News stories from Thursday May 6, 1976

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

The White House indicated that President Ford would not decide until next week whether to sign or veto the pending campaign financing legislation, virtually assuring that matching federal funds would not be available for effective use in any major primaries before the last of them, the June 8 primaries in New Jersey, California and Ohio. Congress completed its work on the election commission bill last Tuesday, but the White House press secretary said that the bill did not arrive at the White House until late Wednesday, and that he did not know how long a legal, fiscal and political review might take. This means that there will be no federal matching funds for the May 18 primary in Michigan, a contest that could be critical for Representative Morris Udall and Ronald Reagan. [New York Times] The Labor Department said that a rise in farm and food prices after several months of decline pushed the Wholesale Price Index up by eight-tenths of 1 percent in April, but the index of industrial commodities continued to show only moderate inflation. The rise in the Wholesale Price Index was the largest for any month since last October. [New York Times] Union supporters of Jimmy Carter, encouraged by the personal endorsement given him in Michigan by regional officials of the United Automobile Workers and two of its international vice presidents, said they would seek to push the merged labor federation into some expression of sympathy for the Carter candidacy at the meeting of its executive council in Washington. [New York Times] The League of Women voters, which has accepted men as members in the last two years, considered dropping "women" from its name but finally voted overwhelmingly to keep the old name, deciding that it was more venerable than sexist, The league was established 56 years ago. [New York Times] Fluorocarbons used in spray cans and air conditioning systems may be depleting the protective ozone layer at a far slower rate then had been supposed, according to new observations on how ozone is broken down and replenished in the stratosphere. As a result, the National Academy of Sciences, whose assessment of the hazard was to have been issued last month, has shelved its report, while laboratories are rushing to complete a variety of related experiments. The academy is expected to have a revised report in two months. [New York Times] Secretary of the Army Martin Hoffmann has been asked by 10 Army officers on the legal staff of the United States Military Academy at West Point to make an investigation of the manner in which West Point is dealing with a cheating scandal. The 10 officers are preparing defense arguments for 49 cadets charged with cheating on an engineering examination last March. [New York Times] New York City Mayor Beame's three-year austerity plan was weakened when the Ford administration rejected his request to divert tens of millions of dollars in anticipated federal housing subsidies from privately owned housing to public housing. The mayor's proposal was seen as a victory by those who believed it would be unfair to private housing. Mr. Beame said he would appeal. [New York Times] An intricate and comprehensive American approach to economic relations between rich and poor countries that put heavy stress on free enterprise and private initiative was outlined by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in an address to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development in Nairobi. The most dramatic proposal was for an International Research Bank, an institution that, Mr. Kissinger said, ''would promote rational, systematic and equitable development of resources in developing nations." [New York Times] Northeastern Italy was struck by a severe earthquake that was felt in five other countries. Entire sections of towns northeast of Venice near the Yugoslav border reportedly collapsed. The Interior Ministry said that at least 95 people had been killed and at least 1,000 injured. [New York Times] After weeks of rumors, political tension between France and West Germany and a cooling of the friendship between their leaders have broken into the open. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 989.53 (+3.07, +0.31%)
S&P Composite: 101.16 (+0.28, +0.28%)
Arms Index: 0.82

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	752	7.57
Declines	638	5.27
Unchanged	465	3.36
Total Volume		16.20

* 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*
May 5, 1976	986.46	100.88	14.97
May 4, 1976	993.70	101.46	17.24
May 3, 1976	990.32	100.92	15.18
April 30, 1976	996.85	101.64	14.53
April 29, 1976	1002.13	102.13	17.74
April 28, 1976	1000.71	102.13	15.79
April 27, 1976	995.51	101.86	17.76
April 26, 1976	1002.76	102.43	15.52
April 23, 1976	1000.71	102.29	17.00
April 22, 1976	1007.71	102.98	20.22