News stories from Friday August 13, 1976

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

President Ford's campaign managers issued a state-by-state delegate count showing that Mr. Ford had enough votes for a first-ballot victory at the Republican National Convention, but the figures were immediately challenged by Ronald Reagan's principal campaign strategist. According to the New York Times tabulation, President Ford was still 12 votes short of the 1,130 needed for nomination. [New York Times] The Republican Platform Committee moved toward approval of a party document generally supporting President Ford's foreign policies. The committee rejected, by a vote of 55 to 43, a plank offered by delegates supporting Ronald Reagan's proposal that the United States keep "sovereign rights" over the Panama Canal. [New York Times] Representative Wayne Hays, Democrat of Ohio, who admitted a sexual involvement with a woman he hired as a House secretary, announced that he would not seek re-election to the House, where he has been a member for 28 years. In a statement issued by his office, Mr. Hays said that ill health was the reason for his retirement "coupled with the harassment my family and I have taken from the Washington Post." He had been renominated for re-election in his home district by a wide margin. [New York Times] The United States Steel Corporation announced a price increase of 4.5 percent for sheet and strip steel, its major product line, which is used by the automobile and appliance industries, effective Oct. 1. This was the second major steel price rise in three months. U.S. Steel put a 6 percent increase into effect June 14. [New York Times] Epidemiologists investigating the mysterious outbreak of the so-called Legionnaire's disease in Philadelphia say they have found indications that two men who attended the International Eucharistic Congress there last week may have contracted the respiratory illness. The men have been hospitalized. [New York Times] The Federal Bureau of Investigation was ordered by Attorney General Edward Levi to try to determine whether John Roselli, the organized crime figure, was murdered as a result of his Senate testimony on assassination plots of the Central Intelligence Agency against Prime Minister Fidel Castro of Cuba. [New York Times] The federal government was enjoined from carrying out the first sale of oil and natural gas leasing in the Atlantic Ocean, which had been scheduled for Tuesday. Judge Jack Weinstein of Federal District Court in Brooklyn granted a preliminary injunction, in a suit brought by New York state, Nassau and Suffolk counties, an environmentalist group and five Long Island municipalities. [New York Times] Optimism about finding life on Mars faltered with the announcement by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena that a Martian soil sample contained no detectable level of complex carbon-containing molecules that might be produced by microbes. But the scientists in Pasadena emphasized that the readings from Viking 1's instruments did not rule out the presence of micro-organisms. [New York Times] Syria put tight controls on its border with Lebanon, stirring speculation that Damascus was sending reinforcements to back up the 20,000 Syrian troops already in Lebanon. Arab diplomats in Beirut said the move could be in anticipation of more trouble in Lebanon following the capture of the Palestinian camp of Tell Zaatar by rightist Christians on Thursday. [New York Times] South Africa pledged its support for the United States effort to bring about a negotiated settlement in Rhodesia, warning that failure would create new opportunities for intervention in southern Africa by the Soviet Union and Cuba. In the fullest statement that South Africa has made on its attitude toward the Rhodesian crisis, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Hilgard Muller, said in an address before the governing National Party in Durban that "the South African government welcomes this initiative." [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 990.19 (+3.07, +0.31%)
S&P Composite: 104.25 (+0.03, +0.03%)
Arms Index: 0.95

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	698	6.14
Declines	611	5.11
Unchanged	515	2.68
Total Volume		13.93

* 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 12, 1976	987.12	104.22	15.56
August 11, 1976	986.79	104.06	18.71
August 10, 1976	993.43	104.41	16.69
August 9, 1976	983.46	103.49	11.70
August 6, 1976	986.00	103.79	13.93
August 5, 1976	986.68	103.85	15.53
August 4, 1976	992.28	104.43	20.65
August 3, 1976	990.33	104.14	18.50
August 2, 1976	982.26	103.19	13.87
July 30, 1976	984.64	103.44	14.83