News stories from Friday August 31, 1979

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

The Dominican Republic was struck by winds of up to 150 miles an hour as Hurricane David turned abruptly northward after roaring across several Caribbean islands. Before its swerve, the hurricane had been moving westward about 50 miles offshore. [New York Times] An Assistant Attorney General denied that he told federal grand jurors that a White House official had apparently perjured himself in the jury's investigation of Robert Vesco, the fugitive financier. Philip Heymann's assessment of Richard Harden's testimony reportedly was given by him at closed meeting with eight jury members. Mr. Harden is a special assistant to President Carter. [New York Times] A crackdown on tax evaders is planned by the Internal Revenue Service, which estimates that they failed to pay the government from $19 billion to $26 billion in 1976. The agency for the first time is attempting to determine the amount of all unpaid individual income taxes. [New York Times] Court-ordered busing is imminent in two Ohio cities. Columbus and Cleveland must carry out court orders to begin school desegregation within the next two weeks. Columbus is said to be much more prepared to insure that busing begins smoothly. [New York Times] An analysis of insulation materials is being made by the government to determine whether they release asbestos fibers, which, when breathed, can cause cancer. Nearly 150 types of consumer products will be examined by the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Many of the products are known to contain asbestos. [New York Times] Cleveland headed into default for the second time in less than a year. It was a "planned catastrophe," according to the City Law Director, Jack Schulman, who said, "We can't avoid it." He accused the City Council of contriving the default in an attempt to embarrass Mayor Dennis Kucinich and weaken his chances for re-election. [New York Times] The Hooker company was accused of illegally dumping toxic wastes at Long Island landfills in violation of state law by the state's Department of Environmental Conservation, which cited 400 instances of illegal dumping. The agency's regional director for Long Island said he had requested the state's Attorney General to press criminal charges against unidentified Hooker employees who allegedly filed a false report with the state. [New York Times] Andrew Young's advice is welcome, Donald McHenry said, but he wants to handle his new diplomatic assignment at the United Nations "in my own way." The successor to Mr. Young as the United State chief delegate said, "I don't feel I have any shoes to fill." Mr. Young, also speaking at the same news conference, said Mr. McHenry's appointment was "something we can all be happy about." [New York Times] About 2,000 Soviet combat troops are in Cuba, and the United States has expressed its concern to the Soviet Union, the State Department said. Hodding Carter, the department spokesman, estimating the number of troops at 2,000 to 3,000, said, "This is the first time we have been able to confirm the presence of a Soviet ground forces unit on the island." He said that it "poses no threat to the United States" and violates no previous Soviet-American understanding on Cuba. But the development might make Senate approval of the Soviet-American arms treaty more difficult. [New York Times] U.S. ties with China are as direct and mature as those with its European allies, Vice President Mondale said as he ended his visit to China. But he warned that the relationship depended heavily "on delivering the things that we've promised to deliver." [New York Times] What Arabs say in public is quite different from what they say to President Carter, who said that he has never met an Arab leader who has told him that there should be an independent Palestinian state, even though they may declare this publicly elsewhere. Nor has he ever been confronted, he said, at a meeting with Florida newspaper editors, with any Arab threat to cut off oil supplies unless progress was made in a Middle East peace talks. [New York Times] A 9.5 percent rise in plane fares has been approved by the Civil Aeronautics Board because of increasing fuel costs. The fare rise is the third approved this year by the agency. The latest one brings the total plane fare increase this year to 20.1 percent. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 887.63 (+3.93, +0.44%)
S&P Composite: 109.32 (+0.30, +0.28%)
Arms Index: 0.63

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	869	15.88
Declines	543	6.26
Unchanged	440	4.23
Total Volume		26.37

* 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 30, 1979	883.70	109.02	29.28
August 29, 1979	884.90	109.02	30.81
August 28, 1979	884.64	109.02	29.43
August 27, 1979	885.41	109.14	32.06
August 24, 1979	880.20	108.60	32.73
August 23, 1979	880.38	108.63	35.72
August 22, 1979	885.84	108.99	38.45
August 21, 1979	886.01	108.91	38.86
August 20, 1979	886.52	108.83	32.30
August 17, 1979	883.36	108.30	31.63