STOCK-PURCHASE PLANS for salaried employees are being considered by Ford and General Motors. Ford will offer its 46,000 salaried workers stock below market price when it goes on public sale net year. G.M. may make a similar plan part of a new investment and savings program for everybody, from office clerks up to the executives.

NORTH AMERICAN AIRLINES, biggest nonscheduled air carrier in the U.S., had its wings clipped. The Civil Aeronautics Board upheld an examiner's finding that North American runs scheduled flights in violation of CAB regulations (TIME, Feb. 28), ordered the line grounded effective Sept. 1. North American will appeal the CAB ruling to the federal courts, keep flying until the case is finally settled.

ATOMS-FOR-PEACE plans are developing so fast that General Electric Co. will launch the first sales campaign for nuclear research reactors this month. G.E. will send sales engineers to universities, factories, and research companies to peddle a nuclear line, e.g., a 50-kw. "swimming-pool" reactor, a 5,000-kw. heavy-water reactor.

FAIR-TRADE LAWS will not be an issue at this session of Congress. Despite a recommendation by Attorney General Herbert Brownell's antitrust committee that federal price-fixing laws be abolished (TIME, Sept. 13), no bill has been introduced.

ROYAL LITTLE, who wants to put half of his Textron American, Inc. assets in non-textile diversification, is moving into another new field. For $18 million, Textron will take over Western Union's international cable system to Cuba, England, the Azores, Spain and Italy. The sale solves a big problem for Western Union, which was ordered to give up its international operations when it bought out Postal Telegraph twelve years ago, has been looking for a buyer ever since.

PLASTIC PRICES will come down as the result of an 18% price slash on Union Carbide & Carbon Corp.'s vinyl resins (used for raincoats, upholstery, garden hose, etc.). With Italian vinyls selling in the U.S. for 32-c- a lb., Union Carbide was forced to cut its price from 38-c- a lb. to 31-c-.

ATCHISON, TOPEKA & SANTA FE, which lopped off all passenger trains to Santa Fe, N. Mex. in the '30s, will take coaches off the run to Atchison, Kans. (pop. 12,792) if the Kansas Corporation Commission gives its O.K. Then Topeka will be the last city in the company title to be a passenger stop.

PAPER INDUSTRY is busy with mergers. Crown Zellerbach Corp. (1954 sales: $297 million) has offered shareholders in Gaylord Container Corp. a two-for-three stock swap. St. Regis Paper Co., biggest paper container maker (1954 sales: $200 million), will take over General Container Corp. in a stock trade (2 3/8 shares of St. Regis for each share of General Container).

POTATO PRICE QUIZ by the U.S. Agriculture Department flushed more evidence of market rigging (TIME, June 20). The Government charged Manhattan's Jacob Stern & Co. with virtually cornering the supply of cash potatoes on the New York Mercantile Exchange in February so that it could juggle prices. The shortage that made cornering easier is ending. Government forecasters expect that the summer crop may be 20% over last year's.

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