News stories from Friday July 7, 1978
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- The unemployment rate fell sharply in June to 5.7 percent of the nation's work force, the Labor Department said. But an administration economist warned that the decline might be reversed if, as expected, the economy slowed down. Jobs increased in almost all sections of industry except manufacturing, with a particularly high rate in the building industry. [New York Times]
- Astronomers discovered a moon in orbit around Pluto, the farthest known planet in the solar system, the United States Naval Observatory in Washington announced. Photographic plates of the planet, which revealed the moon, also heightened the surmise that one or more massive objects, including even a planet, may remain to be discovered beyond Pluto's orbit. [New York Times]
- Attorney General Griffin Bell won a stay of a contempt of court order that followed his refusal to release informer files sought by the Socialist Workers Party in a $40 million suit. "As of now, the Attorney General is not in contempt," Robert Fiske, a United States Attorney, said. The stay was issued by Judge Murray Gurfein of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan, who said the case was "was a historic confrontation." The dispute between the Attorney General and Federal District Judge Thomas Griesa in Manhattan is expected to go eventually to the United States Supreme Court. [New York Times]
- Prison terms of 15 years were given to a former United States information officer and a Vietnamese graduate student who had been convicted of being spies for Vietnam. Roland Humphrey, the former information officer, and David Truong. the son of an unsuccessful South Vietnamese presidential candidate, reiterated their pleas of innocence at the sentencing in Alexandria, Va. They could have received life terms. [New York Times]
- The Reserve Mining Company will stay in business, company officials said in Minneapolis, pledging to comply with state and federal environmental laws that threatened to shut the company down. The company will complete construction of a $370 million project that will end Reserve's pollution of Lake Superior. [New York Times]
- Israel strengthened its forces along the borders of Lebanon and Syria, according to reports from the area, to give greater weight to its warning that it would not remain inactive if Syrian shelling of Lebanese Christian sectors of Beirut continued. Syria was said to have responded by putting its forces on alert. But its troops in Beirut withheld their fire. [New York Times]
- Moods in Israel and Egypt reveal that peace negotiations cannot proceed without the introduction of some American compromise satisfying both sides. The psychological barrier to peace in the Middle East that President Anwar Sadat said he had removed after his visit to Jerusalem last November still exists, reinforced by mutual prejudices and frustrations over the current deadlock. [New York Times]
- Anatoly Sharansky goes on trial in Moscow for treason two days before Secretary of State Cyrus Vance is scheduled to meet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in Geneva. The Jewish dissident, whom President Carter has defended, is charged with high treason and espionage, which carries a possible death penalty. Western diplomats expressed shock at the timing of the trial. [New York Times]
- Italians chose a Socialist candidate for the country's presidency. The governing Christian Democrats, to save their alliance with the left, agreed to the candidacy of Sandro Pertini, 82 years old, who was a Resistance hero in World War II. Mr. Pertini has had the support of the Communist Party, and now with the backing of the governing party he could be elected President by a very large majority. [New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 812.46 (+5.29, +0.66%)
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* |
| July 6, 1978 | 807.17 | 94.32 | 24.99 |
| July 5, 1978 | 805.79 | 94.27 | 23.74 |
| July 3, 1978 | 812.89 | 95.09 | 11.57 |
| June 30, 1978 | 818.95 | 95.53 | 18.11 |
| June 29, 1978 | 821.64 | 95.57 | 21.66 |
| June 28, 1978 | 819.91 | 95.40 | 23.27 |
| June 27, 1978 | 817.31 | 94.98 | 29.28 |
| June 26, 1978 | 812.28 | 94.60 | 29.25 |
| June 23, 1978 | 823.02 | 95.85 | 28.53 |
| June 22, 1978 | 827.70 | 96.24 | 27.17 |