by: Alan Cowell and John F. Burns | The New York Times

LONDON — Once among the most powerful figures in the British media, Rebekah Brooks, the former head of Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper empire and a close friend of Prime Minister David Cameron, faced charges on Tuesday that she, her husband and four others conspired to pervert the course of justice in the hacking scandal that has burrowed into public life here.

It was the first time that charges have been formulated since the police reopened inquiries into the affair in January 2011.