News stories from Wednesday July 29, 1981

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

The wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer was held in a blaze of martial and spiritual pageantry. The 2,500 guests in St. Paul's Cathedral, the hundreds of thousands who watched along the processional route and the 700 million televison viewers around the world witnessed one of the great days in the history of the House of Windsor amid the sort of splendor that the world has all but forgotten.Rousing choruses of "Rule Britannia" were sung by joyful Britons who saluted their troubled old land with tears, triumphant greetings and dancing in the streets in a sea of small Union Jacks. "It's a great day to be British," remarked a retired factory worker, his voice breaking as the Prince and Princess of Wales waved to the joyous crowd from a balcony of Buckingham Palace. [New York Times] President Reagan won a decisive victory as the House approved his proposal for three years of cuts of 25 percent in individual tax rates and major reductions in taxes paid by business and oil producers. The key vote, 238 to 195, gave Mr. Reagan a third triumph over the Democratic House majority and leadership in three key tests of strength on financial issues. The House bill was similar to one approved by the Senate earlier in the day. A conference to reconcile differences is to be held this week and the President is to receive the final bill soon. [New York Times] A dispute over Social Security may cause a reopening of the House-Senate conference that reached agreement on more than $36 billion in budget cuts. House Democratic leaders threatened to reopen the conference in an effort to restore the $122-a-month minimum pension benefit. [New York Times] William J. Casey was upheld unanimously by the Senate Intelligence Committee, which announced it had found no basis for concluding that he was unfit to serve as the Director of Central Intelligence. Mr. Casey met with the panel for five hours behind closed doors and testified under oath. An investigation of his business activities is to be continued by the committee staff, and a public report is to be issued. [New York Times] Flight controllers have rejected a tentative labor contract by a margin of more than 95 percent, according to their union, which said it wanted to reopen negotiations with the Reagan administration at once. The union said nothing about a deadline for a strike that, if begun, might halt half the nation's airline service. [New York Times] A sharp rise in Chinese-Americans was confirmed in an analysis of the 1980 census. It found that the number of Chinese in the United States had grown so rapidly in recent years that they now total more than 800,000, surpassing Japanese as the leading population of Asian-Americans. Restrictive immigration quotas on Asians were lifted in the late 1960's. [New York Times] Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, now in Paris, told reporters, "I will be staying in France until the people of Iran follow the path of democracy." The deposed Iranian President, appearing gaunt and tired, arrived in France after a night flight from Teheran in a hijacked Iranian plane. Mr. Bani-Sadr can remain in France as long as he refrains from political activity, and he agreed to the condition. [New York Times] At least 700 Iranians were killed in the second earthquake in seven weeks, and the final death toll could reach 4,000, according to Iranian officials. A provincial governor said that up to 90 percent of the houses in some villages had been demolished. [New York Times] A Syrian-Israeli air battle erupted over Lebanon as Syrian jets scrambled to intercept Israeli reconnaissance craft. The Israelis reported one Syrian MiG-25 shot down, and the two sides disagreed over whether an Israeli jet had been lost. It was the first major clash in the five-day-old cease-fire. [New York Times] A food-shortage protest in Poland generated wildcat strikes and a display that paralyzed the center of Lodz, the nation's second largest city, for three hours. A procession of 53 heavy vehicles lumbered along a main street, with horns blowing, and displaying placards proclaiming "Bread" and "Hunger." [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 937.40 (-2.00, -0.21%)
S&P Composite: 129.16 (+0.02, +0.02%)
Arms Index: 0.86

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	695	17.40
Declines	734	15.80
Unchanged	439	4.41
Total Volume		37.61

* 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*
July 28, 1981	939.40	129.14	38.15
July 27, 1981	945.87	129.90	39.61
July 24, 1981	936.74	128.46	38.88
July 23, 1981	928.56	127.40	41.88
July 22, 1981	924.66	127.13	47.49
July 21, 1981	934.46	128.34	47.26
July 20, 1981	940.54	128.72	40.24
July 17, 1981	959.90	130.76	42.78
July 16, 1981	955.48	130.34	39.01
July 15, 1981	954.15	130.23	48.95