US tech giant Apple revealed on Monday it received between 4,000 and 5,000 data requests in six months from US authorities, days after Facebook and Microsoft released similar information. Apple, Facebook, Microsoft and several other top Internet and technology companies have come under heightened scrutiny since word leaked of a vast, covert Internet surveillance program US authorities insist targets only foreign terror suspects and has helped thwart attacks.

Patience has been the order of the day for Rory McIlroy this year as he tries to get used to his new Nike clubs, but patience ran out for him at the US Open on Sunday. Already out of contention after a 75 in Saturday's third round, the 24-year-old Ulsterman, usually the coolest of customers on the golf course, briefly lost it on the 11th hole at Merion Golf Club after hitting a bad shot. He stabbed the offending iron into the ground and bent it out of shape before bending it again over his leg.

Internet giants Facebook and Microsoft say they received thousands of requests for data from US authorities last year but are prohibited from disclosing how many related to national security. The two companies have come under heightened scrutiny since word leaked of a vast, covert Internet surveillance program US authorities insist targets only foreign terror suspects and has helped thwart attacks.

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand - Wrinkled and skinny at first, the translucent, jellyfish-shaped balloons that Google released this week from a frozen field in the heart of New Zealand's South Island hardened into shiny pumpkins as they rose into the blue winter skies above Lake Tekapo, passing the first big test of a lofty goal to get the entire planet online.