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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.

Former British prime minister Gordon Brown charged Tuesday that Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers hired “known criminals” to obtain information about him, and a senior police official said he was sure his own phone was hacked, as a mounting scandal threatened to further damage Murdoch’s media empire.

WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange will begin his appeal Tuesday against extradition to Sweden from the United Kingdom to face questioning on sex charges.

Britain was looking for a way out of approving media baron Rupert Murdoch's multi-billion dollar deal to buy broadcaster BSkyB amid a phone-hacking scandal.

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.

A book chronicling a Chinese tragedy under Mao has won Britain's richest nonfiction book award, the Samuel Johnson Prize. Frank Dikotter's "Mao's Great Famine" won the 20,000 pound ($32,000) award at a ceremony in London on Wednesday.

The News of the World, the British tabloid newspaper beset with a widening phone-hacking scandal, will shut down as result of the imbroglio, a top executive of its parent company said Thursday. The News, a feisty, hugely profitable daily that has been continuously published for 168 years, will cease publishing on Sunday, said James Murdoch, the son of media baron Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns the newspaper.

Prime Minister David Cameron on Tuesday condemned the alleged hacking of a slain teenage girl’s cell phone by a British tabloid. Nearly all of Britain’s papers reported Tuesday — citing unnamed sources — that a private investigator hacked into the cellphone of 13-year-old Milly Dowler in 2002 after she was reported missing. The investigator reportedly worked for News of the World, Britain’s biggest-selling Sunday tabloid.

Proposed cuts in state-sponsored pension plans spur hundreds of thousands of teachers, police, immigration workers and others to picket for a day. The walkout could be a sign of further industrial action this summer over deep cuts in British public spending.