Bloomberg A German consumer group sued Facebook Inc.’s WhatsApp in a Berlin court over clauses that allow the messaging service to collect and transfer user data between the platforms. The suit is challenging the privacy terms WhatsApp changed in August, which allow for transferring some data to Facebook’s social network, VZBV said in a statement on Monday. Each consumer …

  Bloomberg US consumer purchases climbed in December by the most in three months as incomes picked up, signaling a strong hand-off into 2017. The 0.5 percent advance in consumption, which accounts for about 70 percent of the economy, followed a 0.2 percent advance in the prior month, a Commerce Department report showed on Monday. The December increase matched the …

  BOSTON / AP Where are the trees? More important, where aren’t the trees? A lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is helping some of the world’s cities answer both questions in an attempt to make them more pleasant places to live and work. In an effort to enhance the critical role trees play in urban environments — providing …