News stories from Tuesday July 27, 1982

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

Higher levels of military spending than those set by Congress are expected to be proposed in the Reagan administration's midyear economic report this week, according to administration officials. They said President Reagan had decided he should not have to adhere to the military spending ceilings set by Congress with White House approval last month for 1984 and beyond. [New York Times] Evaders of military registration are so numerous that new questions are being raised about whether the draft law can be enforced. Reagan administration officials said that nearly 150,000 young men had failed to register for a possible draft since March, bringing the total to at least 675,000. The number of men who could be convicted of failing to sign up is more than 20 times greater than the population of federal prisons. [New York Times] The inquiry involving Capitol pages and members of Congress will be supervised by Joseph Califano, a leading Washington lawyer and former high official in Democratic administrations. He said he had agreed to be special counsel to the House Ethics Committee in the investigation of accusations of sexual misconduct and drug use after being assured he would have the independence, authority and resources to conduct a comprehensive inquiry. [New York Times] Prescott Bush Jr. withdrew abruptly from the race against Senator Lowell Weicker for the Republican nomination for Senator from Connecticut. Mr. Bush, the brother of Vice President Bush, said he believed he could have beaten Senator Weicker in the Sept. 7 primary, but he said he had decided to withdraw in the interest of Republican unity. [New York Times] The siege of Beirut worsened. For the first time since Israel's invasion of Lebanon, Israeli jets bombed a heavily populated residential area near the heart of west Beirut, damaging more than a dozen apartment buildings. Police sources said 120 people had been killed and 232 wounded, most of them civilians. [New York Times] An Israeli-American meeting headed by Prime Minister Menachem Begin and the special mediator, Philip Habib, lasted two hours and 20 minutes. The two emerged from the conference in Jerusalem separately, weary and indicating that no progress had been made in the effort to ease the Lebanon crisis. [New York Times] El Salvador is making progress on human rights and on economic and political reforms, according to a report to Congress certified by President Reagan. The certification is required every six months as a condition for continuing military aid. [New York Times] Fidel Castro blamed capitalism for damaging the economies of the third world and warned Cubans that they might have to endure shorter work weeks and lower wages because of the global recession. President Castro told a crowd of more than 100,000 that Cubans might have to face "major difficulties" in coming years. [New York Times] The apparent suicide of a financier has deepened a major Italian financial scandal in which the Vatican appears to be heavily involved. The scandal centers an $1.4 billion in dubious loans made by Banco Ambrosiano, Italy's largest privately owned banking group. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 822.77 (-2.67, -0.32%)
S&P Composite: 109.43 (-0.93, -0.84%)
Arms Index: 1.28

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	503	12.10
Declines	886	27.28
Unchanged	455	6.36
Total Volume		45.74

* 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*
July 26, 1982	825.44	110.36	37.73
July 23, 1982	830.57	111.17	47.28
July 22, 1982	832.00	111.47	53.86
July 21, 1982	832.19	111.42	66.77
July 20, 1982	833.43	111.54	61.05
July 19, 1982	826.10	110.73	53.03
July 16, 1982	828.67	111.07	58.77
July 15, 1982	827.34	110.47	61.08
July 14, 1982	828.39	110.44	58.03
July 13, 1982	824.20	109.45	66.16