News stories from Monday April 16, 1979
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Jane Byrne became Mayor of Chicago. At her swearing-in ceremony, she paid homage to her mentor, the late Mayor Richard Daley, for forging a coalition of business and labor that advanced Chicago. She pledged not only to continue that tradition but to broaden the coalition to include all segments of society. [New York Times]
- Caution on Social Security financing was expressed in the annual report of the system's trustees. It warned that a recession this year could jeopardize the system's ability to pay retirement benefits on time by 1983. [New York Times]
- Police surveillance for political aims continues "on a vast scale," aided by taxpayers' money, federal agencies, computerized data networks and private and quasi-private groups, according to a study by the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization. [New York Times]
- Price gouging by service stations will be the target of a new campaign announced by the federal Department of Energy. It said that it would investigate and prosecute such alleged practices nationwide, beginning with a stepped-up effort to audit the books of suspicious gas stations in the New York City area, where prices are among the highest in the country. [New York Times]
- Homosexuals are not significantly different from heterosexuals in their responses to a wide variety of sexual stimuli, and many of the problems of homosexuals can be treated in two weeks of intensive therapy, according to a 10-year study. The new findings, by Dr. William Masters and Virginia Johnson, the pioneering sex researchers, are expected to increase treatment programs for homosexuals. [New York Times]
- A vast increase in state aid to distressed communities in urban and rural areas in the last year or so has been reported by a group that monitors trends in the American federal system. For several years New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Michigan and California have been aggressively assisting municipalities rather than leaving aid up to the federal government. These states have stepped up their efforts, and most of the others have become much more involved. [New York Times]
- Toxic hazards were disclosed in an internal 1975 Hooker Chemical and Plastics Corporation report just made available. It said that the company's plant in Niagara Falls, N.Y., regularly released mercury, chlorine, phosphorous-based gases and carcinogenic pesticides into the air and sewers of the city and in spills inside the plant, endangering workers and the community. In interviews, plant workers alleged high leukemia rates among former benzene workers, other cancers among former pesticide workers and ugly blisters among phenol workers. [New York Times]
- Gunmen killed three security guards and escaped with about $1.8 million in currency, coins, checks, jewelry and food stamps in Waterbury, Conn. The police said that the thieves had waited for the arrival of a van that was on the way from banks in Hartford to banks in New York City and killed the guards with rifles fired through the windows of an armored-car depot. [New York Times]
- Palestinian terrorists were thwarted in an attempt to take over an Israeli airliner landing at a Brussels airport, but they wounded 12 Belgians in the attack. The terrorists dropped a small bomb into an arrival area and engaged in a gun battle in a nearby restaurant. The police said none of the Belgians was seriously injured. Two attackers were captured. [New York Times]
- The loss of two monitoring posts in Iran was stressed in Senate testimony by Adm. Stanfield Turner, the Director of Central Intelligence, according to congressional sources. They quoted the director as having said that it would take five years for the United States to replace fully the capability for monitoring Soviet missile tests and development lost with the electronic eavesdropping posts. [New York Times]
- Fearing a nuclear arms race in the Indian subcontinent, Washington has offered Pakistan fighter planes and nuclear-power assistance if Pakistan agrees to curbs on its ability to produce nuclear weapons, Carter administration officials said. [New York Times]
- Summary trials and executions in Iran face mounting opposition. The resignation of Foreign Minister Karim Sanjabi and the departure from Teheran of Ayatollah Mahmoud Taleghani, the capital's popular religious leader, seemed to be aimed at preserving the provisional government. [New York Times]
- Yugoslavs fled from the earthquake zone on the southern Adriatic resort coast as the death toll from the temblor was officially put at 101. [New York Times]
- In the annual Pulitzer awards, the prize for drama was won by Sam Shepard's "Buried Child," which closed Sunday off-Broadway. Russell Baker of the New York Times won the award for journalism commentary. A newspaper with a circulation of only 2,700, The Point Reyes (Calif.) Light, received the gold medal for public service for disclosures about Synanon, the drug rehabilitation program that is said to have become an authoritarian cult and whose founder has been charged with plotting murder. [New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 860.45 (-10.05, -1.15%)
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 12, 1979 | 870.50 | 102.00 | 26.78 |
| April 11, 1979 | 871.71 | 102.31 | 32.87 |
| 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 |