iPhone 6 screens could enter production by May

Apple Inc suppliers will begin mass producing displays as early as May for the next iPhone, expected to be launched this autumn, with a 4.7-inch screen likely to be produced first while a 5.5-inch version could be delayed, supply chain sources said.

Japan Display Inc, Sharp Corp and South Korea's LG Display Co Ltd have all been tapped to make the screens, said the sources, who asked not to be identified.

Representatives for the three suppliers and for Apple declined to comment.

Both iPhone 6 screens will be larger than the 4.0-inch panels on Apple's existing iPhone 5S and 5C models.

Larger iPhones, the subject of months of speculation, would mark yet another incremental tweak to the popular smartphone line and an attempt to catch up to rivals like Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.

The company that helped to define American technology innovation is under increasing pressure to once again revolutionize the gadget industry, but CEO Tim Cook, while promising only "new product categories" for 2014, has played his cards close to his chest.

Apple's shares have languished below $600 since November 2012, in part because of worries about smartphone market saturation and its ability to stay at the forefront of tech innovation.

Both iPhone 6 screens are expected to use in-cell touch panel technology – built into the screen and allowing for thinner construction than with standard touch panel films – that was introduced with the iPhone 5, the sources said.

But due to difficulties with in-cell production technology for the larger 5.5-inch size, one of the sources said, a decision was made to begin mass production with the 4.7-inch version alone.

Production of 5.5-inch screens is expected to start several months later, with the possibility of a shift to a film sensor instead of in-cell technology for that size, the source said.

Japan Display will be the first supplier to start production, at its flagship plant at Mobara, east of Tokyo, as early as May, the sources said. The others are due to begin output around June.

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NJ panel to subpoena documents from Christie’s Bridgegate probe

TRENTON, N.J. — A New Jersey legislative committee probing a political payback operation carried out by Gov. Chris Christie's aides and associates plans to subpoena interview transcripts and other documents from the lawyers the governor hired to carry out an internal investigation, the committee co-chairman said Monday.

Assemblyman John Wisniewski said lawyers retained by the Christie administration to conduct an internal investigation into the blocking of traffic near the George Washington Bridge appeared to have access to information that the committee hasn't seen.

Wisniewski also said lawyers at the firm, Gibson Dunn, appeared to withhold documents subpoenaed by the legislative panel while their own report on the lane closings was being compiled.

Lawyer Randy Mastro released the report Thursday concluding that Christie, a possible 2016 Republican presidential candidate, had no advance knowledge of the plot to stall traffic in Fort Lee, apparently to punish the local mayor, who did not endorse Christie for re-election. The report also dismissed allegations that members of Christie's administration tied Superstorm Sandy recovery funds to approval of a favored redevelopment project.

Democrats blasted the findings as incomplete because the lawyers did not interview key players in the traffic jam plot or the mayor who made the Sandy aid allegations.

The legislative committee received "tens of thousands" of documents from the governor's office in response to a subpoena late last week, Wisniewski said, but a list of the 70 people the lawyers interviewed and transcripts of those interviews were not provided.

A statement from Mastro released by the governor's office late Monday afternoon said any additional subpoenas would be reviewed. Mastro said transcripts of interviews already conducted had not been released because the governor's office is cooperating with a federal investigation.

Wisniewski said the additional subpoenas will be voted on as soon as the committee can be convened. The panel is comprised of eight Democrats and four Republicans.

As the 345-page report was being released by Mastro, Christie was at home sitting for a taped interview with ABC News personality Diane Sawyer, part of a full-court press to move beyond the scandal that has overshadowed his office. He faced off with reporters on Friday during his first press conference in two months.

The legislative committee has subpoenaed more than two dozen people and organizations close to Christie in its probe of the lane closings, which created four days of traffic gridlock in Fort Lee until the lanes were ordered reopened by the executive director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency that runs the bridge. Patrick Foye, the New York appointee who reopened the lanes, said he had no idea what Christie's appointees had been up to.

Five people close to Christie has lost their jobs amid the scandal, including Bridget Kelly, the deputy chief of staff Christie fired after learning she set the operation in motion with the message, "Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee."

Wisniewski said the panel still does not know who authorized Kelly to send the email and why.

Federal authorities are conducting a parallel criminal investigation.

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CIA misled public on harsh interrogation tactics: report

The Central Intelligence Agency misled the U.S. government and public for years about aspects of its brutal interrogation program, concealing details about harsh treatment of detainees and other issues, according to a report in the Washington Post.

U.S. officials who have seen a Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA interrogation program described damning new information about a network of secret detention facilities, also called "black sites," the Washington Post said.

The Intelligence Committee is responsible for oversight of the CIA. It completed the 6,300-page draft report on the interrogation program more than a year ago but it remains classified.

At the "black sites," prisoners were sometimes subjected to harsh interrogation techniques even when analysts were sure they had no more information to give, said the report, which the Post said was based on interviews with current and former U.S. officials.

The files reviewed by committee investigators describe previously undisclosed cases of abuse, including the alleged repeated dunking of a terrorism suspect in tanks of ice water at a detention site in Afghanistan. The method bore similarities to waterboarding but never appeared on any Justice Department-approved list of techniques, the Washington Post said.

Officials also said that millions of records show that the CIA's ability to obtain the most valuable intelligence information, including tips that led to the locating and killing of Osama bin Laden in 2011, had little, if anything, to do with "enhanced interrogation techniques," the newspaper said.

A spokesman for the CIA said the agency had not yet seen a final version of the report and was not able to comment, the Washington Post said.

Some current and former agency officials have privately described the study as marred by factual errors and misguided conclusions, the newspaper added.

In March, Senator Dianne Feinstein, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused the CIA of searching computers used by committee staffers compiling the report and she questioned whether the agency had broken the law in doing so.

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Russia hikes gas prices for Ukraine as unrest worsens

MOSCOW — Russia on Tuesday sharply hiked the price for natural gas to Ukraine and threatened to reclaim billions previous discounts, raising the heat on its cash-strapped government, while Ukrainian police moved to disarm members of a radical nationalist group after a shooting spree in the capital.

Alexei Miller, the head of Russia's state-controlled Gazprom natural gas giant, said Tuesday that the company has withdrawn December's discount that put the price of gas at $268.50 per 1,000 cubic meters and set the price at $385.50 per 1,000 cubic meters for the second quarter.

The discount was part of a financial lifeline which Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to Ukraine's President, Viktor Yanukovych, after his decision to ditch a pact with the European Union in favor of closer ties with Moscow. The move fueled three months of protests which led Yanukovych to flee to Russia in February.

Radical nationalist groups played a key role in Yanukovych's ouster, but they quickly fell out with the new government. Many activists are still encamped on Kiev's Independence Square, known as the Maidan, and have signaled their intent to remain there until the election of what they deem to be a legitimate government.

Last week, one of the leaders of the most prominent radical group, the Right Sector, was shot dead while resisting police.

Right Sector members then besieged parliament for several hours, breaking windows and demanding the resignation of Interior Minister Arsen Avakov. They lifted the blockade after lawmakers set up a panel to investigate the killing.

People pass by barricades near the Dnipro Hotel in Kiev on April 1, 2014 after a shooting spree between Ukrainian police and radical nationalist group 'Right Sector.'Photo: AP

Late Monday, a Right Sector member shot and wounded three people outside a restaurant adjacent to Kiev's main Independence Square, including a deputy city mayor, triggering a standoff that lasted overnight.

Police responded by surrounding the downtown Dnipro Hotel, which Right Sector had commandeered as its headquarters, demanding that the radicals lay down their weapons and leave. Avakov said that Right Sector members got into buses Tuesday morning leaving their weapons behind and headed to a suburban camp under the escort of officers of Ukraine's Security Service.

The Ukrainian parliament then voted to order police to disarm all illegal armed units. Backers of the measure said the drive was needed to combat a recent surge in violent crime and to defuse the risk of provocations by "foreign citizens" in Kiev and the south and east of Ukraine, heavily Russian-speaking regions where anti-government groups have rallied over the past several weekends in calls for secession.

In March, authorities launched a broad appeal for the voluntary surrender of weapons, many of which went astray from police depots during months of unrest. The government has said a similar amnesty will remain in effect in April.

If police disarm nationalists and other radical groups, it would undermine Russia's key argument: the allegation that the new Ukrainian government was kowtowing to nationalist radicals, who threaten Russian-speakers in southeastern Ukraine. Russia has pointed at the perceived threat from ultranationalists to defend its annexation of Crimea, and has concentrated tens of thousands of troops along its border with Ukraine, drawing Western fears of an invasion.

Putin and other officials have said that Russia has no intention of invading Ukraine. Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu insisted Tuesday that the Kremlin wants a "political settlement that would take into account interests and rights of the entire Ukrainian people" and had no intention to threaten Ukraine's statehood.

At the same time, Russia has used financial levers to hit Ukraine that is teetering on the verge of bankruptcy. Gazprom's Miller said that the decision to charge a higher price in the second quarter was made because Ukraine has failed to pay off its debt for past supplies, which now stands at $1.7 billion.

Preparing to further raise the heat on Kiev, the Russian parliament moved to annul agreements with Ukraine on Russia's navy base in Crimea. In 2010, Ukraine extended the lease of Russia's Black Sea Fleet's base until 2042 for an annual rent of $98 million and price discounts for Russian natural gas supplies. The lower house voted to repeal the deal Monday, and the upper house was to follow suit Tuesday.

Soldiers of the newly founded Ukrainian National Guard train on the Novi Petrivtsi shooting range near Kiev.Photo: EPA

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has said that Russia had given Ukraine $11 billion in gas discounts in advance and should claim the money back once the lease deal is repealed — a threat repeated Tuesday by Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin.

The Russian moves would raise the toll on Ukrainian consumers, who have benefited from generous state subsidies that have kept gas prices low while swelling government debt.

Ukraine has agreed to gradually withdraw subsidies under a deal with the IMF that required the country to make its utility costs economically viable for the state by 2018 as condition for up to $18 billion in loans. Household gas prices in Ukraine are set to rise 50 percent beginning May 1.

Russia's relations with the West have plunged to their lowest level since the Cold War, with the United States and the European Union slapping Moscow with sanctions over its annexation of Crimea.

Meanwhile, foreign ministers of Germany, Poland and France met in Weimar, Germany, to consult on the crisis in Ukraine ahead of a meeting with their NATO counterparts.

Germany's foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, renewed a push for internationally backed direct talks between Russia and Ukraine amid "small signals of de-escalation" in the launch of an international observer mission and Russia's stated intention to pull a battalion from the Ukrainian border.

"What will be important in the coming days is getting Russia and Ukraine around a table together," Steinmeier said in Weimar. He said that could be done in an international framework — "it can be a contact group, it can be a support group."

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Don Baylor breaks leg while catching ceremonial 1st pitch

ANAHEIM, Calif. — Los Angeles Angels hitting coach Don Baylor broke his right leg while catching Vladimir Guerrero's ceremonial first pitch Monday night.

Baylor will have surgery Tuesday on his right femur.

The injury cast a pall over opening day at Angel Stadium. Baylor, who joined the Angels' coaching staff in the offseason, had to be helped off the field after squatting to catch Guerrero's off-target throw.

Baylor was taken to a hospital before the Angels' 10-3 loss to the Seattle Mariners.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with Don right now," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. "Obviously it's a freak (injury). We'll see how it turns out."

Vladimir Guerrero threw out the first pitch.Photo: AP

Baylor couldn't stand up after Guerrero's throw, his right leg bending awkwardly beneath him while he was held up by Guerrero, who initially thought Baylor was kidding around. Two team employees helped Baylor to the dugout, leaving the Angels in disbelief on the field.

"It got me sick when I was warming up and hearing what happened in the dugout," said Mike Trout, who hit a two-run homer in the first inning.

The 64-year-old Baylor is a survivor of multiple myeloma, a cancer that attacks bone marrow. He was diagnosed with the cancer in 2003, and he is active in fundraising efforts to combat the disease.

Baylor, the former manager of the Rockies and Cubs, left the Arizona Diamondbacks in the offseason to return to Anaheim, where he played six seasons with the California Angels.

He replaced Jim Eppard as the Angels' hitting coach last October. Los Angeles also hired assistant hitting coach Dave Hansen, who was the Mariners' hitting coach last season.

Baylor and Guerrero are the only AL MVPs in Angels franchise history. Baylor won the award in 1979 during arguably the best season of his 19-year major league career with seven teams.

Guerrero threw the ceremonial first pitch to celebrate his retirement with the Angels on a one-day contract.

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Torture did not aid hunt for bin Laden: Senate panel

An investigation by the Senate into the brutal interrogation practices used after 9/11 concludes that the techniques were ineffective and did nothing to help the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

The details, which are likely to ignite a deeper rift between the CIA and Washington lawmakers, are laid out in a secret 6,200-page report that has been described by congressional aides who have read it.

Among the charges that have already been disputed by the CIA was the report's claim that high-profile detainee Khalid Sheik Mohammed, who was waterboarded 183 times, gave no critical information as a result of the treatment.

Officials from the Bush administration argued the successful hunt for bin Laden showed the harsh methods were justified.

But many lawmakers from both side of the aisle have questioned the effectiveness of the methods and argued that they are unnecessarily cruel.

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Zuckerberg took in $3.3B in 2013 stock options

SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reaped a $3.3 billion gain last year by exercising stock options in the social networking company that he founded in a Harvard University dorm room.

The windfall saddled Zuckerberg with a huge tax bill, even though he limited his Facebook salary to just $1, according to regulatory documents filed Monday.

It marks the second straight year that Zuckerberg has realized a huge gain on the holding that he has accumulated in Facebook Inc. since he started the company in 2004. In 2012, Zuckerberg made $2.3 billion off his stock options.

Zuckerberg, 29, now has exhausted his supply of stock options after exercising 60 million of them last year a price of 6 cents per share. He then sold 41.35 million shares for $55.05 apiece in December, primarily to pay for his tax bill on the gains.

Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, also donated 18 million Facebook shares to a Silicon Valley nonprofit. The December gift, then valued at nearly $1 billion, landed the couple at the top of The Chronicle of Philanthropy's annual list of the most generous Americans.

Even after selling and donating so much Facebook stock, Zuckerberg still owns 426.3 million Facebook shares currently worth $25.7 billion. The stock has more than doubled in value during the past year as Zuckerberg fulfilled his promise to sell more ads on the smartphones and tablet computers that bring in most of the traffic to Facebook's social networking service.

The Menlo Park, Calif., company now gets more than half of its ad revenue from mobile devices, up from 23 percent at the beginning of last year.

Like many company founders who have gotten wealthy off their early stakes, Zuckerberg asked Facebook to limit his annual salary to $1 annually. Besides that token sum, Zuckerberg also received perquisites valued at $653,164. All but $3,000 of that amount went toward Zuckerberg's bills for personal travel on chartered jets.

Excluding stock option gains, Zuckerberg's total compensation last year plunged 67 percent from nearly $2 million in 2012.

The Associated Press formula calculates an executive's total compensation during the last fiscal year by adding salary, bonuses, perks, above-market interest that the company pays on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock and stock options awarded during the year. The AP formula does not count changes in the present value of pensions, a benefit that Facebook and most other technology companies don't provide.

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Stocks finish quarter higher

U.S. stocks are closing higher as the market posts a meager gain for the first three months of the year.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose 14 points, or 0.8 percent, to close at 1,872 Monday. The index gained 1.3 percent for the first quarter of the year, the fifth straight quarterly gain.

The Dow Jones industrial average rose 134 points, or 0.8 percent, to 16,457. The Nasdaq composite rose 43 points, or 1 percent, to 4,199.

Microsoft rose 2 percent after its Office for iPad software was released last week to highly positive reviews.

Traders were encouraged by remarks from Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, who said she thinks the U.S. job market should continue to be supported by low interest rates for some time.

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Caterpillar’s Swiss unit dodged $2.4B in U.S. taxes: Senate

Caterpillar avoided paying $2.4 billion in U.S. taxes from 2000 through 2012 by moving profits from sales of replacement parts through a low-tax unit it set up in Switzerland, a congressional panel said on Monday.

In the latest example of a major U.S. corporation's offshore tax strategies going under the congressional microscope, the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations issued a report focused on a complex 1999 restructuring by Caterpillar.

The world's largest mining and construction equipment maker's restructuring negotiated a low tax rate with Switzerland for a unit it set up there to book taxable profits from sales of Caterpillar-branded replacement parts made by third parties under contract with the Peoria, Illinois-based company.

"This is a prime example of a tax avoidance strategy, which is costing the U.S. Treasury billions of dollars," said Senator Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the subcommittee, which has a hearing scheduled for Tuesday on the report's findings.

Caterpillar makes no replacement parts and has no warehouses in Switzerland, but 85 percent of its parts business's profits went through the Swiss unit, where the company pays a tax rate of between 4 percent and 6 percent, the subcommittee said.

The top U.S. corporate tax income rate is 35 percent.

Caterpillar's Swiss structure continues to save the company about $300 million a year in U.S. taxes, the subcommittee said.

In a response to the Levin report, Caterpillar said its Swiss unit, known as Caterpillar Sarl, or CSARL, has a large marketing and sales presence in Geneva, Switzerland.

"CSARL is no mere shell, but rather a major operating company employing hundreds of personnel in Geneva," said Julie Lagacy, vice president of Caterpillar's finance services division, according to prepared testimony released ahead of the hearing.

Along with three Caterpillar executives, representatives of Big Four accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP (PwC), which advised Caterpillar on the restructuring, are expected to testify.

A spokeswoman for PwC defended the firm's tax advice to Caterpillar. "We stand by the work we did for them," the spokeswoman said in a statement.

Levin's panel has also held hearings on the tax strategies of Apple Inc, Hewlett-Packard Co and Microsoft Corp.

"This (Caterpillar) investigation demonstrates just how shifting profits to a tax haven is not just the province of high-tech companies," Levin said.

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JPM must face shareholders’ ‘Whale’ lawsuit: Judge

JPMorgan Chase must face a lawsuit in which shareholders accused it of concealing risks that surfaced when it lost at least $6.2 billion in 2012 over trades made by Bruno Iksil, the so-called London Whale.

US District Judge George Daniels in Manhattan said shareholders adequately alleged that JPMorgan, CEO Jamie Dimon and former CFO Douglas Braunstein misled them about the bank's ability to manage risk before the losses at its Chief Investment Office (CIO) surfaced.

Daniels also dismissed claims against Ina Drew, who led the CIO; Mike Cavanagh, who preceded Braunstein as CFO; and Barry Zubrow, who had been the bank's chief risk officer.

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