News stories from Monday June 19, 1978

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

The Kremlin granted Muhammad Ali a 35-mlnute meeting with Leonid Brezhnev. At the extraordinary meeting, Mr. Brezhnev said he had never before received a foreign sportsman. The welcome for the former heavyweight champion was viewed as a gesture of good will to Washington. [New York Times] The anti-abortion drive is gaining. Leaders of the movement in a number of regions have defeated strong opponents or gained pledges of support from candidates, even though the vast majority of Americans say in polls that their choices do not depend on the abortion issue. The leaders are successful by bringing out supporters in strength in elections in which overall participation is light. [New York Times] An author of Proposition 13 was a guest on Capitol Hill. Howard Jarvis, who helped push the voter-approved initiative to cut property taxes in California, had breakfast with 10 conservative Republican Senators, who asked his advice on how to spread the anti-spending mood. He also called on the Democratic Senate leaders and the minority leader in the House. [New York Times] New emphasis on civil defense was proposed by President Carter. The shift in strategic policy was part of a reorganization plan that administration officials said was a response to a major Soviet effort to protect Russian civilians from a nuclear war. The proposal to Congress would remove civil defense from the jurisdiction of the Pentagon and place responsibility for it in a new agency, which would also deal with natural disasters. [New York Times] A poll of religious views found wide accord on basic beliefs but sharp differences in attitudes toward organized religion. The first major national survey comparing the beliefs of those who attend church and those who do not, conducted for 29 religious groups, found non-churchgoers were more likely to believe that a person could be religious without attending church and that churches had lost their spiritual dimension. [New York Times] Parents, pastors and students, representing 20 fundamentalist schools across Kentucky, have filed a suit asking a judge to enjoin the state Board of Education from imposing state standards on their institutions. They say they will not accept state-approved textbooks because those books ignore or discredit the Biblical version of creation. [New York Times] American-Soviet cooperation will be sought by the Carter administration, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance said. He urged that both countries eschew polemics and "concentrate on the concrete actions we both can take to reduce tensions" and to reach accord on critical issues. He spoke before a House panel after 14 members had complained of apparent differences among administration leaders. [New York Times] Israeli plans for Arab areas in the West Bank of the Jordan and the Gaza Strip were approved by Parliament after nearly six hours of often stormy debate. Despite severe criticism, the government obtained the backing of 59 members for the cabinet action, while 37 members were opposed and 10 members abstained. [New York Times] Egypt will not be deterred from working with the United States to revive the stalled Middle East peace talks despite Israel's "intransigence," an Egyptian leader said. Foreign Minister Mohammed Ibrahim Kamel made the statement after meeting with the American ambassador in Cairo. [New York Times] An arms ship off Lebanon's coast was seized by Lebanese ships, but Israeli gunboats opened fire and took the captured ship away, Lebanese authorities said. The seized ship had sailed from Cyprus with weapons and equipment believed intended for Palestinian guerrillas. The Lebanese said the incident had occurred inside Lebanon's territorial waters. [New York Times] Africans are helping Cubans till the soil. About 2,000 students from Angola and Mozambique, two countries where Cuban troops have aided left-wing regimes, are in Cuba combining work and study in one of the programs that has changed Cuban society in this decade. The Castro government is trying to overcome the mistakes of its first decade by coordinating economic and social planning. [New York Times] The Red Brigades trial went to the jury. Earlier, key defendants among 15 admitted members of the group and 31 other suspects read a long statement proclaiming themselves to be militant revolutionaries, but not terrorists. Observers said that the defendants would be convicted. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 838.62 (+1.65, +0.20%)
S&P Composite: 97.49 (+0.07, +0.07%)
Arms Index: 0.66

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	515	9.43
Declines	1,016	12.33
Unchanged	378	3.74
Total Volume		25.50

* 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*
June 16, 1978	836.97	97.42	27.70
June 15, 1978	844.25	98.34	29.28
June 14, 1978	854.56	99.48	37.29
June 13, 1978	856.98	99.57	30.76
June 12, 1978	856.72	99.55	29.34
June 9, 1978	859.23	99.93	32.47
June 8, 1978	862.09	100.21	39.38
June 7, 1978	861.92	100.12	33.06
June 6, 1978	866.51	100.32	51.98
June 5, 1978	863.83	99.95	39.59