Facts, Figures, May 4, 1942

> Sperry Corp. announced that renegotiations of its war contracts with an Army and Navy Adjustment Board (TIME, April 20) would save the Government, in refunds and lower prices, about $100,000,000. This is the biggest war-contract adjustment so far. Said Sperry President Tom Morgan: “Our profit before taxes has been larger than was anticipated or desired.” Said the Navy’s James V. Forrestal: “. . . deeply gratifying . . . evidence of practical patriotism.”

> As an overture to price ceilings over everything, OPA first froze all export prices. Exporters can now charge no more than original cost, plus an “average” export premium over domestic prices, plus certain “specified expenses.” The door by which many a U.S. manufacturer might have escaped from domestic ceilings was thus closed in advance.

> A WPB shipping consultant told importers that only 213 import items are now considered strategic enough to rate any shipping space at all, only about 100 can get anything like enough space.

> ODT ordered a 25% curtailment of local truck deliveries. The carry-it-home-yourself drive was scarcely begun.

> Without waiting for passage of the Bone bill, enabling him to seize foreign patents (TIME, April 27), the President directed Alien Property Custodian Leo Crowley to grab all enemy-owned or controlled patents, of which there are more than 25,000. He also announced that this time, under some not-yet-defined powers, they would not be returned to their former owners after the war.

> After Thurman Arnold declared that he would prosecute his anti-trust case against General Electric and Carboloy Co., Inc. (TIME, April 27), his boss Attorney General Biddle called it off, on the Army & Navy’s advice.

> If Alfred Emanuel Smith’s Manhattan white elephant, the Empire State Building, ever gets fully rented, he can thank bureaucracy. Last week OPA leased six of its 85 floors.

> The only can-making factory in Venezuela will close within two weeks, for lack of imported tin plate.