News stories from Wednesday April 11, 1979

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

The Three Mile Island nuclear accident will be investigated by a presidential commission to determine the causes and recommend safeguards to prevent a recurrence. A panel of 11 persons appointed by President Carter has predominantly scientists and academicians and includes the president of Dartmouth College and a mother of six who lives in Middletown, Pa., where the March 28 nuclear-core accident occurred. The commission is to report its findings in six months. [New York Times] The Carter campaign got no funds from money lent to the President's family peanut business by a Georgia bank, Billy Carter said in an interview. The President's younger brother said that there might have been short delays in notifying the bank about collateral arrangements, but that the business was not behind in its loan payments in 1975 and 1976. [New York Times] Stunned and grieving residents of Wichita Falls, Tex., helped pull bodies from beneath 20 blocks of rubble left by a devastating tornado, which threatened to be recorded as the worst in Texas history. Officials estimated that as many as 100 people may have been killed in the town, which suffered the highest casualties and damage among communities hit along the Texas-Oklahoma border. [New York Times] The trucking pact tentatively reached by the industry and the Teamsters union was embraced by the White House, which said that the terms were within the administration's anti-inflation wage guidelines. But government officials reported that compliance had been achieved only because of a number of changes in, and new interpretations of, the guidelines. [New York Times] A few non-fatal skin cancers were produced among persons treated for psoriasis by a widely available therapy combining a drug and ultraviolet light that can dramatically relieve the disabling skin disease, according to a national study. Dermatologists conducting the study found that 48 skin cancers had developed in 30 patients, or about 2 percent of 1,373 patients. [New York Times] A Peking envoy lauded New York City as the economic center of the world and said that China planned to establish its first American office for international trade in the city. The statements were made in Washington by Ambassador Chai Zemin, who wore a red Big Apple pin on his gray Mao jacket. [New York Times] The company that dumped toxic chemicals in a Love Canal site at Niagara Falls, N.Y., has been under inquiry for more than a year by the Justice Department, which expects to decide soon whether to prosecute. Records disclosed Tuesday show that the concern had known for 20 years that the chemicals were seeping into surrounding residential areas. [New York Times] The capital of Uganda fell to a force of Tanzanian troops and Ugandan exiles and thousands of the Kampala residents greeted the invaders with cheers. The attack, which met only scattered resistance, effectively toppled President Idi Amin. He was said to be fleeing east toward the remnants of his troops. [New York Times] A key figure in a Senate debate over a strategic arms treaty said he was inclined to oppose it. Senator Howard Baker Jr., the Republican leader, seemed to favor a compromise by urging the administration to remove his objections in further negotiations with Moscow or, lacking that, modification of the pact in the Senate.The projected arms pact was assailed by several former American defense officials and retired military officers. They asserted that a new strategic arms limitation treaty with Moscow would lock Washington into a position of military inferiority. [New York Times] Iranian Jews were reassured about their future in an Islamic republic as the Iranian television presented for the first time a program on Passover and its meaning to Jews. The program on the first night of Passover brought the country's 70,000 Jews a respite from concern about the strong anti-Zionist and anti-Israeli positions of the revolutionary regime and its continuing suppression of civil liberties. [New York Times] Previous Arab aid commitments to Egypt are expected to be kept, but the Arab countries will probably not give any new assistance because of Egypt's peace treaty with Israel, Secretary of State Vance said. He told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Saudi Arabia would carry out its pledge made last year to pay for Egypt's purchase of 50 American F-5E jet fighters at a cost of $525 million. [New York Times] A referendum will be held in Egypt next Thursday on the peace treaty with Israel and also on new measures for further liberalizing Egypt's limited democracy, President Sadat announced in a broadcast. [New York Times] Israeli-Lebanese border violence rose as Palestinians fired rockets at an Israeli town and exchanged artillery fire with Israeli gunners. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 871.71 (-7.01, -0.80%)
S&P Composite: 102.31 (-1.03, -1.00%)
Arms Index: 1.38

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	461	7.08
Declines	991	21.01
Unchanged	432	4.81
Total Volume		32.90

* 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*
April 10, 1979	878.72	103.34	31.90
April 9, 1979	873.70	102.87	27.30
April 6, 1979	875.69	103.18	34.72
April 5, 1979	877.60	103.26	34.54
April 4, 1979	869.80	102.65	41.94
April 3, 1979	868.33	102.40	33.53
April 2, 1979	855.25	100.90	28.97
March 30, 1979	862.18	101.59	29.97
March 29, 1979	866.77	102.03	28.51
March 28, 1979	866.25	102.12	39.92