IBT Staff Reporter

The war is on between Facebook and Google+ to win the hearts of users and last as the reigning king of social networking. Google+ is stepping up the game as it announced plans on Thursday to bring gaming features into the site, including popular games such as Angry Birds, which could be a major advantage in the fight to topple Facebook.

The Albemarle County School Board has removed Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holmes book, "A Study in Scarlet" from the sixth grade reading list.

Lloyd C. Blankfein, chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., lost about $52 million of his personal wealth this month.

With its most spectacular peak expected late Friday and Saturday, meteor-watchers are out and about, or even watching in the comfort of their homes online via NASA's live stream. But this year's Perseid meteor shower is timed simultaneously with Earth's full moon, which is expected to hit maximum luminosity and reduce the number of visible meteors.

Sprint decided to pull out of providing 4G WiMax service on the Blackberry PlayBook tablet, leaving the tablet with no support from a U.S. carrier. "We apologize for any inconvenience but the BlackBerry 4G PlayBook Tablet that was announced in January for summer availability will no longer be coming to the Sprint network," Sprint said in a statement.

A controversial series of portraits photographed by Mark Laita places viewers in an uncomfortable spot as they view through diptychs that depict the raw realities of life. Laita's 'Created Equal' pairs provocative portraits that stray from using photography to beautify or enhance an image. Rather his 'Created Equal' series remain honest and real.

Toshiba Corp <6502.T>, the world's No.2 maker of flash memory, will reduce its semiconductor lineup of as many as 6,000 types in half by the end of this business year to boost efficiency, Nikkei business daily reported without citing sources.

Google still garnered the larger share of the search market with 66% in July, but Yahoo and Bing were more effective when it comes to getting users to actually click on another web site, a report says.

Data from a recent collision at the Large Hadron Collider (CERN) in Switzerland has the scientific community excited and giddy with anticipation. Dr. Michio Kaku revealed just how crucial the discovery of the Higgs boson particle is to the scientific community.

A California man, who pleaded guilty in May to threatening U.S. Representative Jim McDermott, was sentenced Friday to eight months in federal prison.

NASA created a deep space mission department to oversee deep space manned mission explorations such as traveling to space rocks and Mars.

The red hot Google+ that exploded out of the gates from its soft launch saw a slowdown of users in the past month. A regain in momentum appears imminent as the search giant launched its online games to Google+ users. With the advantages of developers, cash, and reach, Google has quickly produced a beta version of their games feature in order to maintain retention of their over 20 million users and fuels more contention with its rival Facebook.

A U.S. Ski Team member just lost his shot at the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Russia after being charged with urinating on a young girl on a JetBlue flight from Oregon to New York, officials said on Friday.

Regulators closed the 64th bank in the U.S. so far this year on Friday, shutting down First National Bank of Olathe, located in Olathe, Kansas.

Verizon Communications Inc and a union representing about 35,000 striking workers swapped labor complaints on Friday, with both sides complaining that the other was not bargaining in good faith.

Top bank executives may see their bonuses cut by as much as 30 percent this year compared with 2010, according to a projection from a compensation consulting firm released on Friday.

Reforms adopted by the Italian government on Friday include measures to make it easier to strike labor deals at the company or regional level, Labor Minister Maurizio Sacconi said.

Melanie Moore won "So You Think You Can Dance" eighth-season Thursday night, after home viewer votes of 47% crowned her the Fox show's dance queen. Runner-up is Sasha Mallory, followed by Marko Germar at third and Tadd Gadduang at fourth place.

The Perseid meteor shower is an annual meteor shower timed to happen just about now, and expected to peak late Friday and Saturday. However, it will occur just as the full moon hits maximum luminosity. With the bright moonlight in mind, meteor-watchers will improve chances when viewing after the moon sets and before twilight.

Mortgage and investment schemes targeting troubled U.S. homeowners jumped in 2010 and may increase further if the economy does not improve, the FBI said on Friday.

Sprint Nextel Corp has scrapped plans to sell a high-speed version of Research In Motion Ltd's PlayBook tablet because of slack demand, delivering another blow to BlackBerry phone maker.

After a series of failed takeover attempts and accounting scandals, Computer Sciences Corp is attracting potential activist investors looking to take advantage of a weak share price to push for a breakup.

A former Merrill Lynch & Co banker lost an appeal on Friday of his conviction on perjury and obstruction charges over his role in an Enron Corp fraud that involved the sham sale of Nigerian power plant barges.

Shell-shocked stock investors will search next week for calm to return to markets after the worst three weeks for stocks in 2 1/2 years.

NASA has opened a new office called the "Human Exploration and Operations Mission Directorate" to oversee deep space manned missions. NASA was charged by Uncle Sam to put astronauts on an asteriod by 2025, and Mars by mid 2030s.

Shares of Molycorp jumped as much as 17 percent on Friday after the rare earth producer's quarterly earnings beat expectations and one of its business partners announced a new supply agreement.

A union representing about 35,000 striking Verizon Communications Inc workers filed unfair labor practice charges against the telephone company, complaining that it refused to bargain in good faith.

A mobile security expert says he has found new ways for hackers to attack phones running Google Inc's Android operating system.

A mischief at Verizon went to an underground vault with keys and disconnected the police landline phone service. It is uncertain if the Tuesday incident was connected with the Verizon strike.