UNITED STATES

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq dipped on Friday after a pair of bellwether companies' earnings fell short of lofty expectations, though a trio of strong results from Dow components kept the blue-chip average in positive territory.

Shares of Google Inc fell 8 percent after the Internet giant's quarterly earnings missed estimates as money paid by marketers for its search ads fell for the first time in two years.

Opponents of two controversial Internet control laws, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) scored a partial gain Friday when a vote on PIPA was suddenly scrubbed.

Robert Redford opened the festival on Thursday.

In case you missed the Republican presidential debate in Charleston, S.C., Thursday night, here are the highlights, from Newt Gingrich's opening tirade against moderator John King of CNN to Ron Paul's defense of leaving abortion laws to the states.

Time experts were deadlocked on Thursday over whether to scrap "leap seconds" which are occasionally added to clocks to stop them running ahead of the sun.

Portugal clinched a deal on ambitious labor market reforms this week and carried out its biggest debt sale since seeking a 78-billion-euro bailout, but the challenges for the second-most risky country in the euro zone may be shifting up a gear.

Hamas has also called for the European Parliament to intervene on Dweik's behalf.

Kim Schmitz, founder of Megaupload and otherwise known by his alias Kim Dotcom, was arrested by the Department of Justice Thursday for content piracy and losses to copyright owners that amount to $500 million. Schmitz was found by police in his New Zealand mansion's safe room, with what looked like a sawed-off shotgun Detective Inspector Grant Wormald said.

A NATO helicopter crash in southern Afghanistan late Thursday took the lives of six members of the international military force. The crash is the deadliest helicopter-related incident in the country since August 2011 when 38 soldiers were killed.

A federally mandated review of pending deportation cases in Denver found that nearly a sixth of those cases could be closed, presaging a national change in how immigration courts function.

An unmanned heavy-lift Delta 4 rocket blasted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Thursday to put a high-speed broadband communications satellite into orbit for the U.S. military.

The global average temperature last year was the ninth-warmest in the modern meteorological record, continuing a trend linked to greenhouse gases that saw nine of the 10 hottest years occurring since the year 2000, NASA scientists said on Thursday.

Verizon Wireless and its cable partners are willing to give U.S. communication regulators confidential details of their agreement but objected to a request for information from Sprint Nextel (S.N), DirecTV (DTV.O), T-Mobile USA and others.

The S&P 500 and Nasdaq edged lower on Friday after GE and Google results fell short of expectations, while investors awaited a resolution in the latest round of Greek debt talks.

Microsoft Corp's fiscal second-quarter profit fell very slightly as lagging computer sales to cash-strapped consumers in the United States and Europe hurt its core Windows business.

Popular file-sharing sites, Megaupload and Megavideo were shut down by federal prosecutors on Thursday and hackers from Anonymous retaliated by launching an attack on federal and public Web sites: The online battle over Internet piracy just got personal.

Europe's telecom shares have long been seen as safe houses when the wolf is at the door, but recession, fierce competition and costly network upgrades are huffing and puffing at their capacity to pay generous dividends.

A wind-fueled brush fire that has been raging south of Reno since Thursday is now 50 percent contained but at least 20 homes have been destroyed, authorities said.

A strong outlook from IBM and decent results from Intel Corp and Microsoft Corp suggest that corporate decision makers are shaking off nervousness about economic growth and boosting spending on technology.

U.S. stocks edged lower on Friday after GE and Google results fell short of expectations, while investors awaited a resolution in the latest round of Greek debt talks.