News stories from Monday October 15, 1979
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Iran and Libya raised oil prices by more than 10 percent, shattering the ceiling that has held the official prices of oil exporting nations steady for the last three and a half months. Company sources said that the increases would lead to immediate rises in the retail prices of refined products and could prompt other oil exporting nations to raise their prices. [New York Times]
- Heating oil costs led to a fight in New York state. Criticizing "an evident lack of leadership" by the Carey administration, the leader of the Senate's Republican majority said he would call the Senate into session Nov. 8 to act on a Republican program. The announcement by Senator Warren Anderson brought an angry retort from Governor Carey, who said he would call a special session as soon as a responsible program could be worked out with the leaders of both houses. [New York Times]
- A West Coast earthquake shook a wide area of southern California and northern Mexico, injuring at least 40 persons and causing extensive damage to buildings, roads and public utilities along a 150-mile stretch of the border. The temblor, which registered 6.4 on the Richter scale, was felt as far away as Los Angeles and Phoenix, but most of the damage occurred in the Imperial and Mexicali valleys. [New York Times]
- Major changes in DC-10's will be made by American Airlines. The carrier, whose DC-10 jumbo jet crashed in Chicago last May with a loss of 273 lives, has notified the government that it is committed to extensive structural and system modifications on its 30 other DC-10's. But officials of the airline and the manufacturer said they disagreed over what changes would be made and who would pay for them. [New York Times]
- President Carter made a flying tour of the Middle West, extolling family virtues to a convention of Catholics in Kansas City, Mo., and the virtues of his administration to Democrats in Chicago. [New York Times]
- George Bush easily won a straw poll for the Republican presidential nomination taken at a major party fundraising dinner in Iowa. The poll gave Mr. Bush, former chief delegate to the United Nations and Director of Central Intelligence, 35.7 percent of the votes of 1,454 Republicans. [New York Times]
- Union concessions to Chrysler were offered at the opening of contract talks. The United Automobile Workers union agreed to accept less from the financially troubled corporation than it has won from General Motors and Ford and not to impose a strike deadline, but refused to agree to a two-year freeze in wages and benefits. [New York Times]
- El Salvador's President was deposed in a coup by the military, which said it had acted to halt violence and "restore constitutional order." A statement read over the state radio said that Gen. Carlos Humberto Romero, who came to power in disputed elections in February 1977, would be replaced by a civilian-military junta. [New York Times]
- A new crisis on Zimbabwe Rhodesia arose at the five-week-old London conference. Britain said that it would resume the talks tomorrow, but that the insurgent group would be welcome only if it agreed to British proposals for a new constitution. The guerrillas have repeatedly refused to do so. [New York Times]
- Nobel prizes in chemistry and physics were awarded for chemical research as down-to-earth as medicine for arthritis and a theory of physics regarded as a major step toward the goal of finding a unifying thread linking the four basic forces of nature. The chemistry award went to Herbert Brown, an American, and Georg Wittig of West Germany. The physics prize was awarded to Steven Weinberg and Sheldon Glashow, both Americans, and to Abdus Salam, a Pakistani.
The Nobel laureates in physics helped advance a theory that many regard as among the most momentous of this century. Their work promises a major step toward incorporating all physical laws into a single, comprehensive framework, the "unified field theory" that was the goal of Einstein's later years and has been sought ever since.
[New York Times] - Turkey's government will resign, Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit announced. The opposition is now strong enough to topple the regime since the governing party lost all five seats at stake in by-elections Sunday for the National Assembly, where confidence votes are held. [New York Times]
- Demands for wider Jewish settlement on Arab lands were pressed in demonstrations by more than 1,000 Jews from 25 settlements on the occupied West Bank of the Jordan. They set up illegal, makeshift outposts at 40 sites, shifting from one hilltop to another in efforts to evade Israeli troops. [New York Times]
Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 831.06 (-7.93, -0.95%)
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* |
October 12, 1979 | 838.99 | 104.49 | 36.39 |
October 11, 1979 | 844.62 | 105.05 | 47.55 |
October 10, 1979 | 849.32 | 105.30 | 81.62 |
October 9, 1979 | 857.59 | 106.63 | 55.57 |
October 8, 1979 | 884.04 | 109.88 | 32.61 |
October 5, 1979 | 897.61 | 111.27 | 48.25 |
October 4, 1979 | 890.10 | 110.17 | 38.80 |
October 3, 1979 | 885.15 | 109.59 | 36.47 |
October 2, 1979 | 885.32 | 109.59 | 38.32 |
October 1, 1979 | 872.95 | 108.56 | 24.98 |