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AIR FARES will get their first overall investigation from CAB. Under congressional pressure, CAB will check to see if fares it okayed for 13 domestic trunk lines are too high. A better target for CAB: international air fares, which in some cases are more than 200% higher than domestic routes over comparable distances.

HOME LOANS for veterans will be easier to get. Housing and Home Finance Agency will let Veterans Administration lend money directly in areas where credit is tight without first referring all applications to the Voluntary Home Mortgage Credit Committee, which previously checked to make sure borrowers could not get private loans.

COMPANY BOOKS must now be opened to a union if the company claims economic inability to pay wage demands, says U.S. Supreme Court, upholding previous decision by National Labor Relations Board. But NLRB must decide each case "on its particular facts."

RADIATION INSURANCE, one of big problems in peacetime atomics, will be provided for industry by syndicate of 110 firms. Insurance companies have formed Nuclear Energy Liability Insurance Assn. to write up to $50 million coverage on a reactor, biggest ever given any industry, to pay possible damages from radiation.

NICKEL SHORTAGE is growing so serious that ODM will divert 40 million Ibs. from strategic stockpiles to private industry. Total diversions thus far in 1956: nearly 55 million Ibs.

DRIV-UR-SELF MERGER will push Hertz Corp., already dominant in its field (1955 revenues: $39.1 million), into 25% expansion. Hertz is acquiring property of New England's big (5,400 cars and trucks, $10 million annual revenue) Avis Rent-a-Car System from Boston's Richard S. Robie (TIME, March 26).

FREE-TRIAL TRICKERY is being charged by FTC to electric razor maker Schick. FTC says Schick fails to make all dealers honor its nationally advertised 14-day free-trial offer; those who do, adds FTC, often refuse to return purchase price to dissatisfied customers and some dealers also sell demonstration razors as new.

BIG MERGER is under way between Owens-Illinois Glass Co. and National Container Corp., both giants in packaging. Plan calls for exchange of one share of National common stock for one share of Owens preferred plus one-fourth share of common stock. In 1955, two companies had combined $466 million gross.

CANNED VEGETABLES are going up. Canners and freezers currently negotiating contracts for their 1956 pack report paying up to 35% more for tomatoes, from 10% to 15% more for celery, spinach and cauliflower plus higher costs for tin cans, wages and freight.

NEW JET LINER to compete with Boeing and Douglas planes will be built by Howard Hughes if he gets CAB permission. Already planning a big Florida aircraft plant (TIME, April 23), Hughes wants his Hughes Tool Co. to add planes to its electronics business, build 25 faster, longer-ranged jets for Trans World Airlines, which he also controls. First step: get CAB to lift a 1944 ruling that T.W.A. may not buy more than $10,000 worth of equipment annually from Hughes Tool.

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