News stories from Wednesday November 2, 1977
Summaries of the stories the major media outlets considered to be of particular importance on this date:
- The conviction of Patricia Hearst for robbing a bank with a terrorist group that had kidnapped her was upheld by a three-judge federal appeals court in San Francisco. The prosecutor said her immediate return to jail to finish her seven-year sentence would not be sought while awaiting her decision on a further appeal to the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, she remains free on bail of $1.2 million. [New York Times]
- Atlantic City was advised by a Washington consulting firm to move its airport and clear its rundown residential neighborhoods to accommodate gambling casinos. The firm, retained seven months ago for a $500,000 fee following the state referendum to permit gambling, presented its draft master plan for the city's orderly development when the casinos open. [New York Times]
- A trans-Canada pipeline to carry natural gas from Alaska to the lower continental United States won final congressional approval. A separate action on a proposal to import liquefied natural gas at a terminal in New Brunswick and transport it across New England by pipeline won approval from an administrative law judge of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. It now lacks only the agreement of the Secretary of Energy. [New York Times]
- Stock prices fell on the expectation of higher interest rates following the Federal Reserve's unexpected move letting short-term rates push to higher levels. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 6.06 points to a new two-year low closing at 800.85. [New York Times]
- A revised federal criminal code, the first comprehensive revision in the nation's history, won approval from a coalition of liberals and conservatives in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Only Senators James Allen, Democrat of Alabama, and James Abourezk, Democrat of South Dakota, voted against sending it to the floor for action next year. The measure would allow parole only in exceptional circumstances. [New York Times]
- A poor Soviet grain harvest was disclosed by President Brezhnev who said it would total 194 million tons instead of the planned 213 million tons. Bad weather in the Kazakh Republic's "new lands" grain belt was blamed for most of the shortfall. Brezhnev noted that the harvest was well above the 140.1 million ton disaster in 1975. Western experts expected the Soviet Union to buy additional grain, but not so much as to drive world prices up. [New York Times]
- A woodsman and naturalist who has known New Jersey's pine barrens since childhood was credited by the Bergen County police with a key role in the capture of a man suspected of being the robber-rapist whose night assaults had struck deep fear in many suburban communities. His tracking of 2½-day-old footprints, palm prints and other clues in a swampy woodland led to the arrest of the suspect. [New York Times]
- Suspension of nuclear explosions came one step closer when the Soviet Union dropped its insistence that any agreement halt exclude relatively low-yield blasts for peaceful purposes. The shift came in a speech by President Brezhnev before a joint session of the Communist Party's Central Committee, the Supreme Soviet and the Russian Republic's Supreme Soviet. The Kremlin meeting marked the 60th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution next Monday.
Secretary of State Vance welcomed the Brezhnev proposal as a major step forward toward a comprehensive test ban, adding that differences persisted on its duration. At a Washington press conference he also confirmed that the administration had been urging the Russians not to proceed with trials of dissidents lest they harm overall American-Soviet relations.
[New York Times] - A revised proposal to ban the sale of arms to South Africa to induce it to change repressive racial practices won agreement except for minor details at a private meeting of the 15 members of the United Nations Security Council. This was accepted later by the 49-nation African bloc and is likely to he approved without vote as a statement of the Council's consensus. [New York Times]
- Intemperance or partisanship, President Carter told a Jewish audience in Washington, should not be allowed to thwart what he called the best opportunity in "our lifetime" for a permanent Middle East peace settlement. He thus appeared unwilling to bend under Jewish and pro-Israeli criticisms and seemed to suggest that too fervent support of some Israeli positions might hurt Israel by hampering the progress of negotiation. He was addressing a meeting of the general council of the World Jewish Congress. [New York Times]
- A form of living material that is older and genetically distinct from bacteria and, finally, the plant and animal world that evolved from it has been reported by research scientists at the University of Illinois. The material is composed of ancestral cells that abhor oxygen, digest carbon dioxide and produce methane. The scientists theorize that these organisms, informally called archae-bacteria or methanogens, evolved 3.5 billion to 4 billion years ago. Other scientists called the reports important and exciting, and said they would shed additional light on the basic process of evolution. [New York Times]
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Stock Market Report
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 800.85 (-6.06, -0.75%)
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* |
| November 1, 1977 | 806.91 | 91.35 | 17.17 |
| October 31, 1977 | 818.35 | 92.34 | 17.07 |
| October 28, 1977 | 822.68 | 92.61 | 18.05 |
| October 27, 1977 | 818.61 | 92.34 | 21.92 |
| October 26, 1977 | 813.41 | 92.10 | 24.86 |
| October 25, 1977 | 801.54 | 91.00 | 23.59 |
| October 24, 1977 | 802.32 | 91.63 | 19.21 |
| October 21, 1977 | 808.30 | 92.32 | 20.23 |
| October 20, 1977 | 814.80 | 92.67 | 20.52 |
| October 19, 1977 | 812.20 | 92.38 | 22.03 |