News stories from Wednesday August 23, 1978

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

A tentative labor agreement with postal workers crumbled as a union of letter carriers rejected the pact, raising the possibility of a national mail strike by next week. Joseph Vacca, president of the 181,000-member National Letter Carriers Union, said he has asked Postmaster General William Bolger to renegotiate the pact -- a step Bolger has pledged not to take. [Chicago Tribune] The Senate -- making an end-run around President Carter's stalled energy tax proposals -- voted to approve tax credits for home insulation and solar energy. Breaking those two items away from less popular parts of Carter's package, the Senate added the credits to a relatively minor tax bill on an overwhelming voice vote. The action would provide tax credits, retroactive to April 20, 1977, of up to $2,200 for solar energy devices and up to $400 for home insulation, storm doors and windows, wood-burning stoves, and other household energy conservation measures. [Chicago Tribune] The Senate voted down a proposal by Delaware's Senators to limit the authority federal judges have to order busing of pupils to desegregate public schools. Sen. Edward Brooke, [R., Mass.], the Senate's only black member, called the proposal "unconstitutional in purpose, substance, and effect." [Chicago Tribune] Stocks advanced for a second consecutive session, encouraged by new efforts to aid the dollar. Gainers outpaced losers by a wide margin on the New York Stock Exchange. The Dow Jones industrial average closed 4.59 higher at 897.00.Gold prices fell sharply after the announcement Tuesday that the U.S would increase the amount of gold it is selling at monthly auctions. Demand for airplanes and missiles declined in July, contributing to a 5.5 percent drop in new orders for durable goods, the Commerce Department said. [Chicago Tribune] Former Interior Secretary Walter Hickel led incumbent Jay Hammond by 901 votes, with 8,000 absentee ballots still to be counted for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Alaska. In Oklahoma, former Gov. David Boren and former U.S. Rep. Ed Edmondson won runoff berths in the Democratic race for a U.S. Senate seat. [Chicago Tribune] Hugh Hefner, publisher of Playboy magazine, and Robert Guccione, publisher of Penthouse, said they will refuse to go to Georgia to answer criminal obscenity charges filed by an Atlanta prosecutor. A Hefner spokesman called the charges "petty harassment" and said that a recent ruling by a federal judge in Atlanta precludes any successful prosecution against Playboy. In New York, Guccione said he will travel to Georgia later to file a harassment suit against the prosecutor. [Chicago Tribune] A professional arsonist, boasting that he earned enough to buy "a new car every year," testified before a Senate panel that the fire-for-hire business is flourishing and could become as commonplace as street crime. A second man, who identified himself as a former member of the Mafia who set fires only on the orders of his bosses, testified that arson for profit was so well organized within the Mafia that a high-ranking fire department official often helped them cover up their crimes. [Chicago Tribune] A former CIA official arrested last week in Chicago sold Soviet agents a manual describing the workings of the so-called "Big Bird" satellite, which spies on the Soviet Union, according to intelligence sources. Justice Department officials still are trying to decide whether to seek an indictment against him. [Chicago Tribune] Repairs had to be made Wednesday on the raft President Carter and his family were riding on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. The steering pole broke as the 20-foot rubber raft negotiated the Tappan Falls. The President watched on shore and others in the party fished as temporary repair work, lasting about an hour, was completed. [Chicago Tribune] The government of Nicaragua agreed to fly 8 political prisoners to freedom and pay a large ransom in exchange for the lives of scores of Nicaraguan legislators held hostage by leftist guerrillas inside the besieged National Palace. The government of President Anastasio Somoza agreed to most of the guerrilla demands after a tense day of negotiations in which the terrorists twice threatened to begin killing the 40 to 60 hostages they have been holding since Tuesday. [Chicago Tribune] Prime Minister Menachem Begin and his top ministers met secretly in Jerusalem with Camile Chamoun, Lebanese Phalangist leader, to discuss an urgent appeal for Israeli assistance to beleaguered Christians in Beirut, a senior source said. The source said Chamoun, who requested the urgent meeting, was flown Tuesday by helicopter from the Christian stronghold of Jounieh, north of Beirut, to an Israeli gunboat off the Lebanese coast. [Chicago Tribune] The Shah of Iran, in an interview with the weekly magazine Paris-Match published today, hit out at western critics of his political, economic, and social reform program. He warned the West: "If the status quo changes in Iran, what with Europe's dependence on Iran because of our oil, you will be dead without firing a shot. I am the only person with the power, the strength, and the authority to set up a democratic regime. Any other man would be overwhelmed by present events; it would be total anarchy." [Chicago Tribune] A leaked diplomatic report and a poster campaign by Roman Catholic conservatives demanding "a Catholic Pope" put more pressure on cardinals, 48 hours before the start of the papal election conclave. Church sources said outside pressure such as the posters was unlikely to sway the 111 cardinals who will convene in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel Friday to start the process of choosing a successor to Pope Paul VI. [Chicago Tribune] Criticism of the late Chairman Mao Tse-tung is surfacing in China two years after his death and as the post-Mao Peking government presses its campaign of vilification of the radical "Gang of Four," the Kyodo news service said. "It is wrong to think that Chairman Mao's historical guidance was faultless," Kyodo, reporting from Peking, quoted a Chinese Communist Party member and government official as saying. [Chicago Tribune]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 897.00 (+4.59, +0.51%)
S&P Composite: 104.91 (+0.60, +0.58%)
Arms Index: 0.64

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	1,030	27.13
Declines	483	8.09
Unchanged	390	4.41
Total Volume		39.63

* 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*
August 22, 1978	892.41	104.31	29.62
August 21, 1978	888.95	103.89	29.44
August 18, 1978	896.83	104.73	34.66
August 17, 1978	900.12	105.08	45.27
August 16, 1978	894.58	104.65	36.13
August 15, 1978	887.13	103.85	29.78
August 14, 1978	888.17	103.97	32.32
August 11, 1978	890.85	103.96	33.55
August 10, 1978	885.48	103.66	39.75
August 9, 1978	891.63	104.50	48.79