Banks take 489 billion euros in 3-year ECB loans | Reuters

(Reuters) - Banks took a huge 489 billion euros at the European Central Bank's first ever offering of three-year funding on Wednesday, raising hope a credit crunch can be avoided and that the money may be used to buy Italian and Spanish bonds.

A total of 523 banks borrowed money at the tender with demand way above the 310 billion euros expected by traders polled by Reuters in the run-up to the operation.

The banks' lunge for funding pushed the euro to a one-week high versus the dollar and sparked a rally in stocks.

via reuters.com

Comscore: US online holiday sales rise 14% on week - MarketWatch

U.S. online retail sales rose 14% in the latest week from a year earlier, placing e-commerce spending for the holiday shopping season on track to top 2010 levels, according to Internet measurement company comScore Inc. /quotes/zigman/105907/quotes/nls/scor SCOR -0.10% .

"The final big week of online holiday shopping remained strong throughout," said comScore Chairman Gian Fulgoni. While most of the last minute holiday shopping is expected to shift to brick-and-mortar retail, an additional $5 billion or $6 billion in online spending is predicted over the remainder of the month, Fulgoni said.

For the week ended Sunday, sales reached a record $6.3 billion, including four individual days that topped $1 billion in sales. Sales during the last shopping weekend before Christmas reached $1.04 billion, the second heaviest weekend of online spending on record.

via marketwatch.com

Exclusive: North Korea's military to share power with Kim's heir | Reuters

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Gary Johnson to drop out of GOP primary to run as Libertarian - Reid J. Epstein and Ginger Gibson

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Iowa Caucuses Could Cloud, Not Clarify, Race

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U.S. asks journals to censor bird flu studies | Reuters

(Reuters) - A U.S. scientific advisory board Tuesday asked two scientific journals to leave out data from research studies on a lab-made version of bird flu that could spread more easily to humans, fearing it could be used as a potential weapon.

The U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity has asked the journals Nature and Science to publish redacted versions of the studies by two research groups that reportedly created forms of the H5N1 avian flu that could easily jump between ferrets -- typically considered a sign that the virus could spread quickly among humans.

via reuters.com

RIM Reportedly Nixed Takeover Queries From Amazon, Others - Forbes

via forbes.com