News stories from Thursday December 14, 1978

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

President Carter, defending his commitment to raise the defense budget by about 3 percent, said, "I do not intend to go back on my commitment" to European allies. His statement came after criticism by Senator Kennedy of his decision to cut domestic programs to hold the budget to a $30 billion deficit, and after weeks of intense debate over his defense spending. [New York Times] Federal budget plans were scored by the heads of nine major higher education organizations. They showed figures to reporters which they said showed that President Carter's budget advisers planned to gut a law that was to give grants-in-aid to middle-income college students only 45 days after Mr. Carter had signed the bill, hailing it as "landmark" legislation. [New York Times] Cleveland moved toward default as city officials failed to reach a consensus on how to repay about $15.5 million in short-term loans due by late Friday. Mayor Dennis Kucinich and City Council President George Forbes, both Democrats, remained sharply divided over the Mayor's sweeping rescue plan, which has been opposed by a major lender. [New York Times] Disposal of hazardous wastes in a safe manner would be required of producers under wide-ranging rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency. The proposed new rules would place stringent controls over the generation, transport, disposal and later monitoring of wastes that pose a threat to human health. [New York Times] A major anti-pollution effort was agreed to by the Tennessee Valley Authority, which said it would spend more than $1 billion to clean up air contaminants at 10 power plants. [New York Times] Alex Haley acknowledged regretfully in the settlement of a lawsuit that his famed book "Roots" contained some material from "The African," a novel about slavery written by Harold Courlander that was published nine years earlier. The settlement ended a six-week trial. The amount of money to be paid to Mr. Courlander and his publisher was not disclosed, but it seemed likely to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. [New York Times] Studio 54 was raided by agents of the Internal Revenue Service armed with a search warrant obtained by a strike force against organized crime. The agents carted off books, records and filing cabinets from the popular Manhattan discotheque and arraigned Ian Schrager, one of the owners, on a charge of possessing cocaine with intent to distribute it. [New York Times] Fingerprints were found on the van used by armed bandits on Monday to carry off more than $5 million in cash and $850,000 in jewelry from the Lufthansa cargo area at Kennedy International Airport. The police were also examining gloves and paper found in the black van, which was stolen Sunday in Queens and discovered Wednesday evening on a street in Brooklyn. The police also took "elimination prints" from the owners of the van. [New York Times] It is now up to Israel to accept or reject the proposed peace treaty with Egypt, President Carter said, expressing deep frustration at the latest snag in negotiations. He ruled out any early reconvening of Camp David talks, citing "other pressing international problems." Earlier, an administration spokesman told reporters that if Israel rejected the latest American proposals for a treaty, Washington would temporarily suspend its mediation efforts.A special Israeli cabinet meeting is to be held tomorrow, headed by Prime Minister Begin, to discuss the stalemate in the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty negotiations. The mood in Israel was generally bleak, but there was hardly any criticism of Mr. Begin. President Sadat expressed confidence that an Egyptian-Israeli peace pact would be signed "sooner or later, whatever the consequences are." The Egyptian leader, who appeared in good spirits, made the comment after Secretary of State Vance had briefed him on Israel's negative response to the latest Egyptian and American ideas for settling the final issues. [New York Times] Iranians demonstrated violently in a dozen cities as the Shah opened a new effort to persuade opposition leaders to join a coalition government that might end the bloodshed. Several dozen persons were wounded in the clashes, but charges that up to 30 persons had been killed could not be confirmed. [New York Times] Vietnamese forces advanced up to 70 miles into southern Cambodia, moving into position to cut the highway linking Phnom Penh to its main port, Western analysts said. If the road is sealed, this could strangle Phnom Penh and seriously damage Cambodia's war effort since virtually all supplies from China move through the port. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 812.54 (+2.68, +0.33%)
S&P Composite: 96.04 (-0.02, -0.02%)
Arms Index: 0.72

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	578	7.99
Declines	890	8.83
Unchanged	448	4.02
Total Volume		20.84

* 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*
December 13, 1978	809.86	96.06	22.48
December 12, 1978	814.97	96.59	22.21
December 11, 1978	817.65	97.11	21.01
December 8, 1978	811.85	96.63	18.56
December 7, 1978	816.09	97.08	21.18
December 6, 1978	821.90	97.49	29.68
December 5, 1978	820.51	97.44	25.66
December 4, 1978	806.83	96.15	22.02
December 1, 1978	811.50	96.28	26.83
November 30, 1978	799.03	94.70	19.90