The Russia-Ukraine natural gas dispute hit Europe with the force of a winter storm Tuesday, cutting or limiting supplies to at least a dozen nations. Tens of thousands of people were left without heat and governments scrambled to find alternate energy sources.

A wave of fare sales has spread across the airline industry in the early days of the new year as the weak economy continues to put pressure on carriers to fill seats even after they drastically reduced capacity and some expressed willingness to cut more.

A measure of the U.S. services sector improved slightly in December, beating analysts' estimates, but pending home sales and factory orders both fell more than expected and the overall economic outlook remains grim.

After a year in which U.S. auto sales tumbled 18 percent and GM had its worst year in nearly a half-century amid slack demand fueled by a terrible economic outlook and growing job worries, automakers are reluctant to predict when a recovery might occur.

Apple Inc. is cutting the price of some songs in its market-leading iTunes online music store to 69 cents and plans to begin selling all tracks without copy protection.