A journalist who made phone-hacking allegations against Britain's News of the World tabloid has been found dead and another of the UK's senior police officers has resigned, as the scandal widens.
The crisis has engulfed Rupert Murdoch's media empire, the police and increasingly the British government.
It was catapulted to a new level earlier this month with accusations that journalists hacked into the phones of a teenage murder victim, the families of soldiers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and relatives of victims of the 2005 London bombings.
Former News of the World reporter Sean Hoare had told the BBC's Panorama programme that phone hacking was "endemic" at the paper and that the then editor Andy Coulson had asked him to hack phones - something Mr Coulson has denied.
Mr Hoare had told the New York Times the practice was far more extensive than the paper acknowledged when police first investigated hacking claims.
Hertfordshire Police said the death was being treated as unexplained, but was not thought to be suspicious.
A BBC correspondent says Mr Hoare had drink and drugs problems and was said to be in poor physical health.
Andy Coulson was arrested in connection with the phone-hacking scandal, after stepping down from his later role as press secretary to British Prime Minister David Cameron.
Second British police chief resigns
Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism chief John Yates resigned on Monday, a day after Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson stepped down.
Mr Yates had been the focus of complaints that in 2009 he reviewed evidence of phone-hacking by the News of the World and ruled that it did not merit reopening inquiries.
Sir Paul was criticised for hiring a former News of the World executive, Neil Wallis, as a PR consultant. Mr Wallis was arrested last week over the hacking claims.
British police are under pressure for failing to investigate more widely after the jailing of a News of the World reporter in 2007.
They have since said an inquiry they relaunched in January has the names of some 4,000 people who may have been spied on.
Rupert Murdoch's media company closed down the News of the World on 10 July.
Mr Murdoch, 80, his son James, 38, along with Rebekah Brooks, 43 and a former editor of the News of the World, will be questioned by a committee of MPs on Tuesday.
Ms Brooks, who has resigned as New International chief executive, was arrested and questioned by police on Sunday.
