Uncaptioned

(image from CrowdedComics.com)

Ilya Gerner:

Congratulations, Switzerland! After 500 years of democracy and peace, elaborate clocks are no longer the only kind of cuckoos your scenic confederacy will be known for…

YES HE DID!

President Obama said publicly that “same sex couples should be able to get married”.

Best Friends Fauxrever : Murdoch phone hacking engulfs Cameron

Patrick Wintour, The Guardian:

David Cameron texted Rebekah Brooks in the week she quit as News International’s chief executive over the phone-hacking scandal to tell her to keep her head up, it has been claimed in an updated biography of the prime minister.

In a sign of his closeness to some of the most controversial News International chiefs, Cameron told Brooks that she would get through her difficulties, just days before she stood down.

It has also emerged that he agreed to meet her at a point-to-point horse race so long as they were not seen together, and that he also pressed the Metropolitan police to review the Madeleine McCann case in May last year following pressure from Brooks.

The prime minister then sent an intermediary to Brooks to explain why contacts had to be brought to an abrupt halt after she resigned. The authors say the gist of that message was: “Sorry I couldn’t have been as loyal to you as you have been to me, but Ed Miliband had me on the run.”

But will all of this mean anything at all for NewsCorp? Christian Sylt and Caroline Reid, The Guardian:

News Corp shrugged off the hacking scandal in its second-quarter results as net income increased 65%, despite it having to pay $87m during the period as a result of the ongoing investigations that led to the closure of the News of the World. Net income rose to $1.06bn for the quarter, compared with $642m a year before, driven by growth in its cable networks and movie studio divisions.

[Major shareholder and Saudi Prince] Alwaleed expects this trend to continue despite the ongoing scandal and he said: “I believe that once this page is flipped over, News Corp can withstand the heat of what is happening there.”