Target’s payment card nightmare gets worse

"Attention 70 million Target shoppers: the people who stole your credit and debit card information also have your mailing address, email account and phone number."

That was the news coming from Minneapolis this morning as the nation’s second largest discounter revealed yet more disturbing details surrounding the theft of customer payment card information during the critical holiday shopping season. 

Previously, Target (TGT) had claimed that “only” 40 million customers had been impacted and the exposure was limited to card information. Today with one sentence Target almost doubled the number of customers whose data were violated, and expanded the degree of that violation considerably.

In the attached clip retail crime expert Hitha Prabhakar says the crooks are way ahead of Target and other retailers when it comes to keeping your information safe. Consumed with driving sales merchants have antiquated systems in place when it comes to security. “They’re not thinking and really investing in security,” says Prabhakar who has a book on organized retail crime called Black Market Billions.  “What ends up happening is that these 18-year olds trump (retailers) in terms of knowledge and take 70 million people’s information and do terrible things with it.”

According to most recent census data there are 320 million Americans, 240 million of which are over 18.  If Target’s estimate of 70 million different customers is accurate, then 21.8% of the U.S. population has had their names, addresses, phone numbers and email accounts fall into the hands of the criminal masterminds who managed to tap into Target’s customer database. 

Even with the assumption that many customers used different cards at Target, meaning some individuals were victimized more than once, 70 million is a staggering number.

Target’s website says the company will offer free credit monitoring services for up to one year but there’s no way to sign up for the service yet. The company’s website and toll-free number say additional information will be provided next week.

Target says it has contacted more than 17 million customers regarding the payment card breach via email. Of course now that its apparent the thieves have access to customer email accounts, it’s probably not a good idea to click any links or even open emails claiming to be from Target. The company says it has copies of all official emails available on its website,though that link just leads to the generic crisis front page.

As of moments ago, calling the telephone number provided on the back of a Target debit card (888-729-7331) directs callers to check the company website for recent transactions and offers assurances that there is no need to speak to representatives.

There is no apparent way to cancel your card online, but the automated call center does give callers the opportunity to sign up for a new card if they wish.

The guess here is most customers will pass on that the option to get a new Target card in the immediate future. Perhaps not surprisingly, Target also warned that 4th quarter earnings estimates would come in short of previous expectations.

Unfortunately, Prabhakar says the problem isn’t limited to Target. Maybe companies with an online or mobile focus have a slight edge, but almost all companies still doing the bulk of their business through physical stores could be next. “These slow moving retailers like Target and Walmart are all pretty vulnerable right now.”

Judd Apatow and Lena Dunham Get Mad at Me For Asking Why She’s Naked So Much on ‘Girls’

Why is Lena Dunham’s character on “Girls” naked so much?

That question made Dunham and her fellow “Girls” executive producers, Judd Apatow and Jenni Konner, mad at me Thursday during a Television Critics Association panel. Apatow later said my question was sexist, offensive and misogynistic. He asked me to transcribe what I asked and re-read what I asked Dunham, so here it is:

Also read: ‘Girls’ Season Finale: Boys – Ick – to the Rescue

“I don’t get the purpose of all the nudity on the show. By you particularly. I feel like I’m walking into a trap where you say no one complains about the nudity on ‘Game of Thrones,’ but I get why they’re doing it. They’re doing it to be salacious. To titillate people. And your character is often naked at random times for no reason.”

Dunham said she was naked on the show because people are naked sometimes.

Also read: Lena Dunham Catches a Big Break in New ‘Girls’ Trailer (Video)

“Yeah. It’s because it’s a realistic expression of what it’s like to be alive, I think, and I totally get it. If you are not into me, that’s your problem,” she said.

Huh? But I didn’t say that. The conversation continued its personal turn as Apatow asked if I had a girlfriend.

“Sure,” I said.

“Does she like you?”

“Yeah.”

Also read: HBO’s ‘Girls’ to Screen in 8 Cities on Night of New York Premiere

“Let’s see how she likes you when you quote that with your question and just write the whole question… and tell me how it goes tonight.”

Actually, my girlfriend has wondered about this, too. Here’s why.

“Girls” has more nudity by its lead character than any show, well, ever. But my girlfriend and I don’t understand the reason for it. We’re cool with nudity, and if Dunham wants to be naked, great. I’m not offended by it. I don’t like it or not like it. I just don’t get the artistic reason for it, and want to understand it, because I’m a TV critic.

Later in the panel executive producer Jenni Konner said she didn’t understand why I thought I could “talk to a woman” that way.

Huh? Talk to her like a writer who has made a bold creative decision?

See photos: 2014 TV Preview: 26 Upcoming Shows to Watch This Winter & Spring 

Dunham left after the panel. But Apatow stuck around, and we talked about my question, which he said was “offensive on its face.”

“You should read it and discuss it with other people,” he told me. “It is very offensive.”

“Is it sexist?” I asked. “Because I would ask the same question –”

“It’s sexist and offensive, it’s misogynistic,” he said.

“I’m not saying it’s bad that she’s nude,” I said.

Also read: Lena Dunham Explains Relationship With HBO: ‘Which Item of Clothing Would You Like Me to Remove?’ (Video)

Another reporter noted that if Louis C.K. were naked on his show, we would ask about it.

“There’s a way to word a question about the reason for nudity on the show and it was not done elegantly. If you re-read it and you listen to it you will not be proud of yourself.”

“I’m not un-proud of myself in any way because everyone I know has wondered the same thing. I don’t understand as a writer, what the reason for it is. I’m not against it.”

“That’s another thing. It shows a lack of depth in how you watch the show.”

“I watch the show really deeply, actually,” I said. “I’m trying to understand it as a TV critic. That’s my job.”

Also read: Shia LaBeouf Apologizes to Lena Dunham – With a Lena Dunham Apology

“As a TV critic you don’t understand why a show about young people in New York who spend some of their time naked, and some of their time having sex, includes women who sometimes are naked and sometimes have sex?”

“Then why aren’t all of the characters naked?” I asked.

He said a show about me would feature me naked some of the time.

“Then why aren’t all the characters in your movies naked some of the time? … Paul Rudd wasn’t naked,” I added, referring to “This Is 40.’”

Also read: 3 Reasons Lena Dunham Can’t Laugh Off ‘Girls’ Porn Parody

“There’s male nudity in ‘Walk Hard,’” he said. “I have people naked when they’re willing to do it. Lena is confident enough to do it so we have the opportunity to talk about other issues because she is braver than other people. If Paul Rudd said to me, I’m willing to be completely naked in the movie, I would use it. If Seth [Rogen] said he was willing to be completely naked — he showed his butt in a post-sex scene in ‘Knocked Up’ — I would use it because it’s more honest.”

“Well then that’s the answer,” I said.

“Read how you asked the question,” he said.

“I said that on ‘Game of Thrones’ they do it for salacious purposes. I’m not giving ‘Game of Thrones’ credit for that. ‘Salacious’ doesn’t have a positive connotation.”

“Just listen to yourself,” he said.

I did. To transcribe my recording of this exchange.

“I’m really, truly stupid then, because I don’t understand,” I said.

“Maybe you just got nervous how you asked it and it came out much darker, edgier and negative than you realized.”

I checked with my girlfriend. She’s cool with what I asked.

Knicks bench J.R. Smith, but NBA's clown prince will be back soon enough

Within days of J.R. Smith arriving armed with a historic $3 million contract, Zhejiang of the Chinese Basketball League had come to regret signing the clown prince of basketball. From unreasonable demands on the kind of car needed to curry him around the city, to skipping practices for shopping excursions in neighboring cities, to a relentless pattern of insubordination, Smith's bad act had never been worse.

Perhaps his greatest excess of idiocy had been a weekend of running a room service bill into the proximity of $3,000, a source with direct knowledge told Yahoo Sports. He kept ordering food, stacking piles of trays upon trays – "just to see if they would keep bringing it to the room," the source said.

All uneaten, all on the franchise's tab – all a window into a fool.

Smith would be fined more than $1 million in that lockout season in China, which is some kind of stupid considering he had gone overseas on the desperate premise of a money grab. He has come back to the States, signed two free-agent contracts with the New York Knicks and soon will push $1 million in fines for his NBA career. He's been suspended for a reckless driving death and fights and drugs. He's 28 years old, and he's learned little in his life except how to use basketball to get over on everyone again and again.

This time, it was the act of untying opponents' sneakers that cost him $50,000 and the ire of a Knicks organization that has long enabled – even encouraged – the most mean-spirited and pointless of behavior.

Across 48 hours, the Knicks tried a different approach with Smith. First, they floated the empty threat of trading him. And then coach Mike Woodson benched him on Thursday night in a victory over the Miami Heat at Madison Square Garden.


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The Knicks benched Smith for their victory over the Heat. (USA Today)
Smith will be back again, and the Knicks will be at his mercy. After Smith was the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year last season, he found a sparse free-agent market over the summer. And, now, with a three-year, $18 million contract, knee surgery and a suspension to start the season, the Knicks couldn't even start a trade conversation on Smith without attaching a good, young player or a first-round draft pick to him.
This is a different NBA financial climate, where teams are stingier than ever on awarding long-term, guaranteed money to those as combustible and unreliable as Smith. Smith's exodus is a non-starter and the Knicks know it.

If Smith didn't have such an inflated opinion of himself, he'd probably know it, too. Everyone understands how this will go now: Smith will tell everyone that he needs to grow up, that he's let down his coach and teammates and fans. The Knicks will start to play him again, and it's just a matter of time until Smith's self-destructive act will resurface. Once again, he'll be ignorant to the score in the final seconds of a game – like the loss he cost the Knicks in Houston – or he'll get into trouble off the floor. Or probably both.

After his release from prison four years ago, Smith sat inside a New Jersey country club, and told me how the death of his close friend, caused by Smith's recklessness behind the wheel, had changed his life. From the guilt over the death, to a summer in a prison cell, to wanting his young daughter to never have to keep reading about his misdeeds, Smith vowed to be a changed man.

“I think I was a follower to an extent,” Smith told me. “If someone would ask me to do something that was on the borderline, more than likely I’d say, ‘OK, let’s go.’ Now, I think I see the bigger picture finally. …I think I need to mature and understand what I say before I say it, and what I do before I do it."

He can make it sound so sincere, but the con never ends. J.R. Smith was raised in a suburban, middle-class home with two good parents and access to an excellent education. He had a tremendous high school coaching mentor – Dan Hurley at St. Benedict's Prep in Newark, N.J. – and he has long been taught the difference of right and wrong. Smith's always loved to play the part of a tough city kid, but truth be told, he's a soft, spoiled, suburban jump-shooter.

And when Smith's benching ends with these Knicks, there will be no epiphanies. No revelations. Everyone knows how this story ends with him, how the money will dry up and how he'll wish he had done everything so differently in his career. It is sad and predictable and on a collision course with cliche.

Someday, Smith will make that call to room service – insisting upon more of everything – and there will be no one to answer. J.R. Smith is 28 years old, and it is too late to threaten and punish a spoiled, suburban kid. No trade, no epiphanies, no changes. The Knicks deserve J.R. Smith, and he'll belong to them until the bitter end

Hilary Duff and Mike Comrie Announce 'Amicable' Separation

Hilary Duff has put her marriage to hockey husband Mike Comrie on ice.

The couple, who have a 20-month-old son, Luca Cruz, announced the end of their three-year union on Friday in a statement from Duff's rep.

"Hilary Duff and husband Mike Comrie have mutually decided to an amicable separation," the statement read. "They remain best friends and will continue to be in each other's lives. They are dedicated to loving and parenting their amazing son, and ask for privacy at this time."

Duff, 26, and Comrie, 33, wed on Aug. 14, 2010, in Santa Barbara, after three years of dating. Luca was born on March 20, 2012. They plan to share custody of their son.

Comrie retired from the NHL in 2012 due to injury.

It's not unusual for celebrities to release big news like this on the Friday leading into an eventful weekend. With all eyes in Hollywood on the Golden Globes, the announcement was no doubt calculated to be as under-the-radar as possible. There were no signs that there was any trouble in their relationship prior to Friday's announcement. As recently as New Year's Eve, she was posting smiling pictures of their family to her Instagram account.

Following Friday's announcement, Duff tweeted her thanks for the support from her fans:


A source told People that "there was no major incident – no big event between the two of them. They really did drift apart. They have put effort and thought into this decision for a long time. They tried couples therapy, but in the end, they realized at this time, they work better as friends. And they really are great friends."

The separation marks another big chapter in the life of the former star of Disney Channel's "Lizzie McGuire," who was looking to jumpstart her fading showbiz career. Back in August, she told Ryan Seacrest that she was headed back into the studio to record new music. And she spoke with Idolator about the type of music fans might be able to expect from her, saying that she's particularly into EDM.

In October, she even posted several photos to Instagram of herself in the studio.

Olivia Munn’s Seat-Belt Inspired Dress

When it comes to car parts, typically the last thing you want to be doing is wearing them. But, not if you're Olivia Munn.

The "Newsroom" actress attended the Variety Breakthrough of the Year Awards in Las Vegas Thursday night wearing a figure-hugging bright yellow dress with seat-belt inspired straps from Victoria Beckham's Spring 2012 collection.

From the material to the clasps, these straps had car part written all over them. However, we can't say she couldn't pull the look off because she did, and in a big way!

But, it turns out, Olivia isn't the only star sporting the seat-belt strapped look.

Jennifer Lopez turned heads in a tangerine version of the dress during one of the "American Idol" elimination shows in April 2012, and Victoria Beckham wore a similar design from the collection in May 2012 while out with her family at the 27th Anniversary Sports Spectacular.

Check out this video to see what other A-list actress wore another version of the dress to the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, and be sure to tune in to "The Insider" on TV tonight for all the latest in entertainment news.

How much do you need to save for retirement?

How much do you need to save for a comfortable retirement?

The answer is “it depends.” (If you don’t like that, try “as much as possible.”)

The problem with retirement planning is that so much is unknowable – no one number or percentage rate quite cuts it  – and any formula depends on a mountain of factors, including: your savings rate, how many years of work remain, the rate of return on your investments, and how long you live.

We took a look at some retirement planning strategies to help savers figure out if they’re on track. As with most tools and calculators, these are guides – not hard and fast decrees.

The “16.6% rule”

One study by Wade Pfau, CFA and professor of retirement income at The American College in Bryn Mawr, Pa., analyzes what he calls “safe savings rates,” which is how much of your income you need to save per year to fund your retirement.

What he's found is that saving 16.6% of your salary every year is the safest minimum rate you can use to finance a comfortable retirement.

This number assumes the baseline retirement saver wants to replace 50% of his pre-retirement income (which does not include Social Security benefits here); will spend 30 years saving and investing and will spend 30 years in retirement. It also assumes his investment allocation will remain steady at about 60% stocks and 40% fixed income. (Pfau used historical market data going back to 1871 and targeted a 4% withdrawal rate in retirement.)

Pfau includes variations for shorter and longer saving and retirement phases. See the table below for specific details.



Safe Savings Rates, Wade Pfau

Given Pfau’s assumptions, a worker who’s 35, making $80,000, and aiming to retire at 65, should save at least $13,296 a year.

Of course, bumping the replacement rate to 70% of income leads to significant increases in minimum savings rates.

There are additional caveats Pfau appends to his conclusions. For instance, he excluded portfolio management fees to be consistent with most existing research. Introducing a fee of 1% of assets deducted at the end of each year would increase the baseline safe savings rate considerably, from 16.6% to around 22%.

Give or take a couple percentage points…

T. Rowe Price offers a simpler guideline. “If someone were to ask me ‘how much should I save for retirement?’ our answer is at least 15% of your salary,” says Stuart Ritter, a vice president and certified financial planner at T. Rowe. (This assumes you want to replace 75% of your pre-retirement income -- about 50% from investments and 25% from Social Security benefits.) This is “a reasonable number for most people in most situations,” he says. But you can refine that number further by factoring in your age and how much you’ve already saved. For example, if you’re 45, making $80,000 and have already saved twice that amount, you should aim to save 22% of your salary. (See table below.)




T. Rowe Price


8X salary, 11X salary

Fidelity Investments tries to simplify matters even more. The mutual fund company suggests people save at least eight times their ending salary to ensure they won’t outlive their savings during a 25-year retirement. (Fidelity assumes workers start saving at age 25, aim to retire at 67, live until 92, and want to replace 85% of preretirement income, including Social Security.)

By age 35, Fidelity suggests you should have saved 1X your current salary, then 3X by 45, and 5X by 55. So using the previous T. Rowe example, a 45-year-old earning $80,000 should have $240,000 tucked away.

A 2012 study done by Aon Hewitt, however, says you need 11 times your final working salary to retire at 65. According to Aon’s report, a 25-year-old with an employer-sponsored 401(k) plan “needs a total annual contribution (employee plus employer) of approximately 15% of pay to retire at 65 with adequate resources.” And if an employee waits until age 30 to start socking money away, the total annual contribution needed climbs to 19% of pay.

No rules

Michael Kitces, partner and director of research at Pinnacle Advisory Group in Maryland, says the save-a-percentage-of-income approach is flawed. The focus, instead, should be on how much you’re spending. “The better approach is to take control of spending and try to slow its rate of increase… It's crucial to keep future spending from rising as fast as future income,” he says.

No matter which benchmark you rely on to guide your own retirement savings path, they all underscore one key message, as Pfau says in his research: “Starting to save early and consistently for retirement at a reasonable savings rate will provide the best chance to meet retirement expenditure goals.”

Shia Can't Win Internet, Just Gives Up

Shia LaBeouf has announced he's done with social media.
After it was exposed that he plagiarized well-known graphic novelist Daniel Clowes — as well his subsequent apology — the "Transformers" star has had enough from online critics. In a string of tweets posted on Friday, he claimed that tweets and hashtags are a thing of the past.


#stopcreating
— Shia LaBeouf (@thecampaignbook) January 10, 2014
On Dec. 16, it was revealed that LaBeouf's 12-minute short film "HowardCantour.com" starring funnyman Jim Gaffigan was largely lifted from the graphic novelist's 2007 comic book "Justin M. Damiano." When he apologized, he "borrowed" the words from a response to a Yahoo Answers question posted four years earlier — thus putting the sincerity of his apology in question. (Last year, he also plagiarized an apology to Alec Baldwin from Esquire's 2009 "How to Be a Man" issue.)

Things became even stranger after that. Not only did he hire a skywriting company to post a message over Los Angeles, which read, "I am sorry Daniel Clowes," but he started to tweet countless apologies. However, those words were also lifted from other celebrities, including Lena Dunham, Kanye West, Russell Crowe, and Eliot Spitzer.

LaBeouf was widely mocked, especially on Twitter, for his actions. Fellow celebrities even bashed him with Seth Rogen writing, "This is by far the most I've been entertained by Shia LaBeouf." And Patton Oswalt quipping, "Not easy to pull off crazy AND moronic, but you did it, Shia LaBeouf."

He even had an exchange with Dunham after she wrote, "I've always felt, utterly and unchangeably, that only sociopaths hire skywriters."

And earlier this week, LaBeouf further infuriated Clowes, who is reportedly considering suing the Hollywood star, by posting what he said was the storyboard for his next short film called "Daniel Boring." However, "Daniel Boring" is another graphic novel belonging to Clowes — and the images LaBeouf posted were lifted from it as well.

No surprise, LaBeouf was hit with a cease and desist letter from Clowes's attorney, which the star then head-scratchingly posted on Twitter.

Those were his final tweets leading up to his "retirement" announcement, which certainly seems like it's for the best. Shia and hashtags apparently don't mix.