News stories from Thursday April 5, 1979

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

A study of nuclear reactor safety at power plants, such as the one at Middletown, Pa,, was announced by President Carter. He ordered the creation of a presidential commission to investigate the reactor accident and to recommend safety measures for all nuclear power plants in the nation.Significant cuts in radioactive gases being released from the crippled nuclear reactor in Middletown, Pa., were being sought by engineers. They fashioned a system to pump the toxic gases that had accumulated in an outside storage tank back into the containment building of the plant. A nuclear project was dropped by the New York state Power Authority. It abandoned plans to build a power plant on which $147 million has already been spent for design and equipment because of rising costs and controversy over the nuclear accident in Middletown, Pa. Scrapping of the project 40 miles south of Albany had earlier been proposed by Frederick Clark, the authority chairman, who reported a 76 percent, or $1.3 billion, increase in estimated costs to $3.1 billion. [New York Times] Portraits of George and Martha Washington will be sold by the Boston Athenaeum for $5 million to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington. The pair of portraits by Gilbert Stuart, probably the best-known ever painted in this country, have been displayed for more than 100 years in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. [New York Times] Voluntary prayer in public schools would be restored under a 47 to 37 vote in the Senate. Similar moves have failed many times since the Supreme Court ruled in 1963 that prayers and Bible reading in the schools were unconstitutional. [New York Times] Boston University was struck by faculty members trying to win the first union contract at a major private university. Besides labor unrest, the university has been bitterly torn in recent years by complaints that traditional academic liberties were being eroded and a sharp controversy over the university's president. [New York Times] An execution stay was granted to John Louis Evans until next Friday by Associate Justice William Rehnquist of the Supreme Court. The 29-year-old Alabama prisoner, who was convicted of the murder of a pawnbroker, had demanded to be executed rather than live out his life in prison. [New York Times] Savings from an arms accord were predicted by Defense Secretary Harold Brown, who said that a new strategic weapons limitation treaty with Moscow could save Washington as much as $30 billion on nuclear arms over the next 10 years. He also said that the pact would forestall a "pointless" arms race and would mean "greater stability and predictability in the strategic challenges we face." [New York Times] Demonstrations erupted in Pakistan over the hanging of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Moslem prayer services ended with political protests marked by stone throwing, tear gas, burning of vehicles and hundreds of arrests in major cities. Similar outbreaks reportedly occurred in smaller towns and villages throughout the country. The former Prime Minister had been denied executive clemency after being convicted of plotting to murder an opponent.Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was mourned by stunned members of his family at the Bhutto ancestral estate, where the former Prime Minister was buried Wednesday after his execution. His relatives wept and prayed. [New York Times] Prime Minister Begin turned a jeering crowd of Israeli Sinai settlers into an applauding audience. Under the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty, all of Sinai will revert to Egypt after three years and the settlers will lose their property. Mr. Begin praised their sacrifice for the sake of peace and pledged to appoint "a personal representative" to deal with their problems.President Sadat urged Palestinians to disavow the "terrorism, intimidation and threats" of their leaders and join the talks he has arranged with Israel on Palestinian home rule. The Egyptian leader challenged the opposition to the talks by the Palestine Liberation Organization. [New York Times] The Ugandan capital was defenseless as Libyan troops fled from Kampala before an invading force of Tanzanians and Ugandan rebels, Western diplomats in Kenya said. [New York Times]

Stock Market Report

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 877.60 (+7.80, +0.90%)
S&P Composite: 103.26 (+0.61, +0.59%)
Arms Index: 0.68

	Issues	Volume*
Advances	911	20.99
Declines	566	8.91
Unchanged	427	4.62
Total Volume		34.52

* 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*
April 4, 1979	869.80	102.65	41.94
April 3, 1979	868.33	102.40	33.53
April 2, 1979	855.25	100.90	28.97
March 30, 1979	862.18	101.59	29.97
March 29, 1979	866.77	102.03	28.51
March 28, 1979	866.25	102.12	39.92
March 27, 1979	871.36	102.48	32.93
March 26, 1979	854.82	101.04	23.42
March 23, 1979	859.75	101.60	33.58
March 22, 1979	861.31	101.67	34.36