Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of Rupert Murdoch's News International (now News UK), took the stand for the first time today in London’s long-running phone-hacking trial. This was Brooks’ first time in the witness box since the criminal trial stemming from the phone-hacking scandal at the now-shuttered News…

Joe Utichi contributes to Deadline’s UK coverage. UPDATE, 4:09 PM: The UK government today announced a fresh sweep of press regulation reforms, brought about as a result of the News Of The World phone-hacking brouhaha. But key newspaper groups, including Rupert Murdoch’s News International, have refused to endorse the…

Embattled ex-News International chief Rebekah Brooks appeared in a London court this morning for 4 minutes to provide her name, home address and date of birth. She was in the dock at the Westminster Magistrates Court on charges of phone hacking that were lodged against her last month and was given conditional bail…

Joe Utichi contributes to Deadline’s UK coverage: Tonight’s Scotland Yard development was expected. Rebekah Brooks will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on September 3rd. The police statement lists Brooks as “unemployed”. The 44-year-old executive who ran Rupert Murdoch‘s  UK newspaper business and top-edited…

A UK parliamentary committee has published a letter from Surrey police about the investigation into the disappearance and murder of schoolgirl Milly Dowler. The letter is presented as evidence in the committee’s investigation into phone hacking and attempts to establish a timeline of conversations between the Surrey…

The Guardian in the UK is among those reporting that a woman who served as former News International CEO Rebekah Brooks’ personal assistant for 19 years has been arrested in connection with the News Of The World phone-hacking scandal. UK press report that Cheryl Carter was picked up this morning on suspicion of…

News Corp is in discussions with D.C. attorney Gerson Zweifach as its new general counsel, Bloomberg reported late this afternoon. Whoever takes the job could assume a crucial role for News Corp as investigations and Parliamentary testimony continue in the U.K. phone-hacking scandal. During his more than 29 years at…

UPDATE: Paul McCartney's ex-wife Heather Mills has declared she is being made a "scapegoat" by Piers Morgan. Mills' name popped up repeatedly at a Tuesday session of the Leveson Inquiry into UK press ethics during which Morgan was grilled about a message left by McCartney on Mills' voice mail which he previously said…

CNN talk show host Piers Morgan denied any wrongdoing in the current phone-hacking scandal that has rocked the British media. At the end of a very tough session of the Leveson Inquiry into UK press ethics, Morgan told the panel he felt "like a rock star having an album of his worst ever hits" thrust at him as the…

Piers Morgan, the CNN host who was editor of News Corp’s now-shuttered News of the World between 1994-95, will appear next week before a UK inquiry investigating media ethics in the wake of the tabloid’s phone-hacking scandal. The Piers Morgan Tonight host and former America’s Got Talent judge had said over…

In some of the most startling testimony yet in the British government’s investigation into press ethics and phone hacking, former News of the World deputy features editor Paul McMullan declared Tuesday that departed editor Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks were well aware of and actively encouraged illegal voicemail…

The names of at least 28 employees of News Corp’s U.K. subsidiary appear in notes seized from a private investigator who specialized in phone hacking, the chief counsel for the government’s inquiry into the scandal surrounding News International and the shuttered News of the World tabloid says. “At least 27 other NI…