Barring an instrumental performance of a Christian hymn at a high school graduation did not violate students' First Amendment rights and was within the school superintendent's discretion, a divided federal appeals panel ruled Tuesday.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' decision in what Judge Richard C. Tallman described as "the legal labyrinth of a student's First Amendment rights" will be appealed to the Supreme Court, a lawyer said.

The case arose a year after a choral performance of the song "Up Above My Head" at the 2005 commencement for Henry M. Jackson High School in Everett, 25 miles north of Seattle. The song, with references to God, angels and heaven, drew complaints and protest letters to The Herald, the town's daily newspaper.

Administrators raised red flags when wind ensemble seniors, who had played Franz Biebl's uptempo 1964 rendering of "Ave Maria" without controversy at a winter concert, proposed a reprise at their graduation in 2006.

School officials said the title alone identified "Ave Maria" — Hail Mary in Latin — as religious and that graduation should be strictly secular.

One of the students, Kathryn Nurre, sued Everett Public Schools Superintendent Carol Whitehead, claiming unspecified damages from infringement of First Amendment rights, but U.S. District Judge Robert T. Lasnik in Seattle rejected that assertion in a summary judgment on Sept. 20, 2007.

Tallman and a second judge from the San Francisco-based appeals court, Robert R. Beezer, agreed with Lasnik across the board.

OPEC appeared poised to hold oil production quotas unchanged Wednesday, with its ministers voicing satisfaction with current global crude prices.

Instead, the focus at the organization's meeting in Vienna was to be on persuading members not to sell more oil than their quotas permit.

Kuwait's oil minister, Sheik Ahmed Al Abullah Al Sabah, said OPEC's markets monitoring committee would suggest to the 12-country group that oil output targets be held steady at the organization's meeting Wednesday in Vienna. The gathering is being held in the evening since it falls during the holy month of Ramadan when Muslims must fast from dawn to dusk.

The recommendation offers further indication that ministers from the bloc — supplier of roughly 35 percent of the world's crude — are turning their aim toward encouraging member discipline. Compliance with the output limits, which are designed to support prices, has been waning.

Prices are now roughly double their levels from December, when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries announced its record 4.2 million barrel per day cuts from September 2008 levels. The price rally has been welcome news for cash-hungry member governments, but also a temptation to sell more oil.

U.S. benchmark light sweet crude for October delivery was hovering at around $71 in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The level is well within the range that OPEC kingpin Saudi Arabia, and others, have said it would like to see.

U.S. fast food giant McDonald's lost an eight-year trademark battle to prevent local restaurant McCurry from using the 'Mc' prefix in a precedent-setting judgment by Malaysia's highest court.

The Federal Court ruled Tuesday that McDonald's cannot appeal against another court's verdict that had allowed McCurry to use 'Mc' in its name. The owner says McCurry, which serves Indian food, is an abbreviation for Malaysian Chicken Curry.

The ruling by a three-member panel of the Federal Court ends all legal avenues for McDonald's to protect its name from what it said was a trademark infringement.

"On the basis of unanimous decision, our view is that" McDonald's plea to carry the case forward has no merit, said chief judge Arifin Zakaria. "It is unfortunate that we have to dismiss the application with costs," he said.

McDonald's will have to pay 10,000 ringgit ($2,900) to McCurry, a popular eatery in Jalan Ipoh on the edge of Kuala Lumpur's downtown. McDonald's lawyers refused to comment, except to say the company will abide by the judgment.

McCurry lawyer Sri Devi Nair said the ruling means McDonald's does not have a monopoly on the prefix 'Mc,' and that other restaurants could also use it as long as they distinguish their food from McDonald's.

Two studies conducted for the NHL set a potential relocation fee of $101 million to $195 million to move the Phoenix Coyotes to Hamilton, Ontario.

The figures are listed in a lengthy brief filed over the weekend in the bitter fight in U.S. Bankruptcy Court over ownership of the franchise.

The potential fees are in stark contrast to the $11.2 million to $12.9 million cited by economics professor Andrew Zimbalist in a study conducted for Canadian billionaire James Balsillie. Balsillie, co-CEO of the company that makes the Blackberry, wants to buy the franchise for $212.5 million, contingent on moving it to Hamilton.

The NHL made a last-minute bid of $140 million to purchase the team and keep it in Arizona.

The team is to be sold at auction on Thursday, but many legal issues have yet to be resolved.

The league, in determining a potential relocation fee, cited studies conducted for the NHL by the Barrett Sports Group and Sports Value Consulting.

The Barrett study concludes that the franchise in Hamilton would be worth $261.8 million to $279.8 million. Sports Value's figure was a whopping $315 million.

Meanwhile, Barrett said the Coyotes in Glendale would be worth $163 million to $176 million and Sports Value places the figure at $120 million.

The NHL refuses to consider the possible relocation of the franchise, however, because its board of governors voted 26-0 with three abstentions against Balsillie as an owner.

President Barack Obama's policies on secrecy get higher grades for openness than those of President George W. Bush, yet there's still room for improvement, says a coalition of public interest groups.

In a report issued Tuesday, the coalition says the new administration has made major strides toward more disclosure, including the recent release of Justice Department memos on Bush administration interrogation policies and Obama's embrace of greater openness under the Freedom of Information Act.

The report noted, however, that the government has resisted release of photos from Army interrogation investigations; has not backed away from occasional use of the state secrets privilege; and has argued in court for secrecy regarding the role of former Vice President Dick Cheney in the Valerie Plame affair.

The country elected a president who promises the most open, transparent and accountable executive branch in history and "the record to date is mixed," says the report by OpenTheGovernment.org, a group of 75 public interest groups.

Open government advocates are concerned that much of the Obama administration's review of disclosure issues is taking place in secret.

For example, an interagency government task force is delving into the issue of unclassified information that the government nonetheless keeps under wraps by designating it as "controlled unclassified information," or CUI.

A.P. Moller-Maersk said it's going to sell up to 250,340 treasury B shares, representing approximately 5.7% of the total share capital, to both new and existing institutional investors.

At Tuesday's closing price of 36,900 kroner per B share, the value of the placing shares would be up to 9.2 billion Danish kroner.

A.P. Moller-Maersk dropped 5.4% to 34,900 kroner in early Copenhagen trade.

The firm said the sale would preserve financial flexibility in line with its traditionally conservative capital structure and provide additional flexibility to pursue strategic opportunities. In addition the sale will increase the free float which should increase the liquidity of the B shares -- on average, less than 11,000 shares are traded each day.

The company recently reported its first-ever loss, losing $540 million in the first half of the year as freight rates dropped by 30% and freight volumes fell 7%. It also predicted a loss-making second half.

The firm was thrust into the limelight in April after Somali pirates apprehended the Maersk Alabama. U.S. Navy sharpshooters ended the siege by killing the pirates and freeing the ship's captain.

Consumers, confronting job losses and weak income growth, likely cut back on their borrowing for a sixth consecutive month in July.

Consumer borrowing likely fell by $4.5 billion at an annual rate in July, according to economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters. The Federal Reserve is scheduled to release the report at 3 p.m. EDT Tuesday.

In June, consumers slashed their borrowing at a rate of $10.3 billion, marking another month where households cut back sharply on their use of credit cards and other types of loans amid the longest recession since World War II.

In April, consumers trimmed borrowing at a rate of $17.4 billion, the largest amount on records that date to 1943.

Widespread job losses, declining home values and shrunken stock portfolios have contributed to Americans' more thrifty mood.

The Labor Department reported last week that the unemployment rate jumped almost a half a point to 9.7 percent in August, the highest since 1983. Many economists believe the rate will hit 10 percent before the end of this year and will remain elevated levels for some time.