FAIR TRADE LAW REPEAL may be recommended by Attorney General Herbert Brownell's committee on antitrust laws and enforcement. After a year's study, the committee of 60 lawyers, businessmen and industrialists is expected to deliver a highly critical report on the 1952 McGuire Fair Trade Act, which sanctioned price-fixing between manufacturers and retailers.

CONRAD HILTON, who bought out the ten Statler hotels (for $8,000,000 down, $70 million on credit) only last month, will soon sell them to private investors and insurance companies, lease them back to operate. Hilton, who wants to avoid issuing more Hilton stock to finance his purchase, will retain full operational control.

F. W. WOOLWORTH CO. will soon branch out into Mexico. Woolworth has bought Mexico City sites for three dime stores (to cost $1,200,000), will open the first in 1955, may eventually expand to 20 stores in Mexico.

SURPLUS REAL ESTATE owned by the U.S. Government will be sold through private real-estate agents, now that Congress has provided the money to pay them regular commissions (up to 10% of sales). Among the 278 properties coming up for sale (original cost, $235 million): two quarantine stations in New York harbor; a 369-acre island off the coast of Maine, the Army's 800-acre Camp Ellis, Ill.

JET TRANSPORT, which Douglas Aircraft Co. has spent three years and nearly $3,000,000 designing, is ready to be built. But Douglas wants a Government order to help foot the bill. The DC-8 is expected to match Boeing's 707 (TIME, July 19) by carrying up to 130 passengers, cruising at 550 m.p.h., flying the Atlantic Ocean nonstop against winter headwinds.

LUMBER STRIKE, which started 2 1/2 months ago when some 100,000 Pacific Northwest lumbermen walked out for a 12.5-c- hourly wage boost, is ending with little gain for the workers. About half the strikes were settled piecemeal, with raises averaging 5-c- an hour. The other strikers are expected to go back to work at pre-strike wages, let a fact-finding board recommend a settlement.

LATEST STEEL merger may be blocked by the U.S. Justice Department. Worried that the combine of second-place Bethlehem Steel Corp. (after U.S. Steel) and sixth-place Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. might restrict competition, Antitrust Chief Stanley Barnes is holding up approval, may carry his problem to President Eisenhower.

COFFEE PRICES, pulled down by an abrupt slide in wholesale prices (TIME, Aug. 30), dipped below $1 a pound in most stores. Retail prices may go even lower because U.S. Agriculture Department crop reporters predict a surplus next year.

VOLKSWAGEN is selling so well that the company is two to five months behind with orders. Volkswagenwerk Boss Heinz Nordhoff (TIME, Feb. 15) expects to roll out 235,000 cars this year, sell 45% outside Germany (7,200 in the U.S.).

TURBOPROP SUPER CONNIE, world's fastest propeller transport, was flight-tested by Lockheed Aircraft Corp. Built for the U.S. Navy, the new R7V-2 is equipped with four 5,500-h.p. Pratt & Whitney T-34 turboprop engines, has a payload of 16 tons, a top cruising speed of 440 m.p.h.

ROBERT R. YOUNG is working on plans to build a new skyscraper to replace New York City's Grand Central Terminal. At Young's request Webb & Knapp President William Zeckendorf looked over the property, estimated the railroad could put up a 5,000,000-sq.-ft. office building (biggest in the world) over Grand Central, thereby offset the terminal's annual $24 million loss and turn in a neat profit.

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