News stories from Monday September 25, 1978

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

A packed Boeing 727 collided with a small plane flown by a student pilot, and both aircraft crashed in flaming fragments eight blocks apart in a residential area of San Diego. At least 147 persons were killed in the worst air disaster in U.S. history. Both pilots were warned they were dangerously close and both acknowledged the warning, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said. Burning debris from the jetliner ignited at least nine frame houses and two businesses. [Chicago Tribune] According to confidential documents, the Carter administration within the next few weeks will release plans to merge the federal highway and mass transit programs. Details of the program were leaked to officials attending the American Public Transit Association's annual convention in Toronto, and there is already some opposition from mass transit program officials. [Chicago Tribune] Organized labor's growing feud with President Carter produced its first formal break when the president of the 927,000-member International Association of Machinists accused Carter of taking "an about-face" and deserting labor on issues that include natural gas deregulation, full employment, labor law revision, and national health insurance. [Chicago Tribune] The "umbrella man" testified he was not signaling a second gunman at the scene of President Kennedy's assassination. Louie Steven Wilt, a life insurance salesman, told the House Assassinations Committee he was displaying an open umbrella symbolizing former British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, accused of appeasing Nazi Germany, to heckle the President. [Chicago Tribune] The Senate demanded that the government save $2 billion by cutting fraud and waste as it debated the $56.5 billion appropriations bill for the departments of Labor and Health, Education, and Welfare. The bill is $1.1 billion below the version passed by the House, $868 million below the President's request, and $4 billion less than last year's bill. [Chicago Tribune] A divided panel of National Cancer Institute doctors and scientists called for the government to sponsor a test of Laetrile on cancer patients. The institute's Decision Network Committee, in a 14 to 11 vote, recommended a clinical trial using the controversial substance that the Food and Drug Administration, the N.C.I. itself and many scientists have contended is worthless in treating cancer. [Chicago Tribune] In an effort to loosen the "virtual stranglehold" the Democrats now have "on all levels of government," the Republican Party has targeted six U.S. Senate races, 19 contests for the House, and 6 governorships for special attention in the coming elections. A confidential memo indicates that G.O.P. candidates in the targeted races would get maximum cash contributions from the Republican National Committee, plus other help. [Chicago Tribune] The World Council of Churches announced grants under its "special fund to combat racism," with the biggest amount -- $125,000 -- going to the South-West African People's Organization. The group is a black nationalist guerrilla movement that has been waging a hit-and-run war in South-West Africa from Angola, South-West Africa's northern neighbor, to remove the country from South African influence. [Chicago Tribune] A yellow cloud of deadly chlorine gas spread over a 10-block radius in a downtown industrial area of Vancouver, B.C., tonight, forcing the evacuation of thousands of persons. No serious injuries were reported immediately although more than 30 persons were treated at hospitals after inhaling the fumes, Police, firemen, and chemical experts from a local manufacturer were trying to contain the cloud by spraying a fine mist of water on a leaking, 99-pound chemical container. [Chicago Tribune] A 31-year-old Gary, Indiana, man was ordered held without bond on murder charges in the shotgun slaying of Lyman Bostock, 28, a star outfielder for the California Angels baseball team. Police testified that the suspect, Leonard Smith, fired a shotgun blast from behind the steering wheel of his car into the car carrying his estranged wife, Barbara, 26, Bostock, and two other persons, on a downtown Gary street Saturday night. Mrs. Smith was wounded and Bostock was killed. [Chicago Tribune] Stock prices declined as interest rates headed higher. First National Bank of Chicago raised its prime rate and other major banks were expected to follow. Meanwhile, gold hit a record price in London.First National Bank of Chicago became the first bank in the country to raise its prime rate -- the loan rate it charges to preferred business customers --to 9¾ percent from 9½ percent. President Carter ran into a skeptical audience when he promised world leaders at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meeting that he will soon announce new economic measures to fight inflation and defend the dollar. [Chicago Tribune] Opening what could be the most crucial parliamentary debate in Israel's 30-year history, Prime Minister Menachem Begin told the Israeli parliament either to endorse the Camp David accords or to forget about peace negotiations. "There is no third choice," Begin declared, and he appealed to his countrymen to endorse the accords "in the supreme national interest." The accords contain a commitment by Israel to give up its Jewish settlements in the Sinai Desert. [Chicago Tribune] The State Department insisted that Israel had agreed to submit to negotiation any plans for new settlements on the Jordan River's West Bank, rejecting Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin's assertion that Israel had not. Begin told his Knesset [parliament] that his aides at Camp David agreed he had promised nothing but a 90-day freeze on new settlements. Within hours, the State Department said it was sticking to its own recollection of the summit agreements. [Chicago Tribune] The United States and Australia have promised to accept 1,200 Vietnamese boat people who have bean marooned on a barren island in the South China Sea, Indonesia announced. A Foreign Ministry official said Indonesia will give temporary refuge to the Vietnamese, who boarded a drifting freighter from their four small boats in the Gulf of Thailand and then spent 11 days steaming aimlessly while neighboring nations argued over their fate. [Chicago Tribune] President Anastasio Somoza accepted an offer from the United States to help Nicaragua find "peaceful solutions" to end its civil crisis, the government said. A government source said details of the U.S. proposal would have to be released in Washington. [Chicago Tribune] Pollster Mervin Field has some advice for California Gov. Jerry Brown: Don't get engaged to singer Linda Ronstadt -- or anyone else. Field says Brown will lose votes in his re-election bid if he becomes engaged to Ronstadt, his girlfriend for some time. The pollster says many voters cast their ballots for the governor because he's different, and "one of the intriguing aspects of Brown is that he's still a bachelor." An engagement would "damage his intriguing image." [Chicago Tribune]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 862.35 (-0.09, -0.01%)
S&P Composite: 101.86 (+0.02, +0.02%)
Arms Index: 0.81

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	656	8.76
Declines	802	8.65
Unchanged	423	3.56
Total Volume		20.97

* 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*
September 22, 1978	862.44	101.84	27.96
September 21, 1978	861.14	101.90	33.65
September 20, 1978	857.16	101.73	35.08
September 19, 1978	861.57	102.53	31.66
September 18, 1978	870.15	103.21	35.83
September 15, 1978	878.55	104.12	37.29
September 14, 1978	887.04	105.10	37.40
September 13, 1978	899.60	106.34	43.33
September 12, 1978	906.44	106.99	34.41
September 11, 1978	907.74	106.98	39.66