Scandal, News Of The World | featured news

News Corp Chief Executive Rupert Murdoch and his son James face questions from parliament on Tuesday in a phone-hacking scandal that has rocked Britain's establishment right up to Prime Minister David Cameron.

Assistant Commissioner John Yates had been under pressure for his ties with the News of the World, the now-defunct tabloid at the center of the scandal.

"It was the kind of place you get out of and you never want to go back again." That's how one former reporter describes the News of the World newsroom under editor Rebekah Brooks, the ferociously ambitious titian-haired executive who ran Britain's top-selling Sunday tabloid from 2000 to 2003.

Les Hinton, chairman of News International in the years the alleged hacking occurred, stepped down as head of the Dow Jones division yesterday. That followed the exit of News International CEO Rebekah Brooks. She was editor of the News of the World, the newspaper implicated in the scandal, from 2000 to 2003.

News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch apologized for the phone-hacking scandal ignited by revelations about his News of the World newspaper in an advertisement to appear Saturday in British newspapers.

Rupert Murdoch on Thursday caved in to pressure from Britain's parliament to answer questions over alleged crimes at one of his newspapers and denied that News Corp was drawing up plans to separate its newspaper holdings.

Media titan Rupert Murdoch and his son James defied the British Parliament Thursday and refused to appear next week before a committee investigating phone hacking and bribery by employees of their newspapers. The committee said it had issued summonses to the Murdochs, setting up an extraordinary confrontation between one of Britain’s most powerful men and a Parliament once seen as easily bent to his will.

Tom Crone, the legal manager at the Rupert Murdoch U.K. newspaper arm fighting widespread hacking allegations, has left the company, a source has told Reuters.

The last edition of the News of the World hit stands Sunday morning, as Britain's best-selling newspaper shuts down in the face of a scandal over illegal eavesdropping and bribery.

Closing Britain's highest-selling newspaper, the 168-year-old News of the World, with just three days' notice in the wake of its phone-hacking scandal may feel like a nuclear option. In practice, it makes perfect commercial sense for Rupert Mudoch's News Corporation.