NPR News 2014-02-05 加文本

NPR News 2014-02-05

From NPR News in Washington, I’m Jack Speer.

A recent deal with the Justice Department has allowed tech firms to report in greater detail about government surveillance. As NPR’s Steve Han explains, Google, Facebook and Microsoft are among tech companies releasing the information.

These new, updated transparency reports show that only a tiny fraction of US technology industry’s millions of customers have been targeted for surveillance by the FBI or the intelligence community. However, that still means thousands of individuals have had their data seized without their knowledge. For example, in the last six months of 2012, the FISA court made between 12,000 and 30,000 content requests from Google. It accessed between 4,000 and 5,000 customers accounts at Facebook and another 16,000 to 17,000 at Microsoft, and Microsoft’s top attorney Brad Smith just criticized the government for failing the pledge it would stop trying to hack these tech giants. Steve Han, NPR News, Silicon Valley.

Last night’s Super Bowl broke broadcast records. As NPR’s Neda Ulaby reports, it was on average the most watched telecast of all time.

What the Super Bowl lacked in drama, it made up for in viewers. Over 111 million people were apparently happy to watch the Seattle Seashawks crush the Denver Broncos for more than three hours Sunday night. Many industry watchers thought ratings would suffer when the game’s winner became a foregone conclusion early on, but more people watched than ever before. Even the halftime show set a viewing record in spite of a Time Warner outage in Southern California that made many fans there miss most of it. The Super Bowl also set new records for streaming and tweeting. The last five Super Bowls are now the five most watched programs in US television history. Neda Ulaby, NPR News.

Janet Yellen has officially taken over the reins of the Federal Reserve. Yellen sworn in today to replace outgoing Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke after being confirmed by the Senate last month. The 67-year-old Yellen becomes the first woman to lead the Federal Reserve in the body’s 100-year history.

After one of the worst Januaries in recent history, Wall Street appears to starting February [in] an equally ugly mood. The Dow fell more than 300 points today - more than 2% - after a number of reports seemed to indicate signs of slower global growth. Jack Ablin is with BMO Private Bank.

“We’ve gotten disappointing numbers here at home, and we’re getting disappointing numbers from many of our trading partners, most notably China. So I think there’s a growing sense that the economy isn’t moving along as well as we had originally thought.”

Today’s selloff moves the market at least closer to a technical correction, which is a 10% drop. Already the Standard & Poor’s 500 index is halfway there, while the Dow was down more than 7% for the year.

On Wall Street, the Dow dropped 326 points today to close at 15,372; the NASDAQ Composite was down 106 points.

You’re listening to NPR News in Washington.

Iraqi officials say more than a dozen people have been killed in a series of car bombings in and around the Iraqi capital today. Nine people were killed in the bombing in the town of Mahmoudiya, where car bombs exploded outside a local council building and in an outdoor market. Other bombs went off in neighborhoods in Baghdad. The attacks come on the heels of fierce fighting in Iraq’s western Anbar province between government and allied tribal militia forces and al-Qaeda-linked militants.

Eleven candidates are now officially running to succeed President Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan’s April election. NPR’s Sean Carberry reports former warlords will play a large role in the campaign.

While Afghanistan is technically a democracy, it still has very weak political institutions, says political analyst Grant Heywete.

“The tribal system is a dominantism.”

He says that patronage and political networks deliver far more votes than policy platforms, and many of the presidential candidates have former warlords as vice presidential running mates because of their ability to bring loyalists to the polls. Heywete says many of these former warlords still maintain a legal militia that can also “stuff ballots into their people and occupy polling stations to manipulate the votes.” Past elections here have been marred by fraud, and Western officials hope this year’s vote is legitimate enough for the Afghan people to peacefully accept the results. Sean Carberry, NPR News, Kabul.

Broadway theaters are expected to dim their marquee lights Wednesday night in memory of actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. Hoffman, who in addition to his extensive film career also earned three Tony nominations, was found dead over the weekend for an apparent drug overdose in his Greenwich village apartment. New York Medical Examiner’s Office says it plans to conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of death. The 46-year-old actor who had dealt with earlier drug problems reportedly had relapsed.

I’m Jack Speer, NPR News in Washington.