News stories from Friday May 11, 1979
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- An offshore oil-drilling rig collapsed in the Gulf of Mexico near. Galveston, Tex., throwing the 34 men aboard it into the turbulent water. Eight men were missing. The 26 others were rescued by the Coast Guard and private boats. [New York Times]
- The plant failure at Three Mile Island was inadvertently turned from a minor upset into a major accident because the nuclear plant's operators could not tell what was really happening inside the reactor and incorrectly diagnosed the problems, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported. [New York Times]
- Food stamps have changed the eating habits of Puerto Rico's poor and have brought a level of nutrition that could not have achieved if the Department of Agriculture had not introduced the stamps there nearly five years ago. Half of the island's 3.2 million population are receiving the stamps. [New York Times]
- Another weekend of gasoline hunting faced drivers as energy officials in a number of states prepared emergency plans following the rejection by Congress of President Carter's request for standby rationing authority.
Gasoline retailers will violate the Sherman Antitrust Act if they carry out their plans in a price protest for a national shutdown of service stations on the weekend of May 17-20, the Justice Department said. The retailers are seeking changes in federal gasoline price controls that would enable them to raise prices.
[New York Times] - Two double murders in Westchester County (N.Y.) were linked when property from the homes of the victims was found in a stolen car recovered in Brooklyn. Police said the car belonged to one of the four persons murdered in Bedford Hills in apparent robbery attempts at two separate houses. [New York Times]
- The possibility of murdering the man who says that he and Jeremy Thorpe had a love affair was discussed 10 years ago by Mr. Thorpe, when he was leader of the Liberal Party, with a former colleague in Parliament, according to the latter's testimony at Mr. Thorpe's trial on murder-conspiracy charges in London. Peter Bessell, who now lives in California and was summoned to London to testify, said he had tried to talk Mr. Thorpe out of the idea of killing the man, and that Mr. Thorpe replied that "it is no worse than killing a sick dog." [New York Times]
- Pierre Trudeau hopes to win votes and revive his flagging re-election campaign for Prime Minister by pushing for a referendum on Canada's Constitution. He proposes changing Britain's control over the Canadian charter, so that an act of Parliament would become a Canadian act that Canadians could change. [New York Times]
- Soviet and American officials will meet for intensive talks within the next few weeks in an attempt to resolve beforehand the issues that will be on the agenda when President Carter and Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet leader, sign the treaty to limit strategic arms treaty in Vienna next month. [New York Times]
- Indochinese refugees are streaming into Hong Kong, a British colony, because of discriminatory measures against Vietnam's ethnic Chinese minority. The exodus marks the first important flow of people from northern Vietnam to the non-Communist world since the Communist victory there in 1954. [New York Times]
- Leniency was given 11 black students for their part in organizing the protests that erupted into riots in the black ghetto of Soweto near Johannesburg in 1976 and 1977. The students were found guilty of sedition in the Transvaal Supreme Court, but they were given relatively light sentences ranging from five to eight years. Most of the terms were then suspended. [New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 830.56 (+1.64, +0.20%)
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* |
| May 10, 1979 | 828.92 | 98.52 | 25.23 |
| May 9, 1979 | 838.62 | 99.46 | 27.67 |
| May 8, 1979 | 834.89 | 99.17 | 32.72 |
| May 7, 1979 | 833.42 | 99.02 | 30.49 |
| May 4, 1979 | 847.54 | 100.69 | 30.63 |
| May 3, 1979 | 857.59 | 101.81 | 30.86 |
| May 2, 1979 | 855.51 | 101.72 | 30.51 |
| May 1, 1979 | 855.51 | 101.68 | 31.05 |
| April 30, 1979 | 854.90 | 101.76 | 26.44 |
| April 27, 1979 | 856.64 | 101.80 | 29.63 |