CEO Steve Ballmer is restructuring the company to cope with a quickening pace of technological change that has left the world's largest software maker a step behind its two biggest rivals, Apple and Google.

In an effort to catch up, Microsoft is dismantling a management structure that separated the company into sometimes disjointed divisions and hatching a more cohesive product line-up. The new set up revolves around software, devices and services connecting those devices to applications stored in remote data centers a concept that has become known as "cloud computing."

The move comes amid a lukewarm response to the latest version of Microsoft's flagship Windows operating system and a steady decline in demand for personal computers as people increasingly rely on more convenient smartphones and tablets.

If things pan out the way Ballmer envisions, the shake-up announced Thursday will foster more rapid innovation and sharpen the company's focus on countering the threat posed by mobile devices running on software made by Apple and Google while laptop and desktop computers powered by Windows lose their luster. He is hoping a more closely-knit organization making the software and services that run smartphones, tablets, the Xbox video game console and, yes, PCs will re-establish Microsoft's reputation as "a company that helps people get stuff done."

"We are ready to take Microsoft in bold new directions," Ballmer told analysts and reporters during a conference call.

Ballmer, 57, can't afford to lose his way now. If he does, Microsoft could be even further eclipsed by its rivals. That, in turn, could disillusion investors already exasperated with the lackluster performance of Microsoft's stock since Ballmer succeeded his close friend, company co-founder Bill Gates, as CEO 13 years ago.

During Ballmer's reign, Microsoft's stock has slipped by nearly 40 percent even as the company's annual revenue has roughly quadrupled from $20 billion to nearly $80 billion. The bellwether Standard & Poor's 500 has climbed by 14 percent during the same time while Apple's stock price is nearly 17 times higher. By the time Google went public, Ballmer had already been Microsoft's CEO for four years. Since then, Google's stock has risen tenfold. Both Apple and Google now boast higher total market values than Microsoft.

Microsoft's stock gained 99 cents Thursday to close at $35.69. The shares have surged 24 percent in the past three months, partly because the company's revenue is holding up better than many analysts expected, despite five consecutive quarters of declining PC sales. Some recent buyers of Microsoft's stock had been betting the company would do something even more dramatic, such as spinning off a division or shedding its unprofitable Internet search engine, Bing, said BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis. Neither of those appears likely, now that Ballmer has reshuffled the business.

Gillis views the changes as Ballmer's tacit acknowledgement that Microsoft had become bogged down in bureaucracy and second-guessing and an admission that there was too much internal strife as various factions formed to protect their turf.

"We have to make the right decisions more quickly," Ballmer said. The company's motto now: "One Microsoft all the time."

Ballmer appears to have the right idea, although it would have looked even smarter had he done it shortly after it became clear that Apple's 2010 release of the iPad was reshaping the tech market, said Gartner Inc. analyst David Cearley.

"They are really reorganizing for the market reality that has been in place for the last three years," Cearley said. "It would have been nice if it was done earlier, but it's not too little too late yet. The real key is execution. All these changes make sense and I can see a path forward, but that path forward is a really rocky one."

Most of Microsoft's key executives will remain in positions of power at the Redmond, Wash., company although with new roles and more defined responsibilities. The company's new divisions include engineering, marketing and business development.

Ballmer said no layoffs are planned, although analysts believe the overhaul will open the door for cost-cutting opportunities as Microsoft pulls together its disparate parts.

Terry Myerson, who had been overseeing Windows Phone, will lead Microsoft's operating systems and engineering group, namely Windows. Qi Lu, who had been overseeing Bing, will head applications and services.

Microsoft named veteran executive Julie Larson-Green head of its devices and studios engineering group, which will be in charge of hardware development, games, music and entertainment. She had been promoted in November to lead all Windows software and hardware engineering after Steven Sinofsky, the president of its Windows and Windows Live operations, left the company shortly after the launch of Windows 8.

Tony Bates, who joined Microsoft in 2011 when the company bought video calling service Skype for $8.5 billion, will take on a key networking role as he works with the company's key business partners and preaches about the virtues of Microsoft's products and services.

Some of what Microsoft is doing mirrors changes that Apple and Google already have executed.

For instance, Apple put its iOS software for iPhones and iPads along with its operating system for its Mac computer under one executive, Craig Federighi, in a shake-up last year. And Google's Android software for mobile devices and Chrome software for laptops were aligned under the management of the same executive, Sundar Pichai, for the first time during the spring.

Now, Microsoft hopes to mimic the success of its rivals in a world that increasingly revolves around mobile devices and Internet services. Gartner estimates nearly 867 million devices running on Android software will be shipped worldwide this year, up from 505 million last year. Worldwide shipments of Windows-powered devices are expected to total nearly 340 million this year, down from 346 million last year, Gartner forecasts. But those Windows machines are primarily PCs, not smartphones or tablets. Apple will ship about 296 million iOS and Mac devices this year, up from 213 million last year, Gartner predicted.

Part of Microsoft's problem is a matter of perception. Even though it remains one of the world's most profitable companies, its stature has been steadily diminishing in tech and investment circles.

Ballmer's reorganization "should help Microsoft slow its decline, but the question remains whether it will be enough to help it climb into new markets," Forrester Research analyst Frank Gillett said.

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Ortutay reported from New York.

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Online:

Ballmer's email to Microsoft employees about the shake-up: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/Press/2013/Jul13/07-11OneMicrosoft.aspx

LEIPZIG, Germany (Reuters) - Bruce Springsteen jumped off the stage and into a frenzied German crowd of 45,000 fans on Sunday in Leipzig to pluck a sign with a hand-written request scrawled on it - as he has been doing all summer on his popular tour across Europe.

But when Springsteen whirled around and held up the name of the song for his band to see, jaws dropped and a frightened look crossed their faces. The sign read "You never can tell" by Chuck Berry, a 1964 tune made popular in the 1994 film "Pulp Fiction."

"Every night we try to pull one out that we haven't played since we were, I dunno, 16," Springsteen said, savoring the challenge of figuring out how to play an unfamiliar song from another artist on the spot in front of a stadium audience.

"Let's see how we do," Springsteen said. He began humming the tune as encouragement to the worried-looking band members who seemed flummoxed by the melody and unsure of the key.

"Try it boys," he said, growing impatient after a few minutes of tentative strumming, tooting and drumming. "Let's hear it now!"

Springsteen and the E Street band then nailed "You never can tell" and the crowd loved them for it just as an even larger crowd did last Saturday at the Stade de France in Paris when he took a request in the crowd for "Lucille".

"Someone's trying to stump the E Street band," Springsteen laughed before the band aced the Little Richard number in Paris.

Leipzig was as enthralled by the boundless energy of Springsteen on Sunday as were similarly large and enthusiastic crowds in Moenchengladbach, Germany on Friday, in Geneva on Wednesday and in London last Sunday.

The 63-year-old American rock icon has been filling stadiums and venues around the world for nearly 16 months on a 130-stop "Wrecking Ball" tour.

It's been a tour full of audience requests that has tested the musical skills of Springsteen and his E Street band but at the same time given audiences something new every night to cheer about at shows from Spain to Sweden and Scotland to Switzerland.

Even many of the hardcore fans who trek around Europe to see his concerts have also been impressed by his ever-changing gigs. The set list is never the same as he draws titles from his 17 studio albums in five decades but also from other artists.

"We're playing it loose tonight," he said in Moenchengladbach, a small town west of Cologne. "This is what we used to do in the nightclubs. 'Hey, 10 euros for a song'."

Many are Springsteen hits but many are from other artists that he and his band might not have heard or played in years - or even decades. His forays into the crowd for obscure titles cause his band visible concern but make each concert unique.

In Hanover in May, Springsteen grabbed a sign in which a fan offered a body organ to hear "Drift Away". Springsteen told the fan he didn't really know the song but wanted him to go home in one piece so he'd give it a go.

Even after 50 years performing, Springsteen still packs stadiums. Ordinary life comes to a halt in many towns. Leipzig has a population of 500,000; there were 45,000 at the concert. Moenchengladbach has 250,000 and 35,000 were at the stadium.

His six-leg, 130-stop "Wrecking Ball" began on March 18, 2012 in Atlanta and is nearing its end. It will conclude after 10 more stops in Italy, Belgium, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Wales, England and then in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on September 21.

Most crowds are on their feet after about 30 minutes into the three hour shows. But not always.

"I'm up here with the sweat running down my back."

"I realize I haven't done my job yet," he added. "I see so many fine Leipzig-ians still sitting in their seats."

(Reporting By Erik Kirschbaum; Editing by Michael Roddy)

"I had been thinking if I was going to do a grand opera, I didn't want it to be "The Summer I Lost My Kitten" blown up with a large orchestra," Adamo said in an interview. "It needed to be a big subject, something that was authentically better in a big theater."

The result, which had its world premiere at the San Francisco Opera on Wednesday night, is "The Gospel of Mary Magdalene," a radical retelling of the biblical story of Jesus. It's about as large-scale as new operas come these days, with a cast of 19 soloists, 48 choristers and an orchestra of 65 musicians.

Adamo, a gay man and son of a divorced mother, was raised as a Catholic but struggled with the church's strict views on sexuality. He said a 2006 article by Joan Acocella in The New Yorker struck a chord with him in tracing how over the centuries the shadowy figure of Mary Magdalene had been turned into a repentant prostitute and then (notably in Dan Brown's best-seller "The Da Vinci Code") re-imagined as Jesus' wife.

"I started to see it as the story of a woman who is overvaluing her sexual relationships and a guy who for his own complicated family history doesn't want to hear anything about sexuality at all," Adamo said. "Neither of these people is unknown to us as moderns."

He sent his idea to David Gockley, head of the San Francisco Opera and the man who while running the Houston Grand Opera had commissioned Adamo's two previous stage pieces, "Little Women," and an adaptation of Aristophanes' "Lysistrata."

"It took some time for me to come on board," Gockley said. "But I eventually came to see it as a wonderful subject for an opera."

He did, however, expect the subject matter would prove controversial and has been surprised at the lack of protest.

"There has been scarcely a ripple from the organized faiths for a piece that debunks the virgin birth, the resurrection, and the celibacy of Jesus," Gockley said. "Just a few people at some of our community outreach events who have stood up and said, 'How dare you!'"

The opera is one of three recent theatrical works to re-examine the role of women in the gospels. John Adams' oratorio, "The Gospel According to the Other Mary," depicts Mary Magdalene in both biblical and modern settings, and Colm Toibin's play "The Testament of Mary," portrays the Virgin Mary as an embittered woman who doubts her son's immortality.

Adamo thinks all these works are part of a healthy reaction against religious orthodoxy that tends to portray women as subservient and carrying the burden of sin for human sexuality.

The composer did a year of research before crafting his own libretto (which is studded with a staggering 116 footnotes that cite biblical and scholarly sources), then spent two years writing the music. He calls the score "probably the least dissonant, most tonal thing I've done."

On opening night, the near-capacity audience gave Adamo a warm, if not ecstatic, ovation. On first hearing, "Gospel" seems hampered by long stretches of theological argument not sufficiently brought to life through the characters or music. Mezzo soprano Sasha Cooke was a radiant and vocally commanding Magdalene, but baritone Nathan Gunn as Jesus (Yeshua in this version) sounded underpowered and seemed dramatically passive.

The first reviews have been mixed to negative. Joshua Kosman in the San Francisco Chronicle said the opera "burns with the fervor of an artist championing a cause," but said "the result is effective only up to a point." Anthony Tommasini in The New York Times was harsher, calling the piece "disappointing" and characterizing the music as "languid and lyrically meandering."

Ahead of the opening, Adamo and Gockley were hopeful that other companies might want to produce "Gospel," though none had made a commitment. The $3.1 million production cost represents a huge investment for a company that like most opera companies has been struggling to balance its budget.

By contrast, Adamo's "Little Women," based on the beloved Louisa May Alcott novel, uses no chorus and calls for an orchestra of just 18 instrumentalists. The fact that it can be performed on a shoestring budget has contributed to its popularity: Since the premiere in 1998, there have been more than 80 productions at regional houses and conservatories.

Still, Adamo is unapologetic about the size of his new work.

"Why can't an opera be both grand and new?" he said. "Why not write a piece that a big house can do better than a smaller one? Those houses need new work too, or else they'll turn into museums or skating rinks."

"Gospel" continues in repertory through July 7, along with Mozart's "Cosi fan tutte" and Offenbach's "The Tales of Hoffmann."

They were mortified on Friday after realizing that they may have accidentally approved language making same-sex unions legal when they passed a piece of legislation this week.

President Laura Chinchilla on late Thursday signed the bill governing social services and marriage regulations for young people.

The mostly conservative members of Congress didn't notice that the final version of the bill had changed earlier language that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

After realizing they had approved a bill that "confers social rights and benefits of a civil union, free from discrimination," the lawmakers asked Chinchilla to veto the new law. She refused.

Conservative Congressman Justo Orozco of the Christian Costa Rican Renovation Party said he and other right-wing lawmakers will launch a legal challenge to the new law.

"That law goes against family law and the Costa Rican constitution itself," Orozco said.

The change to the bill was proposed by leftist lawmaker Jose Villalta of the Broad Front Party, who said it was passed unanimously. "The problem is that there are lawmakers who don't read what they are voting on," Villalta said.

Yashin Castrillo, a lawyer, filed an appeal after Chinchilla signed the law Thursday asking the Constitutional Court, the highest court in the Central American country, to recognize his union with his boyfriend.

Same-sex marriage is already legal in more than a dozen nations worldwide. In Latin America, gay marriage is legal in Argentina and Mexico City.

HONOLULU (AP) -- The federal government is approving technical designs for a new online health insurance marketplace Hawaii is setting up under the Obama administration's health care reform law.

Gov. Neil Abercrombie's office says the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services both approved the plans on Monday.

The online marketplace is called Hawaii Health Connector.

It's designed to provide insurance to middle-class households who currently can't get their own. Individuals and small businesses may use the exchange to select a private health plan.

Hawaii Health Connector will start signing up customers on Oct. 1 for coverage beginning Jan. 1.

Executive Director Coral Andrews says the announcement signals the exchange has made significant progress.

Juan Martin del Potro only took five points to get the fans buzzing at Wimbledon.

Two victories in two very different matches Wednesday sent Murray and del Potro onto the semifinals at the All England Club.

Murray completed his seventh career comeback from two sets down to top Fernando Verdasco, 4-6, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4, 7-5.

"Made some bad mistakes, poor choices on the court," Murray said. "And then, I turned it around really well after that."

Earlier on Centre Court, del Potro hyperextended his left knee and crumpled to the ground on the fifth point, but shook off the injury for a 6-2, 6-4, 7-6 (5) victory over No. 4 David Ferrer.

"To be honest, I didn't want to retire (being) in the quarters for first time at Wimbledon," del Potro said. "And that's the reason for continuing play. The doctors gave me good anti-inflammatories."

Del Potro's next match is Friday against No. 1 Novak Djokovic, who took down No. 7 Tomas Berdych 7-6 (5), 6-4, 6-3 on Court 1.

Murray will play No. 24 Jerzy Janowicz, a 7-5, 6-4, 6-4 winner over Lukasz Kubot in the first Grand Slam meeting between two Polish men.

Going against the 54th-ranked Verdasco, Murray certainly made things interesting for the British fans, looking for one of their own to call a Wimbledon champion for the first time in 77 years. He dropped the first two sets, unable to handle Verdasco's pinpoint serves that reached as high as 136 mph.

Slowly, though, he crept back into the match. In the sixth game of the fourth set, Murray saved a pair of break points first with a service winner, then with one of his 13 aces. Three games later, he broke Verdasco, then served out the set. In the fifth set, the players held serve for 10 straight games. In the 11th, Murray broke, then served out the match at love.

"I played at a very high level," said Verdasco, appearing in a Grand Slam quarterfinal for the first time since the 2010 U.S. Open. "And to not be able to win is painful, of course."

It was Murray's second comeback from two sets down at Wimbledon, adding to a 2008 victory over Richard Gasquet.

"Yeah, you're obviously concerned," Murray said. "You're more concerned about losing the match, not thinking so much that, I'm going to lose at Wimbledon. You're concerned how the match is going and that you may lose. But when you've been in that position a lot of times, you know how to think through it and not get too far ahead of yourself."

In the earlier match, it looked as if del Potro would be done before he even broke a sweat.

His left knee mummified in athletic tape, the 6-foot-6 Argentine chased an overhead into the corner, but his left foot slipped out from under him. His already aching knee straightened suddenly, then bent backward. Del Potro crumpled to the ground and rolled twice into the far edge of the court.

"I don't try (for) a spectacular fall, but that was really painful for me," del Potro said.

After a break of about 10 minutes, del Potro was back on the court. He broke Ferrer twice in the first set, then moved easily through the second and third against one of the grittiest players in tennis.

"I have my knee problem, but always the opponent, the other players, can have different injuries, too," del Potro said. "You have to be strong, more than the rest."

Across the way, on Court 1, Janowicz beat Kubot to become the first Polish man to reach a Grand Slam semifinal.

After the match, the players hugged at the net for more than 15 seconds, then exchanged shirts the way soccer players often do at their games. A bit later, Janowicz sat in his chair, clasped his hands over his nose and cried.

"Right now, I'm the most happy person in the world," Janowicz said.

About playing Murray, who won his first Grand Slam tournament last year at the U.S. Open, Janowicz said: "I hope Andy will feel some kind of pressure. I'm sure he'll feel some kind of pressure because Great Britain is waiting for the English champion in Wimbledon."

During a tournament with more than its share of twists and turns to say nothing of slips and slides Djokovic and del Potro have gone through virtually unscathed, on the scoreboard at least. Neither man has dropped a set.

Djokovic overcame a two-break, 3-0 deficit in the second set to cruise to his latest victory over Berdych, the 2010 Wimbledon runner-up. Djokovic is in his 13th straight Grand Slam semifinal and in search of his seventh major title.

"Coming into the semifinals, I feel physically fresh," Djokovic said.

No. 8 del Potro wouldn't quite use those terms to describe himself.

He is, however, starting to show the form he used to win his only major championship, the U.S. Open in 2009, which also marks the last time he reached a Grand Slam semifinal. He is 3-8 lifetime against Djokovic, though one of those victories came here, at the All England Club, when he beat the Serb in the Olympic bronze-medal match last year. Del Potro also won their last meeting, earlier this year on hard court at Indian Wells.

"He struggled with injuries in last few years, but every time he comes back, he comes back very strong because he just has this talent," Djokovic said.

Indeed, del Potro nicknamed "The Tower of Tandil" after his hometown in Argentina has won despite being wracked with pain since Saturday, when he slipped and hyperextended his left knee for the first time.

He's not the only one to slip at Wimbledon during this fortnight, and he wasn't the only one hurting Wednesday.

Ferrer has also been dealing with ankle and toe issues. He cut short his pre-match hitting session because of pain in his ankle but said that was no excuse. Ferrer, who crossed the net to run toward del Potro to check on him when he fell, said he didn't see much change in his opponent's play after the injury.

"Juan Martin, he was more focused, he was playing more aggressive than me and he served very, very good in all three sets," Ferrer said.

SAN JOSE (Reuters) - Suffering a potentially fatal swelling in the brain, Costa Rican grandmother Floribeth Mora says a voice spoke to her through a photograph of the late Pope John Paul II, miraculously curing her and sealing the late pontiff's sainthood.

The Vatican said on Friday Pope Francis had approved Mora's cure as the requisite second miracle for the sainthood of John Paul II, who led the Roman Catholic Church from 1978 to 2005.

Mora says she was diagnosed with an aneurysm in a cerebral artery on April 14, 2011 and sent home from the hospital with the warning she could be dead within a month, although the surgeon who made the diagnosis denies he gave such a warning.

According to Mora, she drifted off to sleep in the early hours of May 1, 2011 after watching a mass on television to mark the beatification of John Paul II, who died in 2005.

She says she prayed to the late pope to heal her, and when she awoke, her eyes fell on a picture of him she had on top of the television.

"I woke up when I heard a voice that said 'get up,'" Mora, now 50, said on Friday at the Roman Catholic Church's administrative offices in San Jose, showing the clipping. "I was alone in my room, I only had this clipping that was published around those dates to commemorate John Paul II's papacy."

"I had it in front of me and I heard a voice again that said 'get up' and I looked at his photo and saw his open arms and I heard a voice that said 'be not afraid' and I said 'Yes Lord,'" she added between tears, a golden rosary hanging around her neck.

"I went to my husband and he asked me what I was doing and I just said 'I feel fine, I feel fine, I feel fine.'"

In a written statement distributed by the Church, Mora said she had been warned that she likely only had a short time to live.

"I was even warned that it would not be more than a month," she said.

The neurosurgeon who admitted and diagnosed Mora, however, denies he gave her a month to live. Alejandro Vargas says he forecast only a 2 percent chance Mora could bleed into her brain again within a year of her diagnosis, possibly killing her.

"She was sent home with medication that would reduce her blood pressure and was advised to improve her diet so as not to raise her cholesterol levels and thus decrease the chance of her having a second bleeding episode. She was sedated because the headaches were too sharp," he told Reuters. "We didn't send her home to be sedated and wait until she died in her sleep."

NO EXPLANATION

However, Vargas cannot explain how Mora's aneurysm disappeared.

"What we found remarkable, unbelievable really, was that by November there was absolutely no trace in her brain that she ever had an aneurysm," he said. "I had never seen this in my career."

Before he was beatified, the late John Paul had already been credited with asking God to cure a French nun of Parkinson's disease, the same malady he himself had suffered from.

Mora lives in a small house in the eastern province of Cartago, around 14 miles southeast of the capital, San Jose, with her husband, Carlos Arce, and their youngest child.

On the doorstep of their small, tidy house, she has erected a shrine to John Paul II.

A large printed image of the first Polish pope is decorated with colorful plastic flowers and Christmas lights. Resting on the pope's portrait is a piece of paper confirming the diagnosis of her aneurysm.

Not everyone accepts her accounts as a miracle, her husband said.

"We've faced a lot of non-believers these last two years," he said.

A few days ago, their youngest son showed his mother some posts on Facebook from people who didn't believe that what happened to her was an act of God.

"It's been very hard on her, those messages did nothing but make her cry," Arce said.

(The story was refiled to give a new headline)

(Reporting by Isabella Cota; Writing by Simon Gardner; Editing by David Brunnstrom)

Tyson, who recently toured his one-man autobiographical stage show, "Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth," will give voice to his cartoon character on the "Mike Tyson Mysteries" crime-solving series.

Tyson, 46, will be aided by a magical tattoo on his character's face and a foul-mouthed pigeon as a partner on the 15-minute show, Adult Swim said. Tyson in real life owns racing pigeons.

The network, which is known for its zany youth-oriented programs, did not say when the show would premiere.

Some plot lines include attempting to defeat a super computer at chess and why an author/werewolf cannot finish a novel, Adult Swim said.

Tyson, who became better known for his erratic behavior and 1992 rape conviction than for his skill in the ring, has seen his reputation rise following a cameo in the 2009 hit comedy "The Hangover."

Tyson retired from boxing in 2006 and began a second career in entertainment, including a 2011 television documentary series about his flock of racing pigeons.

Adult Swim is owned by Turner Broadcasting System Inc, a subsidiary of Time Warner Inc.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey; Editing by Philip Barbara)

State Rep. Byron Cook imposed an eight-hour limit on the hearing, with each person getting just three minutes before the committee, and he chose a room with only 67 seats. The restrictions come after a similar hearing two weeks ago turned into a 12-hour marathon when 700 protesters slowed the passage of the bill in the first special session. A Democratic filibuster and an angry crowd stopped the bill from becoming law a few days later leading GOP Gov. Rick Perry to call the Legislature back for a second special session.

With Republican majorities in both chambers of the Legislature, the most Democrats can hope to do is slow the bill and create a legislative record that could aid a lawsuit should the proposal become law. Houston Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner asked permission to have a court reporter record the hearing's testimony, but Cook denied it.

Democrats questioned Cook about why he chose such a small room, more than a third of which was reserved for staff, lawmakers and media.

"We wanted to ensure the maximum security for every person who is here," the Corsicana Republican said. Cook also said he was limiting testimony because hundreds of people had already testified during the regular and first special sessions.

Reps. Jessica Farrar and Sylvester Turner, both Houston Democrats, asked Cook to schedule additional hearings to allow everyone a chance to speak, but Cook refused. After Democrats successfully ran out the clock of the first special session, Republicans appeared set on passing the measure as quickly as possible in the new 30-day special session.

Live video of the hearing was fed into nine other hearing rooms, where demonstrators filled up more than 1,200 additional seats and overflowed into hallways. They appeared to be equally split between supporters of the bill wearing blue and opponents wearing orange.

House Bill 2 would ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, require that the procedure be performed at ambulatory surgical centers, mandate that doctors who perform abortions obtain admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles and that even nonsurgical abortions take place in a surgical center.

Only five out of 42 clinics in Texas qualify as ambulatory surgical centers and they are in major metropolitan areas. Many clinics would need to relocate to meet ventilation requirements and to have the space required for operating rooms and hallways.

Similar measures have passed in other states, but many are tied up in court. Mississippi's only abortion clinic remains open pending a federal lawsuit over the requirement for doctors to have admitting privileges.

Rep. Jody Laubenberg, R-Parker, insisted the bill is intended "to protect the health and safety of every woman who undergoes an abortion." Under questioning from Farrar, she refused to answer whether the state had data to show that women need the additional regulations.

Farrar then asked Ellen Cooper, the top compliance officer for the Texas Department of State Health Services, if there was any record of complications or deaths in abortion clinics that would suggest the regulations were needed. She replied no.

The Texas Medical Association and the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology both oppose the bill.

Stacey Wilson, assistant general counsel for the Texas Hospital Association, noted that admitting privileges are not required for any other procedure performed outside a hospital. Because hospitals generally do not perform elective abortions, either for religious or political reasons, they're unlikely to grant privileges to a doctor for elective abortions, she said.

Turner said the law, therefore, would "outlaw abortions across the board" and fail constitutional muster.

Lt. Gov. David has acknowledged that the ultimate goal is to shutter abortion clinics, though Laubenberg insisted otherwise.

Most of the public speaking in support of the bill echoed the call to ban all abortions. Opponents called the bill an attempt to stop abortions through over-regulation.

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Follow Chris Tomlinson on Twitter at http://twitter.com/cltomlinson