The phone-hacking charges involving Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has mostly been a British scandal. But the tentacles of his empire extend far beyond Britain. Ken Auletta, media writer for The New Yorker, talks to Mary Louise Kelly about the scope of the News Corp. media empire.

Rupert Murdoch's media company has been under fire for a phone-hacking scandal in Britain. On Wednesday, News Corp. announced it was withdrawing a bid to buy full interest in the British broadcast company BSkyB. Murdoch has suffered a stunning loss of political influence in Britain.

As negotiations continue over the nation's deficit and debt ceiling, Thomas Hoenig is calling on the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates. Hoenig, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, says low rates have helped big banks but they're not allowing average people to save. Hoenig talks to Stave Inskeep about his ideas and what they could mean for the economy.

Mary Louise Kelly has business news.

Southern Californians are calling it Carpacoplypse and Carmagadden. This weekend, Interstate 405 in Los Angeles will shut down completely for construction. The closure is causing a certain amount of panic.

What do astronauts eat aboard the space shuttle? Mary Louise Kelly and Steve Inskeep report on the culinary delights of space.

The number of homes in foreclosure fell sharply in the first half of this year. But that doesn't mean the housing market is getting better.

It just means the foreclosure process has stalled as lenders and state attorneys general try to work out a settlement over the robosigning scandal.

The Space Age left a sleekly modern mark on everything from office parks to kitchenware to kids' TV shows like The Jetsons. Even today, if you drive around Los Angeles, you'll see relics of Space Age architecture, including the flamboyantly futuristic Los Angeles International Airport and a nearby coffee shop called Pann's.

As the sexual assault case against Dominique Strauss-Kahn appears to weaken, many in France are speculating about whether the former head of the International Monetary Fund can revive his political career. New charges in France and the nonstop media coverage of the saga seem to be weighing against him.

The Arab Spring has largely bypassed Lebanon, but the new government may still be in jeopardy.

Growing unrest next door in Syria is seen as an imminent danger. It doesn't help that a key player in the new government is Hezbollah, the Shiite militia and party backed by the increasingly unpopular regime in Damascus. Nor does it help that four Hezbollah members are accused in the killing of a former Lebanese prime minister — a charge Hezbollah denies.