News stories from Thursday August 31, 1978
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- President Carter appealed to governors and businessmen to support a natural gas compromise bill and to encourage its passage by Congress. In separate meetings with 11 governors and 100 executives of gas-using businesses, Carter said that failure to enact the bill would be devastating. He said it would weaken the dollar abroad, swell oil imports, worsen inflation, and make America look weak-willed to its allies. [Chicago Tribune]
- In a surprise move, Symbionese Liberation Army members William and Emily Harris pleaded guilty to kidnapping Patricia Hearst 4½ years ago. Alameda County Superior Court Judge Stanley Golde accepted the plea and set sentencing for Oct. 3. The Harrises, smiling broadly, entered the courtroom to an outburst of applause from some spectators. After the pleas were accepted, they each read brief emotional statements declaring their pride in kidnapping Miss Hearst and taking "full responsibility for our actions." [Chicago Tribune]
- Former President Richard Nixon reportedly is continuing to plan a visit to Australia despite an Australian government refusal to make his visit official and allow him to meet Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. A spokesman for Nixon said that the visit is still on. He said the former President has been asked by Australian citizens to make the visit. [Chicago Tribune]
- The House Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations is calling for the immediate recall of all 13 million Firestone 500 steel-belted radial tires in use nationwide, saying they present an unreasonable risk of death and injury. The panel said that the Firestone tires have caused at least 34 deaths, hundreds of injuries, and thousands of accidents. [Chicago Tribune]
- Teachers were on strike against schools with a total of more than 150,000 students, and the walkouts could multiply after Labor Day, when school begins in much of the nation. [Chicago Tribune]
- Five deputy St. Louis city marshals were fired after being accused of soliciting and accepting sexual favors from an accused prostitute in their custody. Allegations of sexual misconduct against a sixth deputy marshal by a second woman arrested for prostitution are under investigation, according to City Marshall R. C. French The women told authorities the jail personnel promised to help them obtain bail in return for sexual favors. [Chicago Tribune]
- The stock market fell after the government reported that its index of leading economic indicators was flashing on the downside in July. The Dow Jones industrial average closed 3.90 lower at 876.82.
Boeing scored a major coup when Eastern Airlines and British Airways placed orders totaling $680 million for 40 new Boeing 757s, a narrow-bodied plane seating 180 passengers. The big aircraft manufacturer had been fighting off challenges to its position of dominance in the field.
Chrysler Corporation said it will install airbags in a limited number of its 1981 car models, two years before they are required. The company said it wants some "field experience" before the bags are mandatory.
[Chicago Tribune] - Soviet world chess champion Anatoly Karpov's delegation agreed to seat a Soviet parapsychologist in the back row of the playing hall, and challenger Viktor Korchnoi agreed to take off his one-way tinted eyeglasses. [Chicago Tribune]
- Pope John Paul I pledged that the Vatican won't meddle with the delicate balance between church and state existing throughout the world. "Our possibilities for diplomatic interventions are limited and of a special character," the new pontiff said at his first reception for foreign diplomats accredited to the Vatican. [Chicago Tribune]
- One thousand Mexico City policemen are searching for the kidnappers of the son of Mexico's ambassador to the United States, whose body was found in a field near the capital city. Police said that an automobile believed used in the abduction of Hugo Margain Tuesday night had been found. Police department spokesman Victor Payan ruled out reports that Communist terrorists were involved. Margain bled to death from a bullet wound believed suffered when he was ambushed by the kidnappers. [Chicago Tribune]
- Charlotte Durfee was convicted in Madison, Wisconsin, of hiring a former college teacher to try to kill her millionaire ex-husband with cobra venom. She faces a maximum of 30 years in prison. [Chicago Tribune]
- Fidel Castro's government has decided to allow 48 Cuban political prisoners to seek entry to the United States. U.S. authorities, in turn, said screening of applicants will be started soon to determine which will be admitted. A Justice Department spokesman said 30 members of the prisoners' families also are seeking entry to the U.S. He said he did not know whether any of the prisoners are accused of being C.I.A. operatives. [Chicago Tribune]
- Prime Minister Menachem Begin said he would accept a mutual defense pact with the U.S., including American military facilities in Israel, but he rejected the stationing of U.S. troops in the occupied West Bank of the Jordan River "because we do not want foreign soldiers to defend our people." [Chicago Tribune]
- Young Nicaraguan rebels, some of them only 12 years old, defiantly held National Guard troops at bay in Matagalpa as they vowed to fight to the end against President Anastasio Somoza. Despite several hours of bitter street fighting, the guardsmen failed to dislodge the youths holding much of this city, the country's third largest. [Chicago Tribune]
- The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is still powerful enough to repel any Soviet-led attacks by Warsaw Pact countries, but the military balance is moving against the West according to a report issued in London by the International Institute of Strategic Studies. The institute said the United States could fire more than 11,000 nuclear warheads compared with 4,500 the Soviets could fire. But in the 1980's the Soviet total will soar to 7,500 individual warheads which will have higher yields than U.S. ones. [Chicago Tribune]
- West German legislators have been called back from their summer vacation for a special meeting of the Bundestag to decide whether to lift the parliamentary immunity of a deputy who is suspected of being a Communist spy. The latest espionage scandal is reported to involve Uwe Holtz, 34, a deputy of Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's Social Democratic Party, and six aides of other legislators. Holtz has denied the allegations. [Chicago Tribune]
- One of the Soviet Union's largest surveillance aircraft, believed to be a TU-126 Moss, crashed on the Norwegian island of Hopen in the Spitsbergen Archipelago on Monday, authorities in Oslo have revealed. The plane was destroyed. Three bodies and debris, including the remains of three or four engines, guns, and ammunition, were found. A TU-126 usually carries a crew of 6 to 10. [Chicago Tribune]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 876.82 (-3.90, -0.44%)
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 30, 1978 | 880.72 | 103.50 | 37.76 |
| August 29, 1978 | 880.20 | 103.39 | 33.78 |
| August 28, 1978 | 884.88 | 103.96 | 31.76 |
| August 25, 1978 | 895.53 | 104.90 | 36.19 |
| August 24, 1978 | 897.35 | 105.08 | 38.50 |
| August 23, 1978 | 897.00 | 104.91 | 39.63 |
| August 22, 1978 | 892.41 | 104.31 | 29.62 |
| August 21, 1978 | 888.95 | 103.89 | 29.44 |
| August 18, 1978 | 896.83 | 104.73 | 34.66 |
| August 17, 1978 | 900.12 | 105.08 | 45.27 |