Exclusive: News Corp execs think James Murdoch may leave (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) ? News Corp's senior management is starting to think about what the company might do if James Murdoch stepped aside, sources inside and close to the global media empire said.

With Rupert Murdoch's younger son under increasing pressure from the phone-hacking scandal enveloping the company, News Corp executives want to be prepared if he wants to "take a breather," one News Corp source said.

"The company is still trying to operate as if James isn't going anywhere," said another high-ranking insider. "But everyone is thinking about what will happen if he has to step aside."

Through a representative, Rupert Murdoch and News Corp senior management said it was "absolutely not true" the company was thinking about the possibility that James may step aside.

If James was pressured into leaving News Corp, two of the sources said the departure would not likely be permanent.

"Even if he did step out of the spotlight for a while, that wouldn't necessarily mean he wouldn't come back when things are quieter," said another source who asked not to be named because of a relationship with the family.

James, who is 38, is known for "doing his own thing", one News Corp executive noted. A tattooed, ear-pierced record label owner before becoming the last of Rupert's children to join the company, he now presents the image of a nattily dressed, conservative corporate executive.

"I'm waiting for the moment when he says, 'What the hell am I doing here, I need a breather,'" the source said.

"And I wouldn't be surprised if the people who are speaking to him and watching him aren't wondering if the time has come for him to drop the (corporate) act."

A third source close to the Murdoch family added, "There needs to be some kind of separation for James from this issue before he can run the company more broadly."

James Murdoch is News Corp's deputy chief operating officer and chief executive of News International, which oversees the company's European and Asian businesses.

Last week, during a conference call to discuss News Corp's earnings, Rupert Murdoch, who is 80, said in response to a question about any near-term succession that Chief Operating Officer Chase Carey "is my partner, and if anything happened to me I'm sure he'll get it immediately, if I went under a bus." He added: "But Chase and I have full confidence in James."

Three sources pointed to that comment as evidence that News Corp was at least considering life without James.

The sources asked not be identified because of the sensitive nature of the matter.

RELOCATING TO NEW YORK

News Corp remains insistent that James Murdoch will retain his current position and is the front runner to succeed his father in the long term.

Plans are still in place for James to relocate to New York early next year.

But the first News Corp insider characterized the move to New York as an attempt by the company to remove him from the line of fire in the UK, not as a logical step in his ascension.

The hacking scandal, which led to the closure of News Corp's News of the World newspaper, was thrust back into headlines on Monday after UK authorities publicized a letter by fired News of the World reporter Clive Goodman accusing senior executives of knowing about phone hacking by the paper.

The letter was written four years ago by Goodman as an appeal to News Corp's then head of human resources, Daniel Cloke, against his dismissal from the tabloid. Goodman had been fired after being accused of phone hacking.

Goodman, a former royal reporter at News of the World, said in the letter that the practice of hacking had been openly discussed until then-editor Andy Coulson banned any reference to it.

Until earlier this year, News of the World's parent company News International, a unit of News Corp, had maintained that Goodman was a "rogue reporter" acting on his own. Goodman spent four months in jail in 2007 for hacking.

James Murdoch, who took charge of News International shortly after Goodman and private detective Glenn Mulcaire went to jail, has repeatedly claimed that he only learned recently that phone hacking by the newspaper had gone beyond those two individuals.

On Thursday, however, James Desborough, a former Hollywood reporter for News of the World, was arrested on suspicion of phone-hacking, the 13th arrest made as part of the investigation in the scandal.

The Parliamentary committee overseeing the phone hacking investigation has said it plans to question additional News Corp executives next month, and there is speculation that James Murdoch will be called back to give additional testimony.

"Legally, it's clear this stuff has got to get sorted with him," said a third source involved with the company.

"His position does appear to be getting weaker," one investor in BSkyB where James is chairman, told Reuters, though he added that he was not aware of any institutional pressure for action to remove Murdoch from his role. News Corp was forced to drop its bid for full control of the satellite broadcaster after the scandal broke.

FAMILY TIES

Murdoch's children have moved in and out of the company at various times. Elisabeth Murdoch, Rupert's daughter, recently reemerged when News Corp bought her company, Shine Group, and her father has expressed his desire to bring eldest son Lachlan back into the company's fold. Lachlan, who once held the deputy COO position now held by James, left News Corp in 2005.

Two of the sources said that when Lachlan was in London a few weeks ago helping his father and brother prepare for their appearance in Parliament, Rupert again asked him if he would accept a position in the company.

Lachlan declined, the sources said.

"He's happy where he is," one of the sources said. Lachlan Murdoch owns an Australian investment firm called Illyria. He is also interim chief executive of Australian television company Ten Network Holdings.

One of the sources even thought the scandal could end up helping James in the long run. This source said that James was a forward-thinking executive with a lot of credibility in the business world, and that the strong performance of News Corp's Indian and German assets, along with BSkyB, Sky Italia and the Times newspaper's digital strategy, is owed to him.

"When he gets through this he will be a better executive and a better candidate for CEO. He will have been battle-tested like his father," the source said.

Ultimately, James' fate rests in the hands of his father.

"There's only one decision maker, of course, and he is often willing to hold his course against public opinion," said one of the sources close to the family, referring to Murdoch senior.

Though the Murdoch patriarch is loath to bow to public opinion, he has already been forced to sacrifice two of his closest executives, Les Hinton and Rebekah Brooks, as a result of the phone hacking scandal.

(Additional reporting by Yinka Adegoke and Jennifer Saba in New York, and Sinead Cruise in London; Editing by Toni Reinhold and Ted Kerr)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/enindustry/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110818/media_nm/us_newscorp

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Republicans and Democrats spar over new House maps (Reuters)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? As President Barack Obama and Democrats fight to take control of the House of Representatives in 2012, legal battles are erupting in states where Republicans are tilting voting maps in their favor.

In states such as Texas and North Carolina, Republicans who control legislatures are redrawing the boundaries of voting districts to tighten their grip on seats in Congress and are trying to minimize the chance that Democrats could steal them away.

Obama's Justice Department or federal courts will have to approve some of the maps under a 1965 civil rights-era law. Democrats and some minority groups already have filed lawsuits arguing the redistricting maps unfairly marginalize them.

The stakes are huge with tax and spending policies atop the agenda. When Democrats last controlled Congress and the White House, healthcare and financial regulation reforms passed.

Democrats will require a major political shift to regain control of the House, which they lost in a nationwide vote a year ago. Come the November 2012 elections, they will need a net gain of 26 in the House where all 435 seats are at stake.

"I do not see the Republicans as increasing their lead in the House of Representatives because of the redistricting cycle, but they should be able to shore up their vulnerable incumbents," said Nathaniel Persily, director of the Center for Law and Politics at Columbia Law School.

States are assigned House seats based on a national census, last conducted in 2010. States that lean Democratic, like New York, lost seats as the population shifted toward more conservative regions, including Texas, Florida and Arizona.

The shifts are leading to fierce legal battles over the new lines that states drew for the congressional seats with both sides accusing each other drawing them based not just on race but on politics, a process called gerrymandering.

Those lawsuits may be tougher to win according to David Wasserman who monitors House races for The Cook Political Report. "There is no clear bright line to identify what constitutes partisan gerrymandering or not," he said.

CARVING UP TEXAS

Perhaps no state illustrates the controversy better than Texas, which received four new congressional districts thanks to a rapidly growing Hispanic population that would appear to favor Democrats.

But, Republicans control the legislature and the governor's mansion so they sliced up the map to improve their electoral chances, creating only one new heavily Hispanic district.

"There's one more Latino district than there was in the last cycle, but boy that doesn't reflect where all the growth came from," said Justin Levitt, an associate professor at Loyola School of Law in California.

Court documents filed in Texas have shown how Republicans discussed dividing up voting precincts to try to build support in their districts, and in one case trying to include apartment buildings full of their supporters and a country club.

In creating the new majority Hispanic district, other areas on Texas' map were carved up to add more Republican voters to districts narrowly won by freshmen who rode the Republican wave to capture the House in 2010 like Representatives Francisco Canseco and Blake Farenthold, experts said.

Hispanic voters in the Dallas/Fort Worth area were split among several Democratic districts rather than given their own seat. Some have argued they should also have a district in the Houston area. As a result, they have filed lawsuits.

To address longtime racial discrimination, once endemic in the South, a 1965 civil rights law required some states, including Texas, to get approval for any changes to its district maps to ensure they did not harm minorities.

In a rare move, Texas officials filed a lawsuit in court in Washington for approval of the new map rather than going to the Justice Department, run by Obama appointees.

But the bigger battle will likely be back in Texas, where Hispanic groups have filed lawsuits in federal courts there challenging the map as discriminatory, Levitt said.

"The particular question here isn't going to be backsliding but whether Texas has done what it needs to do in order to address the current and growing minority population," he said.

Legal battles over redistricting often drag on for months, if not years. If a new map cannot quickly pass judicial muster, the courts could draw it, and that could hurt either side.

After the 2000 census, Texas went up against Washington over its redistricting plan after winning six House seats. The map was largely upheld by the Supreme Court.

Democrats are not the only ones challenging redistricting maps, Republicans have filed lawsuits in Illinois.

OBAMA FEARS SUPREME COURT CHALLENGE

Obama's Justice Department has been seen as hesitant to bring challenges against states because of fears the Supreme Court would strike down the part of the Voting Rights Act that requires some states to seek pre-approval for their plans.

"The Obama Justice Department if anything has behaved rather timidly and that is because they know the Supreme Court is chomping at the bit to strike down section five of the Voting Rights Act as unconstitutional so they are picking their battles wisely," Persily from Columbia Law School said.

A Justice Department spokeswoman, Xochitl Hinojosa, said they will challenge redistricting maps where local authorities cannot prove the changes will not impact "the right to vote on account of race, color or language minority status."

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/obama/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110818/pl_nm/us_usa_campaign_redistricting

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Solar Energy ? How To Use Solar Energy At Home | Free Energy Generator

www.SolarEnergyGuide.net ? Solar Energy ? How To Use Solar Energy At Home Home Power Magazine Solar | Wind | Water | Design | Build Before you build, check out these passive solar design strategies to save energy and slash utility bills. Plus, six solar home designs. ?SOLAR PANELS?Home & RV Solar Panel Systems?We know solar panels! ? Energy Industry We can supply complete industrial, and residential home solar power systems ? by your solar energy system is sent out onto the grid for others to use and ?EERE Consumer?s Guide: Exploring Ways to Use Solar Energy Dec 30, 2008 ? You can use solar energy to do the following: Heat your home ? See Solar Radiation Basics to learn more about how solar energy works. ?Federal Tax Credits for Energy Efficiency : ENERGY STAR ? Consumer Info What tax credits are available in 2008 for energy efficiency home improvements? ?. All ENERGY STAR solar water heaters qualify for the tax credit. ? Use IRS Form 8910 PDF Exit ENERGY STAR for hybrid vehicles purchased for personal ?American Solar Energy Society: Education, Industry Research ? ? Alternative Energy Established in 1954, the American Solar Energy Society (ASES) is the nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing the use of solar energy, ?NorCal Solar Energy Association ? Environment NorCal Solar Energy Association promotes the use of solar energy technology ? You are here: Home. Northern California Solar Energy Association Home ?SEI: Welcome to Solar Energy ?

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GolfChannel: Why Tiger will or won't rebound

Yes, Tiger Woods will find his mojo again. He will return to No. 1 in the world rankings and rule over the game again.

Or . . .

No, forget it, Woods won?t rediscover the edge that made him so special. He has lost his swing and his magic, and he?ll never find them again.

History tells us Woods could go either way on this one.

If you believe Woods will rebound, here are five reasons to believe you may be right. If you?re expecting the worst, here are five reasons to believe you know best.

Here?s a look at five players who lost their edge but enjoyed a return to glory, and five players who lost it and never got it back . . .?or haven?t so far:

FIVE REASONS WOODS WILL REBOUND:

BEN HOGAN: If Hogan could survive a head-on crash into a Greyhound bus, if he could rebound from a double fracture of his pelvis, a broken collarbone, a chipped rib and life-threatening blood clots and go on to win six more major championships, why can?t Woods find a way to rebound from his personal trauma?

DARREN CLARKE: Clarke fell off the golf map in a slump that saw him endure four winless years and sink to 143rd on the European Tour Order of Merit in 2007 while failing to record a single top-10 finish that year. It?s no coincidence Clarke?s troubles came with his wife, Heather, dying of cancer in ?06. Clarke put the pieces of his game together this year to win the British Open, his first major championship title.

LEE WESTWOOD: After cracking the top 10 in the world rankings in 1998, Westwood lost his swing. His game slumped and he spiraled out of the top 100 in the world and then the top 200, sinking as low as No. 264 before putting his game back together. Westwood took the No. 1 ranking from Woods late last year.

STEVE STRICKER: With three PGA Tour titles to his credit, Stricker lost his swing and his confidence, then lost his PGA Tour card in 2003. He completely overhauled his swing, rebuilt his confidence and has won seven PGA Tour titles in the last three seasons. He?s the highest ranked American in the world today.

JOHNNY MILLER: His career derailed by the putting yips, Miller found a way to overcome them and win the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am in 1994, seven years after what most fans believed would be his last PGA Tour title. Yes, Miller?s return was brief, but he found his magic in a short burst nobody thought possible. He showed how great players can find ways to overcome great obstacles.

FIVE REASONS WOODS MAY NEVER FIND HIS MOJO AGAIN:

IAN BAKER-FINCH: After winning the British Open in 1991, Baker Finch?s powers left him. His slump was mysterious. He could look brilliant on the driving range and totally lost on the course. He never righted what was wrong with his swing or game.

SEVE BALLESTEROS: The winner of five major championships, Ballesteros? game left him when his erratic driving became so short and crooked he began struggling to break 80. Back problems hindered his bid to find his winning form.

RALPH GULDAHL: A dominant player in his time, Guldahl won the U.S. Open in 1937 and ?38 and the Masters? in ?39. He completely lost his swing after writing a book titled "Groove Your Golf." His wife and son claimed he lost his game overanalyzing his swing. Guldahl insisted he just lost the desire to win.

DAVID DUVAL: Winner of the British Open, No. 1 in the world rankings, Duval severely slumped with swing woes. Why Duval lost his game remains something of a mystery. Duval didn?t seem driven to remain atop the world after winning the British Open at Royal Lytham & St. Annes in 2001. Lost desire seemed an issue. Back, wrist and shoulder problems also hindered him. So did vertigo. Duval continues to search for the magic that helped him shoot 59 once and become a rival to Tiger Woods.

CHIP BECK: Though Beck never won a major, he was a quality player, a four-time PGA Tour winner who played on three Ryder Cup teams, won the Vardon Trophy for low scoring average in ?88 and shot 59 in the third round of the Las Vegas Invitational. He inexplicably lost his swing and missed 46 consecutive cuts in the late ?90s. Though he later found some success on the Champions Tour, Beck never regained his form on the PGA Tour and took to selling insurance.

Source: http://www.golfchannel.com/news/randall-mell/tiger-will-he-or-wont-he/

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Did iPad kill HP?s hardware business?

After Apple introduced the iPad I wondered out loud on iPad Live whether it would leave any air... More →

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Clip Yer Skateboard Onto Yer Bike the Safe Way, Bro [Transport]

This Skaterack could be a lifesaver, if you think about it—how safe can it be holding onto your skateboard while cycling, or having it on your lap or poking from a backpack? More »

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India protests swell with fasting activist in jail

NEW DELHI?? Protests swelled across India on Wednesday in support of a self-styled Gandhian anti-corruption campaigner in jail on a hunger strike, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's struggling government at a loss over how to end the standoff.

Singh, 78, dismissed the fast by Anna Hazare as "totally misconceived." His comments sparked outrage as lawmakers cried "shame."

"It is a wake-up call for all of us unless we put our house in order. The people of this country are becoming restless," said Arun Jaitley, a leader of the opposition Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party.

The squat and slight 74-year-old Hazare fasted as thousands of his followers gathered outside the jail, the latest development in a crisis that saw him arrested Tuesday and then refuse to leave jail after the government ordered his release.

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PhotoBlog: Indian anti-corruption campaigner arrested as protests spread

Spurred by messages on social networking sites, such as on Twitter and Facebook, at least 15,000 thronged to one protest site in central Delhi alone, a Reuters reporter said.

"The government really doesn't know what it is doing," said Kuldip Nayar, a veteran political analyst. "It is bungling, mishandling. They do not know at all how wide and how deep the resentment is."

Hazare, who has struck a nerve with millions of Indians by demanding tougher laws against rampant corruption, had insisted he wants the right to return to a city park where he had originally planned to publicly fast, before he leaves jail.

The arrest and sudden about-turn to release him appeared to confirm a widespread feeling Singh's government is cornered, clumsy and too riddled with scandal to govern Asia's third-largest economy effectively.

A weak political opposition means that the government should still survive the crisis, but it could further dim the prospect for economic reforms that have already been held back by policy paralysis and a raft of corruption scandals.

'I am Anna'
"We don't have faith in our government," said Sujeet, a young software engineer from the IT city of Gurgaon, as he protested at tourist site of India Gate in the capital. "We are living in a democracy but only in letter, not in spirit."

Many of the crowd were young, with rucksacks on their backs, some with their faces painted. Others were older, decked out in outfits as worn by the bespectacled Hazare, with his trademark white cap and kurta, a long-time social activist who is often compared to independence leader Mahatma Gandhi.

World Blog: He's starving for clean government

In northeast Assam state, thousands of farmers, students and lawyers marched. In the financial capital of Mumbai, thousands of people carrying the Indian flag and wearing Gandhi caps chanted "I am Anna."

"I was forced to pay a bribe while getting my passport approved and I felt helpless," said student Rahul Acharya, 21. "This is the time all youngsters should join the movement so that the future would be corruption-free."

In the IT hub of Hyderabad, lawyers boycotted courts, students skipped class and hundreds took to the streets.

Across southern Andhra Pradesh state, a Congress party stronghold, thousands went on snap fasts, staged sit-ins, blocked roads and formed human chains.

Demonstrations are part of daily life in the towns and cities of India, a country of 1.2 billion people made up of a myriad of castes, religions and classes. But spontaneous and widespread protests are rare and the scale of this week's outpouring of public fury has taken the government by surprise.

Generation gap
Hazare became the unlikely thorn in the side of the Congress-led coalition when he went on hunger strike in April. He called off that fast after the government promised to introduce a bill creating an anti-corruption ombudsman.

The legislation was presented in early August, but activists slammed the draft version as toothless because the prime minister and judges were exempt from probes.

A stone-faced Singh was uncompromising, but offered little vision in a speech to parliament.

"I acknowledge that Anna Hazare may be inspired by high ideals," a stern-looking Singh said. "However, the path that he has chosen to impose a draft of the bill on parliament is totally misconceived and fraught with grave consequences for our parliamentary democracy.

"We must not create an environment in which our economic progress is hijacked by internal dissention."

Critics say Singh's government of mainly elderly politicians has no idea how to react to spontaneous protests, highlighting a generation gap as social networks galvanize thousands, including many of India's growing urban middle class, from Supreme Court lawyers to students.

The Congress party held an emergency meeting to discuss the crisis. But the absence of party chief Sonia Gandhi due to an undisclosed illness appeared to have further weakened the government decision-making.

Gandhi left control of the party in the hands of a quartet, including her 41-year-old son, Rahul, widely seen as a prime minister in waiting.

India's Arab Spring?
The anti-corruption movement led Hazare is snowballing into one of the biggest challenges in decades and if not contained risks sparking India's own version of an Arab Spring revolt.

While no one is expecting an Egypt-like overthrow in the world's biggest democracy, a galvanized and frustrated middle class and the mushrooming of social networking sites combined with an aggressive private media may be transforming India's political landscape.

Hazare has quickly become a 21st century Mahatma Gandhi inspiration for millions of Indians fed up with rampant corruption, red tape and inadequate services provided by the state despite the country posting near-double digit economic growth for almost a decade.

With costs of living rising fast and daily news reports of state officials with meager salaries caught with bags of cash and kilograms of gold, or registered as owners of multi-million-dollar homes, patience seems to have been snapped.

"When people exhaust their capacity for tolerance, then you should take it that it is a beginning of some kind of revolution. Now it has gone above people's tolerance level," Hazare told Reuters in a recent interview in his home village.

India ranked 87 in Transparency International's index on corruption in 2010, behind rival China. Polls show corruption vies with the high cost of living as the number one voter issue.

The scandals, including a telecoms bribery scam that may have cost the government $39 billion, have dented investor confidence and distracted parliament just as the $1.6 trillion economy is being hit by inflation and higher interest rates.

The young and old, rich and poor, without apparent political affiliations, have taken to the streets in a rare voice of solidarity ? a potential lethal cocktail for any party in power in India.

Copyright 2011 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44174967/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

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