Steel denationalization in Britain is a big hit. In twelve days, the United Steel Companies, Ltd., first to be sold back to private investors (TIME, Nov. 9), got applications for 40 million shares of stock, almost three times the shares offered.

Hotelman Conrad Hilton, who has recently been cooking deals like popcorn (TIME, Nov. 9), plans to build a $6,000,000, 400-room luxury hotel in Cairo. The Egyptian government and Misr Bank will put up the money, give Hilton a 20-year lease.

Packard, a notable holdout for a straight-eight engine, plans to abandon it for a V-8 in its 1955 models. General Motors will also switch to V-8s for its two lowest-priced lines--Chevrolet and Pontiac.

Herbert Bergson, trustbuster for the Truman Administration from 1948 to 1950, was indicted by a federal grand jury in a test of the "conflict of interests" statute, the first criminal indictment under the law. The charge: Lawyer Bergson represented three companies (Minnesota Mining & Mfg. Co., the Carborundum Co. of Niagara Falls and United States Pipe Line Co.) in actions before the antitrust department in 1951, after having acted against them while a trustbuster. The law prohibits a former federal official from representing clients with "claims" against the Government for two years if he was involved in the matter while in office. Maximum penalty on conviction: a year in jail and $10,000 fine.

Atomic-bomb plants are inproving their efficiency so fast that the AEC has canceled the proposed $26 million Spoon River assembly plant that Thompson Products was to operate near Macomb, Ill.

Lockheed has had such success with experiments for a supersonic, pilotless craft that it is setting up a separate Missiles Systems Division to work full time on the project. Chief of the department: Lieut. General Elwood ("Pete") Quesada, 49, commanding officer of the Ninth Tactical Air Command in World War II, who worked on missiles before retiring from the Air Force in 1951.

Ethiopia, landlocked until 1952, when it got two big ports in Eritrea through federation, will soon have the start of a merchant fleet. A Dutch shipbuilding firm has orders for four seagoing tugboats.

Broadcasts from the world's mightiest radio transmitter will start from the Cascade Mountains northeast of Seattle this week by the U.S. Navy. RCA built the $14 million, 1,200,000-watt transmitter that can cut through signal-scrambling magnetic storms, reach any U.S. surface ship on earth.

Sec is streamlining its rules and procedures to make life easier for businessmen. It has simplified the rules for competitive bidding in underwriting, clarified the accounting rules for consolidated corporate-tax returns, and cut down the reports required from companies.

Studebacker is running against the trend of 1954 auto prices. With both Chrysler and Nash cutting prices on some new models and Hudson staying at this year's level, Studebaker this week upped prices by as much as $105 on its de luxe models.

Tobacco companies may soon be allowed to sell cigarettes without the familiar blue tax stamp on the package. A new Internal Revenue Code, going to Congress in 1954, is expected to leave it up to the Treasury to decide how specific excise taxes should be paid. Tobacco men, who now pay the tax at the time of manufacture, tying up millions of dollars, want to pay the tax after the cigarettes are sold.

Unemployed workers may get a boost in unemployment benefits. Unions are complaining that current rates, from $3 to $33 a week, are too low, and the Department of Labor is surveying the problem.

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