A Russian spy ship "bristling with antennas and satellite dishes" docked in Havana harbor just a day before a US delegation is set to travel to the country, CNN reported today.

President Barack Obama announced plans to normalize relations with the still communist-governed island nation in late 2014. The US severed diplomatic ties and imposed an economic blockade in the early 1960s, after Fidel Castro's regime seized control of the island.

But the spy ship could be Russia's blatant demonstration that the US's opening of ties won't weaken the island's relationship with Moscow, another government whose foreign and economic policies have often been at odds with those of the US and its allies.

"It may have a secret mission, but they're certainly not trying to hide the ship's presence," CNN's Patrick Oppman reported as he gestured to the spy ship behind him. "It glided into Havana early this morning in full view of everyone to see" and docked where cruise ships usually do, he added.

It wouldn't be the first time Russia used its fleet to send such blunt messages to its rivals.

In November, Putin's visit to the G20 summit in Australia was accompanied by a four warships that remained in international waters on the edge of Australia's maritime claims. The ships may also have been used to gather intelligence.

The spy ship currently in Havana harbor also paid Cuba a visit last year, stocking up on "quite a bit of Cuban beer and rum," Oppman said, before making its way closer to the United States for possible espionage.

Roberta Jacobson, the US's top diplomat for Latin America, will lead the visit to Cuba set for Jan. 21st and 22nd. Despite the shift in US policy, there's a lot for Cuba and the US to work out before ties are fully restored, including the status of fugitives from US justice living in Cuba and the mechanisms for lifting import and export restrictions in both countries.

SEE ALSO: Russia and Iran just got even closer

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Good morning! Stocks rose Tuesday on the first day of a shortened trading week. Ahead of Wednesday's market open, here's what you need to know:

Oil Sold Off Again Tuesday. On Tuesday, West Texas Intermediate crude oil fell about 5% to move back below $47 a barrel after gaining last week for the first time in about two months. Brent crude also fell on Tuesday, and on Wednesday morning, WTI was roughly unchanged.

BHP Is Closing Nearly Half Its US Shale Rigs. In an announcement Wednesday morning in Australia, the Australian mining giant BHP said it would shut down 40% of its US shale oil rigs by the end of its fiscal year.

SpaceX Raised $1 Billion From Google And Fidelity For A One-Tenth Share Of The Firm. Elon Musk's SpaceX has raised $1 billion from Google and Fidelity, confirming earlier reports from The Information and The Wall Street Journal. The two new investors will now own just under 10% of the company. This new funding round is more than four times bigger than all the company's other rounds combined.

Netflix Shares Are Soaring. Shares of the streaming video service were up as much as 15% in premarket trade Wednesday after the company reported earnings per share that beat expectations after the market close Tuesday. 

IBM Revenue Fell Again. IBM reported earnings per share that beat expectations while revenue fell for the 11th straight quarter, and these two charts highlighted by Business Insider's Julie Bort show that revenue declined in all of the company's major business segments and geographic regions. 

The Oil Fallout Is Hitting Companies. On Tuesday, one of the world's leading oilfield services providers, Baker Hughes, said it would lay off 7,000 employees, an announcement that follows news from Schlumberger that it would cut 9,000 positions.

The Bank Of Japan Cut Its Inflation Forecast. The Bank of Japan cut next fiscal year's inflation forecast on Wednesday and expanded a loan scheme aimed at boosting lending, hoping to deflect criticism it is sitting idly by as a slump in oil prices pushes inflation further away from its target.

Toyota In 2014 Was Again The World's Top Automaker. Toyota sold 10.23 million vehicles last year, it said Wednesday, outpacing General Motors and Volkswagen (which logged 10.14 million) to remain the world's biggest automaker, but a shaky outlook for 2015 could see it lose the title to its German rival.

Almost Everyone Is Expecting QE From The ECB On Thursday. After French President Francois Hollande's slipup earlier this week, in which he declared that quantitative easing would be announced Thursday, Kit Juckes at Societe Generale outlined the results of a recent client survey showing that about 70% of the 176 clients polled expected the European Central Bank to announce QE this week. 

President Barack Obama's State Of The Union Address Pushed For 'Middle Class Economics.' Obama called for a $3,000 tax cut to provide childcare for middle-class and lower-income families, as well as a congressional vote on paid sick leave. Additionally Obama said he wanted laws passed to ensure equal pay for women and an increased minimum wage. 

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The Walkie-Talkie building in London's financial district, which became infamous last summer for melting cars, opened its top-floor sky garden to the public at the start of January.

Business Insider got a sneak peak of the new attraction (free tours are already fully booked until early April), which boasts three restaurants and offers some of the best rooftop views of the capital. 

The Walkie-Talkie building is located at 20 Fenchurch Street. Let's head to the top.

The Sky Garden sits about 150 metres above the city, giving you unique views like this one.

The terrace is 35 floors above street level, which looks impressively far away from up here.

Here's one way to solve global warming: Spend $90 trillion dollars over the next few years to redesign all the cities — as in all the cities on Earth— so people live in more densely packed neighbourhoods and don't need cars.

That is one of the more ambitious (and possibly outlandish) ideas knocking around the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, this morning. The Davos meeting is the annual conclave of the world's ruling class: presidents and prime ministers, CEOs, and religious figures (and the thousands of journalists who follow them, hoping for a soundbite or two).

The $90 trillion cities proposal came from former vice president Al Gore and former president of Mexico Felipe Calderon, and their colleagues on the The Global Commission on the Economy and Climate. That group hopes to persuade the world's leaders to do something about humanity's suicidal effort to heat the Earth's climate.

Part of fighting climate change will mean redesigning, or building anew, towns and cities without cars, Calderon says.

"We cannot have these cities with low density, designed for the use of cars," he said. "We recommend those cities should have more density and more mass transportation." Together with a programme for reforming land use, and bringing deforestation to zero, the total cost of this plan would likely be $90 trillion in future investment, Calderon said.

Business Insider spoke briefly with Calderon after the panel, to ask him to explain where this $90 trillion was going to come from, and how exactly one might persuade every city on earth to go along with it.

Turns out the $90 trillion is the total of infrastructure investment that is likely to be spent anyway building and upgrading cities. Gore and Calderon are arguing that it be spent more wisely, to produce cities that don't incentivize people to burn fossil fuels just to get from A to B.

The key will be to persuade the mayors — again, all the mayors on Earth — that designing new cities this way will be vastly preferable to the old way, in terms of efficiency and prosperity for their residents. "The mistake we made in Mexico was to let cities develop however they want, and it's a mess," Calderon told Business Insider. "It's in their [the mayors] best interests" not to repeat that "mistake," Calderon said.

The main problem is that mayors are not widely aware that the cost of designing cities sustainably in the future may be cheaper than the cost of letting development run unhindered and car-focused.

You can read more of the Gore/Calderon GCEC plan here and here.

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We're now just one day away from the big ECB meeting. From Dave Lutz at JonesTrading, here's a quick guide to what traders are chatting about this morning:

Good Morning! US Futures are under some slight pressure this AM, following some profit-taking from 7Y highs over in Europe ahead of the ECB tomorrow. Germany’s DAX is off 30bp, with Materials shares among the worst performers, while the FTSE is up 70bp, led by a rally in Energy and Consumer shares – Volumes are quite light tho, with most markets in Europe trading 30% lighter than normal. Over in Asia, despite the Ruble nearing fresh lows against the $ as Ukraine heats up, MICEX is adding 1.5%. Shanghai continues to rebound from Monday’s smackdown – gaining 4.7% overnight, while Aussie was up1.6%, led by Banks and Miners (Strong BHP production #s). The Nikkei lost 50bp as the Yen is higher after the Bank of Japan decided not to deliver any further significant easing.

The 10YY is slightly higher and back over 1.8% early, and while German yields remain elevated, let’s see if we get heavy EU buying of Treasuries again into their close. Swiss franc is broadly flat against the euro, but Swiss Yields continue to break down, 1Y at a -1.4% now. Despite the British Pound under pressure as BoE minutes came out more dovish than expected, The DXY is firmly red as Euro higher as positions are trimmed ahead of ECB tomorrow, and Yen is being covered. The Energy complex was sharply higher this AM, but have retreated from 2% gains as Iraq is talking increasing production, While Natty Gas is surging 7%, reversing the heavy losses it sustained yesterday. Gold is trying to stay upside $1300, while Silver is adding over 1%. Copper remains firmly in the red, off 2% and nearing a test of last week’s lows.

Watch the Builders – Mortgage Refis came in at 18mo highs this AM, and at 9, HUD Secretary Julian Castro speaks on his agency’s housing initiatives, FHA’s recent premium reduction at Zillow’s ‘‘Housing Roadmap to 2016 Kick-Off” just after we get Housing Starts and Building Permits at 8:30. We get the Bank of Canada decision at 10am. We have Expiry of the Spot VIX contract today, and after the close we get API data for Crude. Credit Cards in focus post-close as well – AXP and DFS earnings will hit. In DC today, the House, Senate panels hold hearings on Internet regulation – Senate moves to consider Keystone

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An NFL investigation has found that 11 of the 12 balls the New England Patriots used on offense in the AFC title game were underinflated, ESPN's Chris Mortensen reports.

NFL teams each bring 12 balls to the game and use their own. The balls, which have to be inflated to between 13.5 and 14.5 pounds per square inch, are inspected two hours, 15 minutes before kickoff.

According to Mortensen, New England's game balls were inflated to about 11.5 pounds per square inch during the team's 45-7 rout of the Indianapolis Colts.

In theory, an underinflated ball would be easier to hold, catch, and throw. 

One source told Mortensen that the league was "disappointed ... angry ... distraught."

We still don't know how the balls got deflated, which is the key to all of this.

Bob Kravitz of WTHR reported on Sunday that the team could be fined and have draft picks taken away if it is found to have deflated the balls intentionally.

NOW WATCH: Why Men Are Paying $1,500 And More For Secondhand Sneakers

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Melbourne (AFP) - World number three Rafael Nadal survived a massive scare before winning a gruelling five-setter with American qualifier Tim Smyczek at the Australian Open on Wednesday.

The 14-time Grand Slam champion prevailed 6-2, 3-6, 6-7 (2/7), 6-3, 7-5 in 4hr 12min and will now play unseeded Israeli Dudi Sela in the third round.

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Alexis Tsipras, leader of the anti-austerity party Syriza, is heading into the crucial Greek election on Sunday with a strong tailwind of support, leaving the 40-year-old the odds-on favourite to become the country's next prime minister.

Years of harsh government cuts, staggeringly high unemployment (25.8% as of last October), and an economy that remains roughly 25% smaller than it was six years ago, has made the population distrustful of traditional parties and opened the door to new ones that want to take the country in a different direction.

A poll conducted between Jan. 19-20 gave Syriza a 4.2% lead over the incumbent New Democracy party, with 31.2% support. For a party that only launched in 2004, this alone is a remarkable achievement.

Despite Syriza's popularity, there remains a lot of confusion, at least outside of Greece, about what exactly the party stands for. Helpfully, Tsipras has written an article for the Financial Times in which he lays out his platform and explains his vision for Greece.

Here are the key points:

• A Syriza victory will mean the age of Greek austerity will finally come to an end. As Tsipras says: "Austerity is not part of the European treaties; democracy and the principle of popular sovereignty are."
• Contrary to what many seem to believe, the party does not intend to unilaterally pull Greece out of the eurozone. Indeed, surprisingly for some, Tsipras says he aims to hit European budget targets: "A Syriza government will respect Greece’s obligation, as a eurozone member, to maintain a balanced budget, and will commit to quantitative targets."
• Tsipras plans to clamp down on tax-evasion by wealthy "oligarchs" to raise budget revenues and has promised to break with the "clientelist and kleptocratic practises" of previous administrations.
• Syriza will request a "European debt conference" in which they will demand a renegotiation of the repayment terms on the country's mountainous sovereign debt pile.
• And, most importantly, the party is asking to be given time in which to deliver the reforms that Greece needs in order to put itself back into a path of economic growth and debt sustainability.

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The homepage of the world's most popular file-sharing site, The Pirate Bay, has been updated to hint that the site's return is imminent.

Torrent Freak reports that the homepage of The Pirate Bay has been updated to include the site's search bar, categories, and navigation elements.

None of the buttons actually do anything yet, but the return of the site's familiar look means that its library of movies and music is likely soon to follow.

It's not just visual changes that have been made to the site. TorrentFreak has spotted that the site is now using CloudFlare to ensure that it stays online. CloudFlare is an online service that helps stop websites going offline if they're hit by hackers or huge amounts of traffic.

Here's what the homepage of The Pirate Bay look like now:

That's a big difference to how The Pirate Bay has been looking over the last few weeks:

There still hasn't been any confirmation that the site is returning at all, however. A countdown timer on the homepage suggests that something big is coming on February 1, but so far the site's administrators have only dropped hints about a return.

The Pirate Bay was taken offline on December 9 when Swedish police raided a secure web-hosting facility. Although The Pirate Bay has seen police raids before, the fact that the entire site was taken offline came as a surprise. Anonymous administrators who claim to run The Pirate Bay previously boasted about a system of servers that were meant to make it incredibly difficult for police to detect or shut down the site.

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I went to one of those fancy private dinners at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday night.

The dinner had a special format. The roughly 40 attendees sat around a long, straight table, like students at Hogwarts. As the smoked salmon appetizer arrived, the hosts informed us that we were not to spend the evening conversing with our immediate neighbors. Instead, a microphone would be passed around the table, and we would each give a three-minute speech about something interesting.

Naturally, not all of the attendees limited themselves to three minutes. And, naturally, not all of the speeches were interesting.

But many were!

One attendee, for example, the famous CEO of a massive global corporation, began his speech by asking whether anyone could remember what the price of oil was in 2000.

One person at the table remembered: ~$10 a barrel.

That was startling, given today's global hyperventilation about the shock of ~$50 oil.

Then the CEO, whose company does business in China, said most Westerners were seriously underestimating China.

Most Westerners, he said, love to diss China, talking about how all the Chinese do is steal and copy stuff.

These Westerners are, at best, behind the times, the CEO said.

The CEO pointed to the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, which is now one of the 10 most valuable companies in the world. He pointed to the Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi, which used to copy Apple to a comical extent but has now captured the hearts and minds of Chinese consumers while building top-notch smartphones that cost a fraction of the iPhone's price. He pointed to China's recent military intervention in Africa, observing that, as with the US, China is increasingly going to deploy troops to defend its interests around the world.

The CEO also needled one of the other dinner guests, who had shared his view that China's recent economic growth was not the 7.5% that the country reported but actually a lame 5%. The CEO observed that 5% growth on an economy the size of China's ($10 trillion) is still impressive growth — growth that puts most of the rest of the world to shame. He noted that China's economy had grown from basically zero 30 years go to become the second-biggest economy in the world.

Basically, he said, Westerners who think that all China does is copy and steal stuff have their heads in the sand. The next few decades are China's decades, he implied. And it's time Westerners woke up to the fact that China is going to take over the world.

SEE ALSO: Unboxing The Davos Swag Bag ...

NOW WATCH: The New Mercedes Driverless Car Even Has The Driver's Seat Facing Away From The Road

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Thanks to the iPhone 6, new figures reveal that Apple's market share is rocketing in Asia — at Samsung's expense.

A new report from Counterpoint claims Apple grew its share of the global smartphone market by 26% last year. In November 2014, the company passed 20 million monthly sales worldwide for the first time ever, 9to5Mac reports.

Apple's success is pegged largely to the launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus. There's a big market in Asia for "phablets," or devices that bridge the divide between smartphone and tablet. Samsung was a pioneer of the size, while Apple's smaller iPhones have failed to attract customers who wanted a larger screen. But thanks to the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus, Apple's now making serious headway in the market.

Apple has been particularly successful in South Korea, where Samsung has traditionally dominated its home market. Figures show that Samsung's share has plummeted from 60% in September to 46% in November. Apple, meanwhile, has made unprecedented headway, soaring to 33%. According to Counterpoint research director Tom Kang, previously, "no foreign brand has gone beyond the 20% market share mark in the history of Korea's smartphone industry."

These figures are even more clearly illustrated in this graphic:

Samsung still holds the largest share of the market. But it no longer has an absolute majority, and it's pretty clear that Apple's growth is at the direct expense of the South Korean company (and to a lesser extent, LG). Apple's upward trajectory also suggests that it's poised to overtake Samsung (because these figures don't go beyond November 2014, it's possible that's already happened). 

Kang believes that if there had been a better supply of high-capacity iPhone 6 and 6 Plus models, "Apple's share could have climbed to the 40% level."

Japan, meanwhile, has always been a historically strong market for Apple. But the release of its new handsets have buoyed it yet further: in November, it enjoyed 51% of the total market share.

Here's Counterpoint's graph illustrating that:

Sony, a Japanese company, is one loser in Apple's rise. But again, Samsung has seen significant drop-off in market share. In China, meanwhile, iPhone sales grew by 45% annually.

It's damaging news for Samsung. The company has already announced falling profits this year due to competition from other smartphone manufacturers. But the new figures show just how close Apple is to doing what would've been unthinkable a year ago — stealing Samsung's crown in South Korea.

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Housing starts rose 4.4% in December to an annualized pace of 1.09 million, much better than expectations.

Expectations were for housing starts to rise 1.2% from the prior month to an annualized pace of 1.04 million.

Building permits, however, declined 1.9% to a pace of 1.03 million, missing expectations.

Building permits were expected to rise 0.8% from last month to an annualized pace of 1.06 million. 

This report follows homebuilder sentiment data on Tuesday that showed sentiment among homebuilder remaining elevated, but moving roughly sideways month-on-month. 

More to come ...

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Davos (Switzerland) (AFP) - Top economists in Davos clashed on Wednesday over the impending decision by the ECB to buy up sovereign debt, an unprecedented measure to fight deflation that powerful Germany believes would merely allow overspending eurozone states to put off reforms.

Europe has squandered three years of opportunity to carry out badly needed economic reforms, former Bundesbank chief Axel Weber said at a panel in Davos, the ski resort hosting the global elite over four days at the World Economic Forum.

"The real issue is the ECB has continuously bought time for European policy makers to fix the issue," Weber said, reflecting the views of many in the current German government.

But "they didn't do that" in the past few years, said Weber, who famously stormed out of his job at the Bundesbank when the ECB unveiled unconventional measures in late 2011. 

The ECB holds its first policy meeting of the year on Thursday and is widely expected to announce some sort of buy-up of sovereign debt to try to kick-start the eurozone's sluggish economy, in a measure known as quantitative easing.

The European Central Bank has come to the rescue of the eurozone on several occasions since Greece nearly dragged down the bloc with its debt, unleashing a succession of unconventional measures since late 2011 to calm jittery markets.

However, growth remains sluggish, unemployment is stubbornly high and the eurozone is now in danger of sliding into deflation, forcing the ECB to consider deploying QE, widely credited with having successfully boosted the US and British economies.

'Late in the game'

Adam Posen, the former central banker who sat on the policy committees of the Bank of England for three years, told AFP the threat of deflation was too great to be ignored any longer.

"What's dangerous are the people who oppose QE, who I think are wrong, are trying to make sure QE fails," said Posen, who was a major proponent of QE at the BoE.

"We are very late in the game and I'm very concerned that Germany is going to keep the QE from as being as aggressive as they need it to be," Posen said.

Germany's aversion to the plan was also borne out in remarks by the ECB's former economist, who said that deflation fears in the eurozone are "totally exaggerated" and being used as a pretext to push through the controversial QE. 

The European Central Bank "wants to drive down the refinancing costs of individual countries. That is very different from traditional monetary policy," Juergen Stark told the business daily Handelsblatt. 

Reports from Berlin say the ECB has devised a bond-buying programme that will be acceptable to Germany and cater to their deep reservations about QE.

The weekly news magazine Der Spiegel reported on Friday that ECB chief Mario Draghi presented a scheme to Chancellor Angela Merkel and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble aimed at allaying such concerns.

Under the revised scheme, the national central banks will only be allowed to buy the sovereign debt of their respective countries and Germany, Europe's paymaster, will not be on the hook to bail out another country, the magazine said.

But Germany is increasingly singled out on the global stage for its resistance to looser monetary policy.

"I agree with Mario Draghi. Monetary policy may create room, a time period for other policies to come out, to be implemented," said Zhou Xiaochuan, the head of the Chinese Central Bank at a Davos panel.

While a policy such as QE "is not a panacea ... it is still useful," he said.

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Police in Israel have arrested a man who is suspected of hacking into Madonna's personal computer and leaking unreleased music and photos online.

Ynet News reports that police arrested the Tel Aviv man after an undercover investigation. The unnamed suspect stole music from Madonna and sold the unreleased tracks online.

Thirteen unreleased tracks recorded by the US singer were leaked online following the suspected hack. After the tracks leaked, Madonna decided to release at least six of them officially. They reached number 1 on the iTunes album chart. But Madonna was still angry over the alleged hack, calling it"artistic rape" and "a form of terrorism."

It wasn't just music that the hacker is suspected of stealing from Madonna. Unreleased photos of the singer also appeared online, mostly outtakes from photoshoots. "Another unreleased photo from a series I have just discovered!"Madonna said on Instagram. "Stolen and sold to whom?? Wtf? Are my fans doing this? If so, I’m very confused! Stealing is a crime."

Madonna increased her computer security following the leak of her music. "We don't put things up on servers anymore," the star said. "Everything we work on, if we work on computers, we're not on WiFi, we're not on the Internet."

The Daily Mirror reports that Madonna tried to find the hacker herself by holding a 30-minute Skype call with an online trader who sold the unreleased tracks. During the call she reportedly begged the man to reveal the source of the leaks.

The Ynet news report on the arrest of a Tel Aviv man also claims that the hacker is suspected of targeting other celebrities. It's currently unknown who those other victims may be, but the report claims that the FBI's involvement in the undercover police operation led to the suspicion that the hack did not just target Madonna.

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Lancashire County Council's planning officer has just dealt a huge blow to Britain's hopes to develop a shale gas industry, after it recommended that fracking operations should not take place in two different locations near Blackpool, Lancashire.

The Council is due to decide next Wednesday whether to allow drilling and fracking at Preston New Road and Roseacre Wood. Ahead of the decision, the council had asked for recommendations from the planning officer, who advised it to stop exploration due to concerns about vehicle traffic and noise.

The planning officer wrote: 

The proposed development would be contrary to Policy DM2 of the JLMWLP and Policy EP27 of the Fylde Borough Local Plan as it has not been satisfactorily demonstrated that noise impacts would be reduced to acceptable levels and would therefore unnecessarily and unacceptably result in harm to the amenity of neighbouring properties by way of noise pollution.

Both of the applications in Blackpool were presented by Cuadrilla, a British shale exploration company which is chaired by former CEO of BP Lord Browne. 

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Cuadrilla chief executive Francis Egan had earlier praised Lancashire for taking its time to decide whether to allow fracking, but expressed his hope the council to give it the go-ahead. "Once you get started at least you can point to a physical site with operations that people can go and observe, measure, touch, feel, see," he said.

Ahead of next Wednesday's decision, 25,000 people had written to the Council to ask for the plans to be ditched, as part of a hard-fought campaign against the project.

In 2011, a previous operation by Cuadrilla in Lancashire had been stopped after it provoked minor earthquakes in the surrounding areas,  but the following year a report from the Royal Society declared fracking was safe if properly regulated.

Hydraulic fracturing, or 'fracking' as it is more widely known, involves the drilling of several rigs in a shale rock formation, called a basin. The rig is then filled with a mix of water and other chemicals at high pressure which breaks the rocks to release gas and other hydrocarbons trapped within them. The rig is then emptied and the hydrocarbons are separated from the water to be used as energy.

The technique, which has been accused of increasing the risk of earthquakes and pollution of ground water, is the basis of the shale boom in the United States where it was first applied on industrial scale in 2007. 

US shale is one of the major reasons for the surge in supply of crude oil outside of OPEC countries over recent years, which has helped push the price of the commodity down by half since last June.

Lancashire County Council's decision next week also carries big political implications. Keen on replicating the American success, the UK government has openly supported the development of shale gas in Britain, committing resources and tax breaks to local administration who would allow the explorations.

However, the Government's plans have so far encountered strong opposition from local administrations.

Last summer, West Sussex County Council blocked an exploration bid for shale gas on its land, after a highly politicised campaign culminated in an MP being arrested during an anti-fracking sit in.

Another rejection from Lancashire, which sits on Britain's largest shale reserves, could stop the development of a British fracking industry for good.

Commenting the planning officer's recommendations, Greenpeace energy campaigner Simon Clydesdale said: "We applaud Lancashire planners’ recommendation that the County Council refuse permission for Cuadrilla to frack for shale gas at two sites."

Cuadrilla has so far refused to comment on the issue.

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Jibo Inc., the company that built Jibo, a robot designed by famous roboticist Dr. Cynthia Breazeal, announced Wednesday that it raised $25.3 million in a Series A round of funding led by RRE Ventures. 

CRV, Fairhaven, Osage University Partners, Flybridge Capital Partners, Two Sigma Ventures, Formation 8, Samsung Ventures, and several angel investors also participated in the round.

Jibo, an adorable-looking social robot, looks a little bit like Luxo Jr., Pixar's signature lamp. Jibo interacts with people, identifying their needs and helping them with various tasks including entertaining kids, giving you reminders, or helping you take well-framed pictures.

Jibo's "head" is is a display that contains cameras to let it perceive its surroundings. Its "body" swivels. 

Jibo can't pick up dropped items from the floor or move from place to place, which Dr. Breazeal told Business Insider in July was an intentional design in order to keep Jibo's price low.

Jibo held an Indiegogo campaign, in which it raised $2.3 million from more than 5,000 backers. Breazeal says the next phase of building Jibo will include "human-robot social interaction and expressiveness mechanisms." 

In its fundraising announcement, Jibo also announced that Dr. Brazeal, who founded Jibo, will serve as chief scientist. Executive Chairman Steve Chambers will take on the role of Jibo CEO.

“Jibo is a natural fit for RRE Ventures,” RRE Ventures co-founder and Managing Partner Stuart Ellman said. “RRE has a long history of discovering category-defining companies in emerging industries and supporting their visionary founders. BuzzFeed in Content 2.0. Makerbot in 3D printing. Venmo in peer-to-peer payments. These ideas seemed crazy at the time. But crazy is a beautiful word at RRE; what's crazy today is in your home tomorrow. That's Jibo.”

Jibo says it will use its new round of funding for four main purposes: growing its team seven-fold, fulfilling its Indiegogo campaign, developing its prototype, and ecosystem inspiration.  

Here's what Jibo looks like in action:

SEE ALSO: This Amazing Robot For The Home Is Being Sold By An MIT Professor Starting Today

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The Russian Central Bank is reportedly planning to cut rates.

Russian newspaper Izvestia is reporting that the central bank will cut rates by 2%-3% from the current rate of 17% in the first quarter of 2015, according to a source who participated in a meeting of the National Financial Council (NFC) under the Central Bank in late December.

"Representatives of the regulator explained [the rate cut] by noting that the increase in the rate did not bring the expected result," the source told Izvestia. "It was intended to curb the rise in the dollar nad the euro, but that did not happen. The course grew, the reaction from the population and businesses was really negative. The Central Bank basically admitted that it made a mistake during the last NFC meeting in 2014."

Additionally, the head of the Central Bank Elvira Nabiullina named the conditions for lowering the key rate during a press service on Wednesday:

"The Board of Directors of the Bank of Russia, taking the decision on the key rate, first and foremost, is based on the need to curb inflation, which in the current environment is a high-priority problem for people and businesses. The Bank of Russia will be ready to lower the key rate if there's a formation of a stable downward trend in inflation and inflation expectations, which are currently still high," the head of Russia's central bank said.

Back in mid-December, the Russian Central Bank unexpectedly hiked rates to 17% from 10.5%. The bank's statement said the decision was driven by the need to limit significant devaluation in the ruble and inflation risks.

The day following the rate hike, the Russian currency fell to new lows, reaching 80 rubles to the dollar.

Russians reacted extremely negatively to the rate hike: one banker apocalyptically declared that this was "the end of the banking system," regular Russians were scrambling to get their hands on dollars, and Russia's richest lost $10 billion in the three days following the decision.

And things haven't gotten much better since then. Currently, the ruble is trading at around 66 rubles per dollar, inflation is high, and the collapsing ruble has led to food shortages.

Although the press service of the central bank has so far denied this, on January 16 the first deputy chairman of the central bank, Alexei Simanovskiy, stated that he hoped for an opportunity to reduce the key rate in the near future, according to Izvestia.

The bank's next meeting is scheduled for January 30.

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Moscow (AFP) - The Russian government is preparing to launch an "anti-crisis programme" to tackle the country's stalled economy and depreciating currency that will cost 1.375 trillion rubles (18 billion euros, $21 billion), deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov said Wednesday.

Meeting President Vladimir Putin, Shuvalov said: "According to this plan, now we need to finance measures to the sum of 1.375 billion rubles," according to the Interfax news agency. He said some of the money would come from the massive reserves accumulated over recent years of high oil prices from energy exports.

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If you spend enough time roaming the web you'll inevitably run into an over-the-top opt out form.

These twisted pop ups prevent you from viewing more content on a website unless you either sign up for whatever spammy mailing list/deal they're offering, or agree to an absurd, guilt-trippy statement such as, "No thanks, I hate creativity!"

These forms plague websites small and large. 

One courageous media strategist, Lydia Laurenson, has set out to put an end to this scourge by naming and shaming the digital offenders on a new Tumblr. 

Cruel Opt-Out Forms collects the worst opt-out forms from around the web and calls them out on their misbehavior.

Laurenson says she doesn't hate opt out forms as a whole. She believes there's a place for them in the right context, but used incorrectly they can hurt an otherwise healthy brand.

"I've been hearing rumors that cruel opt-out forms have been banned by some web companies because they had heinous examples in the past and it was hurting their brand," she told us. "But a lot of people think they're just funny."

You can submit your own opt-out form here. These are some of our favorites:

SEE ALSO: Facebook Is Cracking Down On Fake News (But Will Leave The Onion Alone)

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Brisbane (Australia) (AFP) - Tim Cahill's brilliant double strike took Australia into the Asian Cup semi-finals at China's expense on Thursday with a 2-0 win in Brisbane.

Cahill, 35, pulled out a stunning bicycle-kick just after half-time and added a trademark header on 65 minutes to set up a last-four clash against either Japan or UAE.

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