Murdoch Media Scandal Deepens; Bachmann to Sign Debt Pledge; Japan Wins Women's World Cup Soccer; Scandal Clouds Murdoch's Future
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Blow the whistle now. It's 9:00 a.m. on the East Coast, 6:00 a.m. out West. Thanks for joining us, everyone. I'm Kyra Phillips. One of the central figures in the Murdoch Media scan still planning to testify before British lawmakers. Rebekah Brooks arrested in the phone hacking and bribery investigation. In Afghanistan, assassins kill a second senior official. He was a member of parliament and a key advisor to Afghan President Karzai. Nelson Mandela, turning 93. South Africans pay tribute to their former president by performing at least 67 minutes of volunteering, one minute for each year Mandela spent fighting for freedom in South Africa. 15 days from now, your dollar may be worth less, your loans could cost more. That is, if the government runs out of money and is unable to pay its bills. With a major breakthrough increasingly out of reach, lawmakers are showing more interest in a fallback plan. The compromise measure would allow the President to raise the debt ceiling and avert crisis before lawmakers agree on where the spending cuts can go. A vote on that could happen this week. The fallback plan would likely pass the Democrat-controlled Senate but face a bigger challenge in the House where Republicans hold the majority. Let's get the latest now with CNN's Brianna Keilar. She's at the White House. Well, Brianna, are we any closer to a deal than we were a week ago when we talked?</s>BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, on a comprehensive deficit reduction plan, Kyra, it doesn't appear so. But while there were no announced meetings between the White House and congressional leaders over the weekend, there were definitely staff- level meetings and a lot of focus has to do with this fallback plan that you mentioned. It's sort of the brainchild of the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, and he's working out some details with the Senate majority leader Harry Reid. What it would essentially do is give the president, for all practical purposes, the ability to increase the debt ceiling with really just a minority of support from Congress. It would allow Congress to voice its disapproval and this is something that the president would have to do in three increments over time between now and the November 2012 election. But, Kyra, this doesn't address entitlement reform and certainly that idea of the tax increases, the Democrats are still demanding and the White House is still saying no to -- pardon me, that the White House also wants and Republicans are saying no to, there's still an impasse over that, just like when we spoke last week.</s>PHILLIPS: All right, Brianna Keilar at the White House. And we'll continue to talk about it, I am sure, all this week. All right, all two developments in the Rupert Murdoch scandal. Police investigating the illegal wiretapping and bribery charges of a top executive in the company. We'll have more on that in just a moment. But first the resignation of Britain's top cop, the man in charge of Scotland Yard. Sir Paul Stephenson says that he did nothing wrong but regrets the criticism that -- that his police failed to do enough.</s>SIR PAUL STEPHENSON, METROPOLITAN POLICE COMMISSIONER: However the issue of my integrity is different. Let me state clearly, I, and the people who know me, know that my integrity is completely intact. I may wish we had done some things differently, but I will not lose any sleep over my personal integrity.</s>PHILLIPS: Let's get the latest now from London and CNN's Dan Rivers.</s>DAN RIVERS, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kyra, another scalp has been claimed by this ever-growing scandal. The most senior policemen in Britain, Sir Paul Stephenson, has resigned. Meanwhile, the former chief executive of News International, of Rupert Murdoch's newspaper group here, Rebekah Brooks, she has been taken in, arrested by the police for questioning. She was detained for some 12 hours on Sunday night and finally released just after midnight. There was speculation that that would have meant that she wouldn't have turned up on Tuesday afternoon, London time, to be grilled by politicians. But we're being told by her spokesman that she will be there. She won't appear together with James and Rupert Murdoch. She'll appear after them. But she will be there. She'll have to be careful about what she says and the politicians, equally, have said they will be careful about which questions they ask and how they frame those questions. They don't want to see clearly prejudice any possible trial that may come out of this. But it will be a committee session that will be viewed by millions of people, I would expect, with lots of people wanting to know who knew what, how high up the newspaper group into Rupert Murdoch's empire this scandal went -- Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: And CNN will have live coverage of tomorrow's expected testimony by Brooks, Rupert Murdoch and his son, James. It's scheduled to begin this time tomorrow at 9:30 Eastern. Michele Bachmann, changing her tune on conservative pledge already signed by most of the other Republican presidential hopefuls. Our deputy political director Paul Steinhauser joining us now. So, Paul, this is the cut, cap and balance pledge she previously said didn't go far enough.</s>PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN DEPUTY POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Exactly. Now she's changing her mind on this one. You're going to hear a lot about this pledge over the next couple of days on the campaign trail and also right here in Washington. Where she's going to sign today? South Carolina. Why? Two reasons, South Carolina, of course, a crucial early voting state, the first primary in the south. And also it's home to Senator Jim DeMint. He was the mastermind behind this pledge. Let's take a look at this pledge. What is it? Let's start with cuts. This pledge calls for a cut of substantial amount of spending to bring down roughly $1.5 trillion in that deficit expected this year. Cap, federal spending at 18 percent of the GDP. It's at 24 percent and pass a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution that includes spending caps and to make it more difficult to raise taxes. Now Bachmann, Kyra, she starts today in Iowa before going to South Carolina and sign this pledge. And you're going to see Tim Pawlenty spending all week in Iowa, five days this week, campaigning across the state. Basically he's going to be there between now and that crucial straw poll in Ames next month. Why? Because Iowa is so important to Pawlenty's campaign as well for the race for the White House. He's a former Minnesota governor. And you know he needs to do well in that straw poll plus the caucuses in February if he hopes to win the Republican presidential nomination. But Bachmann could get in his way -- Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: All right. Well, Rick Perry, more hints over the weekend about a presidential run.</s>STEINHAUSER: Yes, we keep talking about Rick Perry, the Texas governor. Is he going to run or not? Well, he's leaning towards it, in the "Des Moines Register." Remember that's the big newspaper in Iowa. Iowa, of course, the first state in the race to the White House. The first state to vote. Well, this is what he said in an interview published over the weekend. "I'm not ready to tell you that I'm ready to announce that I'm in but I'm getting more and more comfortable every day that this is what I've been called to do. This is what America needs." Kyra, I don't know. That's a pretty good hint to me. What do you think?</s>PHILLIPS: I don't know. I don't think even you have to be read between the lines. Just read the lines. Thanks, Paul.</s>STEINHAUSER: Thank you.</s>PHILLIPS: We'll have your next political update in just about an hour. And a reminder you can always go to our Web site CNNPolitics -- or CNN.com/politics. All right, Japan not a big soccer country. But its Women's World Cup win is huge and happy news there today. Their team out-shot the U.S. from yesterday's final in Germany. And our Zain Verjee was there, is still there live in Frankfurt. And I know we were rooting for the U.S., Zain. That was very important to us, but, hey, it couldn't happen to a better team. They needed this for morale. That is for sure.</s>ZAIN VERJEE, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: They really did, you know. Japan came into this tournament as the big underdogs. Nobody expected them to even get to the finals, let alone beat the U.S. They also knocked out Sweden. They knocked out Germany and it was just absolutely incredible. When they started the match, everyone was saying they have more skill, they have better possession of the ball, they know how to control and how to pass it. But actually, you know, the Americans really did a good job, too. It seemed the Japanese were a little nervous to start off with. The U.S. had possession. They were aggressive. They came hard out of the gate. But they were very unlucky. They had a lot of opportunities and they just kept missing. And one of the big tragedies I'm sure they'll replay over and over again in their heads were just the mistakes they were making on the defense line that let the two Japanese goals in. I mean everyone thought it was a done deal at the end of extra time. There was such a few minutes to go and the Japanese, boom, scored it in. It went down to penalties which is a kind of an unfair way of deciding but somebody has to win. And that's the way they did it. The U.S. President Barack Obama sent out a tweet and he said this, Kyra. "I couldn't be prouder of the U.S. after a hard-fought game. Congratulations to Japan," he said. "The Women's World Cup champions." And then Ellen DeGeneres said this, "Great job, U.S. soccer. You're all amazing and champions in my book." And by the way, the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is out on a trip and she made a bet, Kyra, with the Japanese foreign minister. And she lost the bet. But she bet New York apples for Japanese pears. So she's going to be picking some apples in New York.</s>PHILLIPS: And my bet is you came home with something. Because all you could talk about was this game. I mean there's no special pompom, no T-shirts, no caps, no ticket stubs? You don't have anything for me? Nothing?</s>VERJEE: No. I do. I have all of that. And I actually found a North Korea football T-shirt there in the store. So I've picked one of those up, too, and some nice U.S. T-shirts and sweatshirts and things like that, you know. But, you know, Kyra, the thing, too, the U.S. team here really wanted to win so badly, because they've always been under the shadow of the 1999 team, you know. That match was so magical. What other team could be Mia, Julia, or Brandi? They really thought that they could do it. They had the speed, the stamina, the never-say-die attitude. They did do a fabulous job. But it just wasn't their night -- Kyra.</s>PHILLIPS: Yes. They're still amazing athletes. Zain Verjee, thanks. An Iowa congressman and his family safe after a home invasion. We'll tell you what happened inside this rural home when we go "Cross Country" after the break. And a pretty tough good-bye. Atlantis gets ready to undock from the ISS for the last time. We'll have more on the shuttle's farewell ceremony.