Your customized headlines for Sat, Jul 28, 2012

Social media companies, once hailed by their Silicon Valley boosters as world-changing businesses with limitless potential, are instead proving a sobering reminder of how investors can be seduced by Internet hype.

U.S. stocks surged on Friday, with the Dow Jones industrial average cracking 13,000 for the first time since May as investors found renewed confidence in European leaders' assurances that they would take action to save the troubled continent from its ongoing debt crisis.

The nation's budget deficit would hover around $1 trillion for a fifth straight year in 2013 if Congress finally enacts President Obama's policies for boosting the sluggish economy, the White House said Friday.

John Harter stood on his ranch in the flat sun, a stiff breeze muffling the sound of his voice. Small sandy mounds rose behind him. In front, lay pasture and grazing cattle. At an old well, he stopped to point to water just five or six feet below the surface. Now he looked back at the row of tall cottonwood trees where his pickup truck was parked.

The U.S. Justice Department is preparing to file charges this fall against traders from several banks in the global probe of interest-rate rigging, but prosecutors in Britain haven't even decided whether they have a case.

American consumers cut back sharply on spending in recent months, slowing the nation's already sluggish rate of economic growth.

The economy grew at an annual rate of 1.5 percent from April through June, the Commerce Department reported Friday, a pace that confirmed fears that the economy continues to sputter.

LONDON — Mitt Romney's Friday was better than his Thursday.

He did very little.

The highlights: Romney walked half a mile on a public sidewalk here (driving would have made him late, because of the gridlock), met with Ireland's prime minister and sat in the Olympic Stadium to watch the Games' Opening Ceremonies.

AURORA, Colo. — The suspect in the Colorado theater rampage was seeing a University of Colorado psychiatrist who studies schizophrenia, according to court records released Friday, indicating for the first time that university officials were familiar with James Holmes's mental state.

The Federal Election Commission told political advocacy groups Friday that it would enforce new disclosure rules for some nonprofits under a recent court ruling, but many key groups have taken steps to evade the requirements.

Nearly 200 small charities in the Washington region could lose funding as the powerful United Way of the National Capital Area changes the rules for groups to qualify for its millions of dollars of giving each year.