News stories from Wednesday August 8, 1979

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

Heating subsidies for the poor are planned by the Carter administration, according to officials. They said that the administration would ask Congress to approve $1.6 billion in special aid next winter and $2.4 billion for the 1980-81 winter. The President has pledged to use revenue froth a windfall profits tax on oil companies to help offset the effects of rising energy prices. [New York Times] Moon Landrieu won a lucrative interest in a real estate development partnership last year after he served as Mayor of New Orleans. As Mayor, he had helped work out a swap through which the developer acquired some city property that became part of a multimillion-dollar project. The project would reap major benefits if the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which Mr. Landrieu has been named to head by President Carter, approves a $5 million grant requested by New Orleans after he left office. [New York Times] An easing in gasoline sales observance of odd-even day restrictions seems to be growing in the New York metropolitan area since supplies rose and lines at filling stations diminished. Spot checks show that, as sales have declined, operators are increasingly willing to sell fuel illegally to all motorists. [New York Times] President Carter is viewed as weak, a leader who has not yet mastered his office, in the opinion of many Italian-American voters he met Tuesday in visiting Baltimore to address the national convention of the Sons of Italy. The trip showed that he still conveys the sense of honesty and warmth he generated in the 1976 campaign, but that he cannot run again as a critic of the government he heads. [New York Times] Inflation is battering the poor, the unemployed and other low-income families, according to a report by a national advisory council. A disabled couple in Hartford receive $586 a month in compensation and welfare, but they say "the money runs out very quickly" and "we just do without." [New York Times] Racially motivated arson was cited by officials after an explosion and fire destroyed a house in a predominantly white neighborhood in Yonkers that had been occupied four hours earlier by the family of a black I.B.M. executive. Five members of the family were injured while fleeing from the blaze shortly before 4 A.M. [New York Times] Victims of the Holocaust will be honored on Saturday at a mass in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City sponsored by the Edith Stein Guild, a Roman Catholic society dedicated to improved relations with Jews, but not to their evangelization. Edith Stein was a Jew and a philosopher who became a Catholic and a nun, but still considered herself a Jew. She was one of the millions slain in gas chambers by the Nazis. [New York Times] The oil lobbying group is widely considered to be among the most effective in Washington. Critics portray the lobbyists as a vast monolith, but this is vigorously disputed by those in the group. A senior official in the Department of Energy terms the group "a sea of constantly changing alliances." [New York Times] Texas fishermen and Vietnamese refugees are involved in a bitter dispute that has led to a murder, several fire-bombings and the attempted bombing of a Gulf Coast crab plant that employs Vietnamese. The Texans believe that there were too many fishermen even before the refugees began arriving three years ago. [New York Times] U.S.-Israeli relations seemed eased by a 90-minute meeting between President Carter and Ambassador Ephraim Evron. The talk was set because the administration feared that wide publicity given recent differences raised a possible crisis that could set back present negotiations on Palestinian autonomy. Both sides appeared satisfied that the meeting had isolated genuine problems and cleared up misunderstandings. [New York Times] Iraq executed 21 officials, including prominent political and trade union figures, for having taken part in an alleged conspiracy against the government. President Saddam Hussein addressed a crowd but gave no details about the alleged plot. [New York Times] Vietnam's economy is stagnant and hampered by a lack of skilled workers caused largely by the exodus of ethnic Chinese. Other problems include soaring inflation, a need to import millions of tons of food, and inadequate housing. Despite the hardships, the Vietnamese appear to remain firmly loyal to the government. [New York Times] Extensive intelligence-gathering operations in the United States have been maintained by five foreign governments who spied on and, in some cases harassed, their citizens, according to a draft Senate Foreign Relations Committee report. [New York Times] Higher South Korean military spending is scheduled, according to Seoul officials. They disclosed that President Carter, while visiting there at the end of June, persuaded President Park Chung Hee to raise the outlays next year by about $500 million. [New York Times] The death of a Soviet diplomat in Switzerland April 7 was attributed by Moscow to an overdose of LSD that, it suggested, was administered by Western intelligence agents. The Swiss police termed the death a suicide. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 863.14 (+3.33, +0.39%)
S&P Composite: 105.98 (+0.33, +0.31%)
Arms Index: 0.94

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	932	24.77
Declines	526	13.12
Unchanged	416	7.08
Total Volume		44.97

* 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*
August 7, 1979	859.81	105.65	45.41
August 6, 1979	848.55	104.30	27.19
August 3, 1979	846.16	104.04	28.16
August 2, 1979	847.95	104.10	37.73
August 1, 1979	850.34	104.17	36.57
July 31, 1979	846.42	103.81	34.38
July 30, 1979	838.74	103.15	28.64
July 27, 1979	839.76	103.10	27.77
July 26, 1979	839.76	103.10	32.28
July 25, 1979	839.51	103.08	34.89