STEEL BUYING is picking up on the off-chance of a strike by the C.I.O. Steelworkers, who will soon present new wage demands. Actually, neither industry nor labor feels that it would be much hurt by a short strike. High steel inventories would drop and Steelworkers, now working only part time, would not lose too much in wages. Final settlement will probably be around a 5-c--an-hour increase in pay, including fringe benefits.

GENERAL MOTORS paid its President Harlow H. Curtice a grand total of $637,233 in salary, stock and cash bonus in 1953, the biggest money ever given a G.M. executive, surpassing Charles E. Wilson's record $626,300 in 1950. Eleven other executives got more than $300,000 apiece; G.M.'s top 62 officers and directors collected almost $12 million.

ALCOA, which sponsors Edward R. Murrow's See It Now (CBS-TV), is happy over the benefits of Murrow's battle with Senator Joe McCarthy. The show's audience has jumped from 9,000,000 to 30 million, and Alcoa and CBS have received 47,000 letters. Box score: more than four to one in favor of Murrow.

TEXTILE SLUMP is getting more serious. Following slowdown announcements by Textron and J. P. Stevens & Co., six more big companies (among them: No. 1 synthetic producer Burlington Mills) are planning to shut down for one to two weeks, lay off 30,000 workers.

TRANS WORLD Airlines, biggest civilian customer of Lockheed aircraft (81 Constellations in service, 20 on order), has reminded Lockheed that Douglas DC-7s (TIME, Jan. 21, 1952) are "appreciably faster" than Super Constellations. T.W.A. President Ralph Damon told Lockheed brass: "Lockheed should find a way to do something about this problem."

DIAMOND SALES have skyrocketed because of the cut in federal excise taxes from 20% to 10%. Retailers around the U.S. report total 1954 increases of up to 500% over 1953 figures, current sales up to 3,200% better than the last week the old tax was still in effect.

MILLIONAIRE Charles Steen, whose Mi Vida mine was southeast Utah's first big uranium strike, is joining with Salt Lake City's Combined Metals Reduction Co. to build what is called the world's biggest uranium processing mill at Moab, Utah. Uranium Reduction Co., the new company, will start work on a $4,000,000 plant within the next four months, hopes to start processing ore from Steen's mines by early 1956.

SCHWEPPES, which about tripled its tonic sales in the U.S. last year through a bottling arrangement with Pepsi-Cola (TIME, Feb. 16, 1953), will put its ginger ale on the market next month. Schweppes is already test-marketing its sparkling water, may bring out a lemon soda next.

TRUCKERS have presented the Post Office with a plan they say will save $85 million a year by shifting all mail from railroads to trucks for distances up to 300 miles. They argue that trucks are faster, cheaper and more flexible. Postal authorities seemed unimpressed by the plan since most big post offices are geared to rail service, are not set up to handle heavy truck traffic.

THE FORD v. G.M. production race, which squeezed other automakers down to 18% of the market in the first quarter, has touched off four "preliminary investigations" of the auto industry by the Justice Department's anti-trust division.

DALLAS businessmen are going to put up their own $35 to $40 million "Rockefeller Center." The Southland Life Insurance Co. has bought a 400-by-287-ft. plot in the city's heart, has signed contracts with California Architect Welton Becket for a 40-story skyscraper, 300,000-sq.-ft. department store and two 20-story office buildings. Completion date: 1957.

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