News stories from Tuesday February 1, 1977
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Olympic television rights to broadcast the 1980 Moscow games to the United States have been bought by the National Broadcasting Company for the highest price in history -- $35 million. Under the contract signed In Moscow, the International Olympic Committee will receive $12,633,333 of this sum. NBC is expected to assume even higher costs for constructing technical facilities in Moscow. [New York Times]
- The final episode of "Roots," the story of a black family's life during slavery, reached the largest television audience in American history, according to the national Nielsen ratings. The ratings found that it had been watched on 51.1 percent of all television sets in homes and had reached a total of 80 million people, exceeding by 2.4 million the audience of the previous record-holder, the first portion of the broadcast of "Gone With The Wind." [New York Times]
- The emergency natural gas bill was passed by the House of Representatives with an amendment limiting the prices interstate pipelines may pay for extra amounts. Since the Senate had rejected this amendment in passing the bill, it was uncertain which version would win, but it appeared that the legislation would go to President Carter in a day or two. A long range development on gas supplies was the recommendation of a Federal Power Commission judge that the pipeline route through Canada's Mackenzie River valley be chosen to bring gas from Alaska's Prudhoe Bay to American consumers. [New York Times]
- Buffalo's snow crisis eased with the first bright sun in a week and a drop in snow flurries as citizens bent to the task of digging out. The Erie County supervisor called the situation disastrous but said the city was "coping." Thousands of residents in the eastern part of the county remained isolated by snowdrifts. [New York Times]
- At least a dozen Western states expect drought this year as the entire Western United States experiences a winter much too warm and too dry. Preliminary data from the Department of Agriculture indicate snowfall at a record low in many areas, endangering next summer's water supplies throughout the West and crops, especially wheat, in the Great Plains states. [New York Times]
- Theodore Sorensen's selection to be Director of Central Intelligence was not blocked but collapsed, according to a reconstruction by New York Times reporters of events leading to his withdrawal. Above all there were misjudgments and an apparent failure of nerve by the incoming Carter administration, which selected him evidently without thorough inquiry or consultation and then backed away from what could have been a narrow victory or outright defeat. [New York Times]
- Stock prices rallied mildly, with Dow Jones industrials rising 3.99 points to close at 958.36. Bond prices dropped and rates rose, with the Treasury selling $3 billion of three-year notes at an average yield of 6.62 percent. [New York Times]
- Three nuclear-powered tankers may be built in the United States for Ravi Tikkoo, a British shipping magnate born in Kashmir. The deal has passed the letter-of-intent stage and will probably call for the three supertankers, the first to have nuclear power, to fly the American flag in order to qualify for an American subsidy. [New York Times]
- Higher prices for tin mill products were announced by United States Steel Corporation, taking the lead in the long-expected move. It said the 4.8 percent increase would take effect March 13. The White House acknowledged that the company had discussed this action in advance with President Carter's advisers and said he was aware that the increase was lower than recent increases in steel prices. [New York Times]
- President Carter told the Soviet envoy at their first meeting that the United States would not back down in its commitment for strengthened human rights in the Soviet Union and elsewhere. He called this a commitment on a position, not an attack on the Soviet Union. Plans for next month's resumption of strategic arms negotiations in Moscow took up most of the one-hour White House meeting. [New York Times]
- A Montreal police slowdown over a contract dispute has been accompanied by a sharp rise in armed robberies and has confronted the separatist Parti Quebecois with its first major labor crisis since coming to power in the province. Voter dissatisfaction with the previous Liberal government in dealing with labor agitation was a factor in the election victory by the separatist party. [New York Times]
- Heroin addiction is rising in Western Europe at a rate many experts consider alarming, along lines long familiar in the United States. Although international police cooperation has resulted in some spectacular seizures of heroin at airports, ample supplies are still reaching nightclubs, coffee bars, city squares and schools in many European countries. [New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 958.36 (+3.99, +0.42%)
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* |
| January 31, 1977 | 954.37 | 102.03 | 22.92 |
| January 28, 1977 | 957.53 | 101.93 | 22.70 |
| January 27, 1977 | 954.54 | 101.79 | 24.36 |
| January 26, 1977 | 958.53 | 102.34 | 27.84 |
| January 25, 1977 | 965.92 | 103.13 | 26.34 |
| January 24, 1977 | 963.60 | 103.25 | 22.89 |
| January 21, 1977 | 962.43 | 103.32 | 23.93 |
| January 20, 1977 | 959.03 | 102.97 | 26.52 |
| January 19, 1977 | 968.67 | 103.85 | 27.12 |
| January 18, 1977 | 962.43 | 103.32 | 24.38 |