STEEL NEGOTIATIONS are entering the critical stage, but neither union nor management thinks there will be a strike when the contract expires this week. Though Steelworkers' Boss David McDonald has rejected the industry's offer of about a 10-c--an-hour wage boost as an "insult," few tempers are ruffled, and the industry is expected to make a satisfactory offer.

FIRST JET TRANSPORTS in the U.S. will be ordered by National Airlines and American Airlines. Though nothing has been signed officially, both lines have given Douglas Aircraft Co. verbal orders for its new 550-m.p.h. DC-8 (TIME, June 20), National for four planes and American for possibly as many as 25 planes, each costing an estimated $4,500,000 to $5,000,000.

NEW CAPITAL NEEDS by U.S. corporations will amount to a "staggering" $375 billion if the U.S. is to reach the economic levels projected for 1965, says New York Stock Exchange President Keith Funston. Of the total, U.S. corporations will get $215 billion from their own retained earnings and tax-depreciation allowances, will have to raise the rest through new securities.

DAVY CROCKETT BATTLE between Walt Disney and Baltimore's Davy Crockett Enterprises over the right to use the magic name ( TIME, May 23) has been settled. After filing counter lawsuits and promising a bitter court fight, both sides will sign a master cross-licensing agreement that will let both lease the trademark to manufacturers and split the profits.

POWER REPORT by a Hoover Commission task force this week will recommend that the U.S. get out of the public power business as soon as possible. The task force, headed by Jones & Laughlin Chairman Ben Moreell, wants the Government to sell off its projects (including TVA and Bonneville), boost rates to the level of private rates, and make those who benefit from irrigation, flood-control and other water-resource projects pay more of the cost. In no future project should the U.S. contribution through loans total more than 50%.

OILMAN GLENN MCCARTHY, onetime king of the wildcatters, has found backers for his comeback attempt in Bolivia (TIME, May 16). A group of investors headed by Manhattan Rug Importer Robert Keljikan has put up $4,160,000 for a 50% interest in McCarthy's Bolivian oil field near Villa Montes, where he has already brought in two wells, one oil, one gas. McCarthy's forecast: between 35 and 45 wells in production, with 5,000 bbls. daily, within 17 months.

FURNITURE PRICES are on the way up, will rise between 3% and 7% by fall. Though sales are running as much as 37% more than a year ago, most manufacturers report that increasing prices of wood and upholstery plus wage boosts are pushing costs up more than they can absorb.

CHANCE VOUGHT AIRCRAFT, which cut loose from United Aircraft last year, has added another fighter to the U.S. arsenal of supersonic jets, its first as an independent company. The plane, now being tested for the Navy, is the XF8U-1, a snub-nosed, swept-wing single-engined fighter designed to operate off carrier decks, hit a top speed of around 900 m.p.h.

SHIPPING FIGHT between the Justice Department and seven companies controlled by Greek Shipping Tycoon Manuel E. Kulukundis (TIME, Jan. 11, 1954) has been settled out of court. Under the agreement the Government, which charged Kulukundis with illegally buying 33 surplus tankers and seized seven of the vessels (26 were transferred to other companies), will get $900,000 to cover profits made by the ships while Kulukundis operated them.

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