News stories from Monday December 20, 1982

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

A compromise spending bill was approved by both chambers of Congress and sent to President Reagan. The emergency measure was needed to continue operations of the federal government, which is technically out of money. Mr. Reagan was expected to sign the bill. [New York Times] The nine-month spending bill approved by Congress is a 300-page document, accompanied by a 300-page conference report, and few members of Congress know the details of either. Many of the special-interest provisions that prompted critics to term the measure "a Christmas tree" were in the final version. [New York Times] Flaws in flight controller training were cited by a special inquiry of the National Transportation Safety Board. The panel said it had found safety problems that it believed "require immediate corrective action" to upgrade the training of the controllers replacing the 11,000 who went on strike 16 months ago. [New York Times] The 418 most toxic waste sites around the country were listed in a report by the Environmental Protection Agency as the most dangerous sites to be cleaned up under the toxic waste law. The list includes 26 sites in New York and 65 in New Jersey, the most in any state. [New York Times] John DeLorean cited I.R.A. ties and boasted that the radical group would back him in a deal to distribute $24 million worth of cocaine, according to government papers. A prosecutor said that the auto executive asserted on videotape that the Irish Republican Army would contribute both money and terrorist force for the drug trafficking. [New York Times] Edwin P. Wilson was sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined $200,000. Mr. Wilson, a former American intelligence agent, was convicted last month of smuggling four pistols and an M-16 automatic rifle to Libyan agents overseas. He faces three more trials on other charges involving the sale of arms, explosives and intelligence expertise to Libya. [New York Times] The search for extraterrestial civilizations is being revived in a vastly improved form. The renewed quest will be several million times more extensive than previous efforts, which were abandoned in the face of congressional criticism. [New York Times] OPEC ministers failed to agree on the key issue of production ceilings for members of the oil group at a two-day meeting in Vienna. Some industry observers at the conference said a decline of oil prices early next year now seems likely. [New York Times] The ousted Nicaraguan Ambassador to the United States said his country was threatened by a "leftist dictatorship" that censored the press and curbed political freedoms. [New York Times] Ariel Sharon has been summoned before the Israeli commission investigating the killing of Palestinian civilians in Beirut to answer questions from the Director of Military Intelligence, the commission announced. The Defense Minister, who has given testimony in both open and closed sessions, had told the panel he did not wish to reappear. [New York Times] The security zone that Israel wants in southern Lebanon would be off-limits to all artillery, rocket launchers, anti-aircraft missiles and fortifications, according to a senior Israeli official. He said that only Lebanese army and police units with lesser weapons would be allowed in the 25-mile-deep buffer zone. [New York Times] American-Jordanian talks on the possibility of Amman's joining the negotiations with Israel and Egypt on Palestinian self-rule opened in Washington. After a two-hour meeting with Secretary of State George Shultz, King Hussein said he was "very happy" with the discussions. [New York Times] The world's mountains are threatened by both man and nature, according to research scientists. They say that the fragile ecosystems of many of the peaks from the Himalayas to the tropical rain forests are losing their ability to sustain and nourish plant and animal life. [New York Times] Arthur Rubinstein died in his sleep at his home in Geneva at the age of 95. Mr. Rubinstein started playing the piano at the age of 3, made his debut soon after and became one of the greatest pianists of the century in a career spanning 85 years. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 1004.51 (-6.99, -0.69%)
S&P Composite: 136.26 (-1.23, -0.89%)
Arms Index: 1.12

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	597	19.75
Declines	990	36.61
Unchanged	384	5.85
Total Volume		62.21

* 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 17, 1982	1011.50	137.49	76.01
December 16, 1982	990.25	135.30	73.69
December 15, 1982	992.64	135.24	81.05
December 14, 1982	1009.38	137.39	98.38
December 13, 1982	1024.28	139.95	63.13
December 10, 1982	1018.76	139.57	86.43
December 9, 1982	1027.96	140.00	90.31
December 8, 1982	1047.09	141.81	97.43
December 7, 1982	1056.94	142.72	111.62
December 6, 1982	1055.65	141.77	83.89