News stories from Tuesday December 18, 1973

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

A band of five Palestinian guerrillas surrendered in Kuwait after their deadly rampage which began at the Rome airport; 32 persons are known to have been killed. One hostage was killed at the Athens airport after Greek officials refused to comply with the terrorists' demands. The Arab world, including the Palestine Liberation Organization, condemned the murders. The Soviet Union and the United States also denounced the violence. [CBS] Syria announced that it intends to boycott Friday's Middle East peace talks in Geneva. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger arrived today in Spain under extremely heavy guard. Kissinger later met with dictator Francisco Franco.Kissinger is concerned with salvaging the Middle East peace conference. Egypt, Israel and Jordan still plan to attend. Kissinger and the Soviet Union's Andrei Gromyko will serve as co-chairmen for the conference. Arab sources believe that Egypt may now be more reluctant to make any decisions at the conference for fear of offending Syria. American military sources believe that Syria murdered Israeli POWs. That is the stated reason for Syria refusing to attend the peace conference. [CBS] Terrorist bomb explosions rocked London. The most damaging bomb exploded inside a parked car, injuring pedestrians who were walking near the car. Scotland Yard believes the IRA was behind the bombings and Home Secretary Robert Carr condemned the IRA's action. A member of the London bomb squad said he hopes that sufficient warnings and correct identification of bomb sites will be given if the bombings continue, and he admitted that London is at the terrorists' mercy. [CBS] A House and Senate conference committee voted to give President Nixon the power to order gasoline rationing if necessary. Senator Henry Jackson predicted that rationing is inevitable. [CBS] Twelve leading oil-producing nations meeting in Vienna decided to start basing oil prices on supply and demand. [CBS] The energy crisis has caused the Teamsters union to demand that its contract with trucking firms be reopened. Teamster president Frank Fitzsimmons is seeking to negotiate speed limits and fuel availability. [CBS] Former Vice President Spiro Agnew appeared before federal judges in Annapolis, Maryland, who are considering Agnew's disbarment. Attorney Alfred Scanlan represented the American Bar Association, which is seeking the disbarment; Agnew pleaded against such action. [CBS] The Senate Watergate Committee voted to subpoena a vast amount of White House tapes and documents after Congress passed a law awarding wide subpoena power to the committee. There was no word on whether the White Houses will accept the subpoenas. Committee counsel Sam Dash threatened that subpoenas would be served on the President if all else fails. [CBS] The General Accounting Office recommended that a limit be placed on the number of presidential residences given permanent protective facilities. [CBS] A federal grand jury finally began the long-delayed probe into the 1970 Kent State killings. Former Attorney General John Mitchell refused to make an investigation 3½ years ago, but the Justice Department now declared that new evidence warrants further investigation.Sgt. Myron Pryor of the Ohio National Guard is accused of conspiring to shoot students. Pryor insists that his gun wasn't loaded, and was only used to scare students. When questioned about the identities of Guardsmen who did fire their guns, Pryor stated that he will reveal those identities if asked to do so by the grand jury. [CBS] The U.S. and the Soviet Union both have men orbiting the earth at same time. [CBS] Two gunmen stole two Rembrandt paintings from the Taft Museum in Cincinnati. The paintings are worth millions. [CBS] TWA flight attendants approved a contract to end their 45-day strike. [CBS]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 829.49 (+18.37, +2.26%)
S&P Composite: 94.74 (+1.99, +2.15%)
Arms Index: 0.69

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	972	12.25
Declines	526	4.56
Unchanged	329	2.68
Total Volume		19.49

* 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*
December 17, 1973	811.12	92.75	12.93
December 14, 1973	815.65	93.29	20.00
December 13, 1973	800.43	92.38	18.13
December 12, 1973	810.73	93.57	18.19
December 11, 1973	834.18	96.04	20.10
December 10, 1973	851.14	97.95	18.59
December 7, 1973	838.05	96.51	23.23
December 6, 1973	814.12	94.42	23.26
December 5, 1973	788.31	92.16	19.18
December 4, 1973	803.21	93.59	19.03