Christmas | featured news

Just in time for Christmas, scientists have confirmed a vast amount of ice at the north pole - on Mercury, the closest planet to the sun....

Add seven swans, six geese and five golden rings to the list of Christmas gifts that cost more than they did a year ago.

Is Google in a hurry to get 2012 over with? Probably not. But that didn't stop the snarky headlines after it was discovered that a buggy app in the new version of Google's mobile operating system omits the month of December. The People app lets users bookmark friends' birthdays and other important dates on a calendar. But some users of Android 4.2, the system's newest update, are complaining they can't note December dates in the app because its calendar skips from November to January. December simply does not exist.

Just call CeeLo Green music's newest Santa Claus. The 38-year-old singer-rapper is working on a Christmas album that he promises is "the real deal." Green said in a recent interview that the album, "CeeLo's Magic Moment," is a "soulful take on a host of Christmas classics."

The FBI reports record background checks for firearms buyers in December, with 500,000 in the six days before Christmas.

A mall trade group says that last minute shoppers gave merchants a solid lift during the final week before Christmas. Sales at stores opened at least a year rose 0.9 percent for the week ended Saturday compared with the previous week and was up 4.5 percent compared with the same period a year ago, according to the International Council of Shopping Centers-Goldman Sachs Weekly Chain Store Sales Index, released Wednesday.

Retailers saw their fair share of last-minute shoppers on Saturday, the day before Christmas, but stores were not super-busy, putting a moderate cap on pre-holiday season that started with a bang and has waned ever since.

My daughter participated in a Christmas gift exchange in her young-adult-usher ministry. Every teen but my daughter brought gift cards. She came with a movie to exchange. Her gift was not so popular. My, how times have changed. Forget the crazy-colored scarves or the overly bold-smelling lotion gift packs. The gift card is the go-to present when you don’t know what to get someone. My husband and I laughed that the teens could have put all the cards in a bowl and then selected the one each wanted.

In an unexpected twist, TVs are topping many Christmas shopping lists this year. Wal-Mart says TVs are among the top gifts people are putting on layaway at its 3,000-plus U.S. stores during the holiday season. The Westinghouse 46-inch LCD HDTV that was on sale for half off at Target for $298 was a top seller during the start to the season last weekend. And Abt Electronics already has sold out of 55-inch Samsung LED TVs that were marked down by half to $1,099.

It's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas! The holiday season has started early this year with the release of Justin Bieber's new holiday single, "Mistletoe," which premiered this morning on Ryan Seacrest's radio show and is now available for download on iTunes. You can also check out the video sneak peak from the studio that he posted yesterday on Twitter.