News stories from Wednesday January 25, 1978

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

Prospects improved for the Panama Canal treaties. The Senate majority and minority leaders said they would jointly offer an amendment to the pacts to define the United States' right to send troops to defend the canal after the year 2000, when it falls under full Panamanian control. The accord between Senators Robert Byrd and Howard Baker seemed to make Senate approval likely. [New York Times] No radioactive debris was detected by search planes from the space accident Tuesday over northwestern Canada, United States diplomatic and technical officials said. The accident occurred when a Soviet spy satellite with a nuclear reactor aboard plunged out of control into the earth's atmosphere and disintegrated. United States spokesmen said that a U-2 and a KC-135, along with Canadian aircraft, had taken air samples over a wide area of western and central Canada and the Great Lakes region on both sides of the border and had found no traces of the uranium 235 that had been in the reactor. Canadian servicemen, using Geiger counters, swept a small region near the Great Slave Lake re-entry point, also with negative results. [New York Times] The huge roof over the Hartford Coliseum that collapsed under last week's snow had been a subject of concern among city officials and business leaders for more than five years. They openly expressed doubts about its safety, repeatedly raising questions about the sag, swaying and other aspects of the "space-frame," as the spectacular roof was called. The architects said nothing was wrong. [New York Times] The steel industry is recovering a bit. The Bethlehem Steel Corporation, which in the third quarter of 1977 lost $477 million, the largest loss ever for an American company in a quarter, reported fourth-quarter earnings of $19.2 million, or 43 cents a share. Bethlehem was the third major steel company to report improved performance in the fourth quarter. [New York Times] Stock prices again inched higher, with some of the buoyancy resulting from improved earning reports for the latest quarter. The Dow Jones industrial average made a token gain of 0.87, closing at 772.44. [New York Times] The nation's foreign-aid machinery would be overhauled by a bill shaped by Hubert Humphrey that was introduced in the Senate by John Sparkman, Democrat of Alabama. The measure was accompanied by a spirited 2,800-word appeal for its passage that was written by the Minnesota Senator shortly before his death. [New York Times] Muriel Humphrey was appointed to fill the Senate seat left vacant by the death of her husband, Hubert Humphrey. When she takes the oath of office, probably early next month, she will become the first woman Senator since Margaret Chase Smith of Maine lost a re-election bid in 1972. [New York Times] A major warning about liquefied energy gas was issued by the General Accounting Office. It said that installations used to store the gases in the United States were subject to "catastrophic failure" that could cause the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. The G.A.O., in a final draft report, charged that the government had failed to act "prudently" and "has not adequately protected the public health and safety." A spokesman for the American Gas Association denounced the report as inaccurate and accused its main author of engaging in "a vendetta against the industry." [New York Times] Growth in the Sunbelt states may be slowing in some regions, according to indications in the latest population estimates by the Census Bureau. The pattern is muddled, but the growth rate of such rapidly expanding states as Florida, Arizona and Colorado has slumped significantly in the last two years. The steepest drop was in Florida, hit by recession, where the population is now growing by only about 1 percent a year, about the average for all 50 states. [New York Times] A decision to resume military talks with Egypt in Cairo will probably be made by the Israeli cabinet by Sunday, according to government officials. The military negotiations were to have resumed last week, but were postponed when Egypt abruptly withdrew its Foreign Ministry delegation from political talks with Israelis in Jerusalem. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 772.44 (+0.87, +0.11%)
S&P Composite: 89.39 (+0.14, +0.16%)
Arms Index: 0.81

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	750	9.52
Declines	582	6.00
Unchanged	493	3.17
Total Volume		18.69

* 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*
January 24, 1978	771.57	89.25	18.69
January 23, 1978	770.70	89.24	19.38
January 20, 1978	776.94	89.89	7.58
January 19, 1978	778.67	90.09	21.50
January 18, 1978	786.30	90.56	21.39
January 17, 1978	779.02	89.88	19.36
January 16, 1978	771.74	89.43	18.76
January 13, 1978	775.73	89.69	18.01
January 12, 1978	778.15	89.82	22.73
January 11, 1978	775.90	89.74	22.88