News stories from Tuesday October 9, 1979

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

Trying to end a legislative deadlock, the House passed separate appropriations bills, one including strict limitations on abortions and the other providing a 5.5 percent pay increase for members of Congress and top federal officials. It was uncertain whether the Senate would go along with the carefully devised strategy for speedy action on financing departments and agencies that still lack a new budget. [New York Times] An expected Carter political gain was played up by the President, who said he regarded the outcome of the Florida Democratic caucuses on Saturday as his first "significant" test of strength against Senator Edward Kennedy. The Senator, aware of a growing belief that the Carter forces are likely to win a majority of 879 contested state delegates, has recently sought to play down the Florida voting. [New York Times] Inspection of more than 100 DC-9's and repairs, if needed, were ordered urgently by the government to prevent an emergency like the one in which a DC-9 jetliner lost a rear cabin wall and tail cone over the Atlantic Ocean last month. The planes involved in the latest order have a design different from that craft, but the government said that rear-wall fatigue cracks had been found in several of them. [New York Times] Protecting data on informers led last year to an unusual confrontation between the Justice Department and a federal judge over the government's right to forfeit its defense of a lawsuit rather than comply with a court order to disclose files on such informers. The government, in effect, won the dispute today as the Supreme Court narrowly refused to hear an appeal by the Socialist Workers Party against the lifting of a contempt order against the Attorney General. [New York Times] Closed court proceedings will be ruled on again by the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear a constitutional challenge to a judge's order that excluded the public and the press from a murder trial. Acting only three months after their controversial upholding of the closing of a pretrial hearing, the Justices with unusual speed gave themselves the chance to explain the precise meaning of that ruling. [New York Times] Genetic repairs in human cells may be eventually achieved as a result of the successful injection of a single gene into a defective living cell, curing that cell's fatal genetic flaw. The feat, using the cells of mice, has been reported by a team of scientists. [New York Times] Federal job funds for New York City are expected to be increased substantially. Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall is to announce this week the re-allocation of about $500 million in unused public employment funds and the city, as a high jobless area, will get an estimated $50 million. [New York Times] Midtown Manhattan was buzzed for more than three hours by a disgruntled author flying a small rented plane, prompting the evacuation of the United Nations enclave on the East River and the offices of the publishing company that had angered him. The pilot, 61-year-old Robert Baudin, finally landed voluntarily at La Guardia Airport and was taken into custody. [New York Times] Plans to protect Fidel Castro during his visit to New York City have been drawn up by city and United Nations security officials, although they are still uncertain about precisely when the Cuban President will arrive this week and where he might go. [New York Times] Upgrading missiles in Western Europe should proceed and then the Atlantic alliance should negotiate with Moscow a mutual and balanced cut in forces and arms, President Carter said in a televised address. Responding to an offer by the Soviet Union to reduce the number of its nuclear medium-range missiles aimed at Western Europe, Mr. Carter said that the offer "in effect is to continue their own rate of modernization, provided we don't modernize at all." [New York Times] Action this year on the arms treaty was endorsed by Senator John Stennis of Mississippi, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. Mr. Stennis has been influential with Republicans as well as fellow Democrats. [New York Times] A stalemate on Zimbabwe Rhodesia threatened the constitutional conference in London. Britain appealed to guerrilla leaders to reconsider their rejection of its proposals for a new constitution, but the insurgents said they would not accept the plan. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 857.59 (-26.45, -2.99%)
S&P Composite: 106.63 (-3.25, -2.96%)
Arms Index: 3.17

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	74	0.72
Declines	1,765	54.49
Unchanged	98	0.35
Total Volume		55.56

* 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*
October 8, 1979	884.04	109.88	32.61
October 5, 1979	897.61	111.27	48.25
October 4, 1979	890.10	110.17	38.80
October 3, 1979	885.15	109.59	36.47
October 2, 1979	885.32	109.59	38.32
October 1, 1979	872.95	108.56	24.98
September 28, 1979	878.58	109.32	35.96
September 27, 1979	887.46	110.21	33.12
September 26, 1979	886.35	109.96	37.70
September 25, 1979	886.18	109.68	32.41