News stories from Friday May 14, 1976

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

Attorney General Edward Levi reportedly is considering filing a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court siding with opponents of Boston's busing plan, and asking the Court to reconsider its landmark 1971 decision giving federal courts broad power to order busing. [New York Times] Cyril LaBrecque, captain of a disabled schooner, whose dog remained in a lifeboat while two crewmen clung to the boat in the icy Atlantic until they died of exposure, was found not guilty of manslaughter or endangering life. [New York Times] Buyers on the installment plan of defective automobiles and appliances, furniture that breaks down or other inferior goods will be protected under a new Federal Trade Commission rule from losing their rights against sellers of defective merchandise. The rule went into effect today despite the op-position of bankers and other lenders who provide the credit. The F.T.C. put into effect a "holder-in-due-course" rule under which a merchant cannot avoid keeping his end of the bargain under an installment contract merely by selling the contract to a third party. The rule extends liability to the bank or finance company that purchases such contracts or lends money directly if the borrower has been referred to the lender by the merchant. The rule does not affect existing contracts. [New York Times] Mayor Beame and Lt. Gov. Mary Anne Krupsak were elected co-chairmen of New York state's delegation to the Democratic National Convention. There was opposition to Mr. Beame because of his reported decision to back Jimmy Carter for the presidential nomination. The mayor was accused of violating the commitment he had made to vote for Senator Henry Jackson when Mr. Beame was elected an at-large delegate as a Jackson supporter. He calmed the opposition by assuring the delegates he was "morally and legally" committed to vote for Mr. Jackson on the first ballot. [New York Times] United States Army intelligence officers stationed in West Berlin have opened first class mail from the United States and may be continuing to do so, according to one of two affidavits recently filed in civil court cases by Secretary of the Army Martin Hoffmann. In another affidavit, Mr. Hoffmann said that "the United States Army conducts monitoring of postal and telephone communications within its sector of Berlin for itself and other United States investigatory agencies." [New York Times] India and Pakistan announced that diplomatic relations between the two countries -- broken off in the war over Bangladesh in 1971 -- would be resumed "within a short period of time." The announcement followed three days of talks between negotiating teams headed by the Indian and Pakistani Foreign Secretaries in Islamabad, Pakistan, in which it was also decided to re-establish airline and railway links and other ties as soon as they can be arranged. [New York Times] An assassin, identified by the Paris police as an anarchist from southern France, shot and killed Jacques Chaine, the president of Credit Lyonnais, France's second largest bank, wounded Mrs. Chaine and then killed himself. Mr. Chaine was shot as he arrived for work at the bank's headquarters on the Boulevard des Italiens. [New York Times] The Palestine Liberation Organization took a tough stand against Syria's intervention in Lebanon's civil war with a public appeal to Syria to get out of Lebanon and to stop using Palestine Liberation Army units for its own political purposes. A statement by "the Command of the Palestinian Revolution" charged that "Syrian forces" shelled the Palestinian refugee camp of Borj Brajineh near the Beirut airport three days ago and that Syria had imposed a land and sea blockade to keep arms from reaching Palestinian and leftist Moslem forces in Lebanon. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 992.60 (-8.50, -0.85%)
S&P Composite: 101.34 (-0.82, -0.80%)
Arms Index: 1.11

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	430	4.07
Declines	992	10.44
Unchanged	422	2.29
Total Volume		16.80

* 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 13, 1976	1001.10	102.16	16.73
May 12, 1976	1005.67	102.77	18.51
May 11, 1976	1006.61	102.95	23.59
May 10, 1976	1007.48	103.10	22.76
May 7, 1976	996.22	101.88	17.81
May 6, 1976	989.53	101.16	16.20
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