Best Space Pictures of 2012: Editor's Picks

Photograph courtesy Tunç Tezel, APOY/Royal Observatory

This image of the Milky Way's vast star fields hanging over a valley of human-made light was recognized in the 2012 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition run by the U.K.’s Royal Observatory Greenwich.

To get the shot, photographer Tunç Tezel trekked to Uludag National Park near his hometown of Bursa, Turkey. He intended to watch the moon and evening planets, then take in the Perseids meteor shower.

"We live in a spiral arm of the Milky Way, so when we gaze through the thickness of our galaxy, we see it as a band of dense star fields encircling the sky," said Marek Kukula, the Royal Observatory's public astronomer and a contest judge.

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Why We Love It

"I like the way this view of the Milky Way also shows us a compelling foreground landscape. It also hints at the astronomy problems caused by light pollution."—Chris Combs, news photo editor

Published December 11, 2012

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Mall Gunman Wanted to Kill 'Total Strangers'













The masked gunman who opened fire in the crowded Clackamas Town Center mall in suburban Portland, Ore., killing two and seriously injuring a third before killing himself, was trying to "kill as many people as possible."


The shooter, wearing a white hockey mask, black clothing and a bullet proof vest, tore through the mall just before 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, entering through a Macy's store and heading to the food court and public areas spraying bullets, according to witness reports.


Police have identified the gunman, but have not released his name, Sheriff Craig Roberts told "Good Morning America."


"We have been able to identify the shooter over this last night," Roberts said. "I believe, at least from the information that's been provided to me at this point in time, it really was a killing of total strangers. To my knowledge at this point in time he was really trying, I think, to kill as many people as possible."


Police have not released the names of the shooter's victims. Clackamas County Sheriff's Department Lt. James Rhodes said authorities are in the process of notifying victims' families.


The injured victim, identified by hospital officials as Kristina Shevchenko, has been taken to a hospital, according to Roberts.


PHOTOS: Oregon Mall Shooting






Craig Mitchelldyer/Getty Images











Oregon Mall Shooting: 'Killing of Total Strangers' Watch Video









Oregon Mall Shooting: Woman on Macy's Employee's Heroism Watch Video









Oregon Mall Shooting: At Least 3 People Dead Watch Video





Nadia Telguz, who said she was a friend of Shevchenko, told ABC News affiliate KATU-TV in Portland that the woman was expected to recover.


"My friend's sister got shot," Teleguz told KATU. "She's on her way to (Oregon Health and Science University Hospital). They're saying she got shot in her side and so it's not life-threatening, so she'll be OK."


Witnesses from the shooting rampage said that a young man who appeared to be a teenager, ran through the upper level of Macy's to the mall food court, firing multiple shots, one right after the other, with what is believed to be a black, semi-automatic rifle.


By 4:40 p.m., police reported finding a group of people hiding in a storeroom. In a surreal moment, even the mall Santa was seen running for his life.


"I didn't know where the gunman was, so I decided to kind of eased my way out," said the mall Santa, who the AP identified as 68-year-old Brance Wilson.


More than 10,000 shoppers were at the mall during the day, according to police. Roberts said that officers responded to the scene of the shooting within minutes, and four SWAT teams swept the 1.4 million-square-foot building searching for the shooter. He was eventually found dead, an apparent suicide.


"I can confirm the shooter is dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound," Rhodes said. "By all accounts there were no rounds fired by law enforcement today in the mall."


Roberts said more than 100 law enforcement officers responded to the shooting, and the FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are working with local agencies to trace the shooter's weapon.


Cell phone video shot at the scene shows the chaos soon after the shooting. When police arrived they were met head on by terrified shoppers, children and employees streaming out. Customers, even a little girl, were being lead out with their hands up.


"I think a variety of things happened that I think this could have been much, much worse," Roberts told "GMA." "And to give you some ideas, we got the call at 3:29, we had someone on scene within a minute, 30 seconds.






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US trade gap widens in October as exports fall






WASHINGTON - The US trade deficit widened in October as exports fell sharply from the prior month amid a slowing global economy, government data released Tuesday showed.

The trade gap increased to US$42.2 billion from a revised US$40.3 billion in September, the Commerce Department said.

Exports fell by 3.6 percent, while imports fell by 2.1 percent.

The decline in exports was the sharpest since January 2009, led by a 4.8 percent drop in goods exports.

"Trade looks to contribute slightly to US GDP growth again in the current quarter, but pronounced weakness in exports and imports says all there is to say about the US economy's momentum," said Sal Guatieri at BMO Capital Markets.

The politically sensitive trade shortfall with China, one of the United States' biggest trading partners, expanded to a record US$28.1 billion, bringing the year's 10-month total to US$245.5 billion.

The three-month average trade deficit rose to US$41.7 billion in October from US$41.5 billion in September.

- AFP/ir



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EC asks Centre to stop increase in cap on subsidized LPG cylinders

NEW DELHI: The Election Commission has written to the petroleum ministry directing that the move to raise LPG cylinder cap from six to nine cylinders a year, as reportedly announced by minister Veerappa Moily on Tuesday afternoon, be "stopped forthwith". It has also sought explanation from the minister on the alleged provocation for announcing the sop less than two days before polling for the first phase in Gujarat.

The minister has been asked to send in his reply by 11 am on Wednesday.

"It has come to the notice of the Commission from media reports quoting Moily, Union minister of petroleum and natural gas, that the Central government is increasing the supply of subsidized gas cylinders to each household from the present level of six cylinders to nine cylinders in a year," it was pointed in the letter signed by EC secretary Harbans Singh.

The Commission reminded the government that "the election process to the legislative assemblies of the states of Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh is currently on and the model code of conduct is in operation."

"The Commission has taken strong exception to your aforesaid announcement when the first phase of polling in the state of Gujarat is only two days away. The Commission has desired that you explain your above action at this juncture," the EC said in its letter to the minister.

Sources in the EC told TOI that the Commission would take action after examining the time when Moily reportedly announced the sop. In case it was done prior to 5 pm on Tuesday, it would invite a rap for violation of the mode code of conduct. However, it was made at 5 pm or later, it would invite action under Section 126 the Representation of People's Act, as it would be a violation of the ban on campaigning for 48 hours before the end of poll.

The first phase of polling in Gujarat is slated for December 13.

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U.K. Dash for Shale Gas a Test for Global Fracking

Thomas K. Grose in London


The starting gun has sounded for the United Kingdom's "dash for gas," as the media here have dubbed it.

As early as this week, a moratorium on shale gas production is expected to be lifted. And plans to streamline and speed the regulatory process through a new Office for Unconventional Gas and Oil were unveiled last week in the annual autumn budget statement by the chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne.

In the U.K., where all underground mineral rights concerning fossil fuels belong to the crown, hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, could unlock a new stream of government revenue as well as fuel. But it also means that there is no natural constituency of fracking supporters as there is in the United States, birthplace of the technology. In the U.S., concerns over land and water impact have held back fracking in some places, like New York, but production has advanced rapidly in shale basins from Texas to Pennsylvania, with support of private landowners who earn royalties from leasing to gas companies. (Related: "Natural Gas Stirs Hope and Fear in Pennsylvania")

A taste of the fight ahead in the U.K. came ahead of Osborne's speech last weekend, when several hundred protesters gathered outside of Parliament with a mock 23-foot (7-meter) drilling rig. In a letter they delivered to Prime Minister David Cameron, they called fracking "an unpredictable, unregulatable process" that was potentially toxic to the environment.

Giving shale gas a green light "would be a costly mistake," said Andy Atkins, executive director of the U.K.'s Friends of the Earth, in a statement. "People up and down the U.K. will be rightly alarmed about being guinea pigs in Osborne's fracking experiment. It's unnecessary, unwanted and unsafe."

The government has countered that natural gas-fired power plants would produce half the carbon dioxide emissions of the coal plants that still provide about 30 percent of the U.K.'s electricity. London Mayor Boris Johnson, viewed as a potential future prime minister, weighed in Monday with a blistering cry for Britain to "get fracking" to boost cleaner, cheaper energy and jobs. "In their mad denunciations of fracking, the Greens and the eco-warriors betray the mindset of people who cannot bear a piece of unadulterated good news," he wrote in the Daily Telegraph. (Related Quiz: "What You Don't Know About Natural Gas")

Energy Secretary Edward Davey, who is expected this week to lift the U.K.'s year-and-a-half-old moratorium on shale gas exploration, said gas "will ensure we can keep the lights on as increasing amounts of wind and nuclear come online through the 2020s."

A Big Role for Gas

If the fracking plan advances, it will not be the first "dash for gas" in the U.K. In the 1980s, while Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher battled with mining unions, she undercut their clout by moving the nation toward generating a greater share of its electricity from natural gas and less from coal. So natural gas already is the largest electricity fuel in Britain, providing 40 percent of electricity. (Related Interactive: "World Electricity Mix")

The United Kingdom gets about 10 percent of its electricity from renewable energy, and has plans to expand its role. But Davey has stressed the usefulness of gas-fired plants long-term as a flexible backup source to the intermittent electricity generated from wind and solar power. Johnson, on the other hand, offered an acerbic critique of renewables, including the "satanic white mills" he said were popping up on Britain's landscape. "Wave power, solar power, biomass—their collective oomph wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding," he wrote.

As recently as 2000, Great Britain was self-sufficient in natural gas because of conventional gas production in the North Sea. But that source is quickly drying up. North Sea production peaked in 2000 at 1,260 terawatt-hours (TWH); last year it totaled just 526 TWh.

Because of the North Sea, the U.K. is still one of the world's top 20 producers of gas, accounting for 1.5 percent of total global production. But Britain has been a net importer of gas since 2004. Last year, gas imports—mainly from Norway, Belgium, and the Netherlands—accounted for more than 40 percent of domestic demand.

The government hopes to revive domestic natural gas production with the technology that has transformed the energy picture in the United States—horizontal drilling into deep underground shale, and high-pressure injection of water, sand, and chemicals to create fissures in the rock to release the gas. (Related Interactive: "Breaking Fuel From the Rock")

A Tougher Road

But for a number of reasons, the political landscape is far different in the United Kingdom. Britain made a foray into shale gas early last year, with a will drilled near Blackpool in northwest England. The operator, Cuadrilla, said that that area alone could contain 200 trillion cubic feet of gas, which is more than the known reserves of Iraq. But the project was halted after drilling, by the company's own admission, caused two small earthquakes. (Related: "Tracing Links Between Fracking and Earthquakes" and "Report Links Energy Activities To Higher Quake Risk") The April 2011 incident triggered the moratorium that government now appears to be ready to lift. Cuadrilla has argued that modifications to its procedures would mitigate the seismic risk, including lower injection rates and lesser fluid and sand volumes. The company said it will abandon the U.K. unless the moratorium is soon lifted.

A few days ahead of Osborne's speech, the Independent newspaper reported that maps created for Britain's Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) showed that 32,000 square miles, or 64 percent of the U.K. countryside, could hold shale gas reserves and thus be open for exploration. But a DECC spokeswoman said "things are not quite what it [the Independent story] suggests." Theoretically, she said, those gas deposits do exist, but "it is too soon to predict the scale of exploration here." She said many other issues, ranging from local planning permission to environmental impact, would mean that some tracts would be off limits, no matter how much reserve they held. DECC has commissioned the British Geological Survey to map the extent of Britain's reserves.

Professor Paul Stevens, a fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, said the U.K. is clearly interested in trying to replicate America's shale gas revolution. "That's an important part of the story," he said, but trying to use the American playbook won't be easy. "It's a totally different ballgame." In addition to the fact that mineral rights belong to the crown, large expanses of private land that are commonplace in America don't exist in England. Just as important, there is no oil- and gas-service industry in place in Britain to quickly begin shale gas operations here. "We don't have the infrastructure set up," said Richard Davies, director of the Durham Energy Institute at Durham University, adding that it would take years to build it.

Shale gas production would also likely ignite bigger and louder protests in the U.K. and Europe. "It's much more of a big deal in Europe," Stevens said. "There are more green [nongovernmental organizations] opposed to it, and a lot more local opposition."

In any case, the U.K. government plans to move ahead. Osborne said he'll soon begin consultations on possible tax breaks for the shale gas industry. He also announced that Britain would build up to 30 new natural gas-fired power plants with 26 gigawatts (GW) of capacity. The new gas plants would largely replace decommissioned coal and nuclear power plants, though they would ultimately add 5GW of additional power to the U.K. grid. The coalition government's plan, however, leaves open the possibility of increasing the amount of gas-generated electricity to 37GW, or around half of total U.K. demand.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that Europe may have as much as 600 trillion cubic feet of shale gas that could be recovered. But Stevens said no European country is ready to emulate the United States in producing massive amounts of unconventional gas. They all lack the necessary service industry, he said, and geological differences will require different technologies. And governments aren't funding the research and development needed to develop them.

Globally, the track record for efforts to produce shale gas is mixed:

  • In France, the EIA's estimate is that shale gas reserves total 5 trillion cubic meters, or enough to fuel the country for 90 years. But in September, President Francois Hollande pledged to continue a ban on fracking imposed last year by his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy.
  • Poland was also thought to have rich shale gas resources, but initial explorations have determined that original estimates of the country's reserves were overstated by 80 percent to 90 percent. After drilling two exploratory wells there, Exxon Mobil stopped operations. But because of its dependence on Russian gas, Poland is still keen to begin shale gas production.
  • South Africa removed a ban on fracking earlier this year. Developers are eyeing large shale gas reserves believed to underlie the semidesert Karoo between Johannesburg and Cape Town.
  • Canada's Quebec Province has had a moratorium on shale gas exploration and production, but a U.S. drilling company last month filed a notice of intent to sue to overturn the ban as a violation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
  • Germany's Environment Ministry has backed a call to ban fracking near drinking water reservoirs.
  • China drilled its initial shale gas wells this year; by 2020, the nation's goal is for shale gas to provide 6 percent of its massive energy needs. The U.S. government's preliminary assessment is that China has the world's largest "technically recoverable" shale resources, about 50 percent larger than stores in the United States. (Related: "China Drills Into Shale Gas, Targeting Huge Reserves")

This story is part of a special series that explores energy issues. For more, visit The Great Energy Challenge.


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Closing Tax Loopholes Not Enough to Avert 'Cliff'?













Closing "corporate tax loopholes" sure sounds good to the average, non-corporate American -- so good, in fact, that politicians talk about it all the time.


House Speaker John Boehner's fiscal-cliff proposal purports to raise $1.6 trillion in revenue by "clos[ing] special-interest loopholes and deductions while lowering rates."


The White House, meanwhile, has complained that Boehner hasn't offered specific loopholes to cut.


On the other side of the aisle, House Democrats have repeatedly offered up "closing overseas tax loopholes" as a means to pay for spending bills -- a plan Republicans routinely reject. In the last two and a half years, President Obama has often been heard griping about writeoffs for corporate jets.


For both Republicans and Democrats, "corporate tax loopholes" are an old saw. But, like most things in politics, raising revenue from "loopholes" gets a bit stickier when the specifics are hashed out.


A misconception about tax "loopholes," some experts say, is that they're loopholes -- gaps in the tax law that corporations have exploited against the law's intent.






Carolyn Kaster/AP Photo; Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo















Fiscal Cliff Battle: President Obama vs. Speaker John Boehner Watch Video





"Most of these proposals were not 'loopholes,' these were incentives," said Eric Toder, co-director of the left-leaning Tax Policy Center.


For example, take the research-and-development tax credit. During the campaign, both Obama and Mitt Romney suggested making it permanent.


"One wouldn't call the research credit a loophole," Toder said.


Cashing in by closing the biggest "loopholes" could be a politically fraught endeavor. To generate meaningful revenue, House Republicans would have to sign off on measures that raised it from taxing the overseas profits of multinational corporations, from ending immediate writeoffs of equipment purchases, or from ending a credit for domestic manufacturing.


When the Joint Committee on Taxation scored some of these provisions, as part of a tax-reform bill pushed by Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and then-GOP-senator Judd Gregg, it found the government could save significantly:


Savings Over 10 Years: 2011-2021


Taxing Overseas Profits of Multinational Corps: $582.7 billion. In other words, the "overseas tax loophole" Democrats are fond of trashing. While most countries with large economies tax only profits made at home, the U.S. code taxes all income everywhere. To offset the different, U.S. multinational corporations receive credits to prevent double taxing. They also can defer paying any tax on foreign income, until they transfer the money back to the United States.


Taxing that profit could generate significant revenue. But this could be controversial, and large corporations would fight it. A senior aide to one business lobbying group said ending foreign-income deferral would amount to double-taxing U.S. companies and put them at a disadvantage to foreign competitors; one supporter of ending deferral suggested U.S. companies have been able to hide profits overseas, avoiding taxes altogether.






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SAF serviceman injured onboard ship berthed at Changi Naval Base






SINGAPORE: A Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) regular serviceman has been critically injured while onboard the Landing Ships Tank RSS Endeavour, which is berthed at Changi Naval Base.

29-year-old ME2 Chee Weng Fai Jason, a Weapon Systems Supervisor, was checking on a berthing rope that was being tightened on Monday afternoon when he got caught between a motorised winch and the rope, said the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF).

The base's medical centre was alerted to the incident at 2.25pm and attended to Mr Chee within five minutes, said the ministry.

According to a statement from MINDEF, Mr Chee was attended to by a medical team led by four medical officers from the Changi Naval Medical Centre, who stabilised his condition before Mr Chee was sent via an SAF ambulance from the RSS Endeavour to Changi General Hospital.

Mr Chee has undergone emergency surgery and remains in critical condition.

The SAF is conducting an investigation to determine the cause of the incident.

- CNA/jc



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Wal-Mart lobbying creates storm, company denies illegality

NEW DELHI: The issue of Wal-Mart lobbying today led to a political storm with opposition creating pandemonium in the Rajya Sabha and promising to create further trouble on Tuesday by pressing its demand for a probe and a statement by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

BJP, CPM, CPI, SP, JD(U), Trinamool Congress, AGP and AIADMK used the issue to target the government over its decision to allow 51% FDI in retail.

These parties created ruckus in the Rajya Sabha soon after the Question Hour, alleging that the US giant had indulged in corruption to enter Indian market. The uproar led to three adjournments till 2 PM when the House was adjourned finally for the day.

Though the issue did not figure in the Lok Sabha today, the Opposition has decided to rake it up there tomorrow.

"It is a very serious issue. It has been raised in Rajya Sabha today. We propose to raise it in Lok Sabha tomorrow," senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha told reporters.

When pointed out that lobbying is not illegal in the US, the former external affairs minister said, "I know it is allowed in the US. But the laws of the two countries are different. Lobbying in the US does not mean corruption but in India, it does. That is the difference. There is illegality."

Earlier, Ravishankar Prasad (BJP) raised the issue in the Rajya Sabha during the Zero Hour. He said apprehensions were raised earlier also about Wal-Mart spending huge money to lobby for entering the Indian market and that it has now been proved true. He was supported by members of other opposition parties.

Bharti Wal-Mart issued a statement, saying the opposition allegations of corruption are "entirely false". It said the amount mentioned in its disclosure is a "compilation of expenses associated with staff, association dues, consultants and contributions spent in the US."

The Wal-Mart lobbying issue brought back into focus the decision on FDI with Opposition uniting even as motions brought by it got defeated in both Houses last week with government securing numbers with the help of BSP and SP.

Prasad said that Wal-Mart has in its lobbying disclosure report to the US Senate said it has spent Rs 125 crore on lobbying and $ 3 million have been spent in 2012 itself for entering the Indian market.

"Lobbying is illegal in India. Lobbying is a kind of bribe. If Wal-Mart has said that hundreds of crores of rupees were spent in India, then it is a kind of bribe. Government should tell who was given this bribe. This raises a question mark on the implementation of FDI in retail," he said.

The BJP leader was supported by TMC leader D Bandopadhyay who waved a newspaper report and CPM member P Rajeeve who demanded an "independent inquiry" into the whole episode alleging that there are some reports saying Wal-Mart invested money even before Fema was amended.

"This is bribery," he said as the Opposition members shouted slogans in favour of withdrawing FDI.

Amid din, SP members trooped into the Well shouting slogans against the government's move to bring reservation in promotion for SCs/STs. Government has listed the Constitution (117th Amendment) Bill, 2012 for this purpose in the House.

Earlier, minister of state for parliamentary affairs Rajiv Shukla assured the members that he would bring the matter to the notice of the minister concerned. This was, however, rejected by the opposition which insisted on a response from the Prime Minister.

T Siva (DMK) was also on his feet. Minister of state in PMO V Narayanasamy was heard saying "what more they (the Opposition) want, when he (Shukla) has said that he will bring it to the notice of the minister concerned". While BSP members kept seated, those from SP were on their feet joining the issue with BJP and Left.

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Plants Grow Fine Without Gravity


When researchers sent plants to the International Space Station in 2010, the flora wasn't meant to be decorative. Instead, the seeds of these small, white flowers—called Arabidopsis thaliana—were the subject of an experiment to study how plant roots developed in a weightless environment.

Gravity is an important influence on root growth, but the scientists found that their space plants didn't need it to flourish. The research team from the University of Florida in Gainesville thinks this ability is related to a plant's inherent ability to orient itself as it grows. Seeds germinated on the International Space Station sprouted roots that behaved like they would on Earth—growing away from the seed to seek nutrients and water in exactly the same pattern observed with gravity. (Related: "Beyond Gravity.")

Since the flowers were orbiting some 220 miles (350 kilometers) above the Earth at the time, the NASA-funded experiment suggests that plants still retain an earthy instinct when they don't have gravity as a guide.

"The role of gravity in plant growth and development in terrestrial environments is well understood," said plant geneticist and study co-author Anna-Lisa Paul, with the University of Florida in Gainesville. "What is less well understood is how plants respond when you remove gravity." (See a video about plant growth.)

The new study revealed that "features of plant growth we thought were a result of gravity acting on plant cells and organs do not actually require gravity," she added.

Paul and her collaborator Robert Ferl, a plant biologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, monitored their plants from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida using images sent from the space station every six hours.

Root Growth

Grown on a nutrient-rich gel in clear petri plates, the space flowers showed familiar root growth patterns such as "skewing," where roots slant progressively as they branch out.

"When we saw the first pictures come back from orbit and saw that we had most of the skewing phenomenon we were quite surprised," Paul said.

Researchers have always thought that skewing was the result of gravity's effects on how the root tip interacts with the surfaces it encounters as it grows, she added. But Paul and Ferl suspect that in the absence of gravity, other cues take over that enable the plant to direct its roots away from the seed and light-seeking shoot. Those cues could include moisture, nutrients, and light avoidance.

"Bottom line is that although plants 'know' that they are in a novel environment, they ultimately do just fine," Paul said.

The finding further boosts the prospect of cultivating food plants in space and, eventually, on other planets.

"There's really no impediment to growing plants in microgravity, such as on a long-term mission to Mars, or in reduced-gravity environments such as in specialized greenhouses on Mars or the moon," Paul said. (Related: "Alien Trees Would Bloom Black on Worlds With Double Stars.")

The study findings appear in the latest issue of the journal BMC Plant Biology.


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Royal Hoax: DJs 'Shattered' After Nurse's Suicide













The two Australian radio DJs who prank-called the London hospital where Kate Middleton was being treated last week said they were "shattered" and "gutted" after the nurse who answered their call apparently killed herself.


Shock jocks Mel Greig, 30, and Michael Christian, 25, cried as they spoke to Australia's Channel 9 overnight in their first public interview since Jacintha Saldanha, 46, the nurse who last week connected the pair to the duchess' room, was found dead Friday morning.


"I'm shattered, gutted, heartbroken," Christian said. "Mel and myself are incredibly sorry for the situation and what's happened. I had the idea. … It was just a simple harmless phone call. It was going to go on for 30 seconds. We were going to get hung up on."


FULL COVERAGE: Royal Baby


The host of the "2Day" FM radio show pretended to be Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles, asking for an update on Middleton's condition when they called up King Edward VII Hospital in central London. With no receptionist on duty overnight, Saldanha answered the prank call and put it through.


"It was just something that was fun and light-hearted and a tragic turn of events that I don't think anyone had expected," Christian said.






A Current Affair/ABC News











Jacintha Saldanha Dead: Could DJs Face Charges? Watch Video









Jacintha Saldanha Outrage: DJs Responsible for Prank Are in Hiding Watch Video







Saldanha was found dead Friday morning after police were called to an address near the hospital to "reports of a woman found unconscious," according to a statement from Scotland Yard.


Investigators have not said how she might have killed herself.


Greig cried today when asked about the moment she heard of the death of Saldanha, a mother of two.


"It was the worst phone call I've ever had in my life," she said through tears. "There's not a minute that goes by that we don't think about her family and the thought that we may have played a part in that is gut-wrenching."


The DJs said they never expected to get through to Middleton's nurse and assumed "the same phone calls had been made 100 times that morning," Christian said.


Grieg said, "We wanted to be hung up on with our silly voices and wanted a 20-second segment to air of us doing stupid voice. … Not for a second did we expect to even speak to Kate or even have a conversation with anyone at the hospital. We wanted to be hung up on."


The global backlash against the duo has been fierce, from online death threats to calls for prison time. Their radio station has announced it is banning phony phone calls altogether, and suspending advertising indefinitely.


Max Moore-Wilton, the chairman of Southern Cross Austereo, said in a letter Sunday to Lord Glenarthur, chairman of King Edward VII's Hospital, that the company is reviewing the station's broadcast policies, the AP reported.


"I can assure you we are taking immediate action and reviewing the broadcast and processes involved," Moore-Wilton said in the letter. "As we have said in our own statements on the matter, the outcome was unforeseeable and very regrettable."


Greig and Michael have been taken off the air, silenced indefinitely.



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