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News Corp is one of Australia’s best-known companies and most widely held shares

Shares of News Corporation, the company owned by Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch, have dropped almost 6% to a two-year low.

The slide comes as an investigation into phone hacking in the UK has widened and a key figure was arrested.

News Corp owns the two newspapers at the heart of the scandal, The Sun and the now closed News of the World.

In morning trading in Sydney, the shares were down 5.5% at 13.91 Australian dollars (£9.20).

Its shares have lost almost a fifth of their value since the start of July.

Widening probe

News Corp is the parent company of News International, which runs The Sun, the News of the World, The Times and Sunday Times.

On Sunday, ex-News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks was arrested by police in the UK on suspicion of conspiring to intercept communications and on suspicion of corruption.

Mrs Brooks has denied wrongdoing and was released on bail at midnight (2300 GMT).

In another twist, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson stepped down for his part in the phone hacking scandal.

Sir Paul, Britain’s most senior police officer, was criticised for hiring former News of the World executive Neil Wallis – who was questioned by police as part of the probe into hacking – as an adviser.

The problem of fuel poverty is becoming worse, the figures indicate

The number of UK households in fuel poverty rose by one million in 2009 to 5.5 million, government figures show.

Figures from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) predict that the numbers for 2010 and 2011 will rise because of continuing increases in the price of energy.

A household is described as being in fuel poverty when it has to spend more than 10% of its income keeping warm.

The DECC figures show that 21% of UK homes were in this position in 2009.