Time Clock, may 19, 1958

FOOD PRICES are expected to decline a bit this month, cut consumer price index for first time since August of 1956. Reason: heavier supplies of beef, fruits, vegetables are coming on market.

BUILDING COSTS "will push upward at the rate of about 1 % every four months" for the next year at least, predicts authoritative F. W. Dodge Corp.

FIRST NEGRO STEWARDESS aboard a U.S.-flag international airline will go to work with Trans World Airlines. She is Margaret Grant, 21, who will graduate next month from Manhattan's Hunter College (where she majors in psychology) and enter T.W.A.'s hostess training school at Kansas City, Mo.

G.M. STOCK SAVINGS PLAN for salaried employees is proving a major success. More than 92,000, or 83%, of eligible employees have invested $104 million—half of it in G.M. stock, half in Government bonds. Company contributes 50¢ worth of stock for every $1 saved by employees. G.M. offered plan to its 350,000 hourly workers in 1955, but the U.A.W. rejected it.

OIL IMPORT LID will be hammered down tighter on West Coast. Pressure is mounting in Washington for cut in quotas because imports to area have fallen 30% to 35% below ceiling of 220,100 bbl. per day owing to recession in demand. At very least, individual quotas of major companies will be slashed to make way for new importers, who have applied to bring in 45,100 bbl. per day.

CHINA-JAPAN TRADE DEALS are off. Businessmen from Japan have been ordered to leave Red China, all import-export licenses are invalid, and ballyhooed fiveyear, $560 million Chinese-Japanese barter deal is dead. Chinese claim break is due to Japanese Premier Kishi's "hostile attitude toward China," but a main reason is that Red Chinese are trying to welsh on some deals.

FREE URANIUM MARKET, authorized by AEC, will permit producers to sell ore and concentrate to private U.S. and foreign firms for first time. Uranium men expect no immediate sales boom, but figure on big private market to develop over next few years.

$100 MILLION SKYSCRAPER of 50 stories is planned for present site of Manhattan's Grand Central Terminal Office Building. Group headed by Manhattan Builder Erwin Wolfson agreed to lease land from owner of site, New York Central and New Haven Railroads. But Wolfson, who was in one of the three other abortive deals for similar buildings, still has to sign final lease and get financing.