News stories from Friday February 9, 1979
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Possible jury tampering in the mistrial declared last week in the perjury and bribery case of Representative Daniel Flood, a 16-term Pennsylvania Democrat, is being investigated by the Justice Department. [New York Times]
- Iowa's legislature approved by one vote a proposal that would amend the Constitution so that a balanced federal budget would become law. With the vote, Iowa is about to become the 27th state in the effort by state legislatures to get support for the proposal. [New York Times]
- Freezing Massachusetts' property taxes and budgets at present levels was proposed to the legislature by Gov. Edward King, who had made a campaign pledge to reduce property taxes by $500 million this year and 50 percent over the next three years. [New York Times]
- Two physicians were found not guilty by a jury in Boston in a negligence suit for their treatment of a man with brain disease who became a paranoid schizophrenic. The case was believed to be the first in the nation involving psycho-surgery, which seeks to alter moods or behavior. [New York Times]
- Most of Nelson Rockefeller's estate, estimated at $66.5 million, was left to his wife, Margaretta, and their two sons, Nelson Jr., 14, and Mark, 12. The 64-page will, signed last Dec. 6, also bequeathed Mr. Rockefeller's one-quarter interest in a 250-acre "park" section of the Rockefeller family's Pocantico Hills estate in Westchester to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which, with the Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was designated as another "primary" beneficiary. [New York Times]
- The relocation of 100 more families from the Love Canal area of Niagara Falls was recommended by the New York state Health Commissioner. His action was coupled with the release of new data showing that the families might face serious health risks. The contamination of the neighborhood was caused by hundreds of tons of pesticides and other toxic substances that were dumped in the landfill canal. The situation has already forced the removal of 239 families. [New York Times]
- Iranian airport technicians demonstrating in support of Ayatollah Khomeini were rounded up by elite units of the Imperial Guard of the Iranian Army and shot to death, according to witnesses. The reports estimated the number of people killed as from 20 to 70, but they could not be confirmed. [New York Times]
- The U.S. expressed serious concern over a Chinese attack on Vietnam. The State Department said the possibility that China might retaliate for Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia, widening the fighting in Indochina, had alarmed the administration for some time, in part because of the risk of Soviet intervention on Vietnam's behalf. [New York Times]
- More world leaders pleaded for the life of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the former Prime Minister of Pakistan, who has been sentenced to death for complicity in a 1974 political murder. President Leonid Brezhnev of the Soviet Union and Pope John Paul II joined President Carter and President Valery Giscard d'Estaing of France, among others, in appealing to President Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, the general who overthrew Mr. Bhutto in 1977. [New York Times]
- Agreement was reached on a pay increase of nearly 16 percent for Britain's water and sewage workers, the first settlement among the 1.5 million striking public-service workers who are demanding increases considerably above the 8.8 percent ceiling set for them by the government. [New York Times]
- "Outrageous" was the word Prime Minister Aleksei Kosygin used to describe, while complaining to American officials, much of what China's Deputy Prime Minister Teng Hsiao-ping said about the Soviet government during his visit to the United States. [New York Times]
- The administration revised American strategy for deterring nuclear war by adopting a concept that would require American strategic forces to be capable of large-scale precision attacks against Soviet military targets as well as all-out retaliatory blows on cities. The new strategy, developed after several months of debate in the Pentagon, replaces the long-held theory that the United States needs only to threaten all-out retaliation against Soviet cities to deter Moscow from launching a nuclear attack. [New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 822.23 (+3.36, +0.41%)
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* |
| February 8, 1979 | 818.87 | 97.65 | 23.36 |
| February 7, 1979 | 816.01 | 97.16 | 28.45 |
| February 6, 1979 | 822.85 | 98.05 | 23.57 |
| February 5, 1979 | 823.98 | 98.09 | 26.49 |
| February 2, 1979 | 834.63 | 99.50 | 25.35 |
| February 1, 1979 | 840.87 | 99.96 | 27.92 |
| January 31, 1979 | 839.22 | 99.93 | 30.33 |
| January 30, 1979 | 851.78 | 101.05 | 26.91 |
| January 29, 1979 | 855.77 | 101.55 | 24.18 |
| January 26, 1979 | 859.75 | 101.86 | 34.24 |