News stories from Monday August 14, 1978
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- The House passed a $7.1 billion foreign aid appropriation after voting to forbid use of U.S. capital in an international bank loan to Vietnam. The House also applied a 2 percent cut to most items in the measure that, along with earlier reductions, brought the total down from the original $7.3 billion figure. Funds for Israel and Egypt were exempt from the reduction. The vote forbidding use of U.S. funds contributed to the International Development Association for loans to Vietnam was a blow to President Carter. [Chicago Tribune]
- The Senate rejected a plan to allow a federal income-tax credit of up to $150 to partially offset property taxes that support public schools. By a 69-21 vote, the Senate refused to add the amendment, sponsored by Sen. Barry Goldwater, to a bill that would provide tax credits for tuition for college or private elementary and secondary schools. [Chicago Tribune]
- The Rev. Ralph Abernathy, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s chief lieutenant in the civil rights movement, told the House Assassinations Committee he believes King received advance warning of his assassination. However, under questioning, Abernathy said he has "no knowledge" of any warnings delivered to King and that King had said nothing to him about any threat. But, Abernathy said, King did not trust the police, the FBI, or the CIA. King was shot to death by a sniper in Memphis on April 4, 1968. [Chicago Tribune]
- The 109-day-old Northwest Airlines pilot strike came to an end shortly after midnight with an agreement on a new three-year-contract. The pact was agreed upon during day-long negotiations. The terms of the accord were not disclosed. [Chicago Tribune]
- In Santa Barbara, Calif., aftershocks continued as scientists tried to pinpoint the geological fault responsible for the earthquake that injured about 60 persons in this coastal city and caused at least $500,000 damage. Dr. Michael Reichle, a University of California at Santa Barbara seismologist, said the fault probably responsible for the earthquake is known as the Pitas Point fault. [Chicago Tribune]
- A key congressional supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment predicted that the House will vote to extend the deadline for ratification of the proposed constitutional change by 39 months. Rep. Don Edwards also predicted defeat for a proposal that would allow states that already have ratified ERA to rescind that ratification. [Chicago Tribune]
- President Carter drew applause from farmers in Colombia, Missouri, when he told them he "will not permit any more expansion in beef imports this year" and is "strongly and permanently opposed to any price controls on meat or any other farm product." [Chicago Tribune]
- Texaco, Inc. reported the first discovery of natural gas off the East Coast. But the oil firm said it doesn't yet know whether enough of the fuel is present to make it worth extracting. The discovery is in the Baltimore Canyon, 100 miles east of Atlantic City. [Chicago Tribune]
- Memphis became a virtual ghost town tonight as police supervisors cracked down on anyone violating a dusk-to-dawn curfew imposed in the wake of a strike by both policemen and firefighters. Among those hauled in were the strikers who were picketing police stations and firehouses. The strikers threatened to widen the walkout Tuesday by picketing other city departments. [Chicago Tribune]
- Diana Nyad began hallucinating and shivering uncontrollably halfway through her Cuba-to-Florida swim tonight and her support team asked the Navy to put a rescue helicopter on standby. Earlier, observer Dan Levin, who sat above Nyad's motorized shark cage during the evening, reported her tongue "swollen to twice its normal size. Her hands look like claws -- white and deeply furrowed from the salt water. She keeps running into the cage."
A menacing shark forced Stella Taylor out of the water three times as she attempted a 100-mile Bimini-to-Florida swim, but she pressed on, singing as she went, after the shark was shot to death, her trainers said. Taylor. 46, is trying the marathon without a shark cage. Each time the shark approached, she climbed onto a support boat. The shark was shot the third time.
[Chicago Tribune] - Trying to avoid political turmoil, the Israeli cabinet has shelved plans to build five more Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank of Jordan until after the Camp David summit next month. President Carter will mediate the Sept. 5 meeting of Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat at Carter's Maryland mountain retreat. Israel already has established 100 settlements on land captured from Jordan. Egypt, and Syria in the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. [Chicago Tribune]
- Greek heiress Christina Onassis Kauzov surprised her new Russian husband and mother-in-law by returning to Moscow, nine days after she just left behind her husband to visit Athens and London. Sergei Kauzov did not meet his wife at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport, but the two were reunited at his mother's Moscow apartment. [Chicago Tribune]
- In below-freezing temperatures, Double Eagle II drifted slightly off course Monday during its attempt to become the first manned balloon to cross the Atlantic, but ground control at Bedford, Mass. said it is too early to tell whether its three-man crew is in trouble. "It may become a serious situation but, as it stands right now it's not, and we just have to wait till we have more information," spokesman David McClure said. At the last position report late this afternoon, the balloon was 550 miles northeast of St. John's, Nfld., about 50 miles farther north than expected, McClure said. [Chicago Tribune]
- Members of the Sacred College of Cardinals who are over the age of 80 will be the first to learn the name of the new Pope when their younger colleagues elect him in a secret conclave beginning Aug. 25. The older cardinals are banned from voting for the new pontiff, but a Vatican official said they will be the first to be notified when a Pope is chosen. [Chicago Tribune]
- A work slowdown by technicians has a stranglehold on Britain's telephone service. Pay phones take the money and don't work. Phones don't ring when numbers are dialed. Wrong numbers are common, and it's difficult to make international calls. Communications experts say only about one international call in 20 from London is being completed, and there's no immediate prospect for an end to the 10-month-old union slowdown. [Chicago Tribune]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 888.17 (-2.68, -0.30%)
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 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 |
| August 8, 1978 | 889.21 | 104.01 | 34.30 |
| August 7, 1978 | 885.05 | 103.55 | 33.35 |
| August 4, 1978 | 888.43 | 103.92 | 37.92 |
| August 3, 1978 | 886.87 | 103.51 | 66.37 |
| August 2, 1978 | 883.49 | 102.92 | 47.50 |
| August 1, 1978 | 860.71 | 100.66 | 34.81 |
| July 31, 1978 | 862.27 | 100.68 | 33.99 |