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The U.S. economy expanded at a 4.1 percent annual rate in the third quarter, a significantly faster pace than first thought and its strongest showing since the end of 2011, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said Friday.

After each quarter, the agency spends the next three months reporting and revising its figures on gross domestic product growth.

Earlier, BEA said it thought GDP grew at a 3.6 percent annual rate from the end of June through September. That was up from its initial estimate of 2.8 percent.

Now it's saying growth topped 4 percent.

What's led to the upward revisions? "Stronger consumer spending, primarily in the area of health care," The Associated Press reports.

At 4.1 percent, growth was the strongest since the 4.9 percent gain in fourth-quarter 2011. Growth was also up from recent quarters. This year began with weak, 1.1 percent growth in the first quarter and was followed by a 2.5 percent gain in the second.

Looking ahead, MarketWatch writes, economists caution that growth could slow — particularly if companies have trouble selling some of the goods they've recently added to inventories.

There have also been some signs, as we reported Thursday, that one of the economy's stronger sectors in recent months — housing — may be cooling off due to slightly higher mortgage rates and a tight supply of homes.

Still, economist Hugh Johnson tells our Newscast Desk that the GDP report suggests "the economy, based on a lot of different factors, is starting to show some improvement."

Among the memorials to Nelson Mandela put up across India is a billboard in Tamil Nadu that features a photo of actor Morgan Freeman, not the iconic anti-apartheid hero from South Africa who died earlier this month.

The businessman who paid for the sign says it will be replaced with one that has the right image.

Perhaps the billboard's designer got confused because Freeman portrayed Mandela in the 2009 movie Invictus.

As you might expect, a photo of the botched billboard has been whipping around Twitter.

Freeman has inadvertently been part of such a mix-up before. At President Obama's inauguration back in January, ABC News' George Stephanopoulos got famously confused. He thought basketball great Bill Russell was the actor.

Back in ye olden days — say, a decade ago — many holiday shoppers worried about using credit cards to buy gifts online. They feared their information would end up in the hands of computer hackers.

Turns out, walking into a store and swiping a credit card can be plenty risky too.

"There aren't good statistics measuring which one is a greater risk," said Greg Brown, chief technology officer for McAfee, a computer security company. But either option — shopping in real life or online — can let bad guys into your wallet, as Target shoppers learned Thursday.

If you shop through a shady website, "your risk goes up, just as it would if you bought merchandise off the back of a truck," Brown said. "You have to be diligent" about who sees your credit card, he said.

But that's what was so disturbing about the revelation that Target, with nearly 1,800 U.S. stores, suffered a huge theft. The company said that between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15, information from 40 million card accounts may have been stolen. The data loss involved customers' names, credit and debit card numbers, expiration dates and three-digit security codes imprinted on the cards. Target said it's working with law enforcement and financial institutions, and has "identified and resolved the issue."

The theft involved cards used to make purchases inside the stores, where lights twinkle and Christmas carols play, not through the company's website.

That freaks out many customers who thought they could make themselves safe, just by refraining from flashing cash or throwing card information out on the Internet.

"I don't carry cash with me because I'm a senior citizen," said Betty Singletary-Flythe, who was at a Target store in Washington, D.C., on Thursday. To shop, she likes to pull out her plastic in person.

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Dennis Rodman arrived in North Korea on Thursday for his third visit this year to the hard-line Stalinist country, saying he will train the country's national basketball team and see his "friend," leader Kim Jong Un.

Rodman's visit comes just a week after Kim's uncle, Jang Song Thaek, was executed for treason. The demise of Jang, a top government official, appears to have been part of an internal purge and has largely ended speculation that the youngish Kim, who became the country's supreme leader after his father's death two years ago, might usher in a kinder, gentler era.

Speaking in Beijing en route to Pyongyang, Rodman said he was "very proud" to call Kim his friend.

"[He] hasn't done anything to put a damper or to say negative things about my country," the ex-NBA player said.

Rodman said he hoped his trip would "open doors for America."

The Los Angeles Times reports:

"Publicity materials for the event indicate that Rodman plans to bring 'NBA stars' to play against the North Koreans, though no names of any participating players have been announced."