(Continued from page 29)

cret national security investigations, resulting in the collection of data on thousands of Americans.
• That release came after the companies were freed by a recent legal deal with government lawyers.
• The publications disclosed by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, LinkedIn and Tumblr provided expanded details and some vented criticism about the government's handling of customers' Internet data in counterterrorism and other intelligence-related probes. The figures from 2012 and 2013 showed that companies such as Google and Microsoft were compelled by the government to provide information on as many as 10,000 customer accounts in a six-month period. Yahoo complied with government requests for information on more than 40,000 accounts in the same period.
• The companies earlier had provided limited information about government requests for data, but an agreement reached last week with the Obama administration allowed the firms to provide a broadened, though still circumscribed, set of figures to the public.
• Seeking to reassure customers and business partners alarmed by revelations about the government's massive collection of Internet and computer data, the firms stressed details indicating that only small numbers of their customers were targeted by authorities. Still, even those small numbers showed that thousands of Americans were affected by the government requests approved by judges of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
• ___

• LONDON (AP) -- Japanese shares led another global market sell-off Tuesday as investors fretted over the U.S. economic recovery amid ongoing uncertainties about the outlook for emerging economies.
• Diving over 4 percent, the Nikkei 225 stock index ended at a four-month low, sending shivers across Asia. European stock markets are down again but the pace of selling appears to have stabilized somewhat.
• The turmoil that has afflicted financial markets over the past few weeks has a number of causes. Some analysts think it's a long-overdue correction in stock values that will eventually bottom out. Many indexes had finished 2013 at record highs.
• Others think it's likely to last longer, not least because the U.S. Federal Reserve

(Continued on page 31)