The judge in the Jodi Arias trial took the highly unusual step Thursday of barring the public from watching the first witness called by the convicted murderer's legal team as she fights to be spared the death penalty.

The day began with dramatic statements from the victim's family members about the emotional and physical trauma they have suffered since Travis Alexander was murdered by Arias in 2008.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sherry Stephens and lawyers then met behind closed doors about the start of Arias' case. They made a decision to keep the public out of the courtroom because a skittish defense witness wanted to testify in private.

An attorney for the Arizona Republic objected, but the judge closed the courtroom anyway.

"This was not an easy decision," said Stephens, who declined to reveal the witness' identity.

The public and reporters were then asked to leave and the trial continued behind closed doors.

The judge said her decision to close the courtroom and seal the witness' testimony until the sentencing trial's conclusion is necessary for "the administration of justice." Stephens allowed the family of victim Travis Alexander to remain in the courtroom.

Chris Moeser, an attorney for the Arizona Republic, argued that the First Amendment allows reporters to attend the hearing and demanded a transcript of the testimony and to identify the witness. The judge refused. Media lawyers are considering additional legal action in response to the judge's actions.

Arias was convicted of murder last year in Alexander's death, but jurors deadlocked on whether she should be sentenced to life in prison or death. A new jury has been picked to decide her sentence.

The case has been marked by secrecy ever since the conclusion of the first trial, which turned in to a media circus as salacious and violent details about Arias and Alexander were broadcast live for people around the world.

Since then, the judge has held one secret hearing after another and barred the broadcast of footage from the sentencing retrial until after a verdict is reached. Arias' lawyers had argued that daily broadcasts of the trial would lead to defense witnesses backing out for fear of being harassed or threatened.

In addition, prosecutors have refused to provide details about what it has cost to twice put Arias on trial, saying the judge forbids them from discussing the case outside court. County officials, however, have reported that Arias' defense bill has topped $2.5 million, all being paid for by taxpayers.

Prosecutors said Arias attacked Alexander in a jealous rage after he wanted to end their affair and planned a trip to Mexico with another woman. Arias has acknowledged killing Alexander but claimed it was self-defense after he attacked her.

Earlier on Thursday, two of Alexander's siblings tearfully described to the jury the devastating effect that their brother's death has had on them.

Steven Alexander described nightmares, ulcers and constant trauma from losing his older brother, including locking the doors when he showers.

"When I lay down at night, all I can think about is my brother's murder," Steven Alexander said as family members could be heard crying in the gallery.


ap

 Argentina's ambassador in London has made a formal complaint to the BBC, accusing Jeremy Clarkson, the host of globally popular TV motoring show "Top Gear," of provocative and insulting behaviour during the filming of an episode in Argentina.

Alicia Castro visited the BBC's offices in person on Monday to allege that Clarkson had evoked memories of the 1982 Falklands war during filming and then made insulting remarks about the Argentine government and people.

Diplomatic relations between Britain and Argentina have been strained ever since the war over the sovereignty of the remote islands, 300 miles off the Argentine coast, which they respectively refer to as the Falklands and the Malvinas.

A statement from the Argentine embassy said Castro had called for the BBC to apologise for "Clarkson's provocative behaviour and offensive remarks towards the government and the Argentine people."

She presented the BBC's Director of Television Danny Cohen with a dossier of letters from British citizens, lawmakers and celebrities which she said condemned Clarkson's behaviour. She said she was awaiting a response.

The BBC said it had received a complaint and would apply its usual processes.

The outspoken Clarkson made headlines in the British press earlier this month with vivid accounts of an incident in which he said an angry mob objected to the registration number of a car he was driving through Argentina during filming.

The number plate "H982 FKL" was seen as a reference to the year and location of the war in which over 900 people died. Clarkson and the BBC said the vehicle number was a coincidence.

Clarkson was quoted as saying hundreds of protesters had thrown rocks and bricks at his car. He called it "the most terrifying thing I've ever been involved in", and complained that officials had thrown him out of the country for political reasons.

Top Gear has been recognised by Guinness World Records as the most-watched factual television show of all, with episodes broadcast in more than 200 countries and territories.

Clarkson, 54, has been censured in the past by the BBC for using racist language and has courted controversy on several occasions during his time on the light-hearted magazine-style show.

Argentine President Cristina Fernandez has revived nationalist sentiment over the Falklands in recent years, mounting a vocal campaign to renegotiate sovereignty and prevent London-listed oil and gas firms from drilling near the islands.

Reuters

(AP) — The quarantine against possible Ebola exposure ends this week for Dr. Nancy Snyderman, but the troubles clearly aren't over for NBC News' chief medical editor.

An admitted lapse in the quarantine, combined with a curiously imprecise explanation, unleashed a furious response. NBC must now decide whether Snyderman's credibility is too damaged for her to continue reporting on Ebola or other medical issues and, if so, for how long. The network would not comment.

Snyderman, a surgeon who spent 17 years as a medical correspondent for ABC News and has been at NBC since 2006, covered the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and worked briefly with Ashoka Mukpo, the cameraman who caught the virus and is now being treated in Nebraska. Upon returning to the United States, Snyderman and her crew voluntarily agreed to quarantine themselves for 21 days, the longest known incubation period for the disease. They have shown no symptoms.

Yet New Jersey health officials ruled that her quarantine should be mandatory after Snyderman and her crew were spotted getting takeout food from a New Jersey restaurant.

NBC won't give details about who actually went into the restaurant, or even how many of its employees are being quarantined. Snyderman issued a statement saying "members of our group" violated their pledge.

More than 1,100 people have subsequently written on Snyderman's Facebook page, many expressing anger. There were suggestions she should be fired or lose her medical license, and some viewers said they wouldn't trust her again. Snyderman's failure to be more specific about the lapse or take greater responsibility was another flashpoint.

Snyderman's "arrogance and dismissiveness" create a huge PR and credibility problem for NBC, said Kelly McBride, an expert on ethics for the journalism think tank the Poynter Institute.

"People are so freaked out about Ebola that the problem NBC has now is that whenever they put her on the air, some news consumers are going to see the woman who put others at risk, rather than the reporter and professional with great experience," McBride said.

McBride suggested that Snyderman "lay low" or take a leave of absence. Certainly she should not report on Ebola anymore for the network, she said.

Susan Dentzer, a longtime health journalist and commentator for National Public Radio and the PBS "NewsHour," said people shouldn't forget that Snyderman put herself at risk to travel to Africa and cover the story. The public is reacting to a fear of Ebola instead of science, she said.

"She and her team clearly should have observed the terms of their quarantine, and she has said clearly that they made a mistake," Dentzer said. "But let's put it in a broader perspective."

Before Snyderman's trip for takeout, ABC News' medical expert arguably had bigger problems. ABC health editor Dr. Richard Besser was in Africa at the same time as Snyderman and did not quarantine himself upon his return. That led ABC News President James Goldston to send his staff a memo explaining that the network was following medical advice.

Still, Besser was disinvited to a speaking engagement at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, he wrote last week in the Washington Post. Some colleagues have avoided him.

"I've been surprised by how many colleagues have waved from across the room and quickly made an exit," Besser wrote. "Others won't enter my office."

NBC could face a competitive disadvantage if Snyderman is taken off medical stories. Robert Bazell, the network's longtime health and science correspondent, left last year to teach at Yale.

An important first step for Snyderman will be to explain to viewers exactly what happened, perhaps on a venue like the "Today" show, said Bill Wheatley, a longtime NBC executive who now teaches journalism at Columbia University.

"If she and the network are more forthcoming about the whole matter, I believe that her credibility can be preserved," Wheatley said.

(Reuters) - Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) sued the U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday, intensifying its battle with federal agencies as the Internet industry's self-described champion of free speech seeks the right to provide more specifics about the extent of U.S. government surveillance.

In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for Northern California, Twitter argued that the current rules prevent it from even stating that it has not received any national security requests for user information.

Twitter said the restrictions violate the Constitution's First Amendment guarantee of free speech.

Tech companies have sought to clarify their relationships with U.S. law enforcement and spying agencies in the wake of revelations by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden that outlined the depth of U.S. spying capabilities.

Twitter's lawsuit follows an agreement between Internet companies like Google Inc (GOOG.O) and Microsoft Corp (MSFT.O) with the government about court orders they receive related to surveillance.

The agreement freed the companies to disclose the number of orders they received, but only in broad ranges. A company that offers email services, for example, would be able to say it received between zero and 999 orders from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court during a six-month period for email content belonging to someone outside the United States.

"The U.S. government has taken the position that service providers like Twitter are even prohibited from saying that they have received zero national security requests, or zero of a particular type of national security request," Twitter said in its complaint.

The Justice Department responded to the lawsuit with a statement on how it has worked with other companies.

“Earlier this year, the government addressed similar concerns raised in a lawsuit brought by several major tech companies," Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Pierce said. "There, the parties worked collaboratively to allow tech companies to provide broad information on government requests while also protecting national security."

The American Civil Liberties Union praised Twitter's action, saying in a statement that the company was doing the right thing by "challenging this tangled web of secrecy rules and gag orders."

Twitter, which allows its 271 million monthly users to send 140-character text messages, has traditionally taken an aggressive posture challenging government censorship requests and has previously described itself as "the free-speech wing of the free-speech party."

Twitter's lawsuit said the company has discussed the matter with the government for several months. In a meeting with officials from the DOJ and the FBI in January, Twitter argued that it should not be bound by the disclosure limits that the government offered to Google and the other companies.

Twitter submitted a draft transparency report with more detailed data to the FBI in April, but the agency denied Twitter’s request to publish the draft five months later.

"We’ve tried to achieve the level of transparency our users deserve without litigation, but to no avail," Twitter said in a blogpost on Tuesday.

Twitter said it was "asking the court to declare these restrictions on our ability to speak about government surveillance as unconstitutional under the First Amendment."

(Reuters) - Finnish mobile games maker Rovio, owner of the Angry Birds brand, plans to cut up to 130 jobs in Finland, or 16 percent of its workforce, saying growth has not been as strong as expected and it needs a simpler structure.

Aiming to become an entertainment brand on a par with Walt Disney (DIS.N), Rovio has expanded the Angry Birds brand into an animated TV series and toys and clothing. It is also working on an animated movie, expected to premiere in 2016.

But it has struggled to retain players, with operating profit halving last year to 36.5 million euros ($46 million) due to investments and stalling sales.

"We have been building our team on assumptions of faster growth than have materialized. As a result, we announced today that we plan to simplify our organization ... we also need to consider possible employee reductions," Chief Executive Mikael Hed said in a statement.

Angry Birds, in which players use a slingshot to attack pigs who steal birds' eggs, is the No.1 paid mobile application of all time, according to Rovio.

Analysts have said Rovio has been late to respond to a shift to freely available games on smartphones and tablets that make money when players buy virtual items to succeed in the game.

Rovio has introduced such features in its latest games such as Angry Birds Stella and Angry Birds Go!, but has yet to see a repeat of the success of the original game launched in 2009.

The company on Thursday said it wasn't planning to change its overall course, and added its strategic focus remained with games, media, and consumer products.

Judging from its sales of 156 million euros ($197 million) last year, Rovio has fallen far behind its closest mobile game peers. Clash of Clans maker Supercell saw its revenue grow to $892 million in 2013, while sales at Sweden's King Digital Entertainment (KING.N), which developed Candy Crush Saga, jumped more than tenfold to $1.88 billion.

(Reuters) - EBay Inc plans to spin off its PayPal unit next year, bowing to activist investor Carl Icahn's argument that the move would free the fast-growing payments business to compete more fiercely in the competitive mobile payments market.

The move, announced on Tuesday, is an about-face for eBay's top leadership, including Chief Executive Officer John Donahoe, who publicly resisted Icahn's push earlier this year and led a campaign to convince investors that eBay and PayPal should remain together.

EBay's shares jumped as much as 8.8 percent after the announcement. By mid-afternoon, the stock was up 7.8 percent to $56.79.

Donahoe as well as Chief Financial Officer Bob Swan will step down after the spinoff in the second half of 2015, but were expected to serve on the boards of one or both companies after the split. EBay will spin off PayPal as a publicly traded company in a transaction that will be tax-free to shareholders.

PayPal's next CEO will be Dan Schulman, former head of American Express Co's online and mobile payment business. The new eBay will be headed by Devin Wenig, president of eBay marketplaces and former head of the markets division at Thomson Reuters Corp.

EBay's change of heart reflected mounting activist and shareholder pressure, analysts said. In a statement, Donahoe said "a thorough strategic review with our board shows that keeping eBay and PayPal together beyond 2015 clearly becomes less advantageous to each business strategically and competitively."

By wresting free of eBay, PayPal can build partnerships with e-commerce rivals and seize market share from payment startups like Stripe, which is backed by several PayPal founders, and technology behemoths like Apple Inc, which unveiled its own mobile payments initiative earlier this month.

PayPal could be acquired again down the line by a technology company trying to expand into mobile payments, such as Apple, investors and analysts said.

"There are those who have not embraced PayPal because they're part of eBay," said Richard Sichel, chief investment officer of The Philadelphia Trust Co, which manages $2 billion and owns eBay shares. "It's more of a pure play then."

'RIGHT GUY AT RIGHT TIME'

The spinoff also helped PayPal attract Shulman to the post.

"I don't think we would have gotten Dan if it weren't for having a CEO opportunity and he is just the right guy at the right time," Donahoe said on a conference call with analysts.

Icahn, eBay's sixth-largest shareholder with a 2.48 percent stake as of June 30, pushed for a spinoff earlier this year but backed off in April. He also withdrew his two nominees to eBay's board.

But in a concession, the company added a 10th independent director, David Dorman, a founding partner of investment firm Centerview Capital Technology.

"We are happy that eBay’s board and management have acted responsibly concerning the separation – perhaps a little later than they should have, but earlier than we expected," Icahn said in a blog post.

Donahoe, in an interview with Reuters, acknowledged that eBay was following Icahn's recommendation, but contended that eBay arrived at its conclusion after six months of study, and was not pressured by the board.

As recently as the beginning of September, Wenig told investors at a conference "the best way to create value is that it is one company," rather than spinning off PayPal. However, he added then that the board was "open and objective" about creating shareholder value.

The move comes as several activist investors step up pressure on other companies to spin off assets as a way to create value. B/E Aerospace Inc and JDS Uniphase Corp are among those that did, while others like Darden Restaurants Inc and EMC Corp are resisting.

"This is clearly not a move executed from a position of strength," Macquarie Capital analyst Ben Schachter said in a research note on eBay's PayPal spinoff.

ACQUISITION TARGETS

The spinoff will separate the payment business, which contributes a little over 40 percent to eBay's revenue, from its marketplaces and enterprise businesses, such as the online auction operation.

EBay said revenue in its marketplaces and enterprise unit increased 10 percent to $9.9 billion in the last four quarters, while PayPal revenue rose 19 percent to $7.2 billion.

EBay had a market value of $65.36 billion as of Monday.

PayPal was founded in the late 1990s and went public in 2002 and was acquired by eBay soon afterward for $1.5 billion.

Goldman Sachs and Allen & Co LLC are eBay's financial advisers and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz is its legal counsel.

(Reuters) - Microsoft Corp will unveil a new name for its best-known product on Tuesday when it offers the first official glimpse of its latest Windows operating system.

The project, known for the past few years as "Threshold" inside the software company and "Windows 9" outside it, will likely get an entirely new brand, or just be called Windows, analysts said, ahead of its full release early next year.

The name change is symbolic of a new direction and style for Microsoft, which is veering away from an aggressive focus on Windows and PCs, the hallmark of previous Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer. The new, quieter emphasis is on selling services across all devices and is championed by new boss Satya Nadella.

The switch also represents a desire to erase the ill will generated by Windows 8, an ambitious attempt to redesign Windows with tablet users in mind, which ended up annoying and confusing the core market of customers who use mice and keyboards.

"Windows 8 was not a shining moment for Microsoft," said Michael Silver, an analyst at tech research firm Gartner. "Probably the biggest issue that lingers is the negative brand equity in the name."

Many users howled in protest over the death of the start-button menu and the introduction of a colorful grid of squares or tiles representing apps in what became known as the modern user interface, even though they could easily switch to a traditional desktop mode.

Judging by recent leaks online, which Microsoft has not tried to discredit, the start-button menu will come back in the next Windows, with an option of tacking on tiles if preferred.

But the problem of users having to toggle between the modern interface and the old-style desktop - for instance to use the full version of Excel spreadsheet software - has yet to be solved.

"The schizophrenic behavior between the modern user interface and the Windows desktop has got to go away," said David Johnson, an analyst at tech research firm Forrester. "They have to smooth that out."

Microsoft declined to comment on the new name, or what it plans to unveil on Tuesday.

The Redmond, Washington-based company has said only that it will have a "discussion" about where Windows is headed at a stylish event space in San Francisco on Tuesday.

The choice of wording and venue are key to a humbler, lower-profile Microsoft under Nadella, who is keen to rebuild respect in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley as it moves away from the PC and to play a bigger part in the mobile computing world fashioned by Apple Inc and Google Inc.

Nadella's slogan is "mobile first, cloud first," and although he will not be at the San Francisco event - he is traveling in Asia - that theme will be at the fore.

"This is a launching pad and catalyst for Nadella's holistic cloud vision over the coming years," said Daniel Ives, an analyst at investment bank FBR Capital Markets. "Windows 9 is a potentially game-changing product release for Microsoft."

Nadella is resigned to the fact that sales of PCs have leveled off, and with it sales of Windows. With the explosion of smartphones and tablets, Windows now powers only 14 percent of computing devices sold last year, according to Gartner.

His response is to focus on selling high-quality services - such as the Office suite of applications or storing documents in the cloud - to people on whatever device or system they are using.

"Microsoft is changing from a company that was Windows-centric to one that is services-centric," said Silver at Gartner. "It has to be that way. Windows revenue is likely going to decline, and Microsoft's task is to replace that Windows revenue with revenue from services on all sorts of platforms."

The challenge is to come up with killer apps and services users can't live without.

"Microsoft built their business on being very good at delivering what people needed in the moment, for example Excel in the 1990s," said Johnson at Forrester. "That's what Microsoft has to get back to, innovating and creating things that people find indispensable."

(Reuters) - Apple Inc (AAPL.O) broke its silence on complaints about bending iPhones, hours after withdrawing a glitch-ridden software update as the company struggles to restore momentum to the rollout of its latest phones.

"With normal use, a bend in iPhone is extremely rare and through our first six days of sale, a total of nine customers have contacted Apple with a bent iPhone 6 Plus," Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller said in an email.

Apple shares closed down nearly 4 percent at $97.87 on Thursday, wiping out nearly $23 billion in market value.

The new phones face criticism over their bendability, dubbed "bendgate". Social media and online forums have been abuzz with comments about how the new phones can bend when placed in back pockets or while wearing skinny jeans.

Apple said its iPhones feature stainless steel and titanium inserts to reinforce high-stress locations and use the strongest glass in the smartphone industry.

The only way an iPhone may have bent is if someone put it in their back pocket and sat on the phone for a very long time, said Laban Roomes, chief executive of Goldgenie, which customizes and gold plates iPhones.

Apple was also forced to withdraw a faulty update to its latest operating system after some users of its new phones complained of call service disruptions.

"We apologize for the great inconvenience experienced by users," Muller said.

Apple said on its website it was working on an iOS update to fix the issue, and will release it in the next few days. (bit.ly/1qxHWGR)

"I do believe this speaks to execution issues at Apple," said JMP Securities analyst Alex Gauna. "At the end of the day I believe this too shall pass, but we are noting with concern that the miscues pile up."

Apple said on Monday it had shipped 10 million units of iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

Users of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus also complained about the inability to use the fingerprint-reading Touch ID after updating to iOS 8.0.1.

Some users had complained of "sluggish Wi-Fi and dwindling battery life" after moving to iOS 8, Time magazine reported earlier this week. (ti.me/1pqlCPt)

On Thursday, Apple issued a step-by-step guide for users to reinstall iOS 8, launched last week, through the latest version of iTunes. The health app will not work for now and will be fixed in the next software update, the company said.

Customers might, however, hope for replacements for their bent iPhones, depending on whether their devices passed an inspection, tech news website The Next Web reported, quoting an Apple support executive. (tnw.co/1rlv7mW)

"It's not game over for Apple, but nor should we give them a pass on this," Gauna said.

Cases of bent iPhones 5 and 5s had been reported in 2013 by Cult of Mac, a website that exclusively covers Apple. (bit.ly/1sjZbOT)

Rival smartphone makers took digs at Apple's problems.

A Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (005930.KS) advertisement showcased a bending phone against its own product, while BlackBerry Ltd (BB.TO) CEO John Chen said: "I would challenge you guys to bend our Passport."

Nestle SA's (NESN.VX) Kit-Kat chocolate wafer brand tweeted "We don't bend, we break".

LinkedIn Corp. (LNKD) said China needs to create a more tolerant regulatory environment and give access to overseas companies in order to better develop its Internet industry.

“We hope an open-door policy can be maintained so that it’s favorable for foreign companies to come to China,” Derek Shen, LinkedIn’s China president, told the World Economic Forum conference in Tianjin, speaking in Mandarin.

LinkedIn started a Chinese-language professional networking site in February and is the biggest U.S. social-media company active in the nation. Internet regulators there block access to other U.S.-based social sites, including those of Facebook Inc. (FB), Google Inc. (GOOG)’s YouTube and Twitter Inc. (TWTR)

LinkedIn is “doing well” in China and had 5 million users there as of May, Shen said in an interview after his speech. He declined to say how the censorship policies mandated by China affect service users elsewhere.

When a LinkedIn user in China shares a post deemed to be in conflict with the government’s rules, the company blocks the content globally. The company said this month it is considering changing that policy. Shen declined to elaborate.

“We will focus on making sure users have the best experience,” Shen told Bloomberg News. “I can’t comment on censorship policies.”