News stories from Friday April 27, 1979

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

Temporary closing of nuclear reactors designed by Babcock & Wilcox was agreed to by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which, however, will allow two of the reactors to remain in use for a while to prevent power shortages in three Southern states.No rate increase or serious power shortages were in view at the Duke Power Company after it reached a settlement with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that avoided a long shutdown of three Oconee Station nuclear reactors near Greenville, S.C. The agreement called for only brief, staggered shutdowns of the reactors. The company had predicted an immediate rate increase of 23 percent, or nine dollars added to the average monthly bill, and rotational blackouts if the nuclear plants were shut down. [New York Times] A sniper fired on parade spectators in San Antonio, killing two women and wounding 31 other persons, including five policemen. The sniper, identified as Ira Attebury, 64 years old, reportedly killed himself as the police closed in. The police estimated that 300,000 people had gathered along the parade route. The parade, the 84th commemoration of the Battle of the Flowers, is a principal event in the city's Festival Week. The heavily armed sniper fired from a motor home parked near the parade's starting point. [New York Times] A fuel tank defect in Ford Mavericks and Mercury Comets was found in an "initial determination" by a government agency. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimated that there are defective tanks in almost 1 million 1970-73 Mavericks and 1971-73 Comets still in use. [New York Times] The overflowing Red River marooned hundreds of rural residents along a 100-mile stretch of the upper Red River Valley on the United States-Canada border. Homes were surrounded by lakes created by the flooding. [New York Times] The sale of Esquire Magazine by its British owners to a Knoxville publisher is expected to be completed over the weekend, sources close to the negotiations said. The buyer is the 13-30 Corporation, a youth-oriented publishing house, half owned by the Bonnier Newspaper Group in Sweden, whose president confirmed that 13-30 was negotiating to buy Esquire and "several other" American magazines. [New York Times] The Soviet Union freed five dissidents and sent them to New York in exchange for two convicted Soviet spies held by the U.S., who were on their way to Moscow. The White House announced the exchange. The five dissidents are Aleksandr Ginzburg, Mark Dymshits, Eduard Kuznetsov, Valentin Moroz, and Georgi Vins.Secrecy shrouded the activists' arrival in New York. Police officials knew only that something big was happening. There were rumors that the former Shah of Iran was coming, or perhaps Idi Amin, Uganda's deposed President, or Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader. The secret broke only with the White House announcement. [New York Times] South Africa is offering Rhodesia substantial economic and military assistance to sustain the incoming government of Bishop Abel Muzorewa, a senior Rhodesian official said. The offer of "all-out support" was described as a major shift in South African strategic policy that could have the effect of extending South Africa's defense perimeter to the Zambezi River, Rhodesia's northern frontier. [New York Times] Zaire renounced parts of a contract with a West German rocket company whose virtual sovereign control of 39,000 acres of Zaire's territory led to charges that a secret Western rocket base had been set up in the heart of Africa. [New York Times] Egypt is studying a proposal by Rumania that the Middle East peace conference be reconvened in Geneva and that it include other Arab nations and the Palestinians. President Nicolae Ceausescu made the suggestion in talks with President Anwar Sadat on Wednesday. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 856.64 (-4.33, -0.50%)
S&P Composite: 101.80 (-0.21, -0.21%)
Arms Index: 0.59

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	534	12.68
Declines	905	12.68
Unchanged	484	4.25
Total Volume		29.61

* 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 26, 1979	860.97	102.01	32.41
April 25, 1979	867.46	102.50	31.75
April 24, 1979	866.86	102.20	35.54
April 23, 1979	860.10	101.57	25.62
April 20, 1979	856.98	101.23	28.83
April 19, 1979	855.25	101.28	31.12
April 18, 1979	860.27	101.70	29.51
April 17, 1979	857.93	101.24	29.27
April 16, 1979	860.45	101.12	28.05
April 12, 1979	870.50	102.00	26.78