News stories from Thursday September 27, 1979

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

A new education agency is certain. Creation of a cabinet-level Department of Education won final congressional approval, giving President Carter one of his first major domestic victories this year. The House approved a Senate-House compromise by a vote of 215 to 201. [New York Times] The House approved a budget, which projects spending of $548 billion and a deficit of $29 billion, after a group of liberal Democrats revised their position. A nearly identical budget was defeated last week. The budget now goes to a House-Senate conference, where a hard fight is expected because the two chambers differ sharply on military and domestic spending. Thus, the fiscal year 1980 will begin Monday with no federal budget enacted. [New York Times] Resisting the closing of a nursing home in Philadelphia, nurses blockaded the rundown building with their cars. A lawyer for 143 elderly patients vowed to fight plans by Pennsylvania to transfer the residents to a state-operated facility. The state charges that care at the bankrupt home is substandard. Employees have worked without pay since Aug. 17. [New York Times] A Holocaust memorial was urged by a presidential commission that called for the creation in Washington of a national museum to help keep alive the memory of the 11 million people slain by the Nazis in World War II. The 34-member panel also suggested establishing a committee to be responsible for acting against any future attempts at genocide. [New York Times] A sizable quantity of cocaine was obtained at the request of associates of Hamilton Jordan by a Houston woman, but she did not see the White House chief of staff or any of the others use the drug at a 1977 party in Los Angeles, he lawyer has told the Justice Department. The lawyer said, however, that the woman had told him there was "no question" in her mind that Mr. Jordan and others had used cocaine. [New York Times] A shortage in heating oil supplies this winter threatens residents in New York state and elsewhere, according to a state Senate panel. The concern is shared by the New York-New Jersey regional representative of the Federal Energy Department, but a department spokesman in Washington denied any cause for alarm and said reports showed normal deliveries. [New York Times] No sign of an accord on Cuba was evident after Secretary of State Vance and Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko ended talks on the issue of the presence of Soviet troops on the island. After a 3½-hour meeting in New York, Mr. Gromyko said he was returning home tomorrow night. Mr. Vance reported on the apparent impasse to President Carter and the National Security Council. [New York Times] Cancellation of a Soviet music tour in the United States was announced. The Moscow State Symphony had been scheduled to make the five-week tour, beginning Wednesday in Carnegie Hall, before Moscow raised objections amid a controversy over whether Soviet authorities were motivated by artistic matters or by fears of further defections of Russian performers. [New York Times] The Central African Republic's woes are mammoth. The country is in debt, has virtually nothing in its treasury and, according to a Western diplomat, "the economy is shot." In the week since David Dacko took power in a coup he has been seeking French advice on the problems faced by the former French colony. [New York Times] China condemned the Soviet Union in the United Nations General Assembly, denouncing Moscow as the "main threat to world peace." [New York Times] An Argentine official escaped death with his family but two guards were killed when a terrorist bomb destroyed the official's home outside Buenos Aires. Guillermo Walter Klein, the Secretary of Economic Planning, his wife and four children were freed from the rubble by firemen. [New York Times] A new American embassy in Peking is to be designed by I. M. Pei to replace the overcrowded diplomatic facilities there, a State Department officer disclosed. Mr. Pei, the New York-based architect, was born and raised in China and has designed a 300-room hotel to be built in a Peking suburb. [New York Times] U.S.-Mexican talks begin tomorrow in Washington between President Jose Lopez Portillo and President Carter, who will try to ease the tensions between the two countries. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 887.46 (+1.11, +0.13%)
S&P Composite: 110.21 (+0.25, +0.23%)
Arms Index: 0.64

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	663	16.43
Declines	737	11.60
Unchanged	468	5.08
Total Volume		33.11

* 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 26, 1979	886.35	109.96	37.70
September 25, 1979	886.18	109.68	32.41
September 24, 1979	885.84	109.61	33.79
September 21, 1979	893.94	110.47	52.38
September 20, 1979	893.69	110.51	45.10
September 19, 1979	876.45	108.28	35.37
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