Procter & Gamble Co. says its fiscal fourth-quarter net income dropped due to a write down related to its Braun Appliance business and other one-time costs but adjusted results beat expectations.

Its shares edged up 1 percent in premarket trading.

Puerto Ricans are used to wet tropical weather, but the past few weeks have unleashed a series of storms of almost biblical proportions, destroying hundreds of homes, sweeping away cars and leaving tens of thousands without power.

It has been the wettest July ever recorded in the U.S. island territory, with 14 inches (36 centimeters) so far drenching the capital. More rain fell on July 18 than had ever come down in a 24-hour period.

The man who runs Germany's biggest opera house says a chance encounter with an American colleague brought home to him just how fortunate he is.

Nikolaus Bachler, intendant of the Bavarian State Opera, recalled staying at a hotel in Verona, Italy, and finding that the head of a U.S. opera company was also a guest there.

NBC's "Parks and Recreation" is losing two of its cast members.

Rob Lowe and Rashida Jones will leave the series after the 13th episode of the upcoming sixth season.

Queen Latifah says her new daytime talk show is calling on A-list friends for support, including musicians Alicia Keys and Lenny Kravitz.

Keys has already participated in test runs of "The Queen Latifah Show." And Kravitz's design firm created the set.

As a slew of big-name Japanese companies report improved quarterly earnings, one theme is taking the sheen off their rosy numbers: mainstay businesses are still struggling despite the perk from a weaker yen.

The latest example came Thursday from Sony Corp. The Japanese electronics and entertainment company reported a 3.5 billion yen ($35 million) April-June profit, a reversal from the 24.6 billion yen loss it suffered the previous year.

Major German publishers have decided to continue allowing Google to display extracts of their articles despite campaigning to tighten copyright rules for online news.

Google has said it will now only display material from publishers who have "opted in" to have free extracts appear on its news page.

Taiwan has ordered tens of thousands of vaccine doses to protect people against the island's first rabies outbreak in more than 50 years.

Health officials have struggled to contain the Taiwan outbreak since July 17, when a ferret badger in the southern part of the island was confirmed as rabid. Since then, 17 more ferret badger cases have been confirmed, and the case of a rabid Asian house shrew reported Wednesday indicates the disease is jumping species. No humans or dogs have yet been involved in the outbreak.

A Nepalese official says the government has banned the sale and transport of chicken and all poultry products in the capital city to prevent the spread of the H5N1 bird flu virus.

Agriculture Ministry spokesman Prabhakar Pathak said Thursday that the virus has been detected in several poultry farms in Katmandu and surrounding areas.

If Twitter is the chirping chatterbox of the Internet, trolls are its dark underground denizens.

The collision of the two is driving a debate in Britain about the scale of online hatred and the limits of Internet free speech.