U.S. stocks edged higher in a thinly-traded session on Monday as the market's recent upward bias continued and put the Dow on track for an eighth straight daily advance.

An ice-cream store listed in the Guinness World Records book for its 863 different flavours has become the latest victim of Venezuela's economic crisis.

Sony Pictures (6758.T) said "The Interview" has earned more than $15 million in online sales and another $2.8 million in theaters, an impressive return made possible by the publicity surrounding the cyberattack blamed on North Korea.

Danish pharmaceutical group Novo Nordisk plans to use 500 of its 3,000-strong sales force in the United States to promote its new obesity drug, executive vice president Jakob Riis told Reuters on Monday.

China's Xiaomi Inc [XTC.UL], one of the world's fastest-growing smartphone makers, has raised $1.1 billion in a round of funding that cements its status as one of the world's most valuable private technology companies at a valuation of $45 billion.

The euro held its ground on Monday in the face of renewed nerves over Greece prompted by a failed attempt to elect a new president, leaving the country facing an early national election which could derail its bailout program.

Russia's economy shrank sharply in November and the rouble resumed its slide on Monday as Western sanctions and a slump in oil prices combined to inflict the first contraction in GDP since the global financial crisis.

European shares and periphery euro zone bonds tumbled on Monday after the Greek parliament rejected the government's presidential candidate, setting the stage for an election that anti-bailout party Syriza could win.

Oil prices rose on Monday, after dropping for the past two sessions, as escalating clashes in Libya stoked worries about supply from the OPEC member.

Shares in AirAsia fell 7.8 percent on Monday, their biggest one-day drop in more than three years after one of its aircraft went missing on its way to Singapore from the Indonesian city of Surabaya.

The board of American Apparel Inc (APP.A) has received a letter from British buyout firm Lion Capital, pushing it to explore strategic options include a sale, a source familiar with the situation said on Sunday.

The settlement of China's anti-trust probe into Qualcomm Inc is likely to intensify global scrutiny of the firm's highly profitable patent licensing business, and may even call into question its worldwide contracts with smartphone makers such as Apple and Samsung.

South Korea's nuclear power operator said on Sunday that cyberattacks on non-critical operations at the company's headquarters are continuing but the country's nuclear power plants are operating safely and are secure from attack.

Sony Corp's (6758.T) PlayStation Network suffered connection problems for a fourth straight day since hackers attacked the video game network, and the company said on Sunday that service was gradually being restored.

Apple Inc (AAPL.O) said its iTunes store is now carrying Sony Corp's (6758.T) "The Interview", the film that angered North Korea and triggered a cyberattack against the studio.

A missing AirAsia jet carrying 162 people could be at the bottom of the sea after it was presumed to have crashed off the Indonesian coast, an official said on Monday, as countries around Asia sent ships and planes to help in the search effort.

Germany plans to expand the network of charging stations for electric cars across the country to help boost lackluster demand, a Transport Ministry paper seen by Reuters showed.

Russia has agreed on a new deal to supply coal and electricity to Ukraine, which is struggling with a lack of raw fuel for power plants due to a separatist conflict in the industrial east, Russian officials said on Saturday.

A previously undisclosed hacking campaign against military targets in Israel and Europe is probably backed by a country that misused security-testing software t

The head of the panel of economic experts that advises the German government said on Sunday there was no reason for the European Central Bank (ECB) to start buying up sovereign bonds now to bolster euro zone growth.

U.S. retail sales rose 5.5 percent from the day after Thanksgiving through Christmas Eve as solid demand for women's apparel, jewelry and casual dining offset surprisingly sluggish sales of electronics, MasterCard said in its holiday spending report.

Sony Corp worked for a third day on Saturday to restore services to its PlayStation network as the FBI said it was looking into the disruption, which began on Christmas Day.

North Korea called U.S. President Barack Obama a "monkey" and blamed Washington on Saturday for Internet outages it has experienced during a confrontation with the United States over the hacking of the film studio Sony Pictures.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble expressed his reservations against the European Central Bank launching a bond buying stimulus program and praised Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann's arguments against such moves.

Chinese industrial profits dropped 4.2 percent in November to 676.12 billion yuan ($108.85 billion), official data showed on Saturday, the biggest annual decline since August 2012 as the economy hit major unexpected headwinds in the second half.

Volkswagen's (VOWG_p.DE) Audi luxury division said on Saturday it will increase spending on new models, plants and technology by 2 billion euros ($2.44 billion) to a record 24 billion euros over the next five years.

A bankruptcy court has allowed defunct video streaming company Aereo Inc to auction its TV streaming technology assets, according to court papers published on Friday.

BAE Systems (BAES.L) has won a contract worth up to $1.2 billion to build a new type of armored vehicle for the U.S. Army, the company and Army officials said on Tuesday.

The Chinese government said on Friday that it will soon settle its antitrust investigation of U.S. mobile chipmaker Qualcomm Inc. The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), the country's anti-monopoly regulator which launched a probe of the San Diego-based

Iran is to expand what it calls "smart filtering" of the Internet, a policy of censoring undesirable content on websites without banning them completely, as it used to, the government said on Friday.