"Names make news." Last week these names made this news:

Alf M. Landon of Topeka, Kans., and Col, Frank Knox of Chicago, guests at Manhattan's Hotel Waldorf-Astoria, paid a 15-minute call on fellow guest Herbert Hoover.

Sixty-three-year-old Henry Fountain Ashurst, U. S. Senator from Arizona, was recuperating in a Washington hospital from a case of shingles. Complained disgruntled Senator Ashurst: "It had ever been my hope, if incapacitated, to suffer from some affliction that might be described by high-sounding sesquipedalian words."

Save for a brief road tour in 1931-32, a short stand in 1934, oldtime Actress Maude Adams (Peter Pan, The Little Minister) has not made a stage appearance since she retired in 1918. Her only recent connection with the theatre has been as professor of drama at Stephens College, Columbia. Mo. Recently, 65-year-old Maude Adams went to Culver City, Calif., took a screen test. Last week the result was announced: Miss Adams will star in a picture David Selznick plans to produce next fall. Said proud Cinemogul Selznick: "It will be a privilege to introduce her for the first time to the millions of the new generation."*

At an airport in East Farmingdale, L. L. Captain Ugo V. D'Annunzio son of the late Italian Poet-Flyer Gabriele D'Annunzio, stalled the engine in his airplane. He hopped out, spun the propeller. As the motor caught and the plane began to move, Aviator D'Annunzio ducked the wing., missed the cabin, was knocked flat by the tail. The pilotless plane wheeled dizzily round the field, crashed through a fence, pinned a woman bystander against her automobile. The woman was hospitalized. Charged with third-degree assault, Flyer D'Annunzio was arrested, held in $500 bail.

In Los Angeles' swank Ambassador Hotel pool, Swimmer Johnny Weissmuller, Diver Marjorie Gestring, other aquatic stars put on an exhibition to raise money for blonde, beauteous Georgia Coleman, onetime (1929-31) U. S. women's diving champion, who for the last six months has been in a Los Angeles hospital ill with paralysis. Two of Miss Coleman 's bathing suits were auctioned off, one to Swimmer Weissmuller for $20. Total amount raised: "more than $500."

Terrelita Fontaine Maverick, 12-year-old daughter of Representative Maury Maverick of Texas, fell from the first-floor fire escape of her father's Washington apartment, suffered a double fracture of the skull. Surgeons operated immediately, called her chances of recovery excellent.

In Manhattan, the Circumnavigators Club gave a testimonial dinner for Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd, famed Arctic & Antarctic explorer. In a setting designed to resemble Byrd's Little America camp, members wearing parkas presented him with a life-sized penguin made of ice. An Eskimo dog wandered around among the tables. Admiral Byrd showed motion pictures of his Antarctic expeditions, revealed that except for the money he made by lecturing he would be completely broke, was "pretty nearly broke" anyway.

At a meeting of Manhattan's Board of Estimate, a member used the word "contact" as a verb. "Contacting!'' barked Manhattan's scholarly Deputy Mayor Henry Hastings Curran. "Why, sir, that's a verbal felony." A moment later another member used it. "Please," begged Grammarian Curran, "say 'call on me,' 'see me,' or 'get in touch with me,' but don't say 'contact me.' "

When he is in England, John Pierpont Morgan spends most of his time on his Wall Hall estate at Watford, near London, which he bought in 1902. Last week, Owner Morgan gave the Hertfordshire County Council an option to buy his 1,205-acre estate, complete with three farms, 57 cottages. Price: -L-220,000 ($1,100,000).

To raise money for his court fight to regain his childhood earnings from his mother and stepfather (TIME, May 2, et ante), Cinemactor Jackie Coogan opened a vaudeville tour in San Francisco. He hopes to net more than $25,000 from his act, in which he appears with Comedian Bob Hope. Opening crack of the act comes when Hope asks Coogan how much money he wants for his stage appearances. Replies Coogan: "Oh. it doesn't matter. I probably won't get it anyway."

*Concurrently Manhattan's Town Hall included Actress Adams on its list of lecturers for next season.

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