WASHINGTON – Far-reaching immigration legislation neared a final committee vote on Tuesday as the White House and Democratic supporters pressed the panel’s chairman to delay a showdown over the rights of gay spouses until a debate in the full Senate.

“There have been 300 amendments. Why shouldn’t we have one more?” said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. He spoke in response to concerns that a vote on the issue inside the Senate Judiciary Committee could unravel months of work on the bill, which gives a chance at citizenship to millions of immigrants living in the United States illegally.

The measure also creates a new program for low-skilled foreign labor, and would permit highly skilled workers into the country at far higher levels than is currently the case. At the same time, it requires the government take new steps to guard against future illegal immigration.

Leahy, who has presided over days of committee work on the legislation, said an end was in sight, perhaps as early as Tuesday night.

The bill’s ranks of supporters inside the committee grew during the day as the result of a compromise setting the terms of the expansion of H-1B high tech visas. Under the deal, the number of highly skilled workers admitted to the country would rise from 65,000 annually to 110,000, with the possibility of a further rise to 180,000 depending in part on unemployment levels.

Firms where foreign labor accounts for at least 15 percent of the skilled work force would be subjected to tighter conditions than companies less dependent on H-IB visa holders.

The compromise was negotiated by Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and designed to balance the interests of industry, which relies increasingly on skilled foreign labor, and organized labor, which represents American workers.

Hatch, whose state is home to a growing high-tech industry, told reporters on Monday he would support the overall legislation in committee if his concerns were addressed.

Jeff Hauser, a spokesman for the AFL-CIO, said the organization remains opposed to the provisions dealing with H-IB visas, but that it will continue to support passage of the overall legislation with a path to citizenship.

Even so, the deal allowed Schumer to add to the bill’s majority in committee without driving organized labor into the camp of its opponents.

At the White House, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden met privately in the Oval Office with a small group of the bill’s supporters, part of the administration’s campaign to build support.

Justino Mora, 23, who participated, later said he had told the group he came to the United States at age 11, brought by his mother from Mexico to escape poverty and an abusive father. Now a student at UCLA, he has achieved legal status as a result of administration policy that permits individuals brought to the United States as children to legalize.

His mother remains in the county illegally, he said, adding that he told Obama and Biden of the fear and uncertainty of not knowing if she will be deported or detained from one day to the next. “They both were very moved by that aspect. They’re both parents,” Mora said in an interview.

The controversy over the rights of gay spouses, with the ability to fracture a bipartisan coalition behind the legislation, has hovered in the background of the debate from the beginning.

As drafted by the Gang of Eight, four Republicans and four Democrats who negotiated the basic provisions of the legislation, gay spouses do not have the same right to a green card as heterosexual spouses.

Leahy has introduced a proposal to reverse that, a provision that gay rights organizations seek and that ordinarily the White House and all the committee’s Democrats would back. In this case, though, its approval would almost certainly lead Republicans to abandon the bill, and it would face a quick demise on the Senate floor.

“It would kill the bill,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who was a member of the Gang of Eight but does not have a seat on the Judiciary Committee. “You’d lose the evangelicals, you’d lose the Catholic Church, and the issue is wending its way through the courts. … And so for the amendment to be included is destructive to this carefully crafted compromise.”

Two people familiar with the deliberations said the White House had suggested to Leahy that it would be best to put the controversy aside until the bill goes before the full Senate, and congressional officials said similar pleas had come from Democratic senators. All said they were not authorized to discuss the matter on the record and insisted on anonymity.

Leahy’s comment to reporters was unlikely his final word on the issue, and hardly the first time he has demonstrated his independence on this and other bills. Most recently, he was the sole opponent of an amendment that passed 17-1 on Monday to make a third drunk driving conviction a deportable offense for immigrants in some instances.

Still, a vote on the proposal could create political difficulty for Democrats on the committee who support gay rights and are also members of the Gang of Eight, including Schumer and Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. Durbin has told outside groups he will back the change if it is offered. Schumer hasn’t said which way he would vote.

All eight authors of the bill have pledged to maintain the essential outlines of the legislation. A vote to add the gay rights provision could lead to approval on a party-line vote in committee.

—

AP White House Correspondent Julie Pace contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON – Wind, humidity and rainfall combined precisely to create the massive killer tornado in Moore, Okla. And when they did, the awesome amount of energy released over that city dwarfed the power of the atomic bomb that leveled Hiroshima.

On Tuesday afternoon, the National Weather Service gave it the top-of-the-scale rating of EF-5 for wind speed and breadth and severity of damage. Wind speeds were estimated at between 200 and 210 mph.

Several meteorologists contacted by The Associated Press used real time measurements to calculate the energy released during the storm’s life span of almost an hour. Their estimates ranged from 8 times to more than 600 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb with more experts at the high end.

The tornado at some points was 1.3 miles wide, and its path went on for 17 miles and 40 minutes. That’s long for a regular tornado but not too unusual for such a violent one, said research meteorologist Harold Brooks at the National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Okla. Less than 1 percent of all U .S. tornadoes are this violent – only about 10 a year, he said.

With the third strong storm hitting Moore in 14 years, some people are wondering why Moore? It’s a combination of geography, meteorology and lots of bad luck, experts said.

If you look at the climate history of tornadoes in May, you will see they cluster in a spot – maybe 100 miles wide – in central Oklahoma “and there’s good reason for it,” said Adam Houston, meteorology professor at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. That’s the spot where the weather conditions of warm, moist air and strong wind shear needed for tornadoes combine in just the right balance.

The hot spot is more than just the city of Moore. Several meteorologists offer the same explanation for why that suburb seemed to be hit repeatedly by violent tornadoes: “bad luck.”

Scientists know the key ingredients that go into a devastating tornado. But they are struggling to figure out why they develop in some big storms and not others. They also are still trying to determine what effects, if any, global warming has on tornadoes.

—

Online

The National Weather Center; http://www.nwc.ou.edu/

Seth Borenstein can be followed at http://twitter.com/borenbears

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Cook, Apple’s chief executive officer, testified in front of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Permanent subcommittee on Investigations along with Apple’s chief financial officer, Peter Oppenheimer, and the head of tax operations, Phillip Bullock.

Cook told panel members Apple does not use “gimmicks” and does not “stash money on some Caribbean island.”

He also said Apple pays “all the taxes we owe, every single dollar.” He insisted calmly he believed the company’s tax strategy was not a “sham … or abuse in any way.”

Cook was questioned about Apple’s tax strategy after a committee report released Monday said Apple had established offices in Ireland that circumvented both Irish and U.S. tax laws, essentially claiming they were stateless, although they controlled tens of billions of dollars.

The report did not say Apple broke the law, but several lawmakers responded by accusing Apple of violating the spirit of the tax laws, USA Today reported.

“Apple is an American success story. Its products are justifiably well known,” subcommittee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said.

But Levin’s sentiments turned sharply on taxes. “What may not be so well known is that Apple also has a highly developed tax avoidance system — a system through with it has amassed more than $100 billion in offshore cash in a tax haven,” he said.

He described the company’s tax dodging as, “the Holy Grail of tax avoidance.”

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., blamed the tax code, not the company. “What we’re talking about is what every company in America does, and that’s minimize their tax,” he said.

Cook also said the tax code was in need or repair, calling for a revenue-neutral changes that would reduce the corporate tax rate to 25 percent and supplement that with a “single digit,” rate for foreign earnings that multinational firms brought back to the United States, where it could be put to use creating jobs.

“Likely [that would] result in an increase in Apple’s U.S. taxes,” he told the panel.

The testimony was presented a day after the panel released findings revealing the technology giant shifted at least $74 billion from the reach of the Internal Revenue Service over the past four years.

One example of Apple’s “complex web” of offshore entities is a subsidiary called Apple Operations International, the panel said. The subsidiary is incorporated in Ireland but keeps its bank accounts and records in the United States and holds board meetings in California.

The United States bases corporate residency for tax purposes on where companies are incorporated, while Irish tax law considers companies residents only if they are managed and controlled in the small European country.

So Apple Operations International was able to avoid both countries’ tax jurisdictions, the report said.

Because it did not technically belong to any country, Apple Operations International, founded in 1980, hasn’t filed a corporate tax return anywhere in the past five years, the panel found.

“Despite reporting net income of $30 billion over the four-year period 2009 to 2012, Apple Operations International paid no corporate income taxes to any national government during that period,” the report found.

Apple told the panel it considers Apple Operations International an entity that does not qualify “as a tax resident of any other country under the applicable local laws.”

“Apple wasn’t satisfied with shifting its profits to a low-tax offshore tax haven,” Levin said. “Apple sought the holy grail of tax avoidance. It has created offshore entities holding tens of billions of dollars while claiming to be [a] tax resident nowhere.”

Another Ireland-based Apple unit, Apple Sales International, which sells iPhone smartphones, iPad tablet computers, MacBook notebook computers and other products to overseas distributors, recorded $22 billion in pretax earnings in 2011 but paid just $10 million in taxes, Senate investigators found.

That works out to a corporate tax rate of about 0.05 percent. The U.S. corporate rate is 35 percent.

The investigation found no evidence Apple did anything illegal.

But senators and aides said Apple’s scheme was unparalleled in its use of multiple overseas affiliates for the purpose of dodging billions of dollars in U.S. tax obligations on earnings that approached 12 figures.

Many of the subsidiaries had no employees or physical offices, the panel said.

Cook’s prepared testimony stated Apple “is likely the largest corporate income taxpayer in the U.S., having paid nearly $6 billion in taxes to the U.S. Treasury” in the last fiscal year.

But Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the second-most senior panel member, said he saw things differently.

“Apple claims to be the largest U.S. corporate taxpayer, but by sheer size and scale, it is also among America’s largest tax avoiders,” McCain said.

“Apple welcomes an objective examination of the U.S. corporate tax system, which has not kept pace with the advent of the digital age and the rapidly changing global economy,” the company said in its prepared testimony released Monday.

Apple, which reported $102.3 billion of its $145 billion in cash was held in offshore affiliates as of March 30, said it has that much money overseas “because it sells the majority of its products outside the U.S.”

Cook — who the Los Angeles Times says is the world’s highest-paid CEO, making $378 million last year — was expected to propose a “dramatic simplification” of the corporate tax system, his released testimony indicated.

The proposed simplification “lowers tax rates and implements a reasonable tax on foreign earnings” to encourage U.S. companies to bring those earnings back home for job creation and economic investment, his written testimony said.

“Apple believes such comprehensive reform would stimulate economic growth,” the testimony said. “Apple supports this plan even though it would likely result in Apple paying more U.S. corporate tax.”

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NEW YORK – Reassuring comments from a Federal Reserve official and better earnings from two big retailers helped push the stock market higher Tuesday.

Stock indexes wobbled between gains and losses in early trading, then took a turn higher just before noon. That’s when news crossed that James Bullard, head of the Fed’s St. Louis branch, told an audience in Germany that the Fed ought to stick with its bond-buying effort to bolster the economic recovery.

“Those words were a salve for investors’ nerves,” said Lawrence Creatura, a fund manager at Federated Investors. Other Fed officials have recently talked about scaling back the program. “There’s a lot of uncertainty surrounding this issue. And uncertainty and investors aren’t always a happy match.”

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 52.30 points to 15,387.58, a gain of 0.3 percent.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index edged up 2.87 points to 1,669.16, a slight increase of 0.2 percent. Both the Dow and the S&P are at record highs.

Many investors were already looking ahead to Wednesday, when the Federal Reserve will release minutes from its most recent policy meeting and Chairman Ben Bernanke will go before Congress to discuss his outlook for the U.S. economy.

“I think a lot of people are sitting on their hands waiting to see what the Fed says tomorrow,” said Michael Binger, senior portfolio manager at Gradient Investments in Minneapolis, Minn.

Binger said some investors believe the Fed’s support is the main reason the stock market has soared to all-time highs. If the Fed pulls back, they reason, the market’s epic rally would come to an end.

In other trading, the Nasdaq composite rose 5.69 points to 3,502.12, a 0.2 percent gain.

J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. gained 1.4 percent. Shareholders of the country’s biggest bank voted to allow Jamie Dimon to keep his two titles, CEO and chairman of the board. Groups had pushed to split the two jobs, a drive that gained momentum from a multi-billion trading loss last year. The bank’s stock rose 73 cents to $53.02.

Home Depot surged 2.5 percent. The retailer reported an 18 percent increase in quarterly income as the housing market continued to recover. Home Depot rose $1.95 to $78.71.

Among other companies posting quarterly results, AutoZone jumped 5 percent. Better sales and shrinking costs helped the auto-parts company beat analysts’ earnings forecasts. AutoZone leapt $18.79 to $427.84.

It has been another solid earnings season for big companies, with corporate profits hitting all-time highs even as revenue barely rises.

Seven of every 10 companies in the S&P 500 have trumped Wall Street’s earnings forecasts, according to S&P Capital IQ. First-quarter earnings are on track to climb 5 percent over the year before. Revenue is expected to rise just 1 percent.

In the market for U.S. government bonds, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note slipped to 1.93 percent from 1.96 percent late Monday.

In commodities trading, crude oil sank 55 cents to settle at $96.16 a barrel.

The price of gold fell $6.50 to $1,377.60 an ounce, extending a slump that has knocked gold down 18 percent this year. Tame inflation, a stronger dollar and a surging stock market have undermined gold’s appeal.

Among other companies in the news:

– Carnival Corp slumped 4 percent. The cruise-ship operator cut its earnings forecast for the year late Monday as it wrestles with the fallout from high-profile incidents, which left passengers stranded at sea. Carnival’s stock lost $1.51 to $33.81.

– Best Buy dropped 4 percent after reporting a quarterly loss and sales that fell short of the forecasts of financial analysts who follow the company. Its stock lost $1.17 to $25.64.

– TiVo gained 2 percent, or 26 cents, to $12.92. The digital video recording company narrowed its quarterly loss with the help of higher sales from more subscribers.

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PHOENIX – Photos taken in the aftermath of the attack that killed six people and wounded former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords show the handgun, high-capacity pistol magazines and knife that Jared Lee Loughner carried with him as he carried out the January 2011 attack.

The 600 photos, released Tuesday, also show images of Loughner’s receipt for the motel where he stayed the night before the shooting, a credit card record showing ear plugs he bought and dozens of vehicles that were in the parking lot of the shopping center where the shooting unfolded.

The most graphic image shows a small puddle of blood on the ground outside the shopping center amid plastic bags and other trash. Another photo shows a specimen cup that contained a bullet fragment recovered from the shooting scene.

At the time of the shooting, Loughner had two extended pistol clips that held up to 31 bullets, two 15-round magazines, a four-inch knife and other items. Loughner had cleared a federal background check and legally bought the Glock 19 semi-automatic pistol at a sporting goods store months before the shooting. Though he was carrying the knife during the attack, Loughner didn’t use it to injure anyone.

Other photos show sheriff’s deputies talking to people in the parking lot, the interior of the cab that Loughner took to the Safeway where the attack occurred, the motel room where he stayed the night before the attack and a motel record noting the time he checked in but also saying in a handwritten notation that the motel operators “don’t know when he left.”

A series of photos shows a sheriff’s patrol car that was turned into a makeshift whiteboard. Authorities used markers to record the phone numbers of investigators and the hospitals where victims were being treated. Loughner’s name and birth date also were written on the car’s trunk.

The images were made public nearly two months after the sheriff’s department released roughly 2,700 pages of investigative reports examining the shooting, marking the public’s first view into documents that authorities had kept private since the attack.

The records provided more detail about the deteriorating psychological condition of Loughner in the hours leading up to the attack and the first glimpse into Loughner’s family.

News organizations seeking police records and photos from the shooting were denied access in the months after the attack and after the arrest of Loughner, who was sentenced in November to seven consecutive life sentences, plus 140 years, after he pleaded guilty to 19 federal charges.

In late February, U.S. District Judge Larry Burns cleared the way for the release of the photos and records after Star Publishing Company, which publishes the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson, joined by Phoenix Newspapers Inc., which publishes The Arizona Republic, and KPNX-TV, sought their release. The judge said Loughner’s right to a fair trial was no longer on the line now that his criminal case has resolved.

Arizona’s chief federal judge and a 9-year-old girl were among those killed in the rampage. Thirteen people were injured, including Giffords, who was left partially blind with a paralyzed right arm and brain injury, resigned from Congress last year and has since started, along with her husband, a gun control advocacy group.

Loughner’s guilty plea enabled him to avoid the death penalty. He is serving his sentence at a federal prison medical facility in Springfield, Mo., where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and forcibly given psychotropic drug treatments to make him fit for trial.

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PARIS – The man charged with reviving France’s shrinking economy and attracting businesses to invest here is gaining a reputation for doing the opposite.

As the country’s first-ever minister for industrial renewal, Arnaud Montebourg has told the world’s largest steelmaker it is not welcome in France; exchanged angry letters with the head of an American tire company he was supposedly wooing; and scuttled Yahoo’s offer to buy the majority of a video-sharing website.

Montebourg, a 50-year-old lawyer from Burgundy, is the public face of President Francois Hollande’s plan to revitalize Europe’s second-largest economy, which is in recession and grappling with 11 percent unemployment. The plan is to make the French economy more competitive globally – especially for manufacturers – by making it easier to fire workers, offering a payroll tax credit and investing in small businesses.

Economists have praised the labor reforms as a step in the right direction. But mostly they say France’s economic plan is all wrong: It is too complicated; it favors a top-down approach to innovation; and it ignores some of the most serious problems plaguing France’s economy, such as high labor costs.

And then there is Montebourg, whose public spats with international companies and efforts to block layoffs are making France look like an unappealing place to do business.

In fairness to Montebourg, he’s not so much the problem as he is the symbol of it, analysts say. Even if Hollande were to replace him – and that’s looking increasingly likely – it’s unclear whether the substance of the industrial renewal strategy would change.

The sheer size of France’s economy has cushioned it somewhat from the worst of Europe’s debt crisis, which has brought depression-level unemployment to countries like Spain and Greece. It is home to many huge industrial companies, like EADS, parent company to plane-maker Airbus; Total, the world’s fifth-largest investor-owned oil company; and Sanofi, the world’s fourth-largest pharmaceutical company. France is also a cradle for design, high fashion and fine wine, embodied by world leaders like LVMH and L’Oreal.

But make no mistake, analysts warn: The French economy, which had no growth in 2012 and shrank at an annualized rate of 0.8 percent in the first three months of 2013, is in slow-motion free fall.

Profit margins at French companies are the lowest they have been in 30 years. In the past decade, one in six industrial jobs has been lost. And economists forecast unemployment will rise to 11.6 percent next year.

Hollande says the decline in French manufacturing – from 16 percent of gross domestic product in 1999 to 10.7 percent a decade later – is at the heart of his country’s stagnation. Many European economies have seen a similar trend, but France’s slide has been more pronounced than most. Reverse the decline, Hollande believes, and you reverse the stagnation.

“The goal of reindustrialization is a perfectly legitimate goal. The only question to ask for France is … whether it’s too late,” says Elie Cohen, an economist at Sciences Po university in Paris. “It’s probably too late.”

Serge Lelard, who started a plastics company called Microplast in 1984, feels the same way. Montebourg, who buzzes around France touring businesses on a near-weekly basis, recently visited Microplast’s factory outside Paris. He held it up as an example of the kind of small manufacturing businesses that France needs to keep and attract.

But Lelard is dismissive of the government’s reindustrialization plan. He says there is too much talk and not enough action that addresses the competitive disadvantages French companies face in the global marketplace.

Microplast, which sells plastic bits that connect the wires in cars, has struggled along with the French auto industry. Lelard is pessimistic about the company’s chances of survival.

France’s economic challenges are rooted in government policies that protect workers at the expense of their employers. It has the highest payroll taxes in the European Union to fund generous health and retirement benefits. It has the highest tax on capital, which discourages investment. It aggressively fights companies that try to outsource jobs. And it makes firing an employee expensive and difficult.

These problems have existed for decades, but a growing global economy and France’s control over its own currency and spending policies masked them. Slowly, however, those masks have been removed.

First, the euro was introduced at the turn of the millennium. Europe’s strongest economies, like Germany, gained a competitive advantage: The value of the euro, held down by the weaker nations that used it, made German exports more affordable overseas. By contrast, countries like France suffered because the euro was valued more highly than their own currency, making French exports more expensive for buyers outside the eurozone.

Then the global recession dried up demand for French products at home and around the world. Finally, Europe’s debt crisis prompted the government to cut spending and raise some taxes to reduce its budget deficit.

With these crutches pulled away, France’s industry was pushed to its breaking point.

But Hollande, a Socialist, came to power last year by promising more of the same: He vowed to spark growth without cutting generous benefits.

There are three main planks to Hollande’s reindustrialization plan: up to a 6 percent rebate for companies on some payroll taxes, labor reforms that make it easier to fire employees or cut their salaries during hard times, and a public investment bank with 42 billion euros ($55 billion) to invest in small businesses.

But new programs are announced frequently. Millions in grants and other incentives have been promised for everything from spurring the construction of electric cars to bringing robots to factory floors.

“That’s exactly what you should not do. They’re … complicating instead of simplifying,” says Anders Aslund, an economist with the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. Aslund says the government should avoid giving grants for specific industries and instead help all industries – with permanent tax breaks, for example.

Last year, Montebourg unveiled a plan to give several hundred million euros in grants and tax credits to car companies and subcontractors in an effort to encourage the development of electric cars and batteries.

But economists say the French government should not try to invent successful sectors. Never mind that France is an unlikely place to incubate an auto revolution. Its car industry can’t compete with global rivals like Volkswagen and Hyundai that have lower labor costs and stronger cultures of innovation. For example, French research institutions lack the strong links to industry that allow entrepreneurs in other countries to quickly convert lab discoveries into products.

The flip side of France’s efforts to create booming new industries is its aversion to letting struggling ones die out.

“A saved job is always a victory,” Montebourg, who is on the far left of the Socialist party, said at a recent lunch with journalists. He declined to be interviewed for this story.

But that’s not how many economists see it. Part of Germany’s success is its willingness to let some lower-level manufacturing jobs move to other countries, says Christian Ketels, a researcher at Harvard Business School. That allows German companies to stay competitive and keep high-skilled, higher-paid jobs at home.

“To my knowledge, France is really the only country in Europe that is upset about outsourcing,” says Aslund.

One of the most glaring examples of this no-job-left-behind policy has been France’s campaign to block steelmaker ArcelorMittal from shuttering the two blast furnaces at its processing plant in Lorraine, eastern France – in spite of the fact that local mines are used up, it’s far from ports and its furnaces are out of date.

That plant is “a perfect example of what you should close down,” says Aslund.

Instead, Montebourg took up the cause, threatening to nationalize the plant and declaring that the company wasn’t welcome in France. It’s unclear how much of this rhetoric was in line with government policy – the suggestions of nationalization were quickly struck down by the prime minister – but the affair deeply bruised France’s reputation as a serious place for business. In the end, the company will close the furnaces but other steel-processing operations at the plant will continue.

Montebourg also tried to save a Goodyear plant in northern France by asking American tire manufacturer Titan if it was willing to invest. The answer from Titan’s CEO mocked France’s work practices in an embarrassing public letter – and Montebourg took the bait, shooting back an equally chest-thumping missive.

There looks to be little hope of saving the Goodyear plant, but litigation could drag on for months if not years.

Just this month, Montebourg vetoed Yahoo’s attempt to take a 75 percent stake in video-sharing website, Dailymotion. Citing concerns about Yahoo’s health as a company, Montebourg said the government, which owns a stake in Dailymotion’s owner, France Telecom, would only approve a 50-50 deal. Yahoo walked away.

Business owners say that the government remains more of a hindrance than a help. There are too many regulations and too much paperwork even for mundane tasks.

But the fundamental problem French manufacturers face is simple: Workers get paid too much to make products that cost too little.

The French government argues that its hourly labor costs are not much higher than Germany’s – 34.20 euros per hour on average in 2012 versus 30.40 euros per hour, according to Eurostat. But France’s range of products – with some notable exceptions, like Chanel handbags or Moet & Chandon champagne – is generally of a lower quality than Germany’s.

In other words, if it costs the same to make a Peugeot as it does a BMW, guess which company is going to have more left over to reinvest in innovation? And investing in innovation is how you make a Peugeot more like a BMW.

And it’s not even that France pays top dollar to attract the best workers. Its wages are above average, though not spectacularly so. But its payroll taxes are the highest in Europe.

The government’s new “competitiveness tax credit,” which will eventually give companies up to 6 percent back on some workers’ salaries, is a step toward lessening this burden for a time. Early surveys, however, show few companies are taking advantage of it, according to study by consultancy Lowendalmasai.

How come? The paperwork is too complex.

—

Follow Sarah DiLorenzo at http://twitter.com/sdilorenzo.

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Polls are set to open at 7 a.m. for an election that that has drawn record spending and will see either the first woman or the first Jew elected as the city’s mayor.

Despite those milestones, both candidates have tried to turn around what could be record-low voter turnout with campaigning in the final days and hours.

A recent USC Price/Los Angeles Times poll showed Eric Garcetti’s lead in the race has narrowed to 7 percentage points, but his strength among conservatives has blocked rival Wendy Greuel from securing a San Fernando Valley base that is vital to her chances.

As the candidates and their partisans swarmed across the city in advance of Tuesday’s runoff election, Garcetti, a city councilman from Silver Lake, held a 48%-to-41% lead, the survey found. Voters in the Valley and every other key region of Los Angeles favored him over Greuel, the city controller.

The election will sweep in new leadership for Los Angeles’ 3.8 million residents, but the race is likely to be decided by an older, whiter and more educated fraction of the city’s population.

Latinos, the city’s dominant ethnic group and a key voting bloc, make up 44% of the city’s population, U.S. census figures show. But the USC Price/Times poll suggests that Latinos will make up 24% of those who cast ballots Tuesday, in part because many are immigrants who are ineligible to vote.

Non-Latino whites, by contrast, at 32% of the city’s population, are likely to total 51% of the vote, giving them an outsized role in choosing the next mayor, according to the poll.

Apathy among young people could diminish their clout too. Of the city’s voting-age population, 65% are under 50. But only 37% of those likely to vote are under 50.

Because of the city’s voting-by-mail procedures, there’s a chance Angelenos may not know who will be the next mayor for days or weeks.

___

(c)2013 the Los Angeles Times

Visit the Los Angeles Times at www.latimes.com

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But after years of delays in one of France’s biggest recent health scandals, the proceedings could still be pushed back further.

Between 1976 and 2009, around 5 million people took Mediator, which was used to treat weight problems among diabetics and also marketed more widely. The European Medicines Agency pulled Mediator from shelves when it found that its active ingredient, benfluorex, could lead to a dangerous thickening of heart valves.

French health officials have said the drug may be linked 500 deaths; other studies have put the figure several times higher. Others who took the drug have suffered health problems.

Servier Laboratories, which sold Mediator, and its founder Jacques Servier face charges of “aggravated deception” in a trial that opened in Nanterre, outside Paris.

The 91-year-old Servier was present as proceedings began, slouching in his chair with his arms crossed.

Solange Roine, who once took Mediator, said she was glad that Servier was there to answer the charges.

“I hope he will confess at least,” she said as she entered the court room. She wanted him to address “all the victims, because I am not the only one and some are not here anymore to talk about it.”

But Servier left after two hours, after his lawyer asked for permission from the court, without saying much beyond confirming his name.

The day was filled with arguments over whether the trial should go forward or wait for the results of a separate investigation being carried out by a Paris judge.

Lawyers for Servier and the company argued that it was unfair that their clients face two trials on the same facts.

In addition to fraud charges, the investigation in Paris is also looking into manslaughter charges, and some victims would prefer to wait for those more thorough – and serious – proceedings to play out.

But other victims contend that Servier and his company are just using delaying tactics. Their lawyers argued Tuesday that the Nanterre trial was completely separate from the Paris investigation because it concerned their cases. The Paris investigation, they contend, is broader.

A trial could also help some victims move forward their claims for financial compensation.

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PHOENIX – Jodi Arias has begun addressing the jury in the penalty phase of her trial as the panel considers whether to sentence her to life in prison or execution.

Arias spoke Tuesday morning before the same jury that convicted her of first-degree murder in the 2008 killing of her one-time lover.

Her lawyers have said Arias is the only witness they’ll call to testify on her behalf.

It’s unknown whether the former waitress will plead for mercy. She told a TV reporter minutes after she was convicted that she’d rather be executed than spend the rest of her life in prison.

The judge instructed jurors they can consider a handful of factors when deciding what sentence to recommend, including the fact that Arias has no previous criminal record.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

When Jodi Arias addresses the jury in her murder trial one more time, the big question will be whether she pleads for mercy or repeats what she told a TV reporter minutes after her conviction: She would rather be executed than spend the rest of her life in prison.

After nearly five months of testimony in a case that has captured tabloid headlines with tales of sex, lies and violence, Arias’ final words to the jury will soon bring the trial to an end.

Arias’ own attorneys tried to quit the case and asked for a mistrial a day earlier after complaining the trial had become a witch hunt. But the judge swiftly rejected the requests. The defense then said they would call just one witness to testify – Arias herself.

She is set to speak to the jury Tuesday morning. After closing arguments, the jury will begin deliberations and decide whether Arias should be sentenced to life in prison or face the ultimate punishment for the June 2008 shooting and stabbing death of boyfriend Travis Alexander in his suburban Phoenix home.

Arias initially claimed she knew nothing about the slaying. Then she blamed masked intruders before eventually settling on self-defense. Prosecutors argued she killed Alexander in a jealous rage because he wanted to end their relationship and go to Mexico with another woman.

The 32-year-old former waitress spent 18 days on the witness stand during the guilt phase of her trial, describing an abusive childhood, cheating boyfriends, dead-end jobs, a shocking sexual relationship with Alexander, and her contention that he had grown physically violent.

Jurors didn’t believe her then, and experts say they likely will show no mercy now.

The victim suffered nearly 30 knife wounds, his throat was slit from ear to ear, and he was shot in the forehead. Arias then dragged him into his shower, where his decomposed body was found days later.

“I think they could put Mother Teresa on there, and it’s not going to spare her life,” said Phoenix defense attorney Mel McDonald, a former judge and federal prosecutor.

San Francisco-area criminal defense lawyer Michael Cardoza said her attorneys’ request to quit the case and the defense decision not to call any witnesses on Arias’ behalf could very well be a strategic move – but one that could backfire.

“She could argue ineffective counsel on appeal, but the fact is, it’s anything but ineffective because what they’re doing is handing her an appeal,” Cardoza said. “So it’s actually very effective counsel.”

Defense attorney Kirk Nurmi renewed his arguments in court on Monday that the judge should have sequestered the jury during the trial and that it should never have been broadcast live.

“The court had a duty to protect Ms. Arias’ right to a fair trial, and failed to do so time and time again,” Nurmi told the judge. “This cannot be a modern-day version of … a witch trial.”

Judge Sherry Stephens denied the mistrial request, prompting Nurmi to ask that he and co-counsel Jennifer Willmott be allowed to withdraw from the case. The judge swiftly denied that request, as well.

Arias’ attorneys also tried without success to quit after she gave her post-conviction TV interview.

“Longevity runs in my family, and I don’t want to spend the rest of my natural life in one place,” Arias told Fox affiliate KSAZ from a holding cell inside the courthouse. “I believe death is the ultimate freedom, and I’d rather have my freedom as soon as I can get it.”

Last week, Alexander’s brother and sister tearfully described for the jury how his killing had torn their lives apart. This week, the defense planned to call its own witnesses, including a female friend and an ex-boyfriend of Arias, in hopes of convincing the jury her life is worth saving. They scrapped that plan, however, after claiming one key witness refused to testify after receiving death threats, then indicated to the judge Arias would be the only one speaking on her behalf.

While jurors are admonished daily not to pay attention to news accounts of the trial or discuss it with anyone, experts say many details would have been hard to avoid.

“In today’s society, you can’t help but hear or see things whether you’re in the grocery line or walking by a newsstand,” Cardoza said. “It’s naive to think there are no outside influences that reach them.”

Some also speculate that Arias might have been trying to play to jurors with her proclamation in the TV interview that she would rather die, hoping the panel won’t give her what she says she wants.

“She has manipulated this jury before,” said Phoenix defense lawyer Julio Laboy. “She could very well still be manipulating the jury.”

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REDMOND, Wash. – Microsoft thinks it has the one.

The company revealed the Xbox One, its next-generation entertainment console, during a presentation Tuesday at its headquarters in Redmond, Wash.

Don Mattrick, Microsoft’s president of interactive entertainment business, called it an “all-in-one home entertainment system.” He said the company has spent the past four years working on the next-generation Xbox.

The console was demonstrated using voice control to seamlessly switch back and forth between watching live TV, listening to music, watching a movie, browsing the Internet, as well as simultaneously running apps.

Microsoft executives touted the Xbox One as a replacement for the set-top box from your cable provider. It has its own guide and you can change channels by voice command.

Senior Vice President Yusuf Mehdi demonstrated how the console switched quickly between channels after saying show names like “Mary and Martha” or “Watch MTV.” His voice command of “What’s on HBO?” brought up the channel guide for HBO.

“No more memorizing channels or hunting for the remote control,” Mehdi said.

The interface for the TV goes well beyond the functionality in Nintendo’s Wii U, which still requires users to press buttons to change the input source on the TV. Xbox One seamlessly switched between games, movies and TV shows with a single voice command.

“You can switch to your game like it’s a TV channel flip,” said Marc Whitten, Microsoft’s chief production officer of interactive entertainment business. He called it a “lag-free instant experience.”

Microsoft also unveiled a new version of its camera-based Kinect system with better motion and voice detection.

It’s been eight years since the launch of the Xbox 360. The original Xbox debuted in 2001, and its high-definition successor premiered in 2005.

For the past two years, Microsoft has led the gaming industry in console sales with the Xbox 360.

In recent years, Microsoft expanded the scope of the Xbox 360 beyond just games, adding streaming media apps and the family-friendly Kinect system.

Xbox has been the exclusive home to such popular gaming franchises as sci-fi first-person shooter “Halo,” racing simulator “Forza” and alien shoot-’em-up “Gears of War.” In recent years, Microsoft expanded the scope of the Xbox 360 beyond just games, adding streaming media apps and the camera-based Kinect system.

Nintendo kicked off the next generation of gaming in November with the launch of the Wii U, the successor to the popular Wii system. The Wii U features an innovative tablet-like controller, though its graphics is on par with the previous-generation Xbox 360 and Sony’s PlayStation 3. Nintendo said the console sold just 3.45 million units by the end of March, well below expectations.

Sony was next, teasing plans for its upcoming PlayStation 4 – without showing the actual box – at a February event in New York. The reaction to that console, which featured richer graphics and more social features, was mixed.

Microsoft didn’t waste any time showing off the Xbox One console, new Kinect sensor and Xbox controller at the beginning of Tuesday’s presentation.

Microsoft’s stock fell 5 cents to $35.03 in early afternoon trading Tuesday.

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AP Business Writer Ryan Nakashima in Los Angeles and AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay in New York contributed to this story.

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Online:

http://www.xbox.com

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang.

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