Americans turn to net for news on US crisis

NEWS US news sites' viewing figures surged last week as millions of Americans went online to watch the events on New York and Washington unfold. Almost 12 million Americans visited sites such as CNN.com, NYPost.com and Washington Post in a bid to keep up-to-date with developments following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. For the first time in its history the Red Cross website - where people can donate money and search for information - appeared in the Jupiter MMXI weekly report as 398,000 visitors logged on. ABCNews.com's decision to broadcast its TV coverage live over the web proved a successful one as it experienced a 360 per cent growth in visitors. CNN.com also enjoyed a surge in activity and became the sixth most visited US website with 17.2 million visitors. In the UK the BBC upped its weekly figures from 146,000 to 526,000.