News stories from Wednesday March 7, 1979

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

President Carter left for the Mideast on a personal peacemaking mission. He was described by aides as optimistic but still uncertain about the prospects for concluding an Israeli-Egyptian treaty. At a departure ceremony outside the White House, he expressed confidence that Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat "share my determination to see these negotiations bear fruit."Egypt can aid Mideast stability, according to President Sadat, who is to welcome President Carter tomorrow. The country has the largest army in the Middle East or Africa and is pivotal in the Arab world. But Egypt is also poor and heavily in debt to many countries, including the United States. [New York Times] Many federal executives may resign soon to escape a new law that bars former employees from doing business with the government for two years after leaving public posts. Officials at many departments said the possible exodus was "serious," and Joseph Califano, the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, said it could be "the greatest brain drain in the history of federal service." [New York Times] A Pentagon reorganization plan has been jolted by the abrupt resignation of the Defense Department's third-ranking officer, who has clashed with the agency's bureaucracy. The official is Stanley Resor, Under Secretary of Policy. One defense official said that "classic bureaucratic maneuvering" had prevented Mr. Resor from making substantive changes. [New York Times] Babies with Down's syndrome are being adopted. The Mongoloid infants were long routinely placed in institutions or foster care, but hundreds of children with the genetic defect that causes mental retardation and physical abnormalities have been adopted across the country. The change is attributed to the scarcity of healthy white babies, broader understanding of retardation, increased education services for the handicapped and subsidies to help care for such children. [New York Times] Jupiter is circled by a ring of dark rocky debris, American scientists announced in the first major surprise of the Voyager 1 mission. The thin, faint ring circles lie in the equatorial plane of the planet 34,000 miles outside its upper deck of multicolored clouds. [New York Times] Otto Passman is on trial in federal court in Monroe, La., on bribery and tax evasion charges. Tongsun Park, a Korean businessman, is to testify that the 78-year-old former Representative took $98,000 in illegal gratuities and bribes. Bystanders showing sympathy and skepticism toward Mr. Passman reflected fixed opinions that are making jury selection, which began Monday, a long process. [New York Times] Billy Carter began group therapy sessions at the Long Beach (Calif.) Naval Regional Medical Center. They are designed to help patients end their dependency on alcohol. [New York Times] Schoolchildren are taking drugs widely throughout Essex County, N.J., according to a county grand jury. It said the use of marijuana, cocaine and other narcotics had increased sharply "in every town and every school" and that pupils in the fourth and fifth grades were using many drugs. [New York Times] In Abadan, the Komiteh is all. The Islamic Revolutionary Committee passes sentence in secret trials and decides the time of death. In an interview with two former military leaders, one said, "We don't know what we are accused of." The Komiteh says they shot at people in a mosque and tortured and beat many of those arrested. [New York Times] A South African scandal has grown to the point where some of those brought down by it are threatening to force the resignation of Prime Minister P. W. Botha by revealing everything they know. The government has sought to keep what officials termed blackmail recordings from being made public, but has apparently succeeded only in postponing the revelations. The toppled officials were accused of possible misappropriation of public funds. [New York Times] Vietnam accused Chinese troops of continuing "barbarous criminal acts of war" despite Peking's announcement Monday that its forces were withdrawing from Vietnam. In a broadcast, Hanoi asserted that the Chinese had been "badly defeated," but were still looting villages, bombing houses and shelling wantonly. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 834.29 (+7.71, +0.93%)
S&P Composite: 98.44 (+0.57, +0.58%)
Arms Index: 0.63

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	1,034	20.32
Declines	383	4.71
Unchanged	419	3.90
Total Volume		28.93

* 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*
March 6, 1979	826.58	97.87	24.50
March 5, 1979	827.36	98.06	25.96
March 2, 1979	815.75	96.97	23.13
March 1, 1979	815.84	96.90	23.84
February 28, 1979	808.82	96.28	25.09
February 27, 1979	807.00	96.13	31.47
February 26, 1979	821.12	97.67	22.62
February 23, 1979	823.28	97.78	22.75
February 22, 1979	828.57	98.33	26.30
February 21, 1979	834.55	99.07	26.05