Schiffrin, rebel of corporate publishing, dies

PARIS — Literary editor Andre Schiffrin, who gave readers Art Spiegelman, Michel Foucault and Studs Terkel before he was forced out of commercial publishing in a defining battle between profits and literature, has died in Paris. He was 78.

Schiffrin, who died Sunday of pancreatic cancer, had sought out authors through his final days, dividing his time between New York and Paris as founding editor and editor at large of the nonprofit New Press, said Ellen Adler, the imprint's publisher.

Schiffrin had founded the New Press after his highly public departure from Pantheon Books in 1990. At least four other Pantheon editors walked out with him.

He said he feared for the future of independent ideas in a publishing world increasingly driven by advertising and profits. He believed the best hope for literature was small- and medium-sized publishers.

"The main thing is they decide a book on its merit and not its potential contribution to overhead and profit expectation," he told The Associated Press in a 1990 interview.

Embracing his identity as a corporate gadfly, Schiffrin's record of success with the New Press included the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Embracing Defeat" by John Dower and "The New Jim Crow" by Michelle Alexander. In his own books and interviews, Schiffrin argued that corporate control was incompatible with literature and threatened free expression.

That wasn't to say that Schiffrin's tastes were incompatible with readership. Pantheon, where his father Jacques served as a founding publisher, married the avant-garde left and the mainstream. The two were held together by Schiffrin's belief that a good book will always find readers.

Schiffrin was born into a Jewish family in Paris on June 14, 1935. The Nazis marched into the city on his fifth birthday, and the following year his family fled to the United States. He began working at Pantheon shortly after Random House bought it in 1961.

Terkel, the late Chicago-based radio host and oral historian who was among Schiffrin's best-selling writers, once described Schiffrin as his "muse." But most of Pantheon's books, which tended to a leftist social advocacy that had gone out of style by the 1980s, reached a far narrower audience.

The Random House CEO at the time said he was "publishing a lot of books that no one wanted to read." Schiffrin was asked to cut back staff and titles. Instead, he resigned.

The response was unprecedented. Arthur Miller, Nadine Gordimer, and Amy Tan were among authors to sign an ad critical of Schiffrin's treatment. More than 200 writers protested outside Random House headquarters, including Kurt Vonnegut, E.L. Doctorow and Terkel.

Schiffrin likened his new venture, the New Press, to public television and radio, and the imprint he founded in 1992 ultimately flourished, despite his grim predictions for the future of publishing.

"Now publishing is almost entirely a matter of profitability, meaning that if you want to publish something that is immediately profitable, it's very rare that it will turn out to be predicated on strong ideas, or dissident ideas," he told The White Review, an art and literary journal, in 2010.

Schiffrin is survived by his wife and two daughters.

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European, US authorities take control of websites

AMSTERDAM — Europol says American and European authorities have taken control of 690 websites that were selling counterfeit merchandise.

The European police coordination agency said the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had teamed up with European law enforcement agencies and Hong Kong customs authorities to seize the sites' domain names.

ICE director John Sandweg said in a statement that "counterfeiters take advantage of the holiday spirit of shoppers around the world and sell cheap fakes to unsuspecting consumers everywhere."

Common articles sold on the sites included headphones, sports jerseys, grooming products, shoes and electronics.

Visitors to the 297 domains seized in the U.S. and 393 others in Britain, France, Spain, Romania, Hungary, Denmark, Belgium and Hong Kong will be redirected to a warning notice.

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Justices won't hear appeal of NY internet taxation

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday refused to consider throwing out New York state's taxes on Internet purchases on websites like Amazon.com, a move that could change the way Internet commerce works.

The high court refused without comment to hear appeals from Amazon.com LLC and Overstock.com Inc., in their fights against a state law that forces them to remit sales tax the same way in-state businesses do.

Web retailers generally have not had to charge sales taxes in states where they lack a store or some other physical presence. But New York and other states say that a retailer has a physical presence when it uses affiliates — people and businesses that refer customers to the retailer's website and collect a commission on sales. These affiliates range from one-person blogs promoting the latest gadgets to companies that run coupon and deal sites.

Amazon and Overstock both use affiliate programs. Amazon has been collecting sales tax in New York as it fights the state over a 2008 law that was the first to consider local affiliates enough of an in-state presence to require sales tax collection. Overstock ended its affiliate program in 2008 after the law passed.

The Supreme Court refusal to hear the websites' appeal likely will prompt more and more states to attempt to collect taxes from website purchases. Around 20 states, including New York, already have similar laws on the books. The National Council of State Legislatures estimated that states lost an estimated $23.3 billion in 2012 from being prohibited from collecting sales tax from online and catalog purchases.

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Scalloping season kicks off in Maine

PORTLAND, Maine — Maine scallop fishermen are kicking off a season that'll last 70 days along most of the coast.

But fishermen in the scallop-rich waters of Cobscook Bay along the Canadian border in far eastern Maine will be limited to a 50-day season. The season opened Monday in three zones from Kittery to Lubec.

Maine's scallop fishermen operate under a regulatory system that divides the state into three zones with restrictions and closures in a number of areas aimed at allowing scallops to replenish.

Marine Resources Commissioner Patrick Keliher says the restrictions have been challenging but they're working. Fishermen last year hauled in 2.4 million pounds, the best harvest in a decade. The catch was worth $3.2 million

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US manufacturing grows at fastest in 2½ years

WASHINGTON — U.S. manufacturing grew in November at the fastest pace in 2½ years as factories ramped up production, stepped up hiring and received orders at a healthy clip.

The Institute for Supply Management said Monday that its index of manufacturing activity rose to 57.3. That was up from 56.4 in October and was the highest since April 2011. A reading above 50 signals growth.

One component of the index, a measure of hiring, rose to its highest level in nearly 18 months. And a gauge of export orders reached its highest level in nearly two years. Overseas demand is benefiting from modest recoveries in Europe, Japan and China.

Manufacturing activity has now expanded for six straight months after hitting a rough patch in the spring. The steady gains suggest that growth is remaining healthy in the current October-December quarter.

Still, the encouraging figures in the ISM's report conflict with weaker recent data on factory activity, making it difficult to discern a clear trend.

The ISM is a trade group of purchasing managers.

"We continue to believe that this indicator is overstating the health of the broader economy," said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc.

For example, businesses cut back on orders for long-lasting factory goods in October, according to a government report Wednesday. Orders for durable goods, which are meant to last three years, fell 2 percent.

A fall in aircraft demand drove the decline. But companies also spent less on machinery, computers, and metal parts. The weak showing suggests that businesses may have been reluctant to order more goods during the 16-day partial government shutdown during October.

The ISM's index doesn't adequately measure smaller manufacturers, according to Ian Shepherdson, an economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. Larger companies are likely benefiting more from recoveries overseas.

Separately, factory output rose for the third straight month in October, according to the Federal Reserve, driven higher by greater production of primary metals and furniture.

The mixed picture comes as the economy is thought to be slowing in the October-December quarter to an annual rate of 2 percent or less. That would be down from a 2.8 percent annual pace in the July-September quarter.

Much of the third quarter's growth was due to companies rebuilding their stockpiles. The economy is unlikely to benefit from a similar trend in the current quarter.

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High court ends Liberty U. lawsuit over health law

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has turned away a Christian university's attempt to overturn a key part of the Obama administration's health care law.

The justices did not comment Monday in leaving in place a federal appeals court ruling dismissing Liberty University's lawsuit.

Liberty made several arguments in challenging the portion of the health care law that requires most employers to provide health insurance to their workers or pay a fine. The 4th U.S. Circuit of Appeals in Richmond, Va., rejected those claims.

The Supreme Court separately is considering whether for-profit corporations can mount religious objections to the law's requirement to include birth control among preventive health benefits.

The case is Liberty University v. Lew, 13-306.

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Bank of America to pay Freddie Mac $404 million

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Bank of America will pay $404 million to mortgage buyer Freddie Mac to settle all remaining claims over home loans sold in the previous decade.

The Charlotte, N.C., bank says the deal resolves claims on loans sold from 2000 through 2009, which includes mortgage-backed investments that soured during the housing crash. The bank's reserves will cover the payment.

Earlier this year, Bank of America Corp. agreed to pay $3.6 billion in cash to Freddie's sibling company, Fannie Mae, and buy back $6.75 billion in loans sold by the bank and Countrywide Financial, which Bank of America bought in 2008.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buy mortgages from banks and package them as bonds to sell. The government rescued both during the financial crisis in 2008 with loans of about $187 billion. So far, they have repaid about $136 billion of that aid.

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Oil rises on China's modest manufacturing growth

The price of oil drifted up to around $93 a barrel as China's manufacturing growth held steady at a modest pace in November.

By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark U.S. crude for January delivery was up 36 cents at $93.08 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 41 cents to close at $93.68 on Friday.

Chinese manufacturing continued to grow slightly in November, a survey showed, in evidence that growth in the world's No. 2 economy was continuing, albeit at a modest pace.

HSBC's purchasing managers' index released Monday slipped to 50.8 points from 50.9 in October. Although November's reading was little changed, HSBC said it was the second-highest level in eight months, indicating China's massive manufacturing industries are improving, though marginally.

China's leaders are counting on a continuing recovery to avoid the need for further stimulus. China's economic growth rose to 7.8 percent in the third quarter after slumping to a two-decade low of 7.5 percent in the previous three months.

"The bullish (Chinese) data, combined with the expectation that OPEC will leave its oil production quota unchanged at 30 million barrels per day ... has supported the U.S. benchmark," said a report from Sucden Financial Research in London.

Delegates from some of the world's key oil producers, including Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and Nigeria, will meet Wednesday at OPEC headquarters in Vienna.

An estimate from analysts at JBC Energy in Vienna showed OPEC's crude output fell to 29.44 million barrels a day in November, the lowest since May 2011 and the third straight month with output below 30 million. Most of the difference was attributed to production and export snags in Libya, where political volatility and the effects of the 2011 civil war continue to affect the oil industry.

Meanwhile, Brent crude, a benchmark for international oils, was down 35 cents to $109.34 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

In other energy futures trading on Nymex:

— Wholesale gasoline lost 0.5 cent to $2.6623 a gallon.

— Heating oil fell 0.63 cents to $3.0245 a gallon.

— Natural gas shed 3 cents to $3.924 per 1,000 cubic feet.

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German plan to ban 'flat-rate' offers in brothels

BERLIN — Germany's biggest political parties have agreed to ban so-called flat-rate sex offered by some brothels in the country.

The move is part of a clampdown on Germany's booming prostitution industry that critics say has gotten out of hand since a 2002 law legalized sex work. They view as exploitative the special offers in some brothels where men can have unlimited sex for 100 euros ($136).

Anja Strieder, spokeswoman for the center-left Social Democrats, confirmed a report Monday by Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that a ban was agreed during coalition talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative Union bloc.

She said better protection for victims of enforced prostitution and stricter rules for brothel operators will also be included in a bill that could be introduced once the government is formally appointed.

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US construction spending up 0.8 percent in October

WASHINGTON — U.S. developers boosted construction spending in October at the fastest pace in more than four years, propelled by a surge in government projects. But spending on home construction and commercial projects both fell.

Overall construction spending increased 0.8 percent in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $908.4 billion, the Labor Department said Monday. That's up from September, when spending fell 0.3 percent.

The October pace was the best since May 2009 and was driven by a 3.9 percent surge in public spending. Federal spending increased 10.9 percent, suggesting the 16-day partial government shutdown had little impact on public projects.

Spending on state and local government construction also rose.

One troubling sign: Home construction fell 0.6 percent in October from September, dragged lower by a drop in single-family homes.

Still, spending on home construction has surged 17.8 percent in the past 12 months, the fastest year-over-year pace since the peak of the 2008 financial crisis. And a recent jump in permits to build apartments indicates that will continue.

Nonresidential spending fell 0.5 percent in October from September, lowered by declines in the building of private power plants, communication facilities and amusement parks and recreation centers. Construction of office buildings, hotels and private schools all increased.

The decline in home construction in October may prove temporary. Permits issued to build apartments increased in October at their fastest pace in more than five years. But permits for single-family home construction rose only slightly and were at the same pace as in May.

Single-family houses make up roughly two-thirds of the residential construction market. The pace of homebuilding has rebounded from the depths of the recession. But sales of new single-family homes have grown more slowly, and higher mortgage rates could slow them further.

Both the October and September figures were released Monday, after reporting was delayed due to shutdown in October. The government also said spending in August and July were less than initially reported.

Mortgage rates are nearly a full percentage point higher than the spring. Rates rose in May when the Federal Reserve first signaled that it might slow its $85 billion in monthly bond purchases. But rates have moderated from recent highs after the Fed decided to keep its bond buying intact.

The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage was 4.29 percent, which is still close to historic lows.

Though new homes represent only a fraction of the housing market, they have an outsize impact on the economy. Each home built creates an average of three jobs for a year and generates about $90,000 in tax revenue, according to National Association of Home Builders.

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