[Kyra Phillips, Cnn Anchor:] It's 10:00 a.m. on the East Coast, 7:00 a.m. out West. I'm Kyra Phillips. Thanks for joining us. The scandal deepens for Rupert Murdoch and his media empire rock by shame. Today, talk of new investigations from Washington to London. We're keeping a close eye on Wall Street, too. What could be good news for your investments? Stocks appear ready to rebound. The crew of the space shuttle "Atlantis" wakens to Elton John for singing then delivering a personal message of thanks. We begin this hour with the national debt and a new reason for millions of Americans to worry. President Obama says if the debt ceiling is not raise by the August 2nd deadline, your Social Security check may be put on hold. Some Republicans say the White House is using scare tactics. The GOP's top man in the Senate, Mitch McConnell is offering a plan that would guarantee there's no default. He wants them to streamline the process by empowering President Obama to raise the debt before the congressional vote. Some Democrats and some Republicans that's a copout that only delays the tough decisions. Now back to the Social Security checks. Dan Lothian at the White House. Dan, what do you think? How real of a threat is it?
[Dan Lothian, Cnn White House Correspondent:] Well, the White House certainly says that it's a real threat. You've been hearing this from the Treasury Department talking about the overall impact on the economy if a deal isn't reached, but also on individual Americans. Jay Carney was spelling out how it would not only be just Social Security, but also veterans' benefits, disability benefits. President Obama painted that grim picture during an interview with CBS News yesterday.
[Barack Obama, President Of The United States Of America:] I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven't resolved this issue because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.
[Lothian:] So what happens if they can't reach that agreement with all that's at stake here? Well, you're hearing this latest backup plan being floated by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. It's unclear whether or not this is a real viable option, but nonetheless, it would give President Obama the authority to raise that debt ceiling in three different increments before the 2012 election. And as you pointed out earlier, this is something that Senator McConnell is catching some heat for from his own party, conservatives saying that he is essentially caving to pressure from Democrats. As for the White House, White House Spokesman Jay Carney put out a statement that read in part, quote, "Senator McConnell's proposal reaffirmed what leaders of both parties have stated clearly, that defaulting on America's bills are not an option. It is time for our leaders to find common ground and reduce our deficit in a way that will strengthen our economy." So clearly there is a lot of work to be done as lawmakers come back to the White House this afternoon for the fourth straight day in a row. Kyra
[Phillips:] OK, Dan. Thanks. We're just getting word now, three bombs exploding in the congested area of Mumbai. That's India's financial capitol. CNN's sister station, CNN IBN is reporting that at least 15 people were injured there. We're following it now. Once again, three bomb blasts in Mumbai. At least 15 people reported wounded. We're tracking it for you. Rupert Murdoch built a media empire on the power of selling a scandal. And today, it's his mighty News Corporation that's under siege from London to Washington. Now a prominent U.S. senator, Jay Rockefeller, wants to know if U.S. citizens fell victim to sleazy or illegal news gathering as well. He is calling for an investigation amidst reports that victims of the 911 attacks are among the nearly 4,000 people who had their phones hacked. The outrage is crushing. Over the past week, the media giant has lost nearly $7 billion in market value, and the political damage is mounting. Today, Britain's prime minister meets with the family of a murdered little girl. Murdoch's newspaper allegedly hacked her cell phone to gain an edge on that story. One target of the alleged phone hacking, actor Hugh Grant and he explains why all of us should care here in the U.S.
[Hugh Grant, Actor:] Rupert Murdoch does own an enormous amount of your media, you know, with Fox News and Fox station and 20th Century Fox pictures, et cetera, and some of your newspapers. And I think people need to ask themselves, you know, who is this man who owns such a large part of our media? And I think, you know, when you hear some of the new allegations about who the "News of the World" was phone hacking that may include just allegations at this stage some of the 911 victims. I don't know, that may strike a chord with Americans.
[Phillips:] Now the British media scandal involving Murdoch's News Corporation has put Fox News in a bit of a bind, and the network has apparently gone out of its way to avoid reporting on its parent company's troubles. That may have been painfully obvious on the show "Fox News Watch." CNN's Brian Todd joins me with more. Brian
[Brian Todd, Cnn Correspondent:] Kyra, many questions recently about the extent to which Rupert Murdoch's entities have covered the "News of the World" scandal. These are questions fuelled in part by a clip from that program you just mentioned called "Fox News Watch." We're going to show you this clip. It's from this past Sunday. It's streaming video meant for the public, but it's during a commercial and not part of the broadcast. Panelists are talking about a certain news story. Take a listen.
[Unidentified Male:] Anybody want to bring up the subject we're not talking about today for the streamers? Sure. Go ahead. I'm not going to touch it.
[Unidentified Female:] With a 10-foot turban.
[Todd:] Now, it may seem obvious that they're talking about the "News of the World" scandal. We've in fact confirmed that's what they were talking about. We did a search of Fox transcripts to double- check some of this. Now despite the fact that "Fox News Watch" is about the news media, we found no mentions of the "News of the World" scandal on that program, no mention of "News of the World" at all since August of 2006. Now as for the broader Fox News Channel coverage, the "L.A. Times" reports that Fox News stayed mainly silent on the scandal during prime time on Thursday. That's when it broke that Murdoch was shutting down "News of the World." We found about seven mentions of the story on Fox News Channel over the past week, including one reporter piece and that's compared to other major news networks where covered was very extensive. We could not get spokespeople for News Corporation or Fox News Channel to comment on this. We do have to say, though, our colleagues in Britain tell us that Sky News, one of Murdoch's other entities was not holding back in its coverage and in our search of mentions of the story on CNN, we should say, turns up around 100 of them over the past week. So a fair question could be is CNN maybe over covering this, Kyra
[Phillips:] And Brian, I mean, I believe "Wall Street Journal" also owned by Murdoch, it made the front page, right?
[Todd:] It did, and we kind of went on a review of some of his newspaper holdings. That is a mixed bag as far as his major U.S. papers are concerned. Now we looked at it the day after it was announced that "News of the World" was shutting down. That was the Friday papers after he announced it on Thursday. Well, here's "The New York Post," one of his major holdings in the United States. Big Casey Anthony page here, but you don't really see "News of the World" mentioned until page 29 here in a short article. That's compared to the "New York Times" on Friday, a big front- page story on it there, the "Washington Post" on Friday, pretty much the same thing, big front-page story on the right-hand side there. We do have to say, as you mentioned, Kyra, the "Wall Street Journal," to be fair, one of the most distinguished newspapers in the United States. It does have a front-page story here, major story with extensive coverage on the jump page. Also his paper, "The Times of London," in Britain, yesterday and today, has major front-page headlines, major front-page stories on this scandal both yesterday and today so two of his major newspapers and his Sky News Network not shying away from covering this story.
[Phillips:] Brian Todd. Appreciate it. I want to take you now live to the breaking news we told you about moments ago, the three bombs going off in Mumbai. Mallika Kapur on the phone with us right now as we just start to get in these live pictures. Monica, bring us up to date. At least 15 people injured, right?
[Mallika Kapur, Cnn Correspondent:] That's right. That what's he hear that at least 15 people have been injured, and these explosions went off at about 7:00, 7:10 p.m. local time, it's now about 7:40 p.m. local time here in Mumbai, so about a half hour ago. There have been three blasts in various parts of the city, two in the south, one up north and another bizarre area in the upper house, and one thing that's common in all three areas is that they are very extremely crowded, congested areas. It is rush hour in the evening, 7:00 p.m., people on their way home from work. These areas are very, very crowded, and some places the roads are so narrow it's difficult to get cars in. In another area the roads are so narrow. It's just filled with hundreds and hundreds of people in the evening. It's close to a very important railway station so very, very busy commercial areas, all three of them. One thing I do want to point out, Kyra, is that they have been very careful not to call these bombs. They're not saying bombs have gone of yet, because what we do know is there have been explosions that have gone off, but they've been careful not to call them bombs. We do not know what caused these explosions yet. So they are being very careful telling people we don't know if they're bombs yet. They're investigating a meter box on top of an electric pole where there's been an incident could have taken place. One eye witness is talking about a different box saying that there was an explosion next to a different. So it's very early, just about half an hour since the explosions went off, and we are waiting to see whether the government will say that they are indeed bombs, or whether for the moment they are just saying they're explosions.
[Phillips:] Mallika, just real quickly, it's like we're having flashbacks from 2008 in those terrorist attacks in Mumbai killing so many people there. And if you look at the I guess, where these explosions have happened, you could only assume, although we have not obviously confirmed it, that this could be a terrorist attack. It's the drive home from work, it's near the railway station, as you mentioned. This is where, obviously, terrorists would know a lot of people are at a certain time.
[Kapur:] That's absolutely right. As you said, when the three locations, it doesn't seem to be a coincidence and again, as you pointed out, it's very early for us to say what caused this, whether it is a terrorist attack by any chance. They're being very careful not to even call it a bomb blast at the moment. But yes, when you look at the three spots, the one thing that is common in all three locations is that they are very, very busy. And it is rush hour, and anybody would know that these are the three spots in Mumbai at around 7:00 p.m. that would probably be among the three most crowded spots in the entire city. So it could be I mean, it could be that somebody has chosen these spots quite carefully for maximum impact.
[Phillips:] All right. We will continue to follow this breaking news story with our Mallika Kapur joining us on the phone from India. Once again, three explosions in Mumbai, it looks like they're coordinated attacks reminiscent of those 10 coordinated attacks back in 2008 that killed more than 160 people. We're following this story for you to see if, indeed, this was a terrorist attack. More from the CNN NEWSROOM straight ahead.