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 28, 1978 | 884.88 | 103.96 | 31.76 |
| August 25, 1978 | 895.53 | 104.90 | 36.19 |
| August 24, 1978 | 897.35 | 105.08 | 38.50 |
| August 23, 1978 | 897.00 | 104.91 | 39.63 |
| August 22, 1978 | 892.41 | 104.31 | 29.62 |
| August 21, 1978 | 888.95 | 103.89 | 29.44 |
| August 18, 1978 | 896.83 | 104.73 | 34.66 |
| August 17, 1978 | 900.12 | 105.08 | 45.27 |
| August 16, 1978 | 894.58 | 104.65 | 36.13 |
| August 15, 1978 | 887.13 | 103.85 | 29.78 |