News stories from Friday September 15, 1978

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

The federal government has asked the Supreme Court to turn aside what it termed a major threat to voluntary affirmative action plans affecting millions of workers. The threat is a 2 to 1 ruling by a federal appeals court that in plants where discrimination hasn't been proved, employers and unions can't consider race in negotiating programs to select employees to be trained in-house for skilled jobs. [Washington Post] U.S. Postal Service employees won higher pay and lifetime job guarantees in a contract settlement imposed today by a federal mediator. But union leaders expressed unhappiness with a decision by mediator James Healy that makes it possible to lay off workers hired in the future. Previous contracts rejected earlier this year by union members included a ban on layoffs. Postal management has been seeking to eliminate the layoff protection because future mechanization could require fewer workers. [Washington Post] In Montgomery, Alabama, U.S. District Court Judge Frank Johnson rejected former attorney general John Mitchell's claim of "bias and vindictiveness" by the U.S. Parole Commission and refused to order Mitchell's early release from prison. Mitchell, due to be paroled next Jan. 19, is serving a 1-to-4 year sentence at the federal prison camp at Maxwell Air Force Base for his role in the Watergate cover-up. [Washington Post] Georgia attorney W. Spencer Lee said under oath today that he never discussed fugitive financier Robert Vesco's legal problems with his longtime friend Hamilton Jordan -- despite a promise that he would get $1 million from Vesco associates just for approaching President Carter's top aide. He also insisted that he never drafted or signed letters addressed to Jordan and Charles Kirbo, another confidant of President Carter, which appear to implicate them in the deal being pushed by R.L. Herring, a Vesco associate from Georgia. [Washington Post] Although their parents are in the United States illegally, children of aliens are entitled to a free public education, which eventually will benefit the state, a federal judge ruled. U.S. District Court Judge William Justice issued a permanent order against the Tyler (Texas) school district, saying it cannot charge tuition to the children of illegal aliens in an effort to offset the rising cost of education.Justice ruled that illegal aliens are entitled to equal protection of the law under the U.S. Constitution and therefore eligible for the same free education provided children of legal residents. [Washington Post] Teacher strikes curtailed the schooling of about 400,000 students in Cleveland and Dayton, Ohio; Seattle and Tacoma, Wash.; Bridgeport, Conn.; Chicago, Ypsilanti, Mich. and Fall River, Mass. At Bridgeport, negotiators met in a National Guard barracks where 138 teachers -- including the union bargaining team -- are jailed for refusing to obey a judge's back-to-work order. The strikers were in the ninth day of their walkout for higher wages. [Washington Post] The Volkswagen Rabbit diesel again has been designated by the Environmental Protection Agency as the most fuel-efficient car. The 1979 diesel Rabbit 5-speed with a 90 cubic-inch engine averages 41 miles per gallon, the E.P.A. said. [Washington Post] A five-year-old investigation of underworld bribery of the F.B.I. culminated today in the indictment of an F.B.I. agent in New York on charges of lying about the attempted bribe. The indictment of special agent Joseph Stabile marks the first time in the bureau's 54-year history that an agent has been indicted for collusion with organized crime. Stabile allegedly received a $10,000 bribe from John Caputo to arrange for the dismissal of gambling charges against Caputo. [Washington Post] The Central Intelligence Agency acknowledged that at least one of its officials considered liquidating a high-ranking KGB defector who had offered to testify about lee Harvey Oswald's activities in the Soviet Union. The C.I.A. officials in charge of the defector, Yuri Nosenko, were so preoccupied with breaking him down and making him confess he was a liar that they paid little attention to what he had to say about Oswald or anything else. [Washington Post] President Carter has centered his intense but thus far unsuccessful efforts to build a Middle East peace agreement this week on the concept of an interim three-way sharing of power by Arabs and Israelis in the West Bank territory of the Jordan River, informed diplomatic sources reported. It was confirmed that the idea of Israel, Jordan and local Palestinians sharing power on the West Bank for a limited period that would lead to a final decision on sovereignty has been under intense discussion at Camp David. [Washington Post] Nicaraguan government troops withdrew from street fighting in the rebel-occupied city of Leon this morning and began heavy rocket and strafing attacks. The city of 80,000 -- Nicaragua's second largest -- is one of a number of cities where leftist guerrillas and their supporters have fought government troops in an effort to topple the government of President Anastasio Somoza. The U.S. ambassador asked for Somoza for help in evacuating a reported 300 Americans in the northwestern part of the country, where much of the fighting is taking place. [Washington Post]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 878.55 (-8.49, -0.96%)
S&P Composite: 104.12 (-0.98, -0.93%)
Arms Index: 0.79

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	368	9.48
Declines	1,200	24.44
Unchanged	359	3.37
Total Volume		37.29

* 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*
September 14, 1978	887.04	105.10	37.40
September 13, 1978	899.60	106.34	43.33
September 12, 1978	906.44	106.99	34.41
September 11, 1978	907.74	106.98	39.66
September 8, 1978	907.74	106.79	42.07
September 7, 1978	893.71	105.42	40.30
September 6, 1978	895.79	105.38	42.61
September 5, 1978	886.61	104.49	32.18
September 1, 1978	879.33	103.68	35.07
August 31, 1978	876.82	103.29	33.85