Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia are backing Montana in its fight to prevent the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision from being used to strike down state laws restricting corporate campaign spending.

This month marks the 20th anniversary of a spectacular day for zoologists. Two decades ago, in May 1992, scientists announced the discovery of a new species — the saola — living in the lush mountain forests that straddle the Vietnam-Laos border.

NEW YORK — A nearly complete tyrannosaur skeleton has sold for just over $1 million, in spite of a call to halt its auction because the fossils may have been taken illegally from Mongolia.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Newly issued shares in Facebook Inc may have a hard time in the coming week if lead underwriter Morgan Stanley stops supporting the stock and managers lower down in the IPO book who were hoping for an early surge decide to get out before going underwater. Facebook on Friday sold 421 million shares of stock in a deal that valued the company at more than $100 billion. But investors, expecting a first-day pop in price, instead saw it close just 0.6 percent above the IPO price at $38.23. ...

On paper at least, European leaders agree: They need stronger growth measures to help their economies expand out of their 2½-year-old government debt crisis. Figuring out exactly what those new steps might be will be the hard part.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The chief executives of Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd are used to running the show at their global tech empires, but they will be in for a different experience when they arrive at a San Francisco federal courthouse on Monday. Apple's Tim Cook and Samsung's Choi Gee-sung, whose companies are embroiled in bitter patent litigation, have been instructed by a federal judge to appear for court-supervised mediation. A joint court filing in April said that "as directed by the Court, Apple and Samsung are both willing to participate" in the discussions. ...

Parts of eastern Asia were being treated to a solar spectacle as the moon slid across the sun, creating a "ring of fire." Sky-watchers in the western U.S. awaited their turns as the rare phenomenon was due to move over the Pacific and toward them later Sunday.

"The Avengers" continues to muscle out everything else Hollywood throws at it, easily sinking naval rival "Battleship" and other new releases.

Facebook begins selling stock to the public Friday in the most talked-about market debut in years. Two Associated Press business writers are debating whether the stock is a smart buy.

When Dan Fitzsimmons looks across the Susquehanna River and sees the flares of Pennsylvania gas wells, he thinks bitterly of the riches beneath his own land locked up by the heated debate that has kept hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, out of New York.

Massive extraction of groundwater can resolve a puzzle over a rise in sea levels in past decades, scientists in Japan said on Sunday.

(Reuters) - Shares in social media company Facebook Inc could fall below the initial public offering price of $38, Barron's wrote in its May 21 edition. Facebook saw its shares rise a scant 0.6 percent to $38.23 on Friday in the first day of trading. The stock stayed above the $38 IPO price, supported in the market by the deal's underwriters. But Barron's said the "big question" this week will be whether they continue to do so. ...

The 2012 Atlantic hurricane season got an early start with the formation of Tropical Storm Alberto off the coast of South Carolina on Saturday (May 19).

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Normally a big decline would set up Wall Street for a technical rebound. But that may not be the case this week, even after the market posted its worst weekly loss for the year and the S&P fell for six straight sessions. With the corporate earnings season drawing to an end and recent U.S. economic data raising doubts about the pace of growth, the S&P 500, which is down 7.3 percent so far in May, could decline further this week as concerns about the financial health of Europe persist. ...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — SpaceX engineers have replaced a faulty engine valve on a private rocket carrying the first commercial space capsule bound for the International Space Station following the last-second abort during an attempted liftoff Saturday (May 19).

Skywatchers from China to Texas are in for a rare celestial treat today when the moon blots out most of the sun to create dazzling "ring of fire" solar eclipse.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Samsung Electronics' mobile division chief JK Shin said on Sunday the South Korean technology giant was still seeking to resolve differences in its international patent war with Apple Inc.. "There is still a big gap in the patent war with Apple but we still have several negotiation options including cross-licensing," Shin told reporters at Seoul airport shortly before his departure for the United States. Asked about the prospects for Samsung's memory chip business, Shin said the 4G chip shortage was expected to continue until early in the fourth quarter of this year. ...

For Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, it was quite a week — from birthday, to IPO, to I DO.

(Reuters) - Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg wed longtime girlfriend Priscilla Chan on Saturday, announcing the nuptials through a status update on the social networking site. The 28-year-old billionaire's wedding took place a day after Facebook's initial public offering on the Nasdaq stock exchange on Friday. More than 280,000 people "liked" Zuckerberg's status change, which was accompanied by a photo of the smiling couple in wedding attire in a small, verdant outdoor setting with a string of lights behind them. ...

(Reuters) - Google said on Saturday that Chinese authorities have approved its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility Holdings, the last regulatory hurdle to a deal that would allow the world's No. 1 Internet search engine to develop its own line of smart phones. Google, which will be the newest entrant to the handset market, announced plans for the acquisition last year in a bid to secure Motorola's valuable patents and pave the way for a pairing of Google's Android mobile software and Motorola's handset business. U.S. ...

A new private supply ship for the International Space Station remained stuck on the ground Saturday after rocket engine trouble led to a last-second abort of the historic flight.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Europe's second largest lender Russia's Sberbank will see some certainty over the planned privatization sale after the new Russian government's lineup is announced on May 21, CEO German Gref said on Saturday. Sberbank initially planned the sale of the 7.6 percent stake, part of Russia's ambitious privatization program, last September but postponed the deal after global risk aversion wiped around $1.5 billion off the stake's value. "It seems to me that, yes, such certainty should emerge (after the cabinet announcement)," Gref said. ...

(Reuters) - Google said on Saturday that Chinese authorities have approved its $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility Holdings, the last regulatory hurdle to a deal that would allow the world's No. 1 Internet search engine to develop its own line of smart phones. Google, which will be the newest entrant to the handset market, announced plans for the acquisition last year in a bid to secure Motorola's valuable patents and pave the way for a pairing of Google's Android mobile software and Motorola's handset business. U.S. ...

A Malaysian researcher known for finding new amphibian species said Friday his team had discovered at least one new species of frog in studies he said highlight Borneo's rich biodiversity.

President Barack Obama on Saturday called on the U.S. Congress to back his efforts for tough new financial industry oversight, saying a $2 billion trading loss at JPMorgan underscored the need for such regulation. "We've got to finish the job of implementing this reform and putting these rules in place," Obama said in a weekly radio address that accused some on Wall Street of causing the 2007-2009 economic crisis because they "treated our financial system like a casino. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Ailing law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf is considering a bankruptcy filing as new debtholders take a more aggressive track, shifting away from earlier attempts at an out-of-court liquidation, a person familiar with the matter said on Friday. The majority of Dewey's partners have quit as a result of concerns about compensation, and $225 million in bank loans and bond debt. ...

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The historic initial public offering of Facebook Inc did not go as planned on Friday, as the social networking company's sky-high valuation combined with trading glitches left the stock languishing near its offering price at the market close. Facebook shares began trading late Friday morning and opened 11 percent above the $38 offering price, but after peaking at about $45 slid rapidly at the end of the day to close at $38.23. The IPO was the third-largest in U.S. history and valued eight-year-old Facebook at $104 billion. ...

(Reuters) - Citigroup Inc and its Chief Executive Vikram Pandit on Friday won a dismissal of New York real estate developer Sheldon Solow's lawsuit accusing them of securities fraud for hiding the bank's risks during the 2008 financial crisis. U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet in Manhattan said Solow failed to show that the defendants had materially misled him about Citigroup's liquidity and capitalization, or that his stock losses were caused when the bank's risks were realized. Sweet had in November dismissed an earlier version of Solow's complaint, but gave the plaintiff a chance to replead. ...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Normally a big decline would set up Wall Street for a technical rebound. But that may not be the case next week, even after the market posted its worst weekly loss for the year and the S&P fell for six straight sessions. With the corporate earnings season drawing to an end and recent U.S. economic data raising doubts about the pace of growth, the S&P 500, which is down 7.3 percent so far in May, could decline further next week as concerns about the financial health of Europe persist. ...

(Reuters) - Chesapeake Energy Corp , under growing pressure from shareholders to improve corporate governance, reduced the compensation for its outside directors by 20 percent and eliminated their use of its aircraft for personal travel, the company said on Friday. Chesapeake and its board have come under fire in recent weeks after Reuters reported, among other things, that Chesapeake CEO Aubrey McClendon had taken out more than $1 billion in previously undisclosed loans using his interest in company wells. ...