UK’s BRIT Awards slammed as celebration of bland

LONDON (Reuters) – “Sensible” and “sober” are words not normally associated with rock and roll, but they summed up how music critics viewed Wednesday night’s BRIT Awards ceremony at the London O2 Arena.

Viewing figures for commercial broadcaster ITV1, which aired British pop’s biggest night live, were the highest for a decade, so organizers, advertisers and the acts who performed were unlikely to care too much about what experts thought.

Gordon Smart, showbusiness editor at the Sun tabloid, summed up the mood, writing: “Well, rock’n'roll is officially dead. Where have all the rock stars gone?”

The big winner on the night, one that was widely predicted, was Scottish singer-songwriter Emeli Sande, who picked up the coveted British album award for “Our Version of Events”, her debut which was the UK’s top seller of 2012.

She also won the best British female honor, and English singer Ben Howard was the only other multiple winner, claiming the male solo artist and breakthrough categories.

“Welcome to the new boring,” said Daily Telegraph music critic Neil McCormick, describing Howard, Sande and other winners Mumford & Sons (best group) and One Direction (BRITs Global Success Award).

“All – to different degrees – extremely talented, vibrant, emotional, committed, entertaining musical performers beloved of enormous audiences,” he wrote. “And all as dull as dishwater.”

He concluded his review with a rallying cry: “I just hope there is some young punk out there, watching that, thinking the music business needs a right royal kick up the posterior.”

CASH BEFORE CUTTING EDGE

The BRITs have long had a reputation for putting commercial success above artistic originality, and 2013 was no exception.

Will Hodgkinson of The Times newspaper said the lack of spark at the glitzy ceremony perhaps reflected broader economic and social concerns in Britain.

“When times are hard people behave well and hang on to their jobs, which is why the high jinks and chaos of the past, like Jarvis Cocker wiggling his bum at Michael Jackson, was sadly absent,” he said.

In one of the most frequently recalled moments of BRITs history, Cocker invaded the stage while Jackson was performing in 1996 before being escorted away by security.

Even last year had a frisson of controversy, when Adele’s speech was cut short to make way for Blur to perform, prompting her to raise her middle finger.

Adele picked up another award in 2013 – best single for Bond theme tune “Skyfall” – but she did not attend, preferring to rehearse for her upcoming performance at the more widely viewed Oscars ceremony on Sunday.

Nick Hasted, writing in the Independent, said what was most “depressing” about the BRITs was how they were dovetailing with other awards like the Mercury Prize and the BBC’s “Sound of…” poll identifying up-and-coming talent.

“As it shrinks, the music industry is becoming ever more adept at controlling what enters the mainstream,” Hasted said. “The moribund album charts, lacking inspiration and challenge, show how well they’ve succeeded.”

Critics did have more positive things to say about many of the performances, which included Justin Timberlake and Taylor Swift from the United States and Sande, Howard, Mumford & Sons, One Direction, Muse and Robbie Williams from Britain.

And there was good news on the TV viewing front. According to the Guardian, the average audience was just over 6.5 million, a 27.8 percent share and the highest since 2003.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; editing by Stephen Addison)

Music News Headlines – Yahoo! News

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‘Bloodless’ Lung Transplants for Jehovah’s Witnesses

Eric Kayne for The New York Times

SHARING HOME AND FAITH A Houston couple hosted Gene and Rebecca Tomczak, center, in October so she could get care nearby.

HOUSTON — Last April, after being told that only a transplant could save her from a fatal lung condition, Rebecca S. Tomczak began calling some of the top-ranked hospitals in the country.

She started with Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, just hours from her home near Augusta, Ga. Then she tried Duke and the University of Arkansas and Johns Hopkins. Each advised Ms. Tomczak, then 69, to look somewhere else.

The reason: Ms. Tomczak, who was baptized at age 12 as a Jehovah’s Witness, insisted for religious reasons that her transplant be performed without a blood transfusion. The Witnesses believe that Scripture prohibits the transfusion of blood, even one’s own, at the risk of forfeiting eternal life.

Given the complexities of lung transplantation, in which transfusions are routine, some doctors felt the procedure posed unacceptable dangers. Others could not get past the ethics of it all. With more than 1,600 desperately ill people waiting for a donated lung, was it appropriate to give one to a woman who might needlessly sacrifice her life and the organ along with it?

By the time Ms. Tomczak found Dr. Scott A. Scheinin at The Methodist Hospital in Houston last spring, he had long since made peace with such quandaries. Like a number of physicians, he had become persuaded by a growing body of research that transfusions often pose unnecessary risks and should be avoided when possible, even in complicated cases.

By cherry-picking patients with low odds of complications, Dr. Scheinin felt he could operate almost as safely without blood as with it. The way he saw it, patients declined lifesaving therapies all the time, for all manner of reasons, and it was not his place to deny care just because those reasons were sometimes religious or unconventional.

“At the end of the day,” he had resolved, “if you agree to take care of these patients, you agree to do it on their terms.”

Ms. Tomczak’s case — the 11th so-called bloodless lung transplant attempted at Methodist over three years — would become the latest test of an innovative approach that was developed to accommodate the unique beliefs of the world’s eight million Jehovah’s Witnesses but may soon become standard practice for all surgical patients.

Unlike other patients, Ms. Tomczak would have no backstop. Explicit in her understanding with Dr. Scheinin was that if something went terribly wrong, he would allow her to bleed to death. He had watched Witness patients die before, with a lifesaving elixir at hand.

Ms. Tomczak had dismissed the prospect of a transplant for most of the two years she had struggled with sarcoidosis, a progressive condition of unknown cause that leads to scarring in the lungs. The illness forced her to quit a part-time job with Nielsen, the market research firm.

Then in April, on a trip to the South Carolina coast, she found that she was too breathless to join her frolicking grandchildren on the beach. Tethered to an oxygen tank, she watched from the boardwalk, growing sad and angry and then determined to reclaim her health.

“I wanted to be around and be a part of their lives,” Ms. Tomczak recalled, dabbing at tears.

She knew there was danger in refusing to take blood. But she thought the greater peril would come from offending God.

“I know,” she said, “that if I did anything that violates Jehovah’s law, I would not make it into the new system, where he’s going to make earth into a paradise. I know there are risks. But I think I am covered.”

Cutting Risks, and Costs

The approach Dr. Scheinin would use — originally called “bloodless medicine” but later re-branded as “patient blood management” — has been around for decades. His mentor at Methodist, Dr. Denton A. Cooley, the renowned cardiac pioneer, performed heart surgery on hundreds of Witnesses starting in the late 1950s. The first bloodless lung transplant, at Johns Hopkins, was in 1996.

But nearly 17 years later, the degree of difficulty for such procedures remains so high that Dr. Scheinin and his team are among the very few willing to attempt them.

In 2009, after analyzing Methodist’s own data, Dr. Scheinin became convinced that if he selected patients carefully, he could perform lung transplants without transfusions. Hospital administrators resisted at first, knowing that even small numbers of deaths could bring scrutiny from federal regulators.

“My job is to push risk away,” said Dr. A. Osama Gaber, the hospital’s director of transplantation, “so I wasn’t really excited about it. But the numbers were very convincing.”

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DealBook: J. Crew Chief and American Express Invest in Warby Parker

Warby Parker, the hip purveyor of retro-style glasses, has solidified ties with two of its most prominent fans.

Now the three-year-old start-up can count Millard S. Drexler, the chief executive of J. Crew, and American Express as participants in its latest round of financing, which closed last month at $41.5 million.

The two join an already expansive group of investors that includes General Catalyst Partners, Spark Capital, Tiger Global Management, Thrive Capital and Menlo Ventures.

The presence of Mr. Drexler and American Express highlights the growing popularity of Warby Parker, whose founders created the online glasses seller in their spare time at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and quickly struggled to meet consumer demand.

Company executives first closed the round last September at $37.5 million, but left some room and time for select investors to come in as well.

“We’ve tried to be very deliberate in getting people with specific expertise,” Neil Blumenthal, one of Warby Parker’s founders, said in an interview. “Nobody knows retail like Mickey. And within financial services, nobody knows a brand more prominent than American Express.”

Mr. Blumenthal and another founder, David Gilboa, declined to comment on the valuation that the round is based on. But they said that their investors consider the retailer a lifestyle brand, which commands a higher value than an e-commerce company.

Since its founding, Warby Parker has shown significant potential in its business: selling prescription glasses and now sunglasses almost exclusively online at relatively low costs. The company has emphasized customer service by allowing prospective buyers to try on several frames before buying, and using Facebook and Twitter as ways to keep in touch with customers.

Its growth over the last three years has been largely through word of mouth, with the company having run its first television ads this year.

The company has drawn the attention of investors who hope it is less an e-commerce platform and more a brand poised to become the next Tory Burch. Such has been the demand that Silicon Valley venture capitalists regularly flew to New York to beg the founders for breakfast — and then a chance to invest.

“They treat clients like relationships,” Joel Cutler, a founder of General Catalyst, said of Warby Parker’s management. “They’re very much oriented toward telling people about a lifestyle they want to associate with.”

Among those believers is Mr. Drexler, whose successes at Gap and then J. Crew have elevated him to a wise man of retail. He began having regular lunches with Warby Parker’s founders to chat about their retail ideas.

By the time the company began raising its series B round of financing, company executives wanted stronger ties with Mr. Drexler, their informal coach.

“He was excited about some of the exciting retail stuff we were doing,” Mr. Blumenthal said. “When it was time to raise money, we wanted to get him formally involved.”

American Express has been a supporter for some time as well. The firm’s vice chairman, Edward Gilligan, invited Warby Parker executives to speak to employees early in the start-up’s life. The financial services titan also is sponsoring Warby Parker’s “Class Trip,” a cross-country promotional tour aboard a lavishly furnished yellow school bus.

While Warby Parker is collaborating with American Express on its Sync program, which offers rebates to Twitter users, there are no similar plans yet to work with J. Crew on retail partnerships, Mr. Blumenthal said. The emphasis remains on selling directly to consumers.

But the company is looking to raise its profile even more. It has been working with the Standard line of hotels on programs like artists-in-residence and a seaplane ferry from downtown Manhattan to the Hamptons.

It is also in talks with Google on providing stylish options for the tech giant’s computerized glasses product, according to people briefed on the matter.

“We really feel like we’re in an inflection point,” Mr. Gilboa of Warby Parker said. “We feel like we have a really solid foundation for the brand.”

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Athletes cash in on California's workers' comp

SACRAMENTO — In his seven-year career with the Denver Broncos, running back Terrell Davis, a former Super Bowl Most Valuable Player, dazzled fans with his speed and elusiveness.

At the end of his rookie year in 1995, he signed a $6.8-million, five-year contract. Off the field he endorsed Campbell's soup. And when he hung up his cleats, he reported for the National Football League Network and appeared in movies and TV shows.

So it may surprise Californians to find out that in 2011, Davis got a $199,000 injury settlement from a California workers' compensation court for injuries related to football. This came despite the fact Davis was employed by a Colorado team and played just nine times in California during an 88-game career, according to the NFL.

Davis was compensated for the lifelong effects of multiple injuries to the head, arms, trunk, legs and general body, according to California workers' compensation records.

He is not alone.

Over the last three decades, California's workers' compensation system has awarded millions of dollars in benefits for job-related injuries to thousands of professional athletes. The vast majority worked for out-of-state teams; some played as little as one game in the Golden State.

All states allow professional athletes to claim workers' compensation payments for specific job-related injuries — such as a busted knee, torn tendon or ruptured spinal disc — that happened within their borders. But California is one of the few that provides additional payments for the cumulative effect of injuries that occur over years of playing.

A growing roster of athletes are using this provision in California law to claim benefits. Since the early 1980s, an estimated $747 million has been paid out to about 4,500 players, according to an August study commissioned by major professional sports leagues. California taxpayers are not on the hook for these payments. Workers' compensation is an employer-funded program.

Now a major battle is brewing in Sacramento to make out-of-state players ineligible for these benefits, which are paid by the leagues and their insurers. They have hired consultants and lobbyists and expect to unveil legislation next week that would halt the practice.

"The system is completely out of whack right now," said Jeff Gewirtz, vice president of the Brooklyn Nets — formerly the New Jersey Nets — of the National Basketball Assn.

Major retired stars who scored six-figure California workers' compensation benefits include Moses Malone, a three-time NBA most valuable player with the Houston Rockets, Philadelphia 76ers and other teams. He was awarded $155,000. Pro Football Hall of Fame wide receiver Michael Irvin, formerly with the Dallas Cowboys, received $249,000. The benefits usually are calculated as lump-sum payments but sometimes are accompanied by open-ended agreements to provide lifetime medical services.

Players, their lawyers and their unions plan to mount a political offensive to protect these payouts.

Although the monster salaries of players such as Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant and Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning make headlines, few players bring in that kind of money. Most have very short careers. And some, particularly football players, end up with costly, debilitating injuries that haunt them for a lifetime but aren't sufficiently covered by league disability benefits.

Retired pros increasingly are turning to California, not only because of its cumulative benefits but also because there's a longer window to file a claim. The statute of limitations in some states expires in as little as a year or two.

"California is a last resort for a lot of these guys because they've already been cut off in the other states," said Mel Owens, a former Los Angeles Rams linebacker-turned-workers' compensation lawyer who has represented a number of ex-players.

To understand how it works, consider the career of Ernie Conwell. A former tight end for the St. Louis Rams and New Orleans Saints, he was paid $1.6 million for his last season in 2006.

Conwell said that during his 11-year career, he underwent about 18 surgeries, including 11 knee operations. Now 40, he works for the NFL players union and lives in Nashville.

Hobbled by injuries, he filed for workers' compensation in Louisiana and got $181,000 in benefits to cover his last, career-ending knee surgery in 2006, according to the Saints. The team said it also provided $195,000 in injury-related benefits as part of a collective-bargaining agreement with the players union.

But such workers' compensation benefits paid by Louisiana cover only specific injuries. So, to deal with what he expects to be the costs of ongoing health problems that he said affect his arms, legs, muscles, bones and head, Conwell filed for compensation in California and won.

Even though he played only about 20 times in the state over his professional career, he received a $160,000 award from a California workers' compensation judge plus future medical benefits, according to his lawyer. The Saints are appealing the judgment.

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Major Banks Aid in Payday Loans Banned by States

Major banks have quickly become behind-the-scenes allies of Internet-based payday lenders that offer short-term loans with interest rates sometimes exceeding 500 percent.

With 15 states banning payday loans, a growing number of the lenders have set up online operations in more hospitable states or far-flung locales like Belize, Malta and the West Indies to more easily evade statewide caps on interest rates.

While the banks, which include giants like JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, do not make the loans, they are a critical link for the lenders, enabling the lenders to withdraw payments automatically from borrowers’ bank accounts, even in states where the loans are banned entirely. In some cases, the banks allow lenders to tap checking accounts even after the customers have begged them to stop the withdrawals.

“Without the assistance of the banks in processing and sending electronic funds, these lenders simply couldn’t operate,” said Josh Zinner, co-director of the Neighborhood Economic Development Advocacy Project, which works with community groups in New York.

The banking industry says it is simply serving customers who have authorized the lenders to withdraw money from their accounts. “The industry is not in a position to monitor customer accounts to see where their payments are going,” said Virginia O’Neill, senior counsel with the American Bankers Association.

But state and federal officials are taking aim at the banks’ role at a time when authorities are increasing their efforts to clamp down on payday lending and its practice of providing quick money to borrowers who need cash.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are examining banks’ roles in the online loans, according to several people with direct knowledge of the matter. Benjamin M. Lawsky, who heads New York State’s Department of Financial Services, is investigating how banks enable the online lenders to skirt New York law and make loans to residents of the state, where interest rates are capped at 25 percent.

For the banks, it can be a lucrative partnership. At first blush, processing automatic withdrawals hardly seems like a source of profit. But many customers are already on shaky financial footing. The withdrawals often set off a cascade of fees from problems like overdrafts. Roughly 27 percent of payday loan borrowers say that the loans caused them to overdraw their accounts, according to a report released this month by the Pew Charitable Trusts. That fee income is coveted, given that financial regulations limiting fees on debit and credit cards have cost banks billions of dollars.

Some state and federal authorities say the banks’ role in enabling the lenders has frustrated government efforts to shield people from predatory loans — an issue that gained urgency after reckless mortgage lending helped precipitate the 2008 financial crisis.

Lawmakers, led by Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, introduced a bill in July aimed at reining in the lenders, in part, by forcing them to abide by the laws of the state where the borrower lives, rather than where the lender is. The legislation, pending in Congress, would also allow borrowers to cancel automatic withdrawals more easily. “Technology has taken a lot of these scams online, and it’s time to crack down,” Mr. Merkley said in a statement when the bill was introduced.

While the loans are simple to obtain — some online lenders promise approval in minutes with no credit check — they are tough to get rid of. Customers who want to repay their loan in full typically must contact the online lender at least three days before the next withdrawal. Otherwise, the lender automatically renews the loans at least monthly and withdraws only the interest owed. Under federal law, customers are allowed to stop authorized withdrawals from their account. Still, some borrowers say their banks do not heed requests to stop the loans.

Ivy Brodsky, 37, thought she had figured out a way to stop six payday lenders from taking money from her account when she visited her Chase branch in Brighton Beach in Brooklyn in March to close it. But Chase kept the account open and between April and May, the six Internet lenders tried to withdraw money from Ms. Brodsky’s account 55 times, according to bank records reviewed by The New York Times. Chase charged her $1,523 in fees — a combination of 44 insufficient fund fees, extended overdraft fees and service fees.

For Subrina Baptiste, 33, an educational assistant in Brooklyn, the overdraft fees levied by Chase cannibalized her child support income. She said she applied for a $400 loan from Loanshoponline.com and a $700 loan from Advancemetoday.com in 2011. The loans, with annual interest rates of 730 percent and 584 percent respectively, skirt New York law.

Ms. Baptiste said she asked Chase to revoke the automatic withdrawals in October 2011, but was told that she had to ask the lenders instead. In one month, her bank records show, the lenders tried to take money from her account at least six times. Chase charged her $812 in fees and deducted over $600 from her child-support payments to cover them.

“I don’t understand why my own bank just wouldn’t listen to me,” Ms. Baptiste said, adding that Chase ultimately closed her account last January, three months after she asked.

A spokeswoman for Bank of America said the bank always honored requests to stop automatic withdrawals. Wells Fargo declined to comment. Kristin Lemkau, a spokeswoman for Chase, said: “We are working with the customers to resolve these cases.” Online lenders say they work to abide by state laws.

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Building of the Week: Atlas' Exoskeleton

Each week, Wired Design brings you a photo of one of our favorite buildings, showcasing boundary-pushing architecture and design involved in the unique structures that make the world's cityscapes interesting. Check back Fridays for the continuing series, and feel free to make recommendations in the comments, by Twitter, or by e-mail.

Like a big, square, beetle, Wageningen University's Atlas Building is primarily supported by its exoskeleton. The concrete latticework reduces the need for pillars on the inside, and the building contains a large, open atrium with footbridges between floors. Completed in 2007, Atlas was also built with convertible labs, so it can be reconfigured internally as its occupants' needs change. Designed by Rafael Vinolly Architects and OeverZaaijer Architecture and Urbanism, the building houses Wageningen's Water and Climate Center, Soil Group, and Environmental Sciences Group. as well as a massive, hanging globe of the Earth, fittingly.

Top photo: Courtesy of Rafael Vinoly Architects;

Bottom photo: Courtesy Flickr/Erik van Ravenstein

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Well: Savory Pie Recipes for Health

Pie is an indulgence often saved for holiday time. But this week Martha Rose Shulman shows us how to bake a pie and eat it too, without the guilt. She offers savory vegetable pies, showcased in whole grain crusts. She writes:

This week I slowed down and made pies: savory ones filled with vegetables … I used a number of different crusts for my winter pies. My favorite remains the whole wheat yeasted olive oil crust that I have used before in this column, but I also worked with a simple Mediterranean crust made with a mix of whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour and olive oil. And for those of you who are gluten-free, I made another foray into gluten-free pastry and produced one I liked a lot, which was a mix of buckwheat flour, millet flour and potato starch. It had a strong nutty flavor that worked well with a very savory, very vegan, tofu and mushroom “quiche.” They are all simple to mix together and easy to roll or press out. And if you don’t feel like dealing with a crust, just use Greek phyllo. The important things, after all, are the savory vegetables inside.

Here are recipes for a pie crust and four savory winter vegetable pies.

Whole Wheat Mediterranean Pie Crust: A simple Mediterranean crust made with a mix of whole wheat flour, all-purpose flour and olive oil.

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Mixed Greens Galette With Onions and Chickpeas: A tasty way to use bagged greens in a dish with Middle Eastern overtones.

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Goat Cheese, Chard and Herb Pie in a Phyllo Crust: A garlicky mix of greens and your choice of herbs inside a crispy phyllo crust.

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Tofu Mushroom ‘Quiche’: A vegan dish with a deep, rich flavor.

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Winter Tomato Quiche: Canned tomatoes can be used in the off season for a delicious dinner.

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Fed Officials Debate Bank’s Losses Once Economy Mends

The Federal Reserve’s plans for the eventual wind-down of its economic stimulus campaign could provoke a political reaction that will make it more difficult to control inflation, a current Fed official and a former Fed governor said Friday.

Peter Newcomb/Reuters

James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Fed, sees political fallout from coming losses.

Pat Greenhouse/The Boston Globe

Eric Rosengren, head of the Boston Fed, noted 400,000 jobs would be added this year.

Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

Jerome Powell, a Fed governor, said the bank would resist any pressure from Congress.

When the economy grows stronger, the Fed plans to sell some of its vast holdings of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities. The Fed also plans to pay banks to leave some money on deposit with it to limit the pace of new lending.

And that could prove an awkward combination. The Fed faces the possibility of large losses as it sells off securities, which could force the central bank to suspend annual payments to the Treasury Department for the first time since the 1930s, even as it would be increasing the amounts paid to the banking industry for its cash holdings at the Fed to control inflation.

“That sounds like a recipe for political problems,” said James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. He described the predicament as one reason the Fed might consider limiting its plans for additional asset purchases.

But Eric S. Rosengren, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, said that concerns about potential losses needed to be weighed against the benefits of asset purchases. The Fed holds almost $3 trillion in Treasuries and mortgage bonds, and it is adding about $85 billion a month in an effort to cut unemployment.

Mr. Rosengren, a leading advocate of the purchases, said Boston Fed research showed asset purchases this year could help create about 400,000 new jobs.

“That’s what the Federal Reserve should really be caring about, what’s happening with the dual mandate with and without” the asset purchases, Mr. Rosengren said. “When I think about the costs, I have to weigh that against the benefits,” he said at the US Monetary Policy Forum in New York on Friday.

By law, the Fed sends most of its profits to the Treasury, and in recent years those profits have soared as the Fed has collected interest on its investments. Last year, the central bank contributed $89 billion to the public coffers — essentially refunding a significant portion of the federal government’s annual borrowing costs.

The purpose of the investment portfolio is to hold down borrowing costs for businesses and consumers. As the economy revives, the Fed has said it will begin selling some of those holdings. But it faces potential losses on those sales because interest rates would be rising. Security prices, which move inversely to rates, would be falling, and the government would be issuing new debt at the higher rates, making the low-yield bonds that the Fed holds less valuable.

Estimating the potential losses requires a wide range of assumptions on Fed policy, economic growth and interest rates. A Fed analysis published last month, which assumed that interest rates rose to 3.8 percent later this decade, estimated that the central bank might record losses of $40 billion and suspend contributions to the Treasury for four years beginning in 2017. If rates rose by another percentage point, however, the analysis estimated that losses would triple. An independent analysis published on Friday foresaw losses of around $20 billion and a suspension of payments for only three years.

The Fed can afford to lose money because it can simply print more. It would record a liability, and pay down the debt as profits rebounded.

But there are signs that the Fed’s political opponents would seize on any losses as evidence of economic malpractice. And such that criticism could come at a vulnerable moment: central banks are never popular when they are raising interest rates.

Representative Jim Jordan, an Ohio Republican, cited the potential losses in an open letter this week to the Fed chief, Ben S. Bernanke, requesting more information on what he called “the potentially devastating consequences from any unwind.”

Jerome H. Powell, a Fed governor, insisted Friday that the central bank would not allow its course to be influenced by such political pressure.

“We’re independent for a reason,” he said. “Congress has given us a job to do.”

Some supporters of current Fed policy also argue that an economic revival would inoculate the central bank against criticism, in part because the government’s coffers would be filling even without the Fed’s contributions.

But Frederic S. Mishkin, a Columbia economist and one of the authors of the independent analysis of the Fed’s potential losses, said that was wishful thinking.

“Politicians have very short memories,” said Professor Mishkin, a former Fed governor. “They’re going to focus very much on the fact that the Fed is no longer pulling its weight in terms of producing remittances for the federal government.”

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Coronado sailors clean up imperiled birds' nesting areas

CORONADO —On most days, a three-mile stretch of Silver Strand beach here is used for training Navy SEALs, sailors and Marines.

Thursday was not a usual day.

Dozens of sailors spent the morning in a slow, head-down walk along the restricted beach, searching for detritus that could harm the Western snowy plover and the California least tern, two imperiled bird populations that use the strand for nesting.

"This is our office," said sailor Daniel Torres, 26, from New Mexico, one of the Navy beachmasters — specialists in bringing vehicles and other heavy equipment ashore from amphibious assault ships. "We're here every day. It's good to clean up your office once in a while."

And clean they did: 14 cubic yards of junk, including plastic bags, foam cups, straws, small pieces of rope, Chemlights, cigarette packages, aerosol cans, chunks of wood and a few tires. Much of the stuff probably washed ashore from civilian boats, but the dummy bullets were definitely military.

"I love birds," said sailor Jake Herman, 20, of Chicago, opening his hand to display a half-dozen of the blanks that he had just scooped from the sand.

For the plover and the tern, nesting season stretches from March to September. Training continues, but officers in charge of the exercises are given maps indicating the location of tern nests. The nests of the plovers, the more imperiled of the populations, are marked by blue stakes, said Tiffany Shepherd, wildlife biologist for Naval Base Coronado.

Two years ago, 139 plover nests and 1,146 tern nests were found on military locations in Coronado. Records are kept of how many tern nests are destroyed by training — about 30 to 40 a year on the oceanfront, Shepherd said.

The military plans to greatly increase training on Silver Strand, giving the cleanup and mapping process added significance. The SEALs are boosting their numbers, and the Marines, with the war in Afghanistan winding down, are returning to their historic specialty: striking from the sea.

In an 818-page environmental impact report, written by the Navy and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the military pledged that the birds will not suffer because of the increased military use of the beach.

Environmental groups are taking a wait-and-see attitude.

"If the military does everything it has promised, the birds should not be negatively impacted," said Rebecca Schwartz, conservation program manager with the San Diego Audubon Society. "Audubon, and other groups, will be watching very closely."

Katherine Weiler of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency walked beside the sailors Thursday, taking notes.

"The birds target small pieces of brightly colored plastic," she said. "They think it's something to eat."

Also monitoring the cleanup was Malloy Watson, community engagement coordinator with San Diego Coastkeeper, which leads cleanup drives on public beaches.

This beach may be military, she noted, but the debris "is still public."

tony.perry@latimes.com

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Zendesk Security Breach Affects Twitter, Tumblr and Pinterest

Customer service software provider Zendesk announced a security breach that allowed attackers into its system, where they could access data from three customers this week. Wired learned those three clients were Twitter, Pinterest and Tumblr.

The San Francisco-based company announced the breach in a blog post published early Thursday night. Tumblr notified affected users in a tweet at 6:35 p.m. Pacific time; Twitter and Pinterest are expected to do so shortly. Zendesk declined to comment beyond its blog post, titled, appropriately, “We’ve been hacked.” The post reads in part:

We’ve become aware that a hacker accessed our system this week. As soon as we learned of the attack, we patched the vulnerability and closed the access that the hacker had. Our ongoing investigation indicates that the hacker had access to the support information that three of our customers store on our system. We believe that the hacker downloaded email addresses of users who contacted those three customers for support, as well as support email subject lines. We notified our affected customers immediately and are working with them to assist in their response.

Zendesk allows companies to outsource many of their customer service functions to it via software tools. It has more than 25,000 clients, according to its website.

Zendesk noted that a hacker downloaded email addresses of users who contacted those three customers for support, along with the email subject lines. Wired’s source claims some customers also may have had their phone numbers revealed, but no passwords, password hashes, or even encrypted passwords were revealed. Neither Twitter nor Pinterest are aware of any user accounts that were compromised by the attack.

The email sent by Tumblr states:

Important information regarding your security and privacy

For the last 2.5 years, we’ve used a popular service called Zendesk to store, organize, and answer emails to Tumblr Support. We’ve learned that a security breach at Zendesk has affected Tumblr and two other companies. We are sending this notification to all email addresses that we believe may have been affected by this breach.

This has potentially exposed records of subject lines and, in some cases, email addresses of messages sent to Tumblr Support. While much of this information is innocuous, please take some time today to consider the following:
The subject lines of your emails to Tumblr Support may have included the address of your blog which could potentially allow your blog to be unwillingly associated with your email address.
Any other information included in the subject lines of emails you’ve sent to Tumblr Support may be exposed. We recommend you review any correspondence you’ve addressed to support@tumblr.com, abuse@tumblr.com, dmca@tumblr.com,legal@tumblr.com, enquiries@tumblr.com, or lawenforcement@tumblr.com.
Tumblr will never ask you for your password by email. Emails are easy to fake, and you should be suspicious of unexpected emails you receive.
Your safety is our highest priority. We’re working with law enforcement and Zendesk to better understand this attack. Please monitor your email and Tumblr accounts for suspicious behavior, and notify us immediately if you have any concerns.

The email Pinterest is sending its users reads:

An important notice about security on Pinterest

We recently learned that the vendor we use to answer support requests
and other emails (Zendesk) experienced a security breach.

We’re sending you this email because we received or answered a message from you using Zendesk. Unfortunately your name, email address and subject line of your message were improperly accessed during their security breach. To help keep your account secure, please:

Don’t share your password. We will never send you an email asking for your password. If you get an email like this, please let us know right away.
Beware of suspicious emails. If you get any emails that look like they’re from Pinterest but don’t feel right, please let us know—especially if they include details about your support request.
Use a strong Pinterest password. Hackers can sometimes guess very short passwords with no letters or symbols. If your password is weak, you can create a new one.

We’re really sorry this happened, and we’ll keep working with law enforcement and our vendors to ensure your information is protected.

Twitter’s message to its affected users notes:

Twitter – along with a number of other companies – uses a customer support portal called Zendesk. Zendesk recently blogged about a significant security breach. In order to ensure those who may be impacted by this breach are notified as quickly as possible, we are sending this notification to all email addresses, including this one, that we believe could have been involved.

Zendesk’s breach did not result in the exposure of information such as Twitter account passwords. It may, however, have included contact information you provided when submitting a support request such as an email, phone number, or Twitter username. Further information about the breach can be found in their blog post.

We do not believe you need to take any action at this time but wanted to ensure that you were notified of this incident.

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