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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Branson vows to find out cause of spacecraft crash

MOJAVE, Calif. — Billionaire Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson, saluting the bravery of test pilots, vowed Saturday to find out what caused the crash of his prototype space tourism rocket, killing one crew member and injuring another.

In grim remarks at the Mojave Air and Space Port where the craft was under development, Branson gave no details of Friday's accident and deferred to the National Transportation Safety Board, whose team had just arrived.

"We are determined to find out what went wrong," he said, asserting that safety has always been the top priority of the program that envisions taking wealthy tourists to the edge of space for a brief experience of weightlessness and a view of Earth below.

More than a dozen investigators in a range of specialties were forming teams to examine the crash site, collect data and interview witnesses, NTSB Acting Chairman Christopher A. Hart told a press conference at Mojave Air and Space Port, where the winged spacecraft was under development.

Hart said the investigation will have similarities to a typical NTSB probe as well as some differences.

"This will be the first time we have been in the lead of a space launch (accident) that involved persons onboard," said Hart, noting that the NTSB did participate in investigations of the Challenger and Columbia space shuttle disasters.

Hart said he did not immediately know the answers to such questions as whether the spaceship had flight recorders or the altitude of the accident, but noted that test flights are usually well documented.

Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo blew apart about 20 miles from the Mojave airport after being released from a carrier aircraft Friday. It was the second fiery setback for commercial space travel in less than a week.

Branson has been the front-runner in the fledgling race to give large numbers of paying civilians a suborbital ride that would let them experience weightlessness at the edge of space.

The NTSB investigators were expected to head to an area about 20 miles from the Mojave airfield where debris from the spaceship fell over a wide area of uninhabited desert.

The spacecraft broke up after being released from a carrier aircraft at high altitude, according to Ken Brown, a photographer who witnessed the plane breaking apart.

One pilot was found dead inside the spacecraft and another parachuted out and was flown by helicopter to a hospital, Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said.

The accident occurred just as it seemed commercial space flights were near, after a period of development that lasted far longer than hundreds of prospective passengers had expected.

Branson once envisioned operating flights by 2007. Last month, he talked about the first flight being next spring with his son.

"It's a real setback to the idea that lots of people are going to be taking joyrides into the fringes of outer space any time soon," said John Logsdon, retired space policy director at George Washington University.

Friday's flight marked the 55th for SpaceShipTwo, which was intended to be the first of a fleet of craft. This was only the fourth flight to include a brief rocket firing. The rockets fire after the spacecraft is released from the underside of a larger carrying plane. During other flights, the craft either was not released from its mothership or functioned as a glider after release.

At 60 feet long, SpaceShipTwo featured two large windows for each of up to six passengers, one on the side and one overhead.

The accident's cause was not immediately known, nor was the altitude at which the blast occurred. The first rocket-powered test flight peaked at about 10 miles above Earth. Commercial flights would go 62 miles or higher.

The problem happened about 50 minutes after takeoff and within minutes of the spaceship's release from its mothership, said Stuart Witt, CEO of the Mojave Air and Space Port.

Virgin Galactic — owned by Branson's Virgin Group and Aabar Investments PJS of Abu Dhabi — sells seats on each prospective journey for $250,000. The company says that "future astronauts," as it calls customers, include Stephen Hawking, Justin Bieber, Ashton Kutcher and Russell Brand. The company reports receiving $90 million from about 700 prospective passengers.

Ken Baxter was one of those who had signed up to be among the first to make the flight.

Despite the disaster, Las Vegas resident Baxter said he was confident that the flight will happen one day.

"It's very sad for the test pilots, but I'm ready to go into space with Richard Branson," he said.

Friday's accident was the second this week involving private space flight. On Tuesday, an unmanned commercial supply rocket bound for the International Space Station exploded moments after liftoff in Virginia.

SpaceShipTwo is based on aerospace design maverick Burt Rutan's award-winning SpaceShipOne prototype, which became the first privately financed manned rocket to reach space in 2004.

"It's an enormously sad day for a company," Rutan told The Associated Press in a phone interview from his home in Idaho, where he has lived since retiring.

Friday's death was not the first associated with the program. Three people died during a blast at the Mojave Air and Space Port in 2007 during testing work on a rocket motor of SpaceShipTwo.

___

Pritchard reported from Los Angeles. Associated Press writers David Koenig in Dallas, Susan Montoya Bryan in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Seth Borenstein in Washington, and John Antczak, Christopher Weber, Tami Abdollah and Robert Jablon in Los Angeles also contributed to this report.

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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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Plans to redo Boston's iconic market stir debate

BOSTON — The owners of Boston's historic Quincy Market are envisioning a major overhaul of the iconic complex of food vendors and retailers.

New York-based Ashkenazy Acquisition Corp. says its proposed multi-year project will "reimagine" one of the world's top tourist destinations for a new generation of visitors and create an "urban oasis" that would appeal to a growing number of downtown residents and companies.

The marketplace area's restoration in the 1970s became the model for pedestrian city centers across the nation, from New York's South Street Seaport to Baltimore's Inner Harbor. But after four decades, urban planners agree the "festival marketplace" concept it pioneered needs updating.

Some city officials are concerned the changes might be too drastic, and the market's familiar food vendors and pushcart operators say they face an uncertain future.

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Medical marijuana grow site proposed for Webster

WEBSTER, Mass. — A Newton company has announced that it wants to open a medical marijuana cultivation operation in Webster.

Garden Remedies, a registered marijuana dispensary organization based in Newton, is scheduled to make a second appearance before selectmen on Wednesday.

The first appearance was in late October.

The Telegram & Gazette reports that Garden Remedies wants to open the growing center inside a 100,000-square-foot old mill building.

Registered marijuana dispensaries cannot begin cultivation until both their dispensary and cultivation sites have received final approval from the state Public Health Department.

A Natick-based business had proposed a cultivation operation at the same site last year, but Town Administrator John McAuliffe said that proposal felt rushed.

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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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Surviving spaceship pilot described as 'alert'

MOJAVE, Calif. — The injured test pilot who survived the destruction of Virgin Galactic's prototype space tourism rocket is described as alert and talking with his family and doctors.

Word about the condition of Peter Siebold came Saturday in a statement from his employer, Scale Composites, the Mojave, California, company developing SpaceShipTwo for Virgin Galactic.

Scaled Composites says Siebold, its director of flight operations, was serving as pilot during Friday's ill-fated test flight high over the Mojave Desert.

Co-pilot Michael Alsbury was killed.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the accident.

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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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Box office: 'Nightcrawler,' 'Ouija' tied for first in deadly Halloween weekend

"Ouija" and "Nightcrawler" are effectively tied for first place at the box office, providing a little excitement in an otherwise deadly Halloween weekend at the multiplexes.

Both films picked up roughly $10.9 million, but a clear leader will likely be determined once final numbers come in on Monday. Whether the victor is "Ouija" or "Nightcrawler" it will still be the lowest grossing number one ranked film since the first weekend in September when "Guardians of the Galaxy" topped the box office with $10.4 million.

"Nightcrawler," a twisty thriller about an ethically warped crime reporter (Jake Gyllenhaal) debuted across 2,766 locations. Open Road, which picked up "Nightcrawler" in Cannes, saw an opportunity and pushed the film back from its original Oct. 17 release date when it would have faced stiffer competition from Brad Pitt's "Fury." The film cost $8.5 million to produce and has been a critical favorite.

After two weeks in theaters, "Ouija" has earned $35 million domestically, a healthy return on a production budget of less than $5 million.

The overall box office was down more than 20% from the previous year's numbers. Major studios steered clear of the weekend, because Halloween fell on a Friday, cutting into one of the biggest movie-going nights of the week.

The other films hoping to take advantage of the lack of major releases were less fortunate than "Nightcrawler." Clarius Entertainment's "Before I Go to Sleep" bombed with a $2 million bow from 1,935 locations, below projections of $5 million. It's the latest dud from the newly minted distributor behind "And So It Goes" ($15.2 million) and "Return to Oz" ($11.1 million). The psychological thriller starred Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth, the pair behind this spring's box office nonentity, "The Railway Man." Threepeat?

Though more seasonally appropriate, the tenth anniversary re-release of "Saw" met with even greater audience indifference. Jigsaw's return mustered an anemic $650,000 in ticket sales. Like last summer's re-release of "Ghostbusters," "Saw's" theatrical resurrection showed the limitations of revivals in an age where cinematic chestnuts are instantly available via streaming services.

Holdovers "Fury" and "Gone Girl" split up the bulk of adult audiences between them, earning $9 million and $8.8 million, respectively. With a domestic total of $136.6 million, "Gone Girl" is now David Fincher's highest-grossing stateside release, supplanting "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button." Rounding out the top five was "The Book of Life," as the animated Day of the Dead film picked up $8.3 million pushing its total to $40.5 million.

Coming in at number six, Lionsgate's "John Wick" fell 44% to $8 million in its second weekend, pushing its total to $27.6 million. Seventh place finisher "St. Vincent" held strong, essentially flat with the previous weekend with $7.7 million, which brings its cumulative results to just shy of $20 million.

Opera lovers continued to turn out for "The Met: Live in HD's" season at the multiplexes, as the live transmission of Bizet's "Carmen" earned $2.3 million in North America.

In limited release, Fox Searchlight's "Birdman" is shaping up to be an art house breakout despite its oddball premise. The show business satire picked up $2.5 million from 231 theaters, bringing its domestic total to $5 million.

Sony Pictures Classics continued to roll out "Whiplash," moving the drama about an aspiring musician from 46 to 61 screens and picking up $275,346, for a per screen average of $4,514. The film has earned $1.1 million since debuting a month ago.

"Citizenfour" continued to benefit from controversy surrounding Edward Snowden. The NSA whistleblower documentary scored $210,049, a per screen average of $5,677, after expanding from five to 37 screens. The Radius-TWC film has earned $210,049 after two weeks. The company's Daniel Radcliffe horror film "Horns" was less successful, picking up $104,357 from 103 screens. It has been available on demand for a month, where it fared better, picking up north of $1 million.

The meagre box office returns were a throat clearing of sorts before the arrival next week of Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar" and Disney's "Big Hero 6," both of which are on pace to generate north of $50 million when the debut.

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

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