Midday Roundup: Emissions scandal wrecks Volkswagen's reputation

Fahrvergnügen? Volkswagen executives admitted today the emissions scandal first revealed Friday is much larger than previously thought. At least 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide will be recalled to fix emission control devices U.S. regulators claim were designed to function only during emissions testing. The device shut off during normal driving conditions, allowing the car to emit up to 40 times more pollution than regulations allow. The automaker has set aside $7.3 billion to address the issue. The company’s stock tanked after today’s revelation, and analysts say the crisis could spell doom for the German company that was poised to become one of the world’s largest automakers. The U.S. Justice Department has launched an investigation, as have government agencies in several other countries. Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn apologized, but it’s not clear how much he knew about intentional efforts to skirt regulations.

Foreign relations. Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in Washington state today for a weeklong U.S. visit that will include a meeting with President Barack Obama and an official state dinner at the White House. Xi will first tour Boeing’s biggest U.S. factory and Microsoft’s Seattle campus before meeting with business leaders to discuss ways to give U.S. companies better access to the Chinese consumer market. While the trip’s formal agenda focuses on trade ties, the undercurrent ripples with accusations of spying on both continents. U.S. officials have blamed Chinese hackers working for the ruling Communist Party for stealing the personal information of U.S. government employees earlier this year in one of the worst attacks ever on government data servers. In China, officials formally charged a Houston businesswoman with spying and stealing state secrets. Sandy Phan-Gillis has been held in a Chinese prison for six months. U.S. State Department officials would only say that they’re monitoring her case. Her family denies the spying allegations.

Blind eye. U.S. soldiers are attempting to blow the whistle on a disgusting Afghan tradition and paying for it with their careers. Two men claim they were relieved of their duties in Afghanistan shortly after confronting an American-backed Afghan police commander who sexually abused a young boy. “We basically had to make sure that he fully understood that if he ever went near that boy or his mother again, there was going to be hell to pay,” Dan Quinn told CNN. Quinn, an Army captain at the time, has since left the service. Sgt. 1st Class Charles Martland is facing an involuntary discharge despite protests from lawmakers. Both men say U.S. officials have a longstanding policy of ignoring sexual abuse of young boys, a common practice among powerful Afghan men. Pentagon officials deny the claim.

Salmonella sentence. A former peanut company executive will spend 28 years in prison for his role in covering up salmonella-tainted peanut butter that sickened 718 people in 2009. Nine people died after eating the products Stewart Parnell agreed to ship to stores even though he knew tests showed the presence of the potentially deadly bacteria. Parnell, 61, oversaw the Peanut Corporation of America, based in Albany, Ga. His brother, 56-year-old Michael Parnell, was sentenced last year to 20 years in prison. Evidence presented during trial showed the brothers went to great lengths to cover up the contamination, even creating fake certificates attesting to the peanuts’ purity. Such harsh sentences are rare in food contamination cases, and the brothers’ lawyer plans to appeal.