Court won't hear dispute over Sherlock Holmes

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court won't take up a copyright dispute over the right to depict Sherlock Holmes in a new anthology of stories.

The justices on Monday declined to hear an appeal from heirs of legendary writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who say anyone portraying characters from the popular detective series must seek permission or pay a licensing fee.

A U.S. district court ruled that copyrights had expired on all Sherlock novels and stories published before 1923, but not on the final 10 stories published after that. The lower court said author Leslie Klinger could use characters from pre-1923 works and a federal appeals court agreed.

The Doyle estate argued that the characters continued to develop in later works so they should remain off-limits until remaining copyrights run out in 2022.

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High court won't hear crisis pregnancy center case

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is leaving in place a portion of a New York City law aimed at regulating crisis pregnancy centers that are run by anti-abortion organizations.

The court rejected a free-speech appeal Monday in which the centers argued that the law's requirement that they disclose whether a licensed medical provider works at the facilities is unconstitutional under the First Amendment.

City officials said the 2011 law protects consumers and demands truth in advertising.

Courts have blocked other parts of the law, including a requirement that centers disclose whether they provide referrals for abortion, emergency contraception or prenatal care.

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Nissan, Honda, Chrysler report US sales increases

DETROIT — Chrysler, Nissan and Honda all reported U.S. sales gains last month as falling gas prices and an improving economy boosted sales of pickup trucks and SUVs.

Chrysler said its U.S. sales rose 22 percent to 170,480 for its best October since 2001, while both Nissan and Honda posted their best October ever. Nissan sales were up 13 percent over a year ago, while Honda's rose nearly 6 percent.

The early reports Monday were a strong sign that the auto sales boom would continue at pre-recession levels through the rest of the year. Industry analysts are expecting a 6 percent sales gain after automakers report their U.S. numbers on Monday.

Nissan said low gas prices and high consumer confidence pushed up sales across most of its model lineup.

"We expect that these factors will continue to boost auto sales for the last two months of 2014." said Fred Diaz, Nissan's U.S. sales and marketing chief.

The Japanese automaker said its Nissan and Infiniti brands sold just over 103,000 cars and trucks last month. Nissan sales rose almost 15 percent while the Infiniti luxury brand was down 1 percent. Nissan was led by the Rogue small crossover SUV, with sales up almost 14 percent.

At Chrysler, the red-hot Jeep brand led the way with a 52 percent increase over a year ago. The company sold nearly 16,000 Cherokees as the small SUV again unseated the Grand Cherokee as the brand's top seller. Ram pickup sales continued to be strong, up 33 percent for the month.

Honda said its sales rose to 121,172. Honda brand sales were up 5.5 percent, while luxury Acura brand sales rose 8 percent on thanks to demand for the new TLX sedan.

Sales of Honda's best-seller, the CR-V small crossover SUV, jumped 30 percent to 29,257, while sales of the recently redesigned Fit subcompact were up 83 percent. But sales of the Civic small car dropped 12 percent as buyers generally sought bigger cars and crossovers. Accord midsize car sales were up 8 percent.

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US approved Ferguson no-fly area to keep press out

WASHINGTON — The U.S. government allowed police in Ferguson, Missouri, to restrict more than 37 square miles of airspace for nearly two weeks in August for safety reasons, but audio recordings show that local authorities instead wanted to keep news helicopters away during violent street protests.

On Aug. 12, amid demonstrations following the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, Federal Aviation Administration managers struggled to redefine an earlier flight ban so police helicopters and commercial flights at nearby Lambert-St. Louis International Airport could fly through the area — but not others.

"They finally admitted it really was to keep the media out," said one FAA manager about the St. Louis County Police Department in a series of recorded telephone conversations obtained by The Associated Press. "But they were a little concerned of, obviously, anything else that could be going on."

At another point, a manager at the FAA's Kansas City center said police "did not care if you ran commercial traffic through this TFR (temporary flight restriction) all day long. They didn't want media in there."

The conversations contradict claims by the St. Louis County police, which said the restrictions had nothing to do with limiting the press and instead were imposed because of gunshots fired at a police helicopter.

But county police officials told the AP recently there was no damage to their helicopter, and they were unable to provide a report on the shooting. On the tapes, an FAA manager described reports of the helicopter shooting as unconfirmed "rumors."

The AP obtained the recordings under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. They raise serious questions about whether police were trying to suppress aerial images of the demonstrations and the police response by violating the constitutional rights of journalists with tacit assistance by federal officials.

Such images would have offered an unvarnished view of one of the most serious episodes of civil violence in recent memory. The recordings also offer a rare look into government operations, especially as local public-records requests to Ferguson officials by the AP and other news organizations were denied or met with high processing fees.

"Any evidence that a no-fly zone was put in place as a pretext to exclude the media from covering events in Ferguson is extraordinarily troubling and a blatant violation of the press's First Amendment rights," said Lee Rowland, an American Civil Liberties Union staff attorney specializing in First Amendment issues.

FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said in a statement Sunday his agency will always err on the side of safety. "FAA cannot and will never exclusively ban media from covering an event of national significance, and media was never banned from covering the ongoing events in Ferguson in this case."

Huerta also said that, to the best of the FAA's knowledge, "no media outlets objected to any of the restrictions" during the time they were in effect.

An FAA manager, in the recordings, lamented that procedures for defining a no-fly area didn't have an option that would accommodate only excluding news helicopters. "There is really ... no option for a TFR that says, you know, 'OK, everybody but the media is OK,'" he said, later working out wording they felt would keep news helicopters out of the controlled zone but not impede other air traffic.

The less restrictive change by the FAA practically served the authorities' intended goal, an official said: "A lot of the time the (lesser restriction) just keeps the press out, anyways. They don't understand the difference."

The Kansas City FAA manager then asked a St. Louis County police official if the restrictions could be lessened so nearby commercial flights wouldn't be affected. The new order allows "aircraft on final (approach) there at St. Louis. It will still keep news people out. ... The only way people will get in there is if they give them permission in there anyway so they, with the (lesser restriction), it still keeps all of them out."

"Yeah," replied the police official. "I have no problem with that whatsoever."

KMOV-TV News Director Brian Thouvenot told the AP his station was prepared at first to legally challenge the flight restrictions, but was later advised that its pilot could fly over the area as long as the helicopter stayed above 3,000 feet. That kept the helicopter and its mounted camera outside the restricted zone, although filming from such a distance, he said, was "less than ideal."

None of the St. Louis stations was advised that media helicopters could enter the airspace even under the lesser restrictions, which under federal rules should not have applied to aircraft "carrying properly accredited news representatives." The FAA's no-fly notice indicated the area was closed to all aircraft except police and planes coming to and from the airport.

"Only relief aircraft operations under direction of St. Louis County Police Department are authorized in the airspace," it said. "Aircraft landing and departing St. Louis Lambert Airport are exempt."

The same day that notice was issued, a county police spokesman publicly denied the no-fly zone was to prevent news helicopters from covering the events. "We understand that that's the perception that's out there, but it truly is for the safety of pilots," Sgt. Brian Schellman told NBC News.

Ferguson police were widely criticized for their response following the death of Brown, who was shot by a city police officer, Darren Wilson, on Aug. 9. Later, under county police command, several reporters were arrested, a TV news crew was tear-gassed and some demonstrators were told they weren't allowed to film officers. In early October, a federal judge said the police violated demonstrators' and journalists' rights by forcing them to stay in constant motion.

"Here in the United States of America, police should not be bullying and arresting reporters who are just doing their jobs," President Barack Obama said Aug. 14, two days after police confided to federal officials the flight ban was secretly intended to keep media helicopters out of the area. "The local authorities, including police, have a responsibility to be transparent and open."

The restricted flight zone initially encompassed airspace in a 3.4-mile radius around Ferguson and up to 5,000 feet in altitude, but police agreed to reduce it to 3,000 feet after the FAA's command center in Warrenton, Virginia, complained to managers in Kansas City that it was impeding traffic into St. Louis.

The flight restrictions remained in place until Aug. 22, FAA records show. A police captain wanted it extended when officials were set to identify Wilson by name as the officer who shot Brown and because Brown's funeral would "bring out the emotions," the recordings show.

"We just don't know what to expect," he told the FAA. "We're monitoring that. So, last night we shot a lot of tear gas, we had a lot of shots fired into the air again. It did quiet down after midnight, but with that ... we don't know when that's going to erupt."

One FAA official at the agency's command center asked the Kansas City manager in charge whether the restrictions were really about safety. "So are (the police) protecting aircraft from small-arms fire or something?" he asked. "Or do they think they're just going to keep the press out of there, which they can't do."

___

On Twitter, follow Jack Gillum at https://twitter.com/jackgillum and Joan Lowy at https://twitter.com/AP_Joan_Lowy

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Sony Pictures Animation to fund Youtube animated comedy shorts, teaming with toon guru Fred Seibert

Sony Pictures Animation and Fred Seibert's Frederator Networks have launched a contest to find new toon talent, with the winner to be granted a deal for a series that will run on Frederator's Cartoon Hangover channel on YouTube.

Under the companies' new Go! Cartoons incubator project, Sony Pictures Animation will fund 12 five-minute animated shorts, one premiering every month on Cartoon Hangover's YouTube channel starting in the fall of 2015. One of those shorts will then be picked to become a limited series for the channel, which has more than 1.3 million subscribers.

"This is a great opportunity for Sony Pictures Animation to find new talent that might not emerge from more traditional platforms," said Bob Osher, president of Sony Pictures Digital Prods.

Osher called Fred Seibert "a force of nature in animation," noting that Seibert has developed multiple series from similar incubator projects including "The Powerpuff Girls," "The Fairly OddParents" and "Adventure Time." In addition, Genndy Tartakovsky, director of Sony's "Hotel Transylvania," was also discovered through one of Seibert's incubator initiatives, when Tartakovsky pitched the idea for series "Dexter's Laboratory."

With Go! Cartoons, Sony Pictures Animation and Frederator said they're looking for character-driven comedy toons between four and five minutes, appealing primarily to a family audience. Entries should be stand-alone shorts, not a series or pilot. Go! Cartoons is a "great way to shake the trees for new talent thanks to the involvement of a major animation studio like Sony Pictures Animation -- and we'll continue to fund and produce content our own unique way," Seibert said.

Seibert, who has a film-development deal with Sony Pictures Animation, is an industry vet who helped launch MTV in 1981 (creating the network's mutating logo) and later ran Hanna-Barbera. Frederator Networks, Seibert's media division, launched Cartoon Hangover in October 2012 and the channel's "Bravest Warriors" series became one of the most-watched scripted series out of the YouTube funded-channels project.

Cartoon Hangover's most recent incubator lab, Too Cool! Cartoons, resulted in new series including "Bee & PuppyCat" from Natasha Allegri, which has more than 4 million views. Frederator Studios launched a Kickstarter campaign for the series and 18,209 fans contributed $872,000 to bankroll the animated series.

Sony Pictures Animation's movies franchises include "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs" and "The Smurfs." The studio will be releasing "Hotel Transylvania 2" next fall, once again directed by Tartakovsky, and a fully animated, yet-untitled Smurfs feature in August 2016.

© 2014 Variety Media, LLC, a subsidiary of Penske Business Media; Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

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Cos. step up to help displaced homeless

At 5 a.m. on Oct. 9, Mariann Bucina Roca checked her email and found an urgent plea for help from Boston Public Health Commission Homeless Services: The previous day, the Long Island bridge had been shut down for safety reasons, forcing the evacuation of about 700 homeless people, recovering addicts and troubled teens, who left, literally, with only the clothes on their backs.

"All we knew was this really traumatic thing had just happened to hundreds of people," said Bucina Roca, executive director of Friends of Boston's Homeless. "Clean underwear, socks, toothbrushes — all that was left behind. So we were like, OK, we've got to get moving."

And that is when the Boston business community began stepping up.

Friends' staff of two immediately began making calls to their longtime donors, businesses including Charles River Apparel in Sharon, which began packing 75 boxes with about $25,000 worth of outerwear, sweatshirts, polo shirts and other clothes.

"As a family, we very much want to give back, and this was an emergency," said Deb Lipsett, the company's director of community partnerships. "To think that these people were being displaced again, without any notice, and couldn't return — it's heartbreaking."

Goodwin Graphics in Cohasset donated more than 200 pairs of socks.

"For the last few years, we've gone to the fundraiser the Friends of Boston's Homeless holds every year on Long Island, but when we found out the bridge was closed, I was thinking: I've got to do something more impactful," said owner Ron Goodwin. "For every homeless person, there's a story that goes with them. Any one of us could be that person on the street."

TD Garden, Liberty Mutual and Eastern Bank each gave money. Stacy's Pita Chip Co. donated healthy snacks. And Dependable Cleaners has been doing laundry weekly for about 50 people who were in transitional programs on Long Island.

"I've never seen a community come together in such a united way," said Beth Grand, bureau director for Boston Public Health Commission Homeless Services. "And to see the impact on our clients — they are very appreciative of what everyone's done to help them through this."

The agency has managed to find temporary shelter for all of the people who were displaced and is working with Mayor Martin J. Walsh to find more permanent housing.

"These are people who've earned the right to move into permanent housing," said John Rosenthal, founder and chairman of Friends of Boston's Homeless.

Other critical needs remain, including toiletries, coats and underwear; new men's sweatshirts and hoodies; new hats, gloves, scarves and socks; duffel bags and backpacks; packaged food such as Ensure for the elderly and granola bars, as well as decks of cards, dominoes, and museum or movie passes.

"A lot of it," Bucina Roca said, "is just providing comfort at a time of incredible stress."

To help, visit the Friends' Web site at www.fobh.org, or call (617) 942-8671.

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AP survey: China slowdown to bruise global economy

WASHINGTON — China's roaring economy for years has pulled much of the rest of the world with it, soaking up oil, iron ore and other commodities from developing countries and autos and luxury goods from Europe.

But its role as a global engine is fading as its economy slows — and many other nations, in the view of economists, will feel the pain. An Associated Press survey of 30 economists has found that 57 percent of them expect China's decelerating economy to restrain growth in countries from Brazil and Chile to Australia and South Korea.

A notable exception is the United States, which the economists see as largely insulated from China's troubles.

China's once-explosive growth has slowed in part because of its government's efforts to restrain its speculative real estate sector and shift its economy toward consumer spending. China's economy expanded 7.3 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, its slowest pace since 2009. A growth rate above 7 percent would be the envy of most major economies. But for China, it marked a sharp slowdown after three decades of double-digit expansion.

Last week, the Conference Board, a business group, forecast that China's growth would slump to 4 percent by 2020.

China's deceleration is rippling around the world. Brazil and Australia are selling it less iron ore, a key ingredient in steel, as China's construction boom slows. Chile is exporting less copper to China. Indonesia is selling it less oil and lumber.

And South Korea's electronics exports have faltered, hampering its growth, as Chinese consumers buy fewer smartphones or choose cheaper domestic alternatives.

China is also cracking down on corruption, which threatens European designer brands. Sung Won Sohn, an economist at California State University's Smith School of Business, estimates that one-third of luxury Swiss watches are exported to China. In addition, China is the fastest-growing market for Mercedes-Benz and BMW.

U.S. automakers, particularly General Motors, also sell lots of cars in China. But nearly all are built in China and don't contribute much to the U.S. economy, Sohn said. That's true of many other U.S. goods sold in China, including electronics. As a result, weaker sales in China wouldn't much hurt the United States. Capital Economics, a forecasting firm, calculates that only 6.5 percent of U.S. exports go to China — equal to just 0.9 percent of the U.S. economy.

"It's hard to see a slowdown in China having a really significant impact on the U.S. economy, barring a complete collapse," said Paul Ashworth, an economist at Capital Economics.

The AP surveyed a range of corporate, Wall Street and academic economists from Oct. 24 through 29. Among their other views:

— If Republicans wrest control of the Senate from Democrats in Tuesday's elections, it would probably cause political gridlock but would have little effect on the U.S. economy. A few economists said such an election result might lead to tax reforms that would boost long-term growth.

— Retail sales will pick up during this holiday shopping season. The economists think sales will rise 4.1 percent from a year ago, up from 3.8 percent in 2013. Lower gas prices and greater hiring should boost Americans' spending power.

— Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has done a better job than her counterpart at the European Central Bank, President Mario Draghi. The economists gave Yellen an average score of 3.8 on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 the best and 1 the worst. Draghi earned 3.2. Most economists say they wish the ECB would take bolder steps to spur growth in the 18-nation eurozone, which may be on the brink of its third recession in seven years.

Most of surveyed economists think the U.S. economy can expand at a respectable annual rate of 2.5 percent to 3 percent through next year even if Europe, Japan and China stumble.

On Friday, Japan's central bank unexpectedly intensified its stimulus efforts to try to invigorate its chronically anemic economy. The Bank of Japan will buy more government bonds and other assets lift inflation and spur more spending. That announcement helped lift financial markets around the world.

Oil prices have fallen more than 25 percent since summer, partly because China is using less of it and thereby reducing global demand for oil. With demand slowing, the national average price of gasoline in the United States fell 33 cents in October to $3.00 even, according to AAA. The average dipped below $3 this weekend for the first time in four years.

Robert Johnson, an economist at Morningstar, an investing service, noted that the United States has been recovering steadily from the Great Recession even as China's economy has weakened. China was growing at a double-digit pace in 2010, when the U.S. was still struggling to escape the recession. Now, the U.S. economy has expanded at a 4 percent annual pace over the past six months.

Still, if China's growth does slow significantly, eventually it could diminish growth in the United States.

"China is such a big market," Sohn said. "Sooner or later, we will feel the impact."

__

Contact Chris Rugaber at http://Twitter.com/ChrisRugaber

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Take your reputation with you to next job

A Boston company has launched a new social media site that allows users to review and recommend individual lawyers, hair stylists and other professionals — combining the popular elements of services such as Yelp and LinkedIn.

Dunwello, founded early this year, gives customers a chance to review specific employees, instead of the companies for which they work

"There's no clear place (right now) you can go and see what individual professionals are really great at," said Matt Lauzon, co-founder of Dunwello.

When people start a new job, Lauzon said, they have to start from scratch with online reviews while the old employer keeps the good ratings. With Dunwello, recommendations follow the employee, not the company.

"The individual's livelihood is based on their reputation, (but) when they're moving place to place, those reviews don't follow them," he said. "You don't have a portable reputation."

Lauzon said an increasing number of employees go from job to job, and are forced to carve out loyal customers from the beginning.

Dunwello users rate how likely they are to recommend the person to others, which adds up to an overall score. Only positive reviews show up, although every review is sent to the professional.

"We don't believe in public shaming," Lauzon said, adding that anyone can see a pro's overall score.

Dunwello is focusing on a few professions to start, including lawyers, hair stylists and personal trainers.

Dunwello has raised 
$1.4 million in venture financing. Lauzon also founded Gemvara, a company that offers custom jewelry online.

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Spaceship co-pilot was experienced test pilot

MOJAVE, Calif. — The pilot killed in a test flight of Virgin Galactic's prototype space tourism rocket was as capable behind the controls of experimental aircraft as he was tackling technical challenges in the offices where the vehicle was designed.

He was also known as a devoted husband and father of two young children.

Michael Alsbury, 39, was "a respected and devoted colleague," according to a statement Saturday from Scaled Composites, the company developing the spaceship for Virgin Galactic. Alsbury was co-pilot of the ill-fated test of SpaceShipTwo. His body was in wreckage found in the Mojave Desert.

"Without mincing words or really embellishing anything ... I consider Mike Alsbury the renaissance man," said Brian Binnie, another test pilot who worked at Scaled Composites for 14 years before leaving the company in February. "He could do it all. He was an engineer. He was a pilot. He worked well with others. He had a great sense of humor. I never heard him raise his voice or lose his cool."

Peter Siebold, 43, who piloted the mission and parachuted to safety, was described as alert and talking with his family and doctors.

Alsbury had at least 15 years of flight experience and logged more than 1,600 hours as a test pilot and test engineer, according to a biography posted on the Society of Flight Test Engineers' website. He was listed on the website as an event speaker for the group last year.

At Scaled Composites, Alsbury participated in the flight testing of nine different manned aircraft and co-piloted SpaceShipTwo when it broke the sound barrier during its first powered flight last year. He was also sitting in the co-pilot's seat when the craft first dropped in 2010 from its carrier aircraft several miles above the Earth for an unpowered glide test.

Alsbury flew primarily as the craft's co-pilot, logging at least seven trips from 2010 to early 2014, according to test-flight logs.

Alsbury's next-door neighbor in Tehachapi, California, Patricia Kinn, had known him for years and described him as a devoted father of a young son and daughter. The last time she saw him, he was playing with the kids in his yard.

"He was a very down-to-earth family man," Kinn said. "He was very humble. He never bragged, never boasted."

Kinn, who works in flight testing for another company, said the aerospace community is a close one connected with businesses at the Mojave Air and Space Port and nearby Edwards Air Force Base.

"It was a horrible day yesterday for everyone," she said "What's hard is the family is suffering the loss of their dad. And they were very tight."

Alsbury earned a degree in aeronautical engineering from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. He was the recipient of Northrop Grumman's President's Award for Innovation-for-Affordability Excellence this year.

Binnie said Alsbury was a "home-schooled, home-brewed" pilot who earned his way up through the ranks at the company, starting as an engineer. Alsbury had also put himself through commercial pilot school and was certified as a flight instructor.

"He was definitely the kind of guy who had a vision for himself, and he did what he thought would get him where needed to be to fly SpaceShipTwo," Binnie said. "Mike loved what he did. I think his career ended with him doing exactly that. ... That yesterday ended up in a tragedy was kind of heart-breaking for many of us."

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Boston eyes next-gen networks

Boston is teaming up with more than two dozen other cities across the country to tackle one of the most complex infrastructure questions of the century: how to ensure the next-generation Internet connectivity that will be crucial for civic success.

"Where we stand today does not represent a network that is going to carry us and our many industries ... into the next few decades of the century," said Jascha Franklin-Hodge, chief information officer for the city of Boston.

Next Century Cities, a group of 31 cities across the country that are in the process of upgrading their internet infrastructure, is a collaborative organization that will meet regularly to discuss challenges and progress.

"The goal is to help a number of cities that already have interesting initiatives have better access and collaborate and learn from each other," said Chris Mitchell, policy director for Next Century Cities. "Having them all together makes it easier."

The networks of the future will need to be so-called gigabit networks, capable of speeds dramatically higher than a majority of today's networks.

"Twenty years from now, people are going to need gigabit connectivity," Franklin-Hodge said.

There is no specific plan in place to improve Boston's internet infrastructure, but the city is working to put one in place, he said.

"We're working hard to identify what options we have, there's a sense of urgency about this," he said. "There are so many different models, and there are people trying things all over the country that may be the right fit for Boston."

The Next Century Cities collaboration is intended to help guide Boston.

The city has been plagued by slow internet access for years — blamed in part on Verizon's refusal to build its FiOS network in the city as well as the infrastructure challenges that any old city faces.

The problems have been especially pronounced in the Innovation District.

And Boston's specialized industries require a high-quality network more than many cities, said Blair Levin, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution's Metropolitan Policy program and a former chief of staff for former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt.

"Boston has enormous strength in institutions of higher education, healthcare, and finance, and technology," he said. "Those are all going to require huge bandwidth."

But any network built by the city or a private company will have to take into account some unique qualities when designing its next-generation network, he said.

"The great disadvantage for Boston is that it's an old city, which increases the cost of construction," he said. "The advantage that Boston has is that it has a number of institutions ... if those folks all aggregate their buying power ... they can change the economics of deployment."

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