News stories from Wednesday September 19, 1979

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

A proposed new budget was defeated by the House, which sent the measure back to committee by a vote of 213 to 192. Earlier, the Senate, by a vote of 62 to 36, approved a 1980 fiscal year budget of $546.3 billion, with a deficit of $31.6 billion. [New York Times] The House rejected a pay rise of $4,025 for Congress in a recorded vote after it had approved the increase in a non-recorded vote. But the turnabout leaves uncertain what increase, if any, members of Congress and about 22,000 top-level federal officials and judges will get this year. [New York Times] The Carter-Mondale campaign staff, working in a suite of cluttered, nondescript offices near the White House, is toiling at securing a second term for Jimmy Carter. The Carter-Mondale Presidential Committee has assembled a paid professional staff of more than 100, opened nine field offices and raised $2.1 million, and it has a new sense of urgency as the prospects of a Kennedy challenge grow. [New York Times] California fires raged over 90,000 acres in at least 16 areas around the state. Firefighters battled out-of-control blazes spreading across 4,000 acres in Santa Barbara County, 40,000 acres of brush near Los Angeles, 8,200 acres of forest 50 miles northeast of Sacramento and across 3,000 acres of forest in northern California. [New York Times] Inspection of DC-9 jets was ordered by the Federal Aviation Administration in an emergency directive requiring prompt examination for rear bulkhead cracks on airliners similar to the one that lost a rear door and tail cone over the Atlantic Monday. The agency said it would soon order regular visual and X-ray inspections and perhaps compulsory strengthening of the structure that gave way. [New York Times] A carcinogen is contained in beer, according to a public interest group, which asked the government to order brewers to clean up their products. The group said that Americans were probably consuming 20 times more of the agent, nitrosamines, from drinking beer than from eating bacon. [New York Times] To monitor the Mideast peace pact, the United States, Egypt and Israel announced a tentative accord on a new formula that will require increased American ground and air surveillance of the Sinai Peninsula. Officials said that the United States Sinai field mission, which has been operating a warning system for three years, will have its mission extended and functions broadened. [New York Times] Britain protested to Washington about the activities of an American involving negotiations on a new Zimbabwe Rhodesian constitution. British officials charged that a legislative aide to Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina had encouraged former Prime Minister Ian Smith of Rhodesia to take an unyielding position on safeguards for the white minority. Senator Helms denied any impropriety. [New York Times] Sweden's non-Socialist parties won the national elections, thanks to postal ballots that were counted three days after the voting ended. The ballots wiped out a narrow lead held by Socialist bloc parties. [New York Times] Moscow lost the first diplomatic fight of the new United Nations General Assembly as the Credentials Committee voted 6 to 3 against removing the representative of the deposed Pol Pot regime from Cambodia's seat. The majority included the United States and China. The entire Assembly is to vote Friday on the issue. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 876.45 (+2.30, +0.26%)
S&P Composite: 108.28 (+0.28, +0.26%)
Arms Index: 0.71

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	700	17.63
Declines	711	12.71
Unchanged	470	5.03
Total Volume		35.37

* 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*
September 18, 1979	874.15	108.00	38.75
September 17, 1979	881.31	108.84	37.61
September 14, 1979	879.10	108.76	42.01
September 13, 1979	870.73	107.85	35.24
September 12, 1979	870.90	107.82	39.35
September 11, 1979	869.71	107.51	42.54
September 10, 1979	876.88	108.17	33.00
September 7, 1979	874.15	107.66	34.37
September 6, 1979	867.32	106.85	30.36
September 5, 1979	866.13	106.40	41.65