News stories from Wednesday November 26, 1980

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

Assurances on the hostages' health have been transmitted from Iran by the Algerian intermediaries in the negotiations for their release, United States officials said. Teheran, they said, has affirmed that the 52 American captives "are in good health." The Algerian-American talks on resolving the crisis will continue tomorrow. [New York Times] Two Abscam convictions were voided by a federal judge, who said he was acting "with great reluctance." The judge, who had presided at the trial in Philadelphia, stressed that the government had "stretched" federal statutes and had "entrapped" the defendants. The ruling exonerated Philadelphia Councilmen Harry Jannotti and George Schwartz, who had been a city council president. [New York Times] A further rise in prime lending rates to 17¾ percent from 17 percent was announced by dozens of the nation's largest banks. The increase was the fourth since the beginning of the month, when the rate stood at 14½ percent. Some bankers said that the higher cost of borrowing could bring about another recession. [New York Times] Reaffirming a vow to cut taxes, a senior adviser to President-elect Ronald Reagan said that a tax reduction for individuals, as part of a comprehensive economic program, would be the incoming administration's "first priority." The aide, Edwin Meese, said that the cut would be "along the lines" of the 30 percent, three-year reduction that Mr. Reagan promised in the campaign. [New York Times] Fires still raged in southern California, where more than 100 square miles have been scorched and hundreds of homes have been lost in 11 major blazes. A big area of the scenic mountain community of San Bernardino has been obliterated by an explosive brush fire that investigators say was set by an arsonist. [New York Times] A fugitive radical has been identified. Bernardine Dohrn, a leader of the Weather Underground who was once on the F.B.I.'s "most wanted list," has been spotted on Manhattan's West Side. The woman, who is sought on charges arising from demonstrations in Chicago in 1969, lived on the West Side for two years and recently worked in a shop and in a restaurant-bar, but she has vanished again. [New York Times] Dr. Herman Tarnower's last hours were described by his house manager in testimony in Westchester County Court. She said that Jean Harris, who is accused of murdering the physician, had tried frantically to reach him by telephone before their final confrontation. [New York Times] Iranian jets carried out several raids on Iraqi oilfields in an apparent attempt to halt Iraq's newly resumed exports of oil through pipelines in Turkey. But Baghdad said there was no significant damage. [New York Times] At least 1,000 people were still missing and the death toll rose to more than 3,000 in Sunday's earthquake in southern Italy, according to the authorities. More than 3,000 persons were said to have been injured, and the number of homeless was estimated to be at least 200,000.Italian volunteers rallied to help the survivors of the devastating temblors. Thousands of civilians, impatient with the pace of the government's relief effort, streamed into the stricken mountain region east of Naples laden with blankets, food and tents, and shovels to dig out the injured and dead. [New York Times] A victory for Polish unions was reported by sources in the independent union movement. The authorities, they said, in a move to avert major strikes in Warsaw, have released two workers charged with revealing a secret government document. The sources said that, as a result, the Warsaw union was expected to suspend a threat to call a major walkout tomorrow.The crisis in Poland is causing concern in Washington, according to United States officials. They expressed worry over the possibility that some demands by the labor movement might provoke a military crackdown by the Communist leadership in Poland or the Soviet Union. [New York Times] An apparent bid for new arms talks was made by Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet leader. He cautioned against any "stagnation" in the search for an accord on limiting strategic weapons. He made the statement in a long meeting in the Kremlin with Senator Charles Percy, who is expected to be the next chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Mr. Percy had told reporters that he hoped to transmit "signals" between Moscow and President-elect Ronald Reagan. [New York Times] Jiang Qing denied at her trial on counter-revolutionary charges that she plotted to prevent Mao Tse-tung from naming Deng Xiao-ping as China's senior Deputy Prime Minister in 1974. It is one of 48 charges made against Mao's widow and her co-defendants. Testifying for the first time, she repeatedly pleaded no knowledge of, or an inability to remember, events surrounding the accusation. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 989.68 (+7.00, +0.71%)
S&P Composite: 140.17 (+0.84, +0.60%)
Arms Index: 0.80

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	794	28.22
Declines	780	22.24
Unchanged	406	4.88
Total Volume		55.34

* 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*
November 25, 1980	982.68	139.33	55.83
November 24, 1980	978.75	138.31	51.13
November 21, 1980	989.93	139.11	55.93
November 20, 1980	1000.17	140.40	60.17
November 19, 1980	991.04	139.06	69.24
November 18, 1980	997.95	139.70	70.38
November 17, 1980	986.26	137.75	50.30
November 14, 1980	986.35	137.15	71.63
November 13, 1980	982.42	136.49	69.33
November 12, 1980	964.93	134.59	58.51