9 July 2011
Last updated at 05:15 ET

Rupert Murdoch is expected to arrive in London later to take charge of dealing with the phone-hacking crisis that has engulfed his News International group.

This comes as News of the World staff prepare its final edition, following the announcement of its closure.

Labour has written to No 10 to urge the immediate appointment of the judge to lead an inquiry into the scandal.

On Friday, an unnamed 63-year-old became the third man arrested as part of the police probe.

He was arrested at an address in Surrey on suspicion of corruption. Police carried out a search of the property.

On Saturday he was released on bail until October.

Meanwhile, former News of the World (NoW) editor Andy Coulson and former royal editor Clive Goodman were released on police bail after being arrested earlier on Friday.

Mr Coulson, 43, had attended Lewisham police station in south London by appointment, and was arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and alleged corruption.

Goodman, 53, who was jailed in 2007 for phone hacking, was arrested on suspicion of corruption.

In a letter to the prime minister on Saturday, shadow culture secretary Ivan Lewis asks for “immediate discussions so that by the end of the day we are in a position to agree the appointment of the judge” to head one of the independent inquiries into the scandal.

And Labour’s deputy leader, Harriet Harman, told Sky News: “Think about what is going to happen at the end of today: the News of the World is going to be closed down, all the staff are going to be disappearing.

“What will happen to the computers? If a judge is really to find out what happened, not to mention the police inquiry, if all the staff are going off in different directions it would be very difficult for the judge to call on them to come and give the evidence that they know.”

According to BBC political correspondent Ben Geoghegan, “Labour say their letter has been prompted by reports that millions of e-mails had been deleted at News International in an attempt to obstruct Scotland Yard’s investigations into phone hacking.”

A News International spokeswoman said: “This assertion is rubbish. We adopted a documented e-mail retention policy in line with our US parent’s records management policy.

“We are co-operating actively with police and have not destroyed evidence.”

Public inquiries

On Friday, David Cameron revealed details of two new inquiries relating to the scandal.

He said the judge-led inquiry would look into “why did the first police investigation fail so abysmally; what exactly was going on at the News of the World and what was going on at other newspapers”.

A second inquiry would examine the ethics and culture of the press, he added.

Defending his decision to employ Mr Coulson as his director of communications in 2007, Mr Cameron also said: “I decided to give him a second chance but the second chance didn’t work. The decision to hire him was mine and mine alone.”

Mr Coulson denies knowledge of phone hacking when he was News of the World editor from 2003-7.

The prime minister questioned the tenability of Rebekah Brooks as News International chief executive considering she was editor of the NoW at the time murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone was allegedly being hacked.

It has been revealed that Mrs Brooks is no longer heading the firm’s own inquiry into the scandal.

She told News International staff in an e-mail that those carrying out the investigation would now report to Joel Klein, a US-based senior executive at the company’s owner, News Corp.

Takeover questions

On Friday, Mrs Brooks held a meeting with NoW staff at its headquarters in Wapping.

A source present at the talks told the BBC she had informed staff they would eventually understand why the Sunday tabloid had to close.

She also denied closing the NoW was a “cynical ploy”, and apologised for the decision.

The 168-year-old tabloid is accused of hacking into phones of crime victims, celebrities and politicians. Police have identified 4,000 possible targets.

The controversy has raised questions about the proposed takeover of satellite broadcaster BSkyB by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, ultimate owner of the NoW.

Ms Harman has spoken of the power News Corporation has held over both the Labour and Conservative parties.

“Action should have been taken and could have been taken before by our government… for us there was a sense that the Murdoch empire was too powerful when we were in government,” she said.

And broadcasting regulator Ofcom has now written to the chairman of the Commons culture committee highlighting the watchdog’s duty to ensure that anyone holding a broadcasting licence is a “fit and proper” person to do so.

The letter says “in considering whether any licensee remains a fit and proper person to hold broadcasting licences Ofcom will consider any relevant conduct of those who manage and control such a licence”.

8 July 2011
Last updated at 21:58 ET

Former US First Lady Betty Ford, the widow of former President Gerald Ford and founder of drug treatment facility the Betty Ford Center, has died at the age of 93.

Mrs Ford, who was known for her strong opinions on public issues, established the drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility in 1982.

Mrs Ford was considered one of the most visible first ladies in US history.

She was married to Mr Ford, who died in 2006, for 58 years.

Mrs Ford, had lived in California since her husband’s death, died on Friday evening with family at her bedside, according to a family member.

“As our nation’s First Lady, she was a powerful advocate for women’s health and women’s rights,” President Barack Obama said, following the news of Mrs Ford’s death.

He added: “After leaving the White House, Mrs Ford helped reduce the social stigma surrounding addiction and inspired thousands to seek much-needed treatment.”

“I was deeply saddened this afternoon when I heard of Betty Ford’s death,” another former First Lady, Nancy Reagan, said in a statement.

Mrs Reagan added that Mrs Ford was her husband’s “strength through some very difficult days in our country’s history”.

Raising public awareness

Mrs Ford, who won battles with breast cancer, and drug and alcohol addiction, sought to raise awareness about both issues. She was also outspoken on women’s rights issues.

She was noted for helping to create the Betty Ford Center for drug and alcohol rehabilitation in Rancho Mirage in California, a facility where tens of thousands of addicts have been treated.

Former President George HW Bush said on Friday that “no one confronted life’s struggles with more fortitude or honest”.

“The Betty Ford Center, which already has helped change the lives of thousands of people, will be her lasting legacy of care and concern,” Mr Bush said.

Mrs Ford was born Elizabeth Anne Bloomer in Chicago in the state of Illinois in 1918 and grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as one of three children.

After studying dance at Bennington College in Vermont, she moved to New York City at the age of 21 to work as a dancer and model before heading back to the mid-western US two years later.

Mrs Ford met and married her first husband, William Warren, in 1942 but divorced after five years.

A short time later, she met Gerald Ford, a Navy lieutenant at the time.

The two lived in the Washington DC area for nearly three decades as Mr Ford climbed from Capitol Hill, where he served as a congressman, to the White House, where he held the presidency from 1974-1977.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Atlantis and four astronauts rocketed into orbit Friday on NASA’s last space shuttle voyage, dodging bad weather and delighting hundreds of thousands of spectators on hand to witness the end of an era.

It will be at least three years — possibly five or more — before astronauts launch again from U.S. soil, and so this final journey of the shuttle era packed in crowds and roused emotions on a scale not seen since the Apollo moon shots.

After days of gloomy forecasts full of rain and heavy cloud cover, the spaceship lifted off at 11:29 a.m. — just 2 1/2 minutes late — thundering away on the 135th shuttle mission 30 years and three months after the very first flight. The four experienced space fliers rode Atlantis from the same pad used more than a generation ago by the Apollo astronauts.

The shuttle was visible for 42 seconds before disappearing into the clouds.

NASA waived its own weather rules to allow the liftoff to go forward. In the end, though, the countdown was delayed not by the weather but by the need to verify that the launch pad support equipment was retracted all the way.

The crew will deliver a year’s worth of critical supplies to the International Space Station and return with as much trash as possible. Atlantis is scheduled to come home on June 20 after 12 days in orbit.

Before taking flight, Commander Christopher Ferguson saluted all those who contributed over the years to the shuttle program.

“The shuttle is always going to be a reflection of what a great nation can do when it dares to be bold and commits to follow through,” he said, addressing NASA launch director Mike Leinbach. “We’re not ending the journey today … we’re completing a chapter of a journey that will never end.”

He added: “Let’s light this fire one more time, Mike, and witness this great nation at its best.”

It wasn’t clear until the final moments of the countdown that the launch would come off. That was fitting in a way, since Florida’s famously stormy weather delayed numerous shuttle missions almost from the start of the program and was a major reason spaceflight never became routine, as NASA had hoped for.

Hundreds of thousands of spectators jammed Cape Canaveral and surrounding towns for the emotional farewell. Kennedy Space Center itself was packed with shuttle workers, astronauts and 45,000 invited guests, the maximum allowed.

NASA’s original shuttle pilot, Robert Crippen, now 73, was among the VIPs. He flew Columbia, along with Apollo 16 moonwalker John Young, on the inaugural test flight in 1981.

Other notables on the guest list: a dozen members of Congress, Cabinet members, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, four Kennedy family members, Jimmy Buffett, Gloria Estefan and two former NASA chiefs.

The space shuttle was conceived even as the moon landings were under way, deemed essential for building a permanent space station. NASA brashly promised 50 flights a year — in other words, routine trips into space — and affordable service.

But the program suffered two tragic accidents that killed 14 astronauts and destroyed two shuttles, Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003. NASA never managed more than nine flights in a single year. And the total tab was $196 billion, or $1.45 billion a flight.

Yet there have been some indisputable payoffs: The International Space Station would not exist if it were not for the shuttles, and the Hubble Space Telescope, thanks to repeated tuneups by astronauts, would be a blurry eye in the sky instead of the world’s finest cosmic photographer.

The station is essentially completed, and thus the shuttle’s original purpose accomplished. NASA says it is sacrificing the shuttles because there is not enough money to keep the expensive fleet going if the space agency is to aim for asteroids and Mars.

Thousands of shuttle workers will be laid off within days of Atlantis’ return, on top of the thousands who already have lost their jobs. And the three remaining shuttles will become museum pieces.

This day of reckoning has been coming since 2004, a year after the Columbia tragedy, when President George W. Bush announced the retirement of the shuttle and put NASA on a course back to the moon. President Barack Obama canceled the back-to-the-moon program in favor of trips to an asteroid and Mars.

But NASA has yet to work out the details of how it intends to get there, and has not even settled on a spacecraft design.

The space shuttle demonstrates America’s leadership in space, and “for us to abandon that in favor of nothing is a mistake of strategic proportions,” lamented former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, who led the agency from 2005 to 2008.

After Atlantis’ lights-out, 33rd flight, private rocket companies will take over the job of hauling supplies and astronauts to the space station. The first supply run is targeted for later this year, while the first trip with astronauts is projected to be years away.

Until those flights are up and running, American astronauts will be hitching rides to and from the space station via Russian Soyuz capsules, at more than $50 million per trip.

Russia will supply the rescue vessels for Ferguson and his crew if Atlantis ends up severely damaged in flight. But the Russian spaceships can carry only three people, including two crew members, and any rescue would require a series of back-and-forth trips. That is why only four astronauts are flying Atlantis, the smallest crew in decades.

That reliance on Russia — with no other backup — has many space veterans worried. A contingent of old-time flight directors and astronauts, Crippen included, is seeking a last-ditch reprieve for the space shuttle, at least until something is ready to take its place.

Crippen acknowledged it is futile at this point.

“I’m afraid that ship has sailed,” he said on the eve of the launch. But noting the improvements that had been made in the shuttles over the past three decades, he said: “Those vehicles, in my opinion, could fly for another 30 years and could be flown safely.”

This last journey by Atlantis may be stretched to 13 days if enough power can be conserved. Weather permitting, Atlantis will return to Kennedy, where it will be put on public display. Discovery and Endeavour already are retired and being prepped for museums across the country.

___

Online:

NASA: http://1.usa.gov/9JytXVNASA:

8 July 2011
Last updated at 11:39 ET

Former News of the World editor Andy Coulson has been arrested by police investigating phone hacking and corruption allegations.

And ex-NoW royal editor Clive Goodman, jailed in 2007 for phone hacking, has been arrested over corruption claims.

It came as Prime Minister David Cameron defended his decision to employ Mr Coulson and announced two inquiries – one led by a judge – into the scandal.

Mr Coulson has denied any knowledge of phone hacking while he was NoW editor.

The controversy has raised questions about the proposed takeover of satellite broadcaster BSkyB by Rupert Murdoch’s New Corporation, the ultimate owner of the News of the World.

And broadcasting regulator Ofcom has now written to the chairman of the Commons culture committee highlighting its duty to ensure that anyone holding a broadcasting licence is a “fit and proper” person to do so.

The letter says “in considering whether any licensee remains a fit and proper person to hold broadcasting licences Ofcom will consider any relevant conduct of those who manage and control such a licence”.

Fresh revelations

Mr Coulson, 43, was arrested at 1030 BST on Friday by detectives investigating allegations of hacking the phones of various people in the news and is also being questioned about corruption allegations.

He was arrested by appointment at a south London police station and is in custody.

A number of suited men, thought to be police officers, entered Mr Coulson’s south London home with large plastic crates at about 1200 BST.

And, following his arrest, Goodman, 53, is understood to be being held at a south London police station, although not the same one as Mr Coulson.

Mr Cameron said of Mr Coulson: “I became friends with him and I think he did his job for me in a very effective way. He became a friend and he is a friend.”

In other developments:

• Rebekah Brooks is speaking to News of the World staff at the paper’s headquarters in Wapping, London
• Prosecutors have asked Strathclyde Police to examine specific claims of phone hacking in Scotland by the NoW

News International has said it is shutting the News of the World after this Sunday’s edition following a spate of fresh revelations.

The 168-year-old tabloid is accused of hacking into phones of crime victims, celebrities and politicians. Police have identified 4,000 possible targets.

Mr Cameron said the judge-led inquiry would look into “why did the first police investigation fail so abysmally; what exactly was going on at the News of the World and what was going on at other newspapers”.

“Of course the bulk of this inquiry can only happen when the police investigation has finished. That is what the law requires,” he added.

Mr Cameron said a second inquiry would look at the ethics and culture of the press and that the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) should be scrapped, adding: “I believe we need a new system entirely”.

He also questioned the tenability of Rebekah Brooks as News International chief executive considering she was editor of the News of the World at the time murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler’s phone was being hacked.

Mr Cameron said there had been reports she had offered her resignation and added: “In this situation I would have taken it.”

In January 2007 Goodman, and a private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, were both jailed for plotting to intercept voicemail messages left for royal aides.

Background check

Mr Coulson, who was the paper’s editor at the time, said he took “ultimate responsibility” for the scandal but insisted he was unaware of any phone hacking by his journalists.

He was employed as Mr Cameron’s director of communications in 2007 but Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger claims he warned Mr Cameron’s team not to employ Mr Coulson.

The prime minister said he did not remember receiving “any specific action or information about Andy Coulson” but would check with his officials.

Asked if he had “screwed up” on the decision to employ Mr Coulson, Mr Cameron said: “People will decide.”

He said: “I decided to give him a second chance but the second chance didn’t work. The decision to hire him was mine and mine alone.”

The prime minister said a company had been hired to run a “basic background check” on Mr Coulson before he was employed while the Conservatives were in Opposition.

Mr Cameron admitted politicians were to blame for “turning a blind eye” to bad practices in journalism.

He said this was a “genuine opportunity” and a “cathartic moment” both for the media and for politicians and he said the phone hacking scandal was a “black cloud” hanging over Fleet Street.

‘Unconvincing answers’

Asked about the decision to close the paper, Mr Cameron said: “What needs to change is not the name of the paper or the letterhead but the practices that go on.”

Mr Cameron admitted politicians and the media had got a bit “cosy” but he added: “As a party leader you are bound to want a relationship with the media because you want to get your message over and if that means talking to the head of the BBC, the editor of the Guardian or Rupert Murdoch I will go out and do that.”

Asked about the takeover of BSkyB by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, Mr Cameron said Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt was following “the proper legal processes and procedures”.

He said: “His role is to take the advice of independent regulators and, as his department have made clear this morning – given the events of recent days – this will take some time.”

Afterwards the Labour leader Ed Miliband said the prime minister “clearly still doesn’t get it”.

He said: “He is ploughing on regardless on BSkyB. He failed to apologise for the catastrophic mistake of bringing Andy Coulson into the heart of government.

“His wholly unconvincing answers of what he knew and when he knew it about Mr Coulson’s activities undermine his ability to lead the change that Britain needs.”

8 July 2011
Last updated at 11:30 ET

The 135th and final space shuttle mission has lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Space shuttle Atlantis was launched into history at 1129 local time (1529 GMT; 1629 BST) on Friday.

The 12-day mission will ferry 3.5 tonnes of supplies to the International Space Station.

Upon its return, the 30-year space shuttle programme will come to a close, with Atlantis and the other two shuttles retired to museums.

For much of the week, a launch had been thought highly unlikely.

The weather on Thursday had thrown torrential rain at the orbiter, and forecasters had been talking grimly of similar conditions developing on Friday.

But the promised showers never materialised and controllers in the “firing room” gave the “go” for the ascent after a positive poll from their ground teams.

The call prompted a huge cheer from the thousands of guests inside the Kennedy Space Center and a rush to grab the best viewing positions.

Many lined the tops of buildings around KSC; others went down by the famous countdown clock on the lawn in front of the press complex.

They, and hundreds of thousands more people outside the centre, did not see Atlantis for long.

A few seconds after thundering off the pad, she disappeared through a bank of cloud for the chase out over the Atlantic and a rendezvous with the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday.

The ship and her crew of four – Chris Ferguson, Doug Hurley, Sandy Magnus and Rex Walheim – will spend seven days at the orbiting platform.

Mission goals include the delivery of a huge load of food for the ISS residents and a robotics facility that will test strategies for re-fuelling satellites high above the planet.

There has been much talk here in the past few days about the end of an era and the consequences it will have for the Kennedy workforce, many of whom will lose their jobs.

Nasa has attempted to shift the debate to what comes next and the strategy it has adopted to replace the expensive orbiter programme.

The agency believes a more affordable approach to getting astronauts to the ISS can be achieved by contracting out their transport to private companies.

One of those prospective commercial concerns, Boeing, has been displaying a model at KSC of a capsule it says could lift up to seven individuals to the station.

Another, the Sierra Nevada Corporation, signed an agreement with Nasa on Thursday to use Kennedy’s facilities.

SNC is producing a mini-shuttle it calls the Dream Chaser, which, again, could carry up to seven astronauts into low-Earth orbit.

Nasa says this new policy will free resources to invest in a new spaceship and rocket that can take humans beyond the space station to destinations such as the Moon, asteroids and Mars.

The conical ship, known as Orion, has already been defined and is in an advanced stage of development. The rocket, on the other hand, is still an unknown quantity.

The US Congress has told the agency what its minimum capabilities ought to be. The agency is currently struggling to put those specifications into a concept it says can be built to the timeline and budget specified by the politicians. It promises to detail the rocket’s baseline design before the summer is out.