Boston

BOSTON — The Massachusetts husband of a gay Brazilian man says his spouse has been denied asylum that would allow them to be reunited in the U.S.

Tim Coco said Monday that the Obama administration did not act on a Friday deadline in the case of Genesio "Junior" Oliveira, effectively denying his request. The Justice Department did not immediately return messages.

Oliveira had sought asylum because he said he was raped as a teenager. His request was first denied in 2002. He returned to Brazil after losing an appeal in 2007, two years after he and Coco married in Massachusetts.

The Associated Press does not typically name rape victims, but Oliveira allows his name to be used.

In March, Sen. John Kerry asked Attorney General Eric Holder to grant Oliveira asylum on humanitarian grounds.

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BOSTON — The Boston Globe is off the market.

The New York Times Co. said Wednesday it won't sell the newspaper after all, following "careful consideration and analysis."

In a regulatory filing, the company said it was still weighing its options for its other major New England property, the Telegram & Gazette in Worcester, Mass.

In a memo sent to Globe employees late Wednesday, Times Co. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and CEO Janet Robinson acknowledged the "long and painful process" that led to the decision to keep the paper.

"The Globe has significantly improved its financial footing by following the strategic plan it set out at the beginning of this year," Sulzberger and Robinson wrote. "All along, we explicitly recognized that a careful restructuring of the Globe was one possible route and, thanks to your hard work, that is precisely what has been done."

NEW YORK — Oil prices on Wednesday rose above $75 a barrel for the first time in a year because of a weak dollar and the belief that the upcoming holiday shopping season will bring more traffic to the roads.

Benchmark crude for November delivery added $1.03 to settle at $75.18 on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The last time crude finished above $75 a barrel was Oct. 14, 2008, exactly one year ago.

Also helping to lift energy prices was the Dow Jones Industrials Average, which hit a new annual high and pushed past the 10,000 mark for the first time in more than a year.

Oil prices have wavered mostly between $50 and $70 a barrel since May with signs of an economic recovery emerging slowly. But a plunge in the dollar convinced many investors to pump money into crude and other commodities as a hedge against inflation.

Still, there are scant signs of definitive uptick in demand for fuel and refiners have been shutting down facilities for that reason.

MIAMI — Fergie may soon be on the Miami Dolphins' bandwagon as a limited partner.

NFL owners meeting in Boston this week approved the Black Eyed Peas singer as a part owner, but the team has yet to complete an agreement with her, Dolphins chief executive officer Mike Dee said in an e-mail Tuesday.

Fergie and the Black Eyed Peas already have a marketing partnership with the Dolphins. She wears a pink Dolphins jersey in a campaign this month for breast cancer awareness.

Team owner Stephen Ross has brought six other celebrities into the fold this year. The first partnership was with singer Jimmy Buffett. Musicians Gloria and Emilio Estefan and Marc Anthony and tennis stars Serena and Venus Williams subsequently bought small shares of the team.

TRENTON, N.J. — Travel records show the Republican candidate for New Jersey governor frequently exceeded federal spending guidelines on business travel while he was U.S. attorney.

The records were obtained by the campaign of Chris Christie's opponent, Gov. Jon Corzine, under the Freedom of Information Act. The campaign gave them to The Associated Press.

Christie exceeded the hotel allowance on 15 of 16 business trips last year. Vouchers show taxpayers occasionally paid for five-star hotels topping $400 a night.

Christie has campaigned on a platform of ethical integrity and cutting government waste. He says he stayed in more expensive hotels when government rates weren't available and completed paperwork justifying the expenses.

CHICAGO — A new study suggests less-invasive keyhole surgery for prostate cancer may mean a higher risk for lasting incontinence and impotence when compared with traditional surgery. The results add to confusion around prostate cancer treatments, which sometimes lead to urinary and sexual problems. It's not clear that either kind of surgery is superior to radiation alone or watchful waiting, which means simply monitoring the prostate for changes.

Laparoscopic, or keyhole, surgery is increasingly chosen by men having a cancerous prostate removed. And often it involves the highly marketed da Vinci robotics system. Da Vinci's popularity has been rising even though there's never been a rigorous head-to-head comparison between it and standard surgery.

"There's been a rapid adoption of this relatively new technique," said the study's lead author Dr. Jim Hu of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

For the study, appearing in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers analyzed Medicare data for nearly 9,000 prostate cancer patients who had surgical treatment from 2003-07. Of those, 1,938 patients had minimally invasive surgery and 6,899 patients had standard surgery. The data did not indicate how many of the less invasive cases involved robotics.

The patients who had keyhole surgery left the hospital in two days, rather than three, on average. They also had lower rates of blood transfusions, breathing problems and internal scarring.

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WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is defending an Education Department official over advice he gave a gay student about sex 21 years ago.

The official, Kevin Jennings, says he should have handled the situation differently.

Jennings was teaching high school in Concord, Mass., in 1988 when a sophomore boy confessed an involvement with an older man in Boston. He told the boy, "I hope you knew to use a condom."

Jennings has been under fire for months from conservatives and right-wing groups.

He issued a statement Wednesday saying he can see today how he should have handled the situation differently. And Education Secretary Arne Duncan said he's honored to have Jennings on his team.

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Former Democratic National Committee chairman Paul G. Kirk Jr. was the favored pick Thursday as Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick prepared to announce a temporary replacement for the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Kennedy's sons, Edward Kennedy Jr. and U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., both lobbied for Kirk in separate phone calls to the governor, according to a family confidant and a Patrick aide. The governor scheduled a late-morning news conference at the Statehouse to declare his choice, and aides said Vicki Kennedy, the senator's widow, and his children were expected to attend as a sign of the family's approval.

Kennedy died last month of brain cancer, and an appointee will serve until a permanent successor is chosen through a special election scheduled for Jan. 19. The appointment will restore a critical 60th Democratic vote in the U.S. Senate as President Barack Obama pushes to pass a health care overhaul that was Kennedy's life passion. Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., planned to attend the announcement ceremony, an aide said.

Kirk, 71, is a Boston attorney and was close friends with the senator. He and his wife, Gail, live on Cape Cod, and he was among the few regular visitors allowed at Kennedy's Hyannis Port home before his death.

Kirk knows the senator's staff intimately and would likely be assured of their loyalty given his relationship with Kennedy.

A U.S. labor union and three paper companies have filed a new trade complaint over imports of Chinese paper, possibly fueling tensions between Washington and Beijing amid disputes over tires and other goods.

The complaint was announced Wednesday as U.S. President Barack Obama and his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, were attending a summit of leaders of the Group of 20 major economies in Pittsburgh.

The case accuses China, along with Indonesia, of improperly subsidizing exports of some types of coated paper that it says have flooded the U.S. market, wiping out thousands of American jobs.

It comes a week after Beijing filed a World Trade Organization challenge to Washington's decision to raise tariffs on imports of Chinese-made tires. The two governments also are involved in disputes over access to each others' markets for poultry, steel pipes, music and movies.

The complaint was filed by three paper producers and the United Steelworkers, a union for 6,000 of their employees. The companies are NewPage Corp., of Miamisburg, Ohio; Appleton Coated LLC, of Kimberly, Wisconsin, and Sappi Fine Paper North America, of Boston.

A day after Massachusetts lawmakers granted one of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy's final wishes by changing the state's succession law, an interim replacement for the late senator's crucial U.S. Senate seat is expected to be named Thursday.

Gov. Deval Patrick is to announce the appointment of Kennedy's successor at a news conference at the Statehouse, and former aide and longtime Kennedy friend Paul G. Kirk Jr. has the backing of the late senator's sons.

Patrick declined to discuss potential appointees, but a top aide earlier confirmed that Kennedy's sons had lobbied for the appointment of Kirk, the former Democratic National Committee chairman.

The governor's appointee will serve until a special election is held Jan. 19, and will give President Barack Obama the critical 60th U.S. Senate vote he needs to pass a health care overhaul this year.

On Thursday, the Massachusetts Legislature approved a bill that allows the governor to name a successor to Kennedy, who died last month after a yearlong battle with brain cancer.