News stories from Friday July 23, 1976

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

President Ford was in easy reach of the 1,130 delegates needed for the Republican presidential nomination according to a New York Times tally, but his campaign strategists asserted that he already had more than enough. The Times tabulation gave the President 1,124 and Ronald Reagan 1,064 and found that 71 delegates were uncommitted. A deputy chairman of the President Ford Committee said that the addition of 16 delegates to the "conservative" tally he kept "brings our count to 1,135 delegates." Mr. Reagan's aides dismissed this assertion as "a paper count" that would prove to be inaccurate. [New York Times] A wildcat strike that was begun last week by West Virginia coal miners has spread across the Appalachian coal fields, bringing the number of strikers to 25,000. It is the second unauthorized strike since the United Mine Workers and the mine owners signed a contract in 1974 whose intention was to end or sharply reduce the walkouts. [New York Times] Representative Alan Howe, Democrat of Utah, who is seeking re-election, was found guilty in Salt Lake City of soliciting sex from two women police decoys for money. He was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $150 in City Court, with the sentence to be suspended with the payment of the fine. [New York Times] One of the three men sought in the kidnapping last week of 26 California schoolchildren and their bus driver surrendered. Sheriff Ed Bates of Madera County said that Richard Schoenfeld, 22 years old, of Atherton, had surrendered to the Alameda County District Attorney, accompanied by a lawyer. Mr. Schoenfeld's brother, James, 25, and their friend, Fred Woods, also 25, were still sought. Officials disclosed earlier that a note demanding a ransom of $5 million for the kidnapping victims had been found. [New York Times] Since last February a sniper has wounded 17 women in seven Westchester County (New York) communities with a dart gun, shooting through lighted windows late at night. The attacks have increased in recent weeks. The latest victim, Lucretia Valvano, 21 years old, was struck in the shoulder Thursday night by a dart that went through her kitchen window in Yonkers. [New York Times] Viking 1 project officials said they believed that the fault in the lender's soil collection arm that prevented it from retracting fully in a test on Mars would be corrected in time for the soil-scoop operation on Wednesday. Thomas Young, the mission director, said that an error in the lender's programmed computer commands was the "most probable cause" of the arm's failure. [New York Times] Despite the opposition of the State Department and Yugoslav officials, a Yugoslav-born American engineer who had been accused in Yugoslavia of economic espionage was released today mainly through the efforts of the United States Ambassador, Laurence Silberman, who believed the man was innocent. The engineer, Laszlo Toth of Loveland, Colo., had served nearly a year of a seven-year prison sentence. "When we get to the point where we don't care about an American citizen innocently imprisoned, then we're not much of a country any more," Mr. Silberman said. He had harsh words for the Eastern European division of the State Department. "To these people," he said, "diplomacy apparently is the passive pursuit of American interest. And I don't accept that." [New York Times] Red Cross representatives managed to enter the Palestinian camp of Tell Zaatar in Beirut, which has been under siege by Lebanese Christians, but could not arrange the immediate evacuation of the more than 1,000 wounded in the two-hour truce that had been arranged for the visit, The truce was only partly observed and the rescue mission failed. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 990.91 (-0.17, -0.02%)
S&P Composite: 104.06 (+0.13, +0.13%)
Arms Index: 0.87

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	741	7.33
Declines	593	5.11
Unchanged	503	3.43
Total Volume		15.87

* 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 22, 1976	991.08	103.93	15.60
July 21, 1976	989.44	103.82	18.35
July 20, 1976	988.29	103.72	18.61
July 19, 1976	990.83	104.29	18.20
July 16, 1976	993.21	104.68	20.45
July 15, 1976	997.46	105.20	20.40
July 14, 1976	1005.16	105.95	23.84
July 13, 1976	1006.06	105.67	27.55
July 12, 1976	1011.21	105.90	23.75
July 9, 1976	1003.11	104.98	23.50