The Plucky Programmer

AP - Yahoo says it will close its offices from Christmas through New Year's to help save money. The cost-cutting move ends a year in which Yahoo's revenue declined for the first time since 2001.

AP - The White House has tapped a corporate cyber security expert and former Bush administration official to lead the effort to shore up the country's computer networks and better coordinate with companies that operate 80 percent of those critical systems.

AP - Howard Stern is threatening to leave Sirius XM Radio Inc. now that the shock jock and the satellite radio provider are getting set to enter contract talks in 2010.

AP - Web sites that buy original video clips often pay so little that "The Bannen Way," a flashy crime thriller debuting online, looked destined to be made poorly if it could be made at all.

AP - A Maine legislator wants to make the state the first to require cell phones to carry warnings that they can cause brain cancer, although there is no consensus among scientists that they do and industry leaders dispute the claim.

AP - Stores in the snow-battered East Coast may have been sparse this weekend, but shoppers kept spending online. Retailers spurred sales with new discounts and shipping offers to make sure gifts arrive by Christmas.

Reuters - China has issued new Internet regulations, including what appears to be an effort to create a "whitelist" of approved websites that could potentially place much of the Internet off-limits to Chinese readers.

AP - Was it only a decade ago that a blackberry was a mere summer fruit? That green was, well, a color, and reality TV was that one show sandwiched between music videos on MTV?

NewsFactor - Starting next year, the latest trend for with-it groups of travelers could be posting on each others' Facebook pages while hurtling down the highway. On Monday, Ford Motor Company announced that cars with its next-generation SYNC system will be able to use a USB broadband modem to turn the entire car into a Wi-Fi hot spot.

PC World - Flash forward to about a year from now, if you will. Envision yourself walking into a consumer electronics store toward the end of 2010. What kinds of HDTV products and features is your retail salesperson likely to tout?

AP - Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. on Monday cut its 2010 financial forecast as the video game maker announced a deal to sell its distribution arm to Synnex Corp. for $43.3 million.

NewsFactor - A joke about the iPhone lasted barely 15 seconds on last week's Saturday Night Live TV show. But it generated substantial buzz in the technology world, touching a raw nerve about the Apple handset's connectivity as provided by AT&T.

PC World - U.S. authorities are investigating the theft of an estimated tens of millions of dollars from Citibank by hackers partly using Russian software tailored for the attack, according to a news report.

AP - Moody's Investors Service on Monday lowered its corporate family rating on telephone and computer software company Avaya Inc., citing challenges the company faces in the wake of its purchase of Nortel Networks Corp.'s enterprise solutions unit.

AP - The FBI is investigating a hacker attack on Citigroup Inc. that led to the theft of tens of millions of dollars, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Reuters - The grandson of Josef Stalin is suing the radio station Ekho Moskvy, it said on Saturday, in a second attempt to stem media criticism of the leader whom many Russians still revere for victory in World War Two.

Reuters - What's Christmas without a little indulgence and a lot of guilt, with a global survey showing two in three people occasionally treat themselves to a luxury purchase, but a third then feel bad about it.

Reuters - Polish police detained five men on Monday for stealing the metal sign that hung over the former Nazi death camp Auschwitz, and said they were common thieves, not neo-Nazis.

Reuters - A Japanese man has married a character in a popular video game, taking her -- and his handheld game console -- on an overseas honeymoon.

Reuters - Stuck for Christmas gift ideas? Is your marriage or a friend's going through a rocky patch? How about a divorce voucher?

Reuters - A billboard sponsored by a local Anglican church that shows Joseph and Mary in bed has set tongues wagging in New Zealand, with the Catholic Church condemning it as others found it funny.

Reuters - An ad for a TV dating show has been banned for suggesting that redheads are unattractive, Britain's advertising watchdog said on Wednesday.

Reuters - The Chinese police captain who named his subordinate a "martyr" after he died from a drinking binge has been suspended, the Shenzhen Public Security Authority said on Tuesday.

Reuters - A French court has split the jackpot from a casino slot machine between the woman who put in the money and the man who pulled the lever, ending months of argument between the two.

Reuters - Richard Branson challenged aviation rival Tony Fernandes to a Formula One duel on Tuesday with the loser having to dress up as an airline stewardess.

AP - Just in time for Christmas, archaeologists on Monday unveiled what may have been the home of one of Jesus' childhood neighbors. The humble dwelling is the first dating to the era of Jesus to be discovered in Nazareth, then a hamlet of around 50 impoverished Jewish families where Jesus spent his boyhood.

AP - Almost all of the 47,000 residents living on the slopes of a rumbling volcano in the central Philippines have moved to emergency shelters, and lava and earthquakes Tuesday heralded what officials say could be a major eruption.

AP - A Russian rocket blasted off from a cosmodrome in Kazakhstan lighting up the frigid Central Asian steppe Monday, shuttling an American, a Russian and a Japanese to the International Space Station.

LiveScience.com - Airline passengers who sneak in cell phone calls, play with gaming devices or listen to their mp3 players during takeoff or landing probably won't cause a plane crash, but they may risk a confrontation with flight attendants. Federal agencies and airlines typically err on the side of caution - even though researchers and aircraft compa […]

AFP - Three months from a major international conference on endangered species, African countries are divided over whether a fresh round of ivory sales should be allowed.

AFP - Turkmenistan agreed Tuesday to resume gas exports to Russia after an eight month stoppage that strained relations and raised questions on Moscow's sway in the energy-rich state, officials said.

SPACE.com - A flash of sunlight reflecting off a hydrocarbon lake on the surface of Saturn's moon Titan has been spotted by NASA's Cassini spacecraft, confirming the presence of liquid on a part of the surface of the hazy satellite with many lake-shaped basins.

Reuters - Athersys Inc said it sold the rights of its stem-cell therapy to treat inflammatory bowel disease to Pfizer Inc, the world's biggest drugmaker, and shares of Athersys nearly doubled in value.

AP - It's a climate deal that has Europe feeling left out in the cold.

Reuters - Raju the bear will never have to smoke cigarettes or dance on his hind legs under the hot sun again thanks to a multinational project to save an endangered species and end a cruel centuries-old tradition in India.