News stories from Tuesday August 16, 1977

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

Former President Ford gave full backing to the Panama Canal agreement after a briefing by high Carter administration emissaries in Vail, Colo. He called it an important step forward and asked for prompt Senate approval. [New York Times] Internal Revenue Service special agents are investigating whether the Atlanta regional administrator for the Comptroller of the Currency accepted a free airplane ride from the Georgia bank in which Bert Lance has some 200,000 shares, according to administration sources. The administrator was the official who ended an agreement between the Comptroller and the Calhoun First National Bank in 1976 that could have embarrassed Mr. Lance at Senate hearings on his nomination as Director of the Office of Management and Budget."Unethical, unfair and illegal" was how the chairman of the First National Bank in Calhoun, Ga., once headed by Bert Lance, described the conduct of the Comptroller of the Currency in his investigation of Mr. Lance's finances and the affairs of the bank. He said the discussion of the affairs of the bank and its customers was "the only law that has been violated here." [New York Times] Housing starts rose suddenly in July, the Commerce Department said, raising hopes for a better year than economists had expected. An 8 percent increase brought the seasonally adjusted annual rate to 2,064,000, well above the 1.7 million houses predicted last winter. Housing construction was particularly strong in the West, increasing from 476,000 starts in June to 540,000 in July. It had been declining in the western states, especially in California. [New York Times] Stock prices plunged, with weakness in the glamour sector that rallied on Monday helping to unsettle the rest. The Dow Jones industrial average sank 1.85 points to close at 869.28, its lowest since the opening session of 1976. Railroad and airline issues also declined, and the transportation average declined to its lowest since last November. [New York Times] A campaign against abortion began with a speech by Archbishop Joseph Bernardin, president of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, to a Knights of Columbus gathering in Indianapolis. He outlined strategies for restricting abortions, passing a constitutional amendment against them and alleviating social problems that lead women to them. He linked the abortion theme to President Carter's stress on human rights. [New York Times] Creatures like shrimps have been recovered alive from ocean depths as great as 18,700 feet. Scientists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography using a newly designed high-pressure trap took the amphipod crustaceans from the floor of the Pacific 400 miles north of Hawaii. It opens the way for systematic laboratory studies of life processes on the deep-sea floor. [New York Times] A New Jersey statute requiring public school pupils at least to stand at attention during the pledge of allegiance to the flag was overturned as unconstitutional in federal court in Newark. Judge Curtis Meanor ruled that it illegally compelled "symbolic speech," violating the students' rights of freedom of expression and speech. [New York Times] The Dennis Hotel on Atlantic City's Boardwalk is being purchased for $4 million by Bally Manufacturing Corporation, the world's largest manufacturer of slot machines, according to a well-informed source. The company already controls the adjoining Marlborough-Blenheim Hotel site and plans to erect a luxury casino-hotel complex. [New York Times] At a Kremlin dinner in honor of the visiting President Tito of Yugoslavia, Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet leader, indicated that he welcomed President Carter's latest efforts to mend troubled Soviet-American relations. He pledged that the Soviet Union would respond to any practical measures to resolve the current differences. [New York Times] A severe strain in relations between Italy and West Germany occurred following the escape from a military hospital in Rome of Herbert Kappler, a former SS lieutenant colonel serving a life sentence for the reprisal killing of 335 Italian hostages near Rome in 1944. A West German official said that no request for extradition would be considered since the constitution bars handing over a citizen to a foreign country. Chancellor Helmut Schmidt postponed a meeting scheduled for Friday in Verona with Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti at the latter's request to avoid demonstrations that might jeopardize the two countries' amity. [New York Times] President Carter's representatives in South America are seeking to promote respect for human rights by working through the existing military regimes, not against them. Terence Todman, the visiting Assistant Secretary of State, has been stressing the recent "improvements" in observation of human rights and saying Mr. Carter's concern for rights is not aimed at any particular government. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 869.28 (-4.85, -0.55%)
S&P Composite: 97.73 (-0.45, -0.46%)
Arms Index: 1.48

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	572	5.26
Declines	813	11.06
Unchanged	492	3.02
Total Volume		19.34

* 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*
August 15, 1977	874.13	98.18	15.75
August 12, 1977	871.10	97.88	16.87
August 11, 1977	877.43	98.16	21.74
August 10, 1977	887.04	98.92	18.28
August 9, 1977	879.42	98.05	19.90
August 8, 1977	879.42	97.99	15.87
August 5, 1977	888.69	98.76	19.94
August 4, 1977	888.17	98.74	18.87
August 3, 1977	886.00	98.37	21.17
August 2, 1977	887.39	98.50	17.91