Trial, News Of The World | featured news

David Cameron signed off messages to tabloid editor Rebekah Brooks with an affectionate "LOL", she told an inquiry on Friday, conjuring the embarrassing image of a British prime minister-in-waiting fawning over a Rupert Murdoch protégée.

James Murdoch, the son of media titan Rupert Murdoch, testified Tuesday that he had no idea phone hacking was widespread at the News of the World tabloid and that he would have insisted the company "get to the bottom of what was going on" had he known.

A lawyer for many of Britain's phone hacking victims said Friday that legal action would be launched in the United States against Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

Former senior News Corp. executive Les Hinton is being recalled to testify before a parliamentary committee over a phone-hacking scandal involving journalists at the now defunct News of the World newspaper, a spokesman for the panel said Tuesday.

The British judge leading the government-backed probe into illegal eavesdropping by journalists will start ordering people to testify and hand over documents "as soon as possible," he said Thursday, as the inquiry launched.