Week In The News: Murdoch, Debt Crisis, Final Shuttle

Debt crisis at a boil, Murdochs on the hot seat, last shuttle comes down, heat wave. Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

What’s bigger than a crisis? Whatever it is, we feel there this week. A grand Obama-Boehner bargain on the debt ceiling?

Maybe. Maybe not.

And default, right in front of us, we’re told.

The Onion’s dark humor nailed it in a headline: "Congress Continues Debate Over Whether or Not Nation Should be Economically Ruined.”

In London, two Murdochs get a grilling and Mrs. Murdoch stops a pie. In Florida, the last shuttle comes down. In Somalia, famine. And across America, “heat dome.”

This hour On Point: our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.
-Tom Ashbrook
Guests:

Nancy Cordes, congressional correspondent for CBS News

Clive Crook, chief Washington commentator at the Financial Times, columnist for National Journal, and senior editor at The Atlantic

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst

From Tom's Reading List:

• The New York Times: "The Obama administration has informed Democratic Congressional leaders that President Obama and Speaker John A. Boehner were starting to close in on a major budget deal that would enact substantial spending cuts and seek future revenues through a tax overhaul, Congressional officials said Thursday. "

• The Guardian: "Rupert Murdoch defiantly insisted on Tuesday he was not responsible for what he called "sickening and horrible invasions" of privacy committed by his company, claiming he had been betrayed by disgraceful unidentified colleagues and had known nothing of the cover-up of phone hacking."

• The Washington Post: "For years, the Pakistani spy agency funneled millions of dollars to a Washington nonprofit group in a secret effort to influence Congress and the White House, the Justice Department said Tuesday in court documents that are certain to complicate already strained relations between the U.S. and Pakistan."