COPPER

European shares hit a one-week closing high on Tuesday after encouraging comments from some leading U.S. companies and hopes for more policy easing in China gave cyclical stocks a boost, with autos and miners among the top sectoral gainers.

European shares rose on Tuesday, with miners gaining after aluminum producer Alcoa got the U.S. reporting season off to a positive start, with its top line indicating strong demand for commodities.

Oil, gold and base metals are Goldman Sachs' top commodity picks this year, with big upside risk in oil due to tight fundamentals and a potential Iranian conflict, the investment bank said on Monday.

The one-cent copper coin was minted in 1793 -- the first year the United States made and distributed coins. It is reportedly in rare and perfect shape, with no wear on lettering or other features including the Lady Liberty face.

A one-cent copper coin minted in 1793 - the year in which the newly-independent United States of America first began minting its own currency - has fetched a record $1.36 million at a Florida auction.

Group says that it will petition the U.S. Supreme Court to take its challenge to Montana's century-old ban on corporate political spending.

A team of scientists have designed an 'ultra-thin' wire which will play a pivotal role in the development of future computing devices and smaller but powerful electronic devices. According to the journal Science, this wire is an atom tall and four atoms wide and 10,000 times thinner than a human hair. But amazingly, this tiny wire, which is made out of phosphorus atoms in silicon, has the same electrical power as copper and can carry a charge as efficiently as conventional wires.

A rare first edition of French-American ornithologist and painter, John James Audubon's colour-plate book The Birds of America is estimated to fetch around $10 million at an upcoming auction on Jan.20, 2012.

Popcorn Sutton, a famous Appalachian moonshiner, was a surge in popularity after the Discovery TV network aired Moonshiners Wednesday, a show that explored his life that ended in suicide in 2009.

Asian shares and the euro eased Thursday as concerns about the ability of euro zone countries to refinance their huge public debt dampened investor risk appetite ahead of a French bond auction later in the day.

A small telecommunications company wants to bring high speed Internet to San Francisco by installing nearly 200 5-by-4-by-2 foot utility boxes around the city. AT&T wants to do the same thing with its U-verse package.

The Montana Supreme Court rejected an attempt to overturn a state ban on corporate political spending in light of the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United decision.

European stocks rose to their highest close in five months on Tuesday after strong manufacturing data from the world's two biggest economies, the United States and China, boosted investor confidence and helped shift attention away from the Eurozone.

Toronto's main stock index closed higher on Friday, the last trading day of the year, as financial and resource shares rallied on signs the U.S. economy was recovering, but the jump was not enough to avert the market's first year-on-year decline since 2008.

Europe's markets closed slightly higher Friday, but ended 2011 with large losses. In 2011 London's FTSE 100 declined 5.6 percent, Germany's DAX fell 14.7 percent, and France's CAC 40 finished the year with a 17 percent decline.

For many years, Allende’s death has been a mystery.

Wall Street stocks resumed their upward move into year-end on Thursday but the S&P 500 continued to churn around its 200-day moving average as jitters over Europe contrasted with better-than-expected U.S. economic data.

Gold prices Thursday tumbled to levels not seen since last summer, slashing what just weeks ago had been a gain of more than 20 percent this year to less than 10 percent.

Gold prices plunged 1.7 percent Thursday on a strengthening dollar, which was rising ahead of a crucial auction of Italian bonds and fresh worries about Eurozone banks.

Pressure built on an Indonesian firm on Wednesday to resolve a local dispute with workers at a Freeport McMoran Copper & Gold Inc. mine that has prompted the union to halt a return to work after a three-month strike.

Precious metals drifted lower Tuesday, with the biggest decline coming from palladium, which was down in early trading nearly 2 percent.