News stories from Friday January 18, 1980
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Division over the Moscow Olympics accelerated. Senior officials of the American Olympics Committee met more than two hours with Secretary of State Vance and aides of President Carter and later suggested that they would not necessarily comply with a decision by the President to withdraw from the Moscow games this summer. [New York Times]
- Isolation is shared by the captors and the Americans they have held for nearly 11 weeks at the embassy in Teheran, according to foreign and Iranian sources. The militants are no longer allowed by their leaders to leave the compound for fear of being influenced by moderates, one captor said. The tightly disciplined group is believed to number 50 to 100 members.
Letters from the American hostages in Iran reflect a conflicting picture of their physical and emotional conditions. The sharply contradictory views of life inside the embassy led some relatives to question the veracity of the letters. Some recipients hypothesized that misspellings were deliberate clues to give a more accurate view of the hostages' states of mind.
[New York Times] - A Pakistan aid package will be pressed in Congress next week by the Carter administration even though Pakistan's President dismissed the $400 million, two-year program Thursday as "pea-nuts." The administration said that the package was viewed as only part of an aid program involving nations friendly to Pakistan. [New York Times]
- The fragility of Rhodesia's cease-fire is epitomized at an assembly point where 48 Britons watch over 5,800 armed black rebels. The Patriotic Front guerrillas there total more than one-fourth of those in assembly points around the country. If the truce holds at this assembly area, it is believed, then the cease-fire is secure. [New York Times]
- The economic collapse of El Salvador after three years of terror and agitation by right-wing and leftist extremists has hurt the poor and middle class the most. Rising unemployment has affected thousands of poor people and the middle class is fearful of a Communist takeover. [New York Times]
- The economy grew moderately at a 1.4 percent annual rate in the fourth quarter of 1979, the government reported. The performance, which continued to defy the pessimistic predictions by economists of a recession, followed a 3.1 percent annual growth rate in the third quarter. The price index of the gross national product showed inflation at 8.8 percent for the year. [New York Times]
- Protection for endangered species of plants and animals would be sharply increased under plans by the Carter administration, according to officials who announced the budget proposals under prodding by environmental groups. The officials said that the administration would seek to roughly double the staff asssigned to place species on the endangered list and that seven additional agents would enforce the endangered species law. [New York Times]
- A higher minority census count is being sought by Hispanic-American activists, who say that the 1970 census overlooked millions in the group, costing their communities political representation and government aid. In California, special efforts are being made to get a more accurate count of Hispanic-Americans, blacks and Asians, including illegal aliens, who are thought to number up to two million. [New York Times]
- A campaign against business is being pressed by a coalition of union, consumer, liberal and leftist groups in a fight against what they consider flagrant abuses of corporate power. The activists' goals include improvements in safety protection for workers, aid to communities where businesses close plants, and citizen participation in corporate decision-making. [New York Times]
- Voters believe the Republican Party can do a better job than the Democrats in managing the economy for the first time in many years, according to a Republican-sponsored poll. The survey also found that voters increasingly blamed their own legislators for contributing to an inadequate performance by Congress in a shift that could aid Republican challenges to Democrats in Congress. [New York Times]
- A death-penalty bill was vetoed by Governor Carey. It was the fourth time in four years that he has thwarted an attempt by the legislature to restore capital punishment for some murders in New York state. He also reaffirmed that if the legislature overrode his veto, he would commute any death sentences to life imprisonment. [New York Times]
- Two Studio 54 owners were sentenced to three and a half years in prison and fined $20,000 each on charges that they had evaded more than $400,000 in income taxes on cash that was skimmed from their popular discotheque in Manhattan. In imposing the sentences, a federal judge assailed the two men, Steven Rubell and Ian Schrager, for "tremendous arrogance." [New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 867.15 (+3.58, +0.41%)
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* |
| January 17, 1980 | 863.57 | 110.70 | 54.19 |
| January 16, 1980 | 865.19 | 111.05 | 67.75 |
| January 15, 1980 | 868.60 | 111.14 | 52.37 |
| January 14, 1980 | 863.57 | 110.38 | 52.94 |
| January 11, 1980 | 858.53 | 109.92 | 52.89 |
| January 10, 1980 | 858.96 | 109.89 | 55.98 |
| January 9, 1980 | 850.09 | 109.05 | 65.24 |
| January 8, 1980 | 851.71 | 108.95 | 53.38 |
| January 7, 1980 | 832.00 | 106.81 | 44.50 |
| January 4, 1980 | 828.84 | 106.52 | 39.16 |