RECORD EMPLOYMENT in June pushed the number of U.S. jobholders over the 64 million mark for the first time in history. Employment jumped 1,313,000 to a total 64,016,000, or 325,000 more than the previous peak (August 1953). Overtime pay is running at the highest level in history, while factory hirings top layoffs by the greatest margin since 1950.

FAST TAX WRITE-OFFS for new defense building will be sharply cut back if Treasury Secretary George Humphrey has his way. Humphrey says that the U.S. has handed out five-year write-offs for projects worth $30.4 billion since 1950, costing the Government $1 billion in taxes annually. At Humphrey's request, the Office of Defense Mobilization is reviewing its tax program to see how it can cut down on write-offs.

SILVER BATTLE is brewing in the Senate over a bill to repeal the Government's silver-purchase law. Under the law, the Treasury must buy U.S.-mined silver at a fixed price of 90.14-c- an oz. Silver-users are backing a bill, introduced by Rhode Island's Senator Theodore Green, to eliminate silver price supports, thus drop the price, but western Senators are fighting tooth and nail to kill the idea.

URANIUM STOCK RUSH should be slowed down by new Securities & Exchange Commission rules. In a move to eliminate racketeers in penny stocks, the SEC will tighten its small-securities regulations by requiring brokers to give full details of all proposals, place a certain amount of stock-sale proceeds in escrow to insure that investment money will be used for legitimate business purposes.

LUFTHANSA AIR ROUTES are finally set, despite the strong objection of almost every big U.S. airline (TIME, June 27). Under an agreement signed by the State Department, Lufthansa will get routes from West Germany to Chicago and the U.S. East Coast, and from there to the Caribbean and South America, plus a polar route to the West Coast. In return, TWA and Pan American will get the privilege of picking up passengers from six German cities for flights around the world. Snapped Florida's Senator George Smathers: "A thoughtless and completely unjustified giveaway."

UNION OIL CO. of California, which has 14% of the West Coast oil and refined-products market (1954 sales: $349,700,000), will build a $20 million business center in downtown Los Angeles with 1,000,000 sq. ft. of office space and an underground garage for 1,500 cars.

DEPARTMENT-STORE MERGER will push the Associated Dry Goods chain (1954 sales: $154.4 million) out to the West Coast. Associated, which now owns Manhattan's Lord & Taylor plus stores in Buffalo, Newark, Minneapolis, Baltimore and Louisville, will take over Southern California's J. W. Robinson Co. stores in a cash and stock deal.

CALIFORNIA TIDELANDS will soon get a bigger play from oil companies. Under a new bill signed by Governor Goodwin Knight, companies may drill from piers and barges, can lease most of California's 2,000,000 tideland acres on a cash-bonus-plus-royalty (a minimum 16 2/3% of production on proved offshore lands, 12 1/2% on unproved fields) basis. Most exploration up to now has been by slant drilling from the shore.

SPORTING-GOODS MERGER will put A. G. Spalding & Bros, in a neck-and-neck race with Wilson for top position in the industry. Spalding, now second with 1954 sales of $27.2 million, is negotiating a deal to acquire Rawlings Manufacturing Co., the fourth biggest company, with estimated annual sales of nearly $12 million. Combined sales of Spalding-Rawlings are expected to equal or surpass those of Wilson, which is a division of Wilson & Co. meat packers, thus does not announce its annual sales figures separately.

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