US spending, incomes rise in November
Americans incomes and earnings rose as the holiday season began. Spending rose 0.5 percent in November, the highest in four months, and incomes increased 0.3 percent for the second month, the Commerce Department said in Washington.

Inflation remained unchanged raising expectations that central bankers will not touch interest rates in coming months.
The reports spelt good times for retail sales in the holiday season.
The Commerce Department's figures showed orders for durable goods, excluding transportation equipment, dropped last month suggesting that companies are hesitant about making equipment purchases. Orders rose 1.1 percent in November, reflecting a rise in demand for commercial aircraft and military materiel. Outside transportation, they fell 1.1 percent after a 1.6 per cent decrease.

Bookings for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, a proxy for future business investment, fell 1.4 percent last month after dropping 3.9 percent in October. The back-to-back declines were the first since February-March 2005.

The Commerce Department's price gauge, the personal consumption expenditure index, excluding food and energy costs, was unchanged after a 0.2 percent increase in October. Compared with November 2005, the price index closely watched by the Fed was up 2.2 per cent, the smallest year-over-year gain since May.

Disposable income rose 0.3 percent after a 0.2 percent increase the month before. Adjusted for inflation, disposable income increased 0.3 per cent in November following a 0.4 per cent rise.
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Google more popular than Yahoo
San Francisco: Google is now a more popular internet destination than Yahoo and was the second most popular destination for Web surfers worldwide in November with Microsoft being the first, industry tracker ComScore has reported.

More than 736 million people surfed the Internet in November this year and 475,713 of them visited Google websites while 475,262 visited Yahoo online properties, according to ComScore.

Microsoft sites were visited by 501,720 people, the rating tally revealed. Hot video-sharing website YouTube was tenth in the ComScore Media Metrix rankings but showed the largest surge in visitors, with the number catapulting by more than 2,000 per cent to 107,944.

Google's results did not include visits YouTube, which it bought in October.
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