TIME CLOCK

NORTH POLE FLIGHTS from Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle to Europe probably will be started before summer by Pan American World Airways and Trans World Airlines. CAB examiner urged that the two U.S. airlines be certified to fly via Pole from West Coast, thus cut flight time to Europe by five to 15 hours. Scandinavian Airlines System now holds monopoly on route.

PRICE RISE will help pay for $115 million expansion by Canada's International Nickel Co., world's biggest nickel producer. Company is boosting prices 9 1/2-c- a lb., by 1960 will increase annual capacity by 50% to 385 million Ibs. Inco is opening two big new mines in Mystery-Moak Lakes area of northern Manitoba, building concentrator, smelter, refinery, and city for 8,000 on site.

SMALL-BUSINESS AID from Government is being made available to many firms that were too big to qualify before. Under new rule, manufacturers with more than 500 workers will be eligible for government orders provided they are small in their field. But small companies with important place in their industry, e.g., a 300-man, highly specialized electronics maker, will not get help.

RETIRED WORKERS' benefits may be next big bargaining goal of U.A.W.'s Walter Reuther, a follow-up to guaranteed-annual-wage, cost-of-living escalator clauses. U.A.W. has named 15 geriatrics experts to work out program. Committee will call for better medical care, housing for retired workers.

D.C. TRANSIT SYSTEM, successor to Capital Transit Co., Washington's long-limping bus and streetcar system, is finally getting on the track under new management after being milked of millions by Financier Louis Wolfson (TIME, June 25). Company changed net loss of $4,836 in September to $92,986 profit in October, now is enjoying first big passenger upswing since 1950.

REFUGEE AIRLIFT is giving nonscheduled airlines biggest boom since Korean war. CAB has issued nonskeds 29 permits for refugee flights, will soon approve 24 more. Every usable overwater craft will be pressed into service. So great is need that asking price for used DC-4s has jumped from $550,000 apiece to $600,000-$650,000.

IRON-ORE shortage is forcing U.S. Steel Corp. to keep 50 of its Great Lakes ore carriers sailing to Jan. 1, and Army Corps of Engineers will hold Sault Ste. Marie locks open until then, instead of normal Dec. 15 closedown. But ore movement will drop to about 77 million tons from last year's 87 million tons. Reason: strikes by steelworkers and lake seamen.

NEW BOMARC MISSILE is set to go into large-scale production in spring. Planning final assembly plant for Air Force's long-range, ramjet, supersonic missile, Boeing has option on $22 million Ford Motor Co. plant at Richmond, Calif., is ready to spend $20 million to $25 million converting it, if zoning problems can be settled. Boeing also has option on large site around nearby Parks Air Force Base, may concentrate its missile output in San Francisco Bay area.

RENT-FREE LAND for industry is being offered by Montana's Blackfoot Indians on 1,697-sq.-mi. reservation near railroad, highways with ample electric power. Tribe wants to create employment source for 4,200 Blackfeet, now hard-pressed to make a living on their ancestral grounds.

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