UNITED STATES

With 97 percent of precincts reporting, Rick Santorum is in first place and Mitt Romney in second -- but just 37 votes separate them. Ron Paul is in third place by just under 4,000 votes, and everyone else trails by large margins.

Greece, deeply mired in its own financial crisis, has been highly dependent on Iranian oil because Teheran has offered debt-ridden nations attractive credit terms.

Romney and Paul were tied in the GOP presidential nomination caucus in entrance polls taken Tuesday. It's the first race in the 2012 presidential primaries.

U.S. prosecutors accused three Swiss bankers on Tuesday of conspiring with wealthy U.S. taxpayers to hide more than $1.2 billion in assets from tax authorities, and sources briefed on the matter said the three worked for Wegelin & Co, one of Switzerland's oldest private banks.

South Korea said on Wednesday it had approved a plan by Samsung Electronics Co to build a flash memory chip plant in China seen costing some $4 billion, as a boom in smartphones and tablet computers fuels the chip industry's growth.

As the 2012 Republican primary season kicked off with the Iowa caucuses on Tuesday, the International Business Times spoke with Costas Panagopoulos, a political scientist at Fordham University in New York, about who will win and the consequences of various outcomes.

Jamie Chandler, a political scientist at Hunter College in New York, spoke with the International Business Times about who will win in Iowa, who will drop out afterward and what various outcomes would mean as the primary season continues.

U.S. regulators have only met roughly a quarter of pre-2012 deadlines included in the controversial Dodd-Frank financial reform law, according to a report released on Tuesday.

Starbucks Corp raised prices by an average of about 1 percent in the U.S. Northeast and Sunbelt on Tuesday, making coffee-drinkers spend more in New York, Boston, Washington, Atlanta, Dallas, Albuquerque and other cities.

Shares of Micron Technology Inc jumped as much as 11 percent on a report that one its biggest competitors, Elpida Memory, may merge with Toshiba Corp, in a sign of consolidation in an industry hurt by cut-throat competition.

Israeli and Palestinian negotiators made no breakthrough during their first high-level discussions in more than a year Tuesday, but agreed to hold further talks in Amman on a confidential basis, Jordan's foreign minister said.

An analysis released Tuesday by Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Parker suggesting U.S. equities will finish the year more than 8 percent lower than where they began is making those who follow the American stock market nervous. And for good reasons.

The U.S. office market improved in 2011, but continued growth in 2012 is expected to be slow, according to two separate reports released on Tuesday.

Hoping for something better than 2011's flat stock market, U.S. investors pushed shares higher on Tuesday to begin the new year, though questions remain about whether a rally can be sustained.

The latest threat comes days after U.S. President Barack Obama signed into law sanctions against Iran's central bank which processes most of the country's oil-export payments. Obama and other leaders, including European Union foreign ministers set to meet in Brussels on Jan. 30 to consider a oil-export ban on Iran, hope more sanctions will slow the country from further developing its nuclear weapons program.

How many people are using Facebook in San Francisco at 2:30 p.m. on a Friday? Are you familiar with this question? If yes, then you must have attended the job interview at Google for the position of Vendor Relations Manager.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum called rival Rep. Ron Paul disgusting during last-minute stumping for the Iowa caucuses Tuesday, signaling a nasty turn inr the Republican presidential race.

The Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank promoted its information technology chief to the bank's No. 2 post under the institution's new president, Esther George.

Jack Jablonski, 16, collapsed on the hockey ring after two opposing high school players slammed him into boards during a hockey game on Friday. The Minneapolis-native may be paralyzed for life following the serious injury.

Mitt Romney is expected to face a strong challenge from Ron Paul at the Iowa caucus.

Only those loyal enough to sign an oath to the Republican Party's eventual candidate will be allowed to participate in the party's March 6 Super Tuesday primary in Virginia.