Your customized headlines for Thu, Mar 1, 2012

The U.S. economy started the year with a burst of healthy activity, according to a Federal Reserve survey Wednesday that reported that the country's factories and stores and even the troubled housing market appeared to be gaining momentum.

The European Central Bank said Wednesday that it had provided some 800 banks in the euro region with more than $700 billion in three-year loans, an infusion of relatively long-term cash meant to help stabilize the currency zone's troubled finances.

BEIJING — The ritual is now familiar. European officials meet with Chinese leaders seeking assurances of help for the continent's debt crisis. During smiling photo ops, the Chinese respond with the requisite promises to assist.

After months of riots, high-level summits and geopolitical drama, a part of Greece's fate will be settled Thursday in an arena far from the public eye: a transAtlantic videoconference.

On the call, 15 bankers and hedge fund investors will convene to determine whether Greece has triggered a "credit event" — in essence, a violation of the bonds it has sold to investors.

Michael Douglas, the actor who played white-collar villain Gordon Gekko in the iconic movie "Wall Street," appears in an FBI public service announcement released this week targeting financial fraud.

To report insider trading, Douglas says, contact the FBI.

The European Central Bank said Wednesday that it had provided some 800 banks in the euro region with more than $700 billion in three-year loans, an infusion of relatively long-term cash meant to help stabilize the currency zone's troubled finances.

—David Leonhardt interviews Noam Scheiber.

—Peter Orszag: Can cigarette taxes be Greece's salvation?

—Not science fiction: six-legged giant finds secret hideaway, hides for 80 years.

—The T-Rex had a more powerful bite than any other creature on earth.

Perhaps it's worth saying a little bit more about how the filibuster amplifies political polarization. After all, the conventional wisdom is that it encourages bipartisanship by giving the minority a guaranteed seat at the table.

Tom Vanderbilt writes that the mere act of pulling people over might be enough to reduce traffic violations — without actually levying fines:

[T]here is evidence that what often matters in reducing traffic violations is not punitive action per se, but simply the process of being pulled over and receiving the warning. This imparts the idea that the driver has violated some community norm, and reminds him (and other drivers who pass by) that there are police looking after those norms.