Evening Edition

The 80-year-old News Corporation chief’s Chinese-born wife Wendi Deng leaped up and slapped the assailant, who was dragged off by police after the attack during a parliamentary committee hearing quizzing Murdoch and his son James.

The Guardian newspaper and Sky News named the attacker as a comedian called Jonnie Marbles. In a Twitter message shortly before the incident, he said: “It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before #splat.”

“Foreign governments who try to influence the United States by using unregistered agents threaten our national security,” said FBI Assistant Director in Charge James McJunkin in a written statement.

The Justice Department announced conspiracy charges against Ghulam Nabi Fai, 62, a US citizen and resident of Fairfax, Virginia and Zaheer Ahmad, 63, a US citizen and resident of Pakistan, and said both faced up to five years in prison if found guilty.

“If you want to act responsibly, you know that such a spectacular step will not happen, including on Thursday,” Merkel told a news conference after talks in Hanover, northern Germany with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

The German leader voiced concerns that proposals to restructure Greece’s debt mountain, create join euro-area bonds or form a transfer union were being bandied about to resolve the single currency area’s year-long crisis.

With a spectacular orbital sunrise illuminating a vessel in the sunset of its career, Atlantis maneuvered away from the ISS at 0628 GMT about 350 kilometers (217 miles) above the Pacific Ocean.

“Thanks so much for hosting us. It’s a great station, and it’s been an absolute pleasure,” Atlantis commander Chris Ferguson said of his crew’s eight-day stay at the ISS, closing the book on the storied relationship between the two iconic spacecraft.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is pledging millions of dollars in grants to reinvent the toilet, its director of water, sanitation and hygiene programs, Frank Rijsberman, told AFP, calling it a “huge issue for Africa.”

The aim is to boost health in developing countries by giving the 2.6 billion people who don’t have access to a WC a hygienic, safe place to go to the toilet.

Murdoch, at times appearing all of his 80 years as he took lengthy pauses before answering questions alongside his 38-year-old son, said he had been ashamed by the allegations and won some sympathy for his apparent remorse.

In a hotly anticipated hearing, the most dramatic moment came after two and half hours when a man appeared to rise from the public area of the committee room and tried to hit the elder Murdoch with a dish of white foam.

His son James Murdoch’s position as chairman of British Sky Broadcasting was thrown into doubt on Monday after minority investors called for a corporate governance health check of its board. Added to this was increasing speculation that Rupert himself may step aside from the CEO role at News Corp while retaining the chairman’s job as the company seeks to contain the crisis.

There has been talk for the past few days that Chase Carey could take over from Rupert Murdoch, and Bloomberg reported that there had been discussions on Monday by independent directors on whether to replace Murdoch. That was denied by a board member who said the independent directors are fully behind the 80-year-old Australian-born media magnate.

The biggest U.S. investment bank reported earnings and revenue far below analysts’ already-reduced expectations and year-ago levels once adjusted for a special charge.

The culprit of the sharp decline was a big drop in income from fixed income, currency and commodities (FICC) trading, due to weak client activity and a sharp pullback in risk taking.

The loss was widely expected after the bank said in June it settled with mortgage bond investors for $8.5 billion and was taking more than $14 billion of other home loan-related charges in the quarter.

But the bank’s results, including its shrinking interest income, underscore the difficulties Chief Executive Brian Moynihan faces even if the bank moves past its mortgage problems. The bank’s shares were down 2.8 percent, or 28 cents, at $9.44 in midday trading.

With financial markets on edge two days before leaders of the 17-nation currency area hold a crucial meeting, other options that could trigger a selective or outright Greek default with far-reaching consequences remain on the table, the paper obtained by Reuters showed.

The European currency is facing the biggest crisis of its 12-year existence, with contagion threatening major economies such as Italy and Spain after three small members — Greece, Ireland and Portugal — needed financial rescues.

But a Reuters investigation finds that many are still taking the same shortcuts they promised to shun, from sketchy paperwork to the use of “robo-signers.”

In its effort to seize the two-bedroom ranch house of 87-year-old Margery Gunter in this down-on-its-luck Florida town, OneWest Bank recently filed a court document that appears riddled with discrepancies. Mrs. Gunter, who has lived in the house for 40 years and gets around with the aid of a walker, stopped paying her loan back in 2009, her lawyer concedes. To foreclose, the bank submitted to the Collier County clerk’s office on March 3 a “mortgage assignment,” a document essential to proving who owns a mortgage once the original lender sells it off.

Murdoch appeared by turns vague, truculent, sharp and concise as he spoke alongside his son and deputy, James, calling the parliamentary inquiry “the most humble day of my career” but refusing to take personal blame for the crisis that has swept from a tabloid newspaper through the top levels of Britain’s police and even to the prime minister’s office.

Murdoch, 80, said he was “shocked, appalled and ashamed” at the hacking of the phone of a murdered schoolgirl by his now-shuttered News of the World tabloid.

The U.S.-led coalition has started a process of transferring security in parts of the country where they feel Afghan forces are strong enough to take control, although so far that has largely been restricted to provincial capitals as much of the country remains lawless and unstable after a decade of war.

U.S. forces turned over control of Mehterlam, the capital of Laghman province, but they’ll retain responsibility for the other areas in the predominantly Pashtun province that remain under the influence of the Taliban and other insurgent groups.

Archbishop Charles Chaput, 66, of Denver takes over an archdiocese of nearly 1.5 million Catholics that’s been rocked by school closings, a dwindling supply of priests and nuns, and two grand jury reports that accuse the church of hiding sex-abuse complaints for decades.

Outgoing Archbishop Justin Rigali, a longtime Vatican official who was expected to land a job in Rome, will instead retire to Tennessee after eight turbulent years leading the archdiocese. The grand jury excoriated Rigali and his predecessor, Anthony Bevilacqua, finding they protected church interests over those of victims.