MERGER CURBS are making fast headway in Congress. The House has passed (and the Senate is expected to approve) a bill requiring large companies to give the Government advance notice of all proposed mergers involving combined assets of $10 million or more. If the Government does not object within 90 days, the merger can be completed, though still subject to possible court action later.

LATE FLIGHTS by scheduled airlines have grown so numerous that the CAB plans to require all carriers to complete at least 75% of their flights on time. Those that fail will have to revise their schedules.

HOTELMAN CONRAD HILTON, whose globe-girdling empire already takes in eleven foreign cities, will move into another. In a joint venture with former Queen Rambai Barni of Thailand and local businessmen, Hilton will build and operate a $4,000,000 hotel in Bangkok with all the luxury trimmings: 300 air-conditioned rooms, restaurants, shops, and a roof garden overlooking the city's canals and temples.

FORD'S CONTINENTAL is slowing after the first rush to buy. After starting out at 20 cars a day, production is down to six cars daily. But Ford's Thunderbird whizzes merrily on, with first-quarter sales up 7%, and forecasts for 20,000 cars in 1956 v. 17,000 last year.

MILLION-DOLLAR MOTELS near Pittsburgh and Williamsburg, Va. have proved so successful for Knott Hotels Corp. that the chain will build (at a total cost of more than $3,000,000) and operate three more near Washington, Pittsburgh and Groton, Conn. Washington motel, first to be built, will have 125 air-conditioned rooms with private balconies, a restaurant, an Olympic-sized swimming pool with cabanas.

FARM PRICE SQUEEZE is easing a bit, says the Department of Agriculture. Farm prices have inched up 3% since the first of the year, with the result that the parity ratio (what farmers get v. what they must pay for manufactured goods) increased to 82% by mid-March, two points higher than last December but still four points below March 1955.

WESTERN AIR LINES is taking its first step into the jet age. It will buy nine 410-m.p.h. Lockheed Electra propjet transports (cost: $19.5 million), put them into service in 1959-60. Another jet order: from West Germany's Lufthansa, which is joining the transatlantic jet race by spending about $20 million for four pure-jet Boeing 707s.

FREE LIFE INSURANCE recently offered new car buyers by independent automakers (TIME, March 12) is proving more trouble than it is worth. The plan is illegal in many states, and too many buyers misunderstood the deal, thought they were getting liability as well as personal accident insurance.

CLINT MURCHISON, the Texas wheeler-dealer who helped Robert R. Young take over the New York Central in 1954 (TIME, June 21, 1954), is stepping out as a director of the railroad "because of pressure of other duties." To take his place: Dallas' Donald H. Carter, a Murchison associate and owner of 15,200 Central shares.

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