A year after a nightmarish share offering, Facebook still has its ardent backers and detractors. The world's biggest social network, which now has more than 1.1 billion users, has managed to boost its earnings since the initial public offering, including from its mobile platform, important in countering its critics. The IPO on May 18 last year sparked a series of crises for Facebook, with the shares plunging from $38 to as low as $17.73 in September. Shares closed Thursday at $26.13.

TORONTO - Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, whose tenure has been plagued by controversy and embarrassment, found himself embroiled in a new scandal Friday amid two independent reports he was caught on video appearing to smoke crack cocaine. Leaving his home and again at city hall, Ford refused to answer any questions, but was quick to dismiss one of the reports as yet another smear job, although neither he nor his lawyer called the video fake. "These allegations are ridiculous," Ford said. "It's another story with respect to the Toronto Star going after me and that's all."

Yahoo! on Thursday began spicing up its online news pages with real-time comments fired off at the globally popular messaging service Twitter. "Tweets have become an important information source for many of our users, so we are thrilled to announce our partnership with Twitter to bring tweets directly into the Yahoo! newsfeed," Marissa Mayer, Yahoo! chief executive, said in a blog post. "Updates direct from politicians, celebrities, media outlets, and other publishers have become an important source of real-time news and information."

On Thursday, May 16, Twitter users who are fans of the British-Irish boy band One Direction are expressing their disappointment at a hotly buzzed announcement from the band.