News stories from Monday April 6, 1981
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- The President still had a mild fever a day after his doctors ordered the use of additional antibiotics, including penicillin, to increase his protection against a possible infection. But the doctors stressed that there was no evidence of a bacterial infection and that the prescribing of the antibiotics was only precautionary. [New York Times]
- Efforts to launch the space shuttle Columbia, the world's first reusable winged spaceship, continued around the clock. Preparations were running four hours behind schedule, but space officials at Cape Canaveral, Fla., were still aiming for a liftoff at 6:50 A.M. Friday. The two-man mission is scheduled to run 54½ hours. [New York Times]
- A Democratic alternative budget was proposed in the House budget committee. The Democrats called for a $713.5 billion budget, and they urged more funds than the administration sought for social programs and less for the military. The Democrats contended that their budget was $4.3 billion less than the one proposed by President Reagan, but this was based on projections of higher inflation. [New York Times]
- David Stockman defended budget cuts proposed by the administration against charges by Democrats in the House that they constituted "a blueprint for disaster" for millions of low-income elderly Americans. The budget director contended that planned spending cuts for Medicaid, food stamps and other social services involved "minor changes in funding for individual program-line items." [New York Times]
- More than $25 billion will be paid by the government this year to 10 million disabled workers and their dependents. The disability program has been singled out by the Reagan administration as a primary target for budget cutting. Some government studies indicate that one of every five aid recipients is not too disabled to work. [New York Times]
- A key figure in an alleged bank fraud acknowledged that his real name is Ross Fields, whom federal authorities were seeking in two states and the District of Columbia for forgery and other charges. The man, who used the name Harold J. Smith, is a boxing promoter who disappeared three months ago amid charges that he took part in embezzling $21.3 million from a Wells Fargo National Bank. [New York Times]
- Alaska is trying to develop farming, and its new homesteaders have been clearing hundreds of acres of scraggly trees and replacing them with barley, oats and wheat. Alaska imports more than 95 percent of its food, and if the state were isolated by disaster or war, it would have barely a four-day supply of food. [New York Times]
- A religious right was upheld by the Supreme Court, which ruled that a worker who quits a job that conflicts with his religious beliefs may not be denied state unemployment benefits. The 8-to-1 decision overturned Indiana's denial of benefits to a Jehovah's Witness who left a factory job after he was assigned to make turrets for military tanks. [New York Times]
- The Soviet bloc will not sit by and allow the Communist system in Poland to be undermined, the Czechoslovak party leader, Gustav Husak, said in Prague. He likened the present situation in Poland to those in East Germany in 1953, in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968, when Soviet troops suppressed dissidents. Leonid Brezhnev, the Soviet leader, sat behind him, giving his warning further authority. [New York Times]
- Poland's leading hard-liner was chosen to head the country's delegation to the Czechoslovak Communist Party Congress in Prague. The chief delegate, Stefan Olszowski, has long been a protege of the Kremlin. [New York Times]
- Moscow is coercing the Polish people with an "invasion by osmosis," according to Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger. Mr. Weinberger, who arrived in Bonn to attend a meeting of NATO defense ministers, vigorously denied that he was practicing brinkmanship in his warnings about the Soviet threat to Poland. [New York Times]
- The fighting in Lebanon accelerated. Syrian forces exchanged heavy artillery fire with Lebanese Christian militiamen again in Beirut and around the town of Zahle, and the Syrians clashed with Lebanese army regulars in a Beirut suburb. Moslem and leftist militias said they would mobilize. Alexander Haig assailed Syria for "the brutality" of its attacks on the Lebanese Christian stronghold of Zahle. Secretary of State Haig, who flew from Israel to Jordan, expressed concern over the threat of a new civil war in Lebanon. [New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 994.24 (-12.87, -1.28%)
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* |
| April 3, 1981 | 1007.11 | 135.49 | 48.68 |
| April 2, 1981 | 1009.01 | 136.32 | 52.57 |
| April 1, 1981 | 1014.14 | 136.57 | 54.89 |
| March 31, 1981 | 1003.87 | 136.00 | 50.97 |
| March 30, 1981 | 992.16 | 134.28 | 33.49 |
| March 27, 1981 | 994.78 | 134.65 | 46.93 |
| March 26, 1981 | 1005.76 | 136.27 | 60.37 |
| March 25, 1981 | 1015.22 | 137.11 | 56.34 |
| March 24, 1981 | 996.13 | 134.67 | 66.40 |
| March 23, 1981 | 1004.23 | 135.69 | 57.87 |