News stories from Thursday June 18, 1981
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Justice Potter Stewart will retire next month after serving 23 years on the Supreme Court. The Justice, who is 66 years old and is in apparent good health, gave no reason for the unexpected announcement. The retirement of Justice Stewart, who has often cast a swing vote between ideological camps, created the first Supreme Court vacancy since 1975, as well as an opportunity for President Reagan to appoint a conservative, as he is expected to do, and perhaps a woman. [New York Times]
- Continued legal aid for the poor was approved by the House, which voted to keep the Legal Services Corporation alive. However, the 245-to-137 vote cut its funding to $291 million from the present $321 million and imposed stringent curbs on its activities. [New York Times]
- The threat of an air controllers' strike starting Monday prompted the White House to reinforce warnings that the government would take stern legal action against "an illegal strike." Meanwhile, a federal judge rejected a motion by the air traffic controllers union to set aside an injunction issued against walkouts by the union that led to a $100,000 fine in 1978. [New York Times]
- The case against a missile officer was broadened by the Air Force. It accused the officer, Lt. Christopher Cooke, of making contact with Soviet officials 13 times within a year and passing military information to unauthorized persons. [New York Times]
- Marijuana use and a fatal Navy crash were linked, the Navy acknowledged. It said that six of the 14 men killed when a jet struck the deck of the carrier Nimitz had smoked the drug. But it said that drug use had not caused the accident and that none of the users were members of the flight crew. The Navy said that the crash apparently resulted from pilot error. [New York Times]
- A new Abscam indictment was issued by a federal grand jury. Mayor Angelo Errichetti of Camden, N.J., who was convicted in another Abscam case, and Kenneth MacDonald, a former vice chairman of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, were charged with conspiracy and extortion for allegedly taking a total of $125,000 in illegal payments from undercover government agents. [New York Times]
- A vaccine for foot and mouth disease, one of the world's costliest infections of livestock, has been developed with the use of gene-splicing techniques, the Agriculture Department announced. Secretary of Agriculture John Block said that the vaccine was both safe and effective and that its use could save billions of dollars a year and increase world meat supplies. [New York Times]
- The sweeping population shifts of the 1970's are continuing and are creating broad disparities between congressional districts in both growth and character throughout the South and the West, the nation's fastest-growing regions. [New York Times]
- Iraq was stockpiling uranium for at least a year before Israeli jets destroyed its French-built reactor on June 7, according to officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. They said that the large purchases and other puzzling features of Iraq's supposedly peaceful program had created fears at the agency that Baghdad might be planning to build nuclear weapons in the future. [New York Times]
- Israel sought and received advice from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last October about how much damage would be inflicted on a nuclear reactor with 1,000-kilogram (2,200-pound) bombs. Bombs of that size apparently were used by Israeli airplanes last June 7 to destroy the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Baghdad. [New York Times]
- The United States and Iraq agreed on a Security Council resolution that "strongly condemns" the Israeli attack on an Iraqi nuclear reactor and urges Israel to open its nuclear plants to international inspection. Western diplomats at the United Nations said that the resolution was expected to win unanimous approval at an open meeting tomorrow. [New York Times]
- Iran's President has disappeared and may have fled the country to escape Islamic fundamentalists who seek to force his dismissal and place him on trial, according to Teheran's revolutionary prosecutor. [New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 995.15 (-11.41, -1.13%)
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* |
| June 17, 1981 | 1006.56 | 133.32 | 55.47 |
| June 16, 1981 | 1003.33 | 132.15 | 57.77 |
| June 15, 1981 | 1011.99 | 133.61 | 63.34 |
| June 12, 1981 | 1006.28 | 133.49 | 60.79 |
| June 11, 1981 | 1007.42 | 133.75 | 59.53 |
| June 10, 1981 | 993.88 | 132.32 | 53.20 |
| June 9, 1981 | 994.44 | 131.97 | 44.61 |
| June 8, 1981 | 995.64 | 132.24 | 41.57 |
| June 5, 1981 | 993.79 | 132.22 | 47.18 |
| June 4, 1981 | 986.74 | 130.96 | 48.94 |