News stories from Tuesday October 30, 1979
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- Salvadorans attacked a U.S. Embassy, but witnesses said that the 300 leftists were turned back. Marine guards and Salvadoran troops used tear gas to repel the attackers, who climbed the embassy fence but did not reach the building. [New York Times]
- Broad new nuclear rules were urged by the President's commission on the accident last March at the Three Mile Island plant. In a 179-page report, the panel said that basic changes must be made in the way reactors are built, operated and regulated if the risks of nuclear power "are to be kept within tolerable limits." But the panel said that even if all its recommendations were adopted, there was "no guarantee that there will be no serious future nuclear accidents."
The inevitability of an accident somewhere in the country like the one at Three Mile Island was cited by the presidential commission. In reporting on its six-month inquiry, the panel was more critical of the nuclear power industry in general than it was about the specific problems involving the reactor accident at the plant.
The news media was basically upheld by the President's commission on the Three Mile Island accident, which found that, despite confusion and contradictory statements given by official sources, the media generally tried to give balanced views.
[New York Times] - Congressional power on foreign oil was pressed in the Senate, which voted 70 to 23 to narrow presidential authority to limit oil imports and impose fees on them. The legislation, which now goes to the House, would permit Congress to block any import quota set by the President without congressional approval, but would require two-thirds support in both chambers. [New York Times]
- Chrysler reported a record deficit in operations for an American business, saying that it lost $460.6 million in this year's third quarter. The figure increased to $721.5 million the total that the troubled auto maker has lost in the first nine months of 1979. [New York Times]
- Mexico is not "dumping" produce in the United States at unfairly low prices, according to a decision by the Treasury Department. The preliminary finding in a case brought by competing tomato growers in Florida eases trade relations with Mexico and is expected to avert sharply higher produce prices that would fuel inflation. [New York Times]
- Mayor Frank Rizzo won backing by a federal judge. In a 44-page opinion, the judge dismissed the major part of a federal lawsuit accusing the Mayor and other Philadelphia officials of condoning systematic and criminal violence by the city's police department. The judge said that the Attorney General lacked the power to bring such a broad civil rights suit. [New York Times]
- The first black Mayor of Birmingham, Ala., was elected, according to unofficial returns of a runoff marked by sharp racial division. City councilman Richard Arrington, an educator, defeated Frank Parsons, a white lawyer accused of basing his campaign on racist appeals. [New York Times]
- The death of a Mexican-American man led to the sentencing of what amounted to a day in prison for three former Houston police officers. The sentences were set by a federal judge after an appeals court ordered him to impose prison terms in place of his original sentences of probation. The judge set the sentences of one year and one day, to run concurrently with one-year sentences he imposed last year for a misdemeanor civil rights charge. [New York Times]
- The earliest campaign commercial for President in history was run by John Connally. The five minute television program is a key element in a three-week blitz intended to show the former Texas Governor as the only realistic alternative to Ronald Reagan for the Republican nomination. [New York Times]
- Marijuana growing is booming in California and, according to investigators, is generating many millions of dollars yearly in illegal profits. [New York Times]
- A broader assassination plot in Seoul was suggested by South Korean military investigators. They disclosed that they had widened their inquiry into the murder of President Park Chung Hee by holding in custody Kim Kye Won, the chief of the presidential staff, and a "large number of other suspects." [New York Times]
- A top French official took his life after newspapers implicated him in a real estate scandal. Robert Boulin, the Labor Minister, was said by colleagues to have been depressed. [New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 823.81 (+15.19, +1.88%)
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 29, 1979 | 808.62 | 100.71 | 22.72 |
| October 26, 1979 | 809.30 | 100.57 | 29.67 |
| October 25, 1979 | 808.46 | 100.00 | 28.45 |
| October 24, 1979 | 808.36 | 100.44 | 31.48 |
| October 23, 1979 | 806.83 | 100.28 | 32.91 |
| October 22, 1979 | 809.13 | 100.71 | 45.24 |
| October 19, 1979 | 814.68 | 101.60 | 42.43 |
| October 18, 1979 | 830.12 | 103.61 | 29.59 |
| October 17, 1979 | 830.72 | 103.39 | 29.66 |
| October 16, 1979 | 829.52 | 103.19 | 33.76 |