News stories from Friday March 30, 1979
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- There is some risk of a meltdown of a reactor core at the crippled atomic plant near Harrisburg, Pa., officials of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission told Congress. A core meltdown is second only to an explosion in the seriousness of a nuclear accident. But Gov. Dick Thornburgh said later that no general evacuation was deemed necessary and a commission official sent to the scene said, "There is no imminent danger to the public." He called the possibility of a core meltdown "very remote."
Radioactivity is still leaking from the crippled nuclear power plant, but government experts said it was not an immediate threat to public health. However, Governor Thornburgh said his suggestion that pregnant women and small children stay at least five miles from the plant "remains in force" until Saturday. Earlier, several thousand school children were evacuated from the plant area near Harrisburg and others began leaving on the Governor's advice.
People vanished from the streets of Goldsboro, near the crippled power plant. Every window and door in sight of the town's Main Street was tightly shut. "Almost everybody's gone," said a woman casting a wary eye toward the plant's huge cooling towers, looming ominously above the Pennsylvania community of 600 residents.
Harrisburg was uneasy over conflicting statements about the nuclear plant emergency. In the most dramatic incident, an air raid siren shrieked what turned out to be an unauthorized alert, setting off a midday traffic jam of employees in the state Capitol. The alert was variously said to have been a malfunction or to have been sounded by a Civil Defense official who had misinterpreted Governor Thornburgh's widely misreported decision to prepare for, but not to carry out, a mass evacuation of the area.
[New York Times] - A leading British legislator was slain when a bomb apparently set by Irish terrorists exploded in his car as he was leaving Parliament. The victim, Airey Neave, was one of the closest advisers to Margaret Thatcher, the Conservative Party leader. [New York Times]
- The Teamsters reached a tentative accord with the trucking industry on a wage increase, and both sides continued talks on other issues, according to sources close to the negotiations. The current contract will expire at midnight Saturday. The sources said that the wage-benefit package would probably provide a total increase of 27 to 30 percent over a three-year contract. [New York Times]
- United Airlines was struck by 18,600 mechanics and other ground workers after they rejected a new contract tentatively accepted by their union officers. United, which is the nation's largest carrier, announced that it had cancelled all of its 1,600 daily flights from tomorrow through April 8. [New York Times]
- Creatures living in 10-foot tubes of their own making have been discovered by diving scientists among ocean-floor hot springs near the Galapagos Island in the Pacific. The creatures have no mouths or eyes and their anatomy is so novel that some specialists consider them a newly found basic division of the animal kingdom. [New York Times]
- Continued use of sodium nitrite was requested in Congress by the administration, despite a study linking the food preservative to cancer in animals. Cabinet members said that if Congress accepted the proposal, the additive could be removed entirely from food by May 1, 1982. Acting too quickly, they said, could expose consumers to threats from food poisoning. [New York Times]
- Strategic arms could be monitored under a new plan formulated by the Carter administration. Officials said that the plan was designed to compensate for the loss of American electronic listening posts in Iran and also to convince the Senate that Washington could verify a new strategic arms accord with Moscow. [New York Times]
- An Islamic republic in Iran was expected to be approved by a landslide in the first of two days of voting. But the single-question balloting was deeply troubling to many highly educated, Westernized Iranians. The Shah of Iran flew to the Bahamas from Morocco for a visit that knowledgeable sources said would last "at least a month or more." [New York Times]
- Increased aid to poorer countries was pledged by Secretary of State Vance, who said that assisting their economic growth involved both self-interest and moral responsibility. [New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 862.18 (-4.59, -0.53%)
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 29, 1979 | 866.77 | 102.03 | 28.51 |
| March 28, 1979 | 866.25 | 102.12 | 39.92 |
| March 27, 1979 | 871.36 | 102.48 | 32.93 |
| March 26, 1979 | 854.82 | 101.04 | 23.42 |
| March 23, 1979 | 859.75 | 101.60 | 33.58 |
| March 22, 1979 | 861.31 | 101.67 | 34.36 |
| March 21, 1979 | 857.76 | 101.25 | 31.12 |
| March 20, 1979 | 850.31 | 100.50 | 27.18 |
| March 19, 1979 | 857.59 | 101.06 | 34.62 |
| March 16, 1979 | 852.82 | 100.69 | 31.77 |