PHP reads Google-Alerts without utf8 chars

I try to read a Google alert via PHP.

$feed = file_get_contents("http://ift.tt/1ujJ1q8");

On saving or sending (echo) the result - at all utf8 chars are white spaces left. I have used utf8_encode, utf8_decode, iconv, mb_convert_encoding without success. The wrong chars came from the stream, I think.

If I try this URI in browsers - everything is fine.

What is the problem?

Thanks - René