Icing on cake: ’EEI brass back stunt

WEEI-FM's brass is standing by their hosts despite an X-rated stunt, saying the sports talk station won't discipline yakkers Mike "Mut" Mutnansky and Lou Merloni for sending a porn­ographic cake with the words "Welcome to Boston" to a Chicago sports talk station.

"There will be no discipline," Entercom Boston Vice President Jason Wolfe told the Herald about the controversial cake, which featured 'EEI's call letters within an image of female genitalia, and was covered in male and female genitalia-shaped candy.

"This was done all in good fun. It was a simple, humorous bit 
between two sports stations," Wolfe said.

It was all a big joke, "Mut" and Merloni insisted on their 
show yesterday.

"It was a prank, OK? We like to bring you in a locker room once in a while," one of the yakkers said. "We've been there before, we've done a lot of stupid pranks before, and we've brought you in a locker room before.

"Why does everybody want to take away our fun?" he continued. "The intention was to take you inside the locker room and have fun."

Mutnansky and Merloni sent the cake, containing the words "Go Bruins!" in addition to sexually suggestive terms, to talk show hosts Dan McNeil and Matt Spiegel at Chicago's WSCR 670 The Score, in an effort to taunt their counterparts in Chicago as the Boston Bruins battle the Chicago Blackhawks for the Stanley Cup.

The WEEI hosts then circulated photos of the cake over Facebook and Twitter, gushing to followers, "We just sent them this lovely cake welcoming them to Boston."

The WEEI cake was delivered just a week after Wolfe told his peers at a talk show industry conference that talk radio exists "to produce content that entertains and informs, and we do that to the best of our ability of a regular basis."

Images of the cake on Facebook ignited a social media firestorm among listeners who didn't 
appreciate the gutter humor.

"Really??? ...That's supposed to be funny??" one person posted.

"That's the most inappropriate thing I've seen in a long time," added another.

Talkers Magazine publisher Michael Harrison, a radio industry expert, said the raunchy stunt is an example of what needs to change in talk radio.

"The media certainly has to do a lot of soul searching and self-evaluation in dealing with matters of taste, morality and maintaining an image we can all be proud off," Harrison said. "I'm a big believer in the right to artistic expression, but I also believe in people's right to react."

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Cyber attacks costing businesses billions

Cyber attacks are a growing threat and are costing businesses billions of dollars each year, according to the head of a Cambridge company that delivers nearly a third of global Web traffic.

At the Xconomy summit on innovation, technology and entrepreneurship yesterday at Babson College, Tom Leighton, CEO of Akamai, said 74 percent of companies experienced one or more cyber attacks in the past year.

Nearly a third of those attacks resulted in service disruption, Leighton said, and each breach costs $8 million on average — but can cost as much as $1 billion.

"Security is a serious problem," he said. "There's new attacks coming every day. The bad guys are way ahead."

Cyber extortion, political "hactivists" such as the group Anonymous, and state-sponsored attacks such as those by the Chinese, all present formidable foes, Leighton said.

Their most common tactics include SQL injection, which puts rogue or malicious commands into the database behind the application being attacked, and denial of service, an attempt to make a website or Web application unavailable to its users, often by sending more traffic or requests for information than a site can handle.

In 2009, Akamai, which delivers between 15 and 30 percent of global Web traffic at any given time, had 14 customers who reported suspected distributed denial of service attacks, Leighton said. By last year, that number had soared to 768.

Collectively, U.S. corporations have lost as much as $1 trillion in intellectual property due to cyber attacks, pushing up the stock prices of Internet security firms such as Symantec and Qihoo.

"The average corporation has a team of people working on this. The question is: Are they given the resources they need to do their job?" said Robert D. Rodriguez, chairman of Security Innovation Network and a former special agent with the Secret Service for 22 years. "Startups can get away with not doing as much because they're not on the radar. They have less to lose."

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Ben Bernanke: Bond buys could end next year

The Federal Reserve ended weeks of speculation yesterday as it said there would be no immediate changes to the central bank's bond-buying program, but it left open the door for a future slowdown in the purchases that have helped keep interest rates low.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said if the economy continues to improve, the Fed's bond-buying program could be reduced later this year in "measured steps" and could end sometime next year.

In its updated economic forecast issued after the end of its two-day policy meeting, the Fed painted a moderately positive economic picture, including predicting a drop in the unemployment rate to 7.2 or 7.3 percent by the end of the year.

"The fundamentals look a little better to us," Bernanke said.

The Fed has been buying $85 million in bonds each month, and said it will continue to do so until the outlook for the job market improves substantially. When the Fed does pull back on the bond-buying program, Bernanke said it will be like a driver taking a foot off the gas, rather than slamming on the brakes.

Alan Clayton-Matthews, an economist at Northeastern University, said the news from the Fed was more of the same.

"It doesn't appear to be any different stance," he said. "It's neutral. It's steady as she goes."

Clayton-Matthews said ending the bond-buying program will be a tricky step to navigate.

"That's the whole point of Fed policy, to time it correctly," he said. "The main purpose of the statement was that financial markets would have some idea of what the Fed's policy would be. It plays down the chance of financial markets being surprised."

The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 206 points yesterday, as investors sold off stocks and bonds.

But Clayton-Matthews warned that the effects of the Fed's policy statement would become clearer in 
the coming days.

"Wall Street can respond to this in any number of 
rational or irrational ways," he said.

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The Ticker

Chrysler to recall 2.7M older Jeeps

Chrysler Group LLC said it has agreed to fix 2.7 million older Jeeps for fire risks caused by gas tanks that leak after rear-end collisions, bowing to pressure and averting a showdown with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The agency says at least 51 people have died in such fires.

Study: Many not financially fit to retire

A new survey from a Newton-based nonprofit found a majority of Americans are not financially ready for retirement, and many have not contributed to a retirement account for at least a year.

The survey, from American Consumer Credit Counseling, found 70 percent of respondents did not think they were financially ready for retirement, despite the fact that a majority of the respondents were between ages 45 and 64. More than 30 percent said they do not contribute to a retirement account.

Tribe files impact report for casino

The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe announced it has filed a Draft Environmental Impact Report with the state for Project First Light, its proposal to build a casino, hotels, restaurants, shops, a family water park and an events center on a 151-acre site in Taunton.

Disruptor Beam gets new financing

Disruptor Beam, the Boston-based social game developer behind the recent hit "Game of Thrones Ascent," has secured a new round of funding from Google Ventures, along with contributions from Romulus Capital and Common Angels.

TODAY

 Federal Reserve policymakers meet to set interest rates, and Chairman Ben Bernanke holds a press conference.

 Christopher M. Coburn, left, has been hired as vice president of Research Ventures and Licensing, the division of Partners HealthCare that coordinates industrial relationships and intellectual property management across Partners HealthCare, Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital. Coburn comes to Partners HealthCare from the Cleveland Clinic, where he served as executive director of Cleveland Clinic Innovations.

 Cyber-Ark Software, a Newton-based global information security provider for protecting and managing critical applications, identities and sensitive information, has hired John Worrall as chief marketing officer. Prior to joining the company, Worrall was the executive vice president for CounterTack, a provider of advanced threat detection to large enterprises and government organizations.

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Dish won't submit revised bid for Sprint

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Satellite TV operator Dish Network Corp. said Tuesday it would not submit a revised bid for Sprint, leaving the path open for the wireless carrier to accept what it already considers a superior offer from Japan's Softbank.

Dish said that Sprint Nextel Corp.'s decision to cut Dish's due diligence process short, among other things, made it "impracticable" to submit a revised bid. It said it will continue to focus on its bid for Clearwire, a wireless network operator in which Sprint has a majority stake.

"We will consider our options with respect to Sprint, and focus our efforts and resources on completing the Clearwire tender offer," Dish said.

Sprint had given Dish until Tuesday to make its best and final offer. Sprint's demand came after Softbank last week boosted its bid for the carrier by $1.5 billion to $21.6 billion, which Sprint considers the best offer. While that's still short of Dish's $25.5 billion bid, Dish's proposal would add more to Sprint's debt load and is seen as more risky.

Sprint shares fell 11 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $7.21 in after-hours trading Tuesday. Dish shares were up 5 cents at $39.14 after-hours, while Clearwire shares rose 8 cents to $4.64.

Softbank in Tokyo welcomed Dish Network's decision.

"We look forward to the receipt of FCC and shareholders' approvals, which will allow us to close the deal in early July, and begin the hard work of building the new Sprint into a meaningful third competitor in the U.S. market," the company said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Sprint bolstered its defenses against Dish's grab for a stake in Clearwire.

Late Monday, Sprint filed a suit in the Delaware Court of Chancery asking the court to block Dish's $4.40-per-share offer for Clearwire, saying it cannot complete its offer without the approval of holders of at least 75 percent of Clearwire's shares.

Sprint, headquartered in Overland Park, Kan., also contends that the deal violates shareholder rights under Clearwire's charter and an equity holders' agreement.

Sprint had bid $3.40 per share for the shares in Clearwire which it doesn't already own.

Dish, based in Englewood, Colo., called the litigation a "transparent attempt" by Sprint to divert attention away from its failure to deal fairly with Clearwire shareholders. The satellite broadcaster said in a statement it was confident its offer will be upheld.

Clearwire Corp. said it doesn't comment on pending litigation. Clearwire is based in Bellevue, Wash.

Softbank, one of Japan's largest wireless phone operators, is seeking to expand its footprint overseas with the Sprint acquisition and says it can reap benefits like saving money on large-scale orders of handsets and equipment.

Dish, whose traditional business is providing pay TV services, is meanwhile trying to amass enough rights to the airwaves to diversify into the mobile phone and other businesses.

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Japan's trade deficit climbs to $10.5B in May

TOKYO — Japan's trade deficit rose nearly 10 percent in May to 993.9 billion yen (nearly $10.5 billion), highlighting the challenge Prime Minister Shinzo Abe faces in revitalizing manufacturing as industries increasingly shift production offshore.

Rising costs for imports due to the cheaper yen matched a 10 percent rebound in exports from a year earlier, the Finance Ministry reported Wednesday.

A weakening in the yen's value has pushed up costs for imports of crude oil, natural gas and other commodities for this resource-scarce nation, but the deficit in May was bigger than most economists' estimates.

Strong growth in exports to the U.S., China and the rest of Asia were offset by even stronger imports from the Middle East and China.

While robust imports suggest that demand inside Japan is recovering, growing deficits show that Japan's trade environment has changed for good, said Eiji Ogawa, an economist at Hitotsubashi University in Tokyo.

"Just a while ago, Japan always enjoyed a surplus," Ogawa said at a conference Wednesday. "It's now clear the deficits are not temporary, but structural."

Japan's economy grew at a 4.1 percent annual rate in the first quarter of the year and is forecast to continue its recovery this year, boosted by government stimulus spending and aggressive monetary easing aimed at ending two decades of stagnation.

But sustained growth will depend on getting Japan's cash-rich corporations to do more hiring and spending at home — a tough sell given the rapid aging and shrinking of the Japanese population.

The May data show Japan's efforts to boost trade with the rest of Asia are yielding results, with exports rising 11 percent to 3.2 trillion yen ($33.7 billion), as imports climbed nearly 10 percent to 2.98 trillion yen ($31.4 billion).

Exports to China rose 8.3 percent in May from a year earlier to 1.05 trillion yen ($11 billion) while imports jumped 15 percent to 1.46 trillion yen ($15.4 billion), leaving a deficit of 410 billion yen ($4.3 billion).

Increasingly, Japanese companies are expanding their manufacturing in Southeast and South Asia, partly to tap new, faster growing markets and partly to hedge risks from their already huge commitments in China, given the threat of anti-Japanese moves due to a festering territorial dispute with Beijing.

Economists say Abe must move ahead with promised tax cuts and deregulation to spur investment and hiring by corporations that complain inflexible labor laws and high taxes and wages are hurting their competitiveness.

"Companies believe it's better to produce overseas and repatriate the profits," Ogawa said, adding that a weakening of the yen helps, but can only provide a temporary respite from what the Japanese call the "hollowing out" of their industrial base.

"Shifts in foreign exchange rates won't bring factories back to Japan," he said.

The yen has slid in value by more than 20 percent against the U.S. dollar and euro since late last year, in turn pushing up other currencies in relative value. Its decline is due to expectations among market speculators and also the monetary policies that are injecting huge sums of cash into the economy.

On Wednesday the dollar was trading at a level of about 94.5 yen.

Japan's trade surplus with the United States jumped 26 percent over the year before to 427.1 billion yen ($4.5 billion). Exports surged 16.3 percent year-on-year to 1.04 trillion yen ($10.9 billion) and imports rose 10 percent to 614 billion yen ($6.5 billion). But exports to the EU fell 5 percent, while imports jumped nearly 9 percent, boosting Japan's deficit by nearly 650 percent, to 88.7 billion yen ($933.7 million).

Overall, exports rose 10.1 percent in May over a year earlier to 5.77 trillion yen ($60.7 billion) while imports also surged 10 percent, to 6.76 trillion yen ($71.1 billion), according to the preliminary data from the Finance Ministry.

Japan's trade deficit in May 2012 was 907.93 billion yen, while its deficit in April was 879.9 billion yen.

Much of the deterioration in the trade balance is attributed to a surge in demand for oil and natural gas after most of Japan's nuclear power plants were closed following the March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant. Mounting costs for imported fuel are buttressing the pro-nuclear government's case for restarting more plants.

In May, imports from the Middle East, primarily of crude oil and gas, jumped 11.5 percent from a year earlier to 1.23 trillion yen ($12.9 billion).

While many argue that Japan needs to just shift faster and more aggressively into renewable energy, others say that nuclear energy is essential for Abe's policies to succeed, since companies say high energy costs are a factor driving them offshore.

"Given Japan's limited natural resources ... it will be necessary to rely on nuclear power for at least some years," said Masayuki Kichikawa, an economist at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch in Tokyo.

"That is very important for keeping many companies in Japan," he said. "To ensure a stable source of energy is very important."

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Report: Slowdown in health care costs to continue

WASHINGTON — A new report suggests a recent slowdown in medical costs that was once considered just a pause may be developing into a trend.

That's seen as good news for most companies that provide health benefits for their employees.

Accounting and consulting giant PwC projects lower overall growth in medical costs for next year, even as the economy gains strength and millions of uninsured people receive coverage under President Barack Obama's health care law.

If the calculations are correct, cost spikes because of the new health care law should be contained within a relatively narrow market segment.

The report comes with a caveat: self-employed people and others who buy coverage individually could well see an increase in premiums in 2014.

The reasons have to do with requirements in the health care law like eliminating denials for pre-existing medical problems. Those patients cost more to cover.

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Ga. radio hosts fired; mocked ex-player with ALS

ATLANTA — The cast of an Atlanta sports radio show has been fired after mocking a former NFL player who has Lou Gehrig's disease, a station official said Monday.

The show, Mayhem in the AM, was broadcast on 790 The Zone Monday morning. In a statement, General Manager Rick Mack said the station regrets comments made about ex-New Orleans Saints safety Steve Gleason.

The 36-year-old suffers from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. ALS patients lose the ability to speak and move, which has happened to Gleason.

The station lists the hosts as Nick Cellini, Steak Shapiro and Chris Dimino. But Mack didn't give the names of those fired.

During the segment, two of the on-air personalities took a call from a third host who pretended to be Gleason by using a voice that sounded automated — mimicking another famous ALS patient, Stephen Hawking.

The host pretending to be Gleason told a series of jokes and eventually asked the two others to do him a favor by smothering him.

All three took to Twitter Monday evening to apologize to fans and others who criticized the segment. Listeners and critics turned to the station's Facebook page to call for the hosts' termination.

Gleason played for the Saints between 2000 and 2006. Team Gleason, an organization named after the former NFL player, is geared toward finding a cure for ALS, raising awareness of the disease and connecting patients to technology, equipment and services tailored to fit their needs.

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Thrifty says offer of free rental car was mistake

DALLAS — Thrifty Car Rental says it's sorry, but many customers who were offered a free one-day rental won't be getting that after all.

The company says the offer was intended for a select group of top customers but was sent accidentally to many other people.

"We're very sorry for any confusion our eagerness may have caused," the chain, which is owned by Hertz Global Holdings Inc., told customers by email.

Airlines, hotels and stores occasionally post incorrect prices. When they do, they must balance the cost of honoring the mistaken price against the potential to offend bargain-loving customers.

When the dollar difference is huge, "smart companies offer an apology with some sort of salve — 'Here's a gift certificate,' or 'Here's a 10 percent-off coupon' to demonstrate their remorse," said Mark Cohen, a longtime executive at Sears and other department stores who now teaches at Columbia University's business school.

Hertz spokeswoman Paula Rivera said the offer sent out Friday night was meant for "select" members of Thrifty's frequent-renter program, called Blue Chip. They were offered a free day after 16 days of paid rentals.

By mistake the offer went to other customers who had merely signed up to receive emails from the company, Rivera said.

"Unfortunately, this was a human error and as soon as we became aware of the mass email distribution, we took steps to correct the situation." including the follow-up email on Saturday, she said.

The company did not say how many customers received the offer in error, so it's impossible to estimate how much it would cost Thrifty to make good on the free rentals.

Customers who thought they were getting a nice freebie were disappointed by the reversal.

"I was kind of shocked that they rescinded the offer, even if it was a mistake," said Alison McCarthy of Brooklyn, N.Y., who works in digital marketing. "They should have honored it — it's just one day."

McCarthy said last year she lucked into a mistake airfare to Israel on El Al. The airline blamed a contractor for accidentally posting fares of less than $400 instead of the usual $1,000 to $1,600 per round trip but honored the lower price. "It was awesome, and it was positive PR (public relations) for them," she said.

Such airfare deals are less common now because the company that airlines use to publish fares has made it easier for the carriers to spot unusual prices before they're made public, said Gary Leff, a travel blogger and co-founder of Milepoint, an online forum for frequent fliers, who avidly swap tips on mistake fares. Hotels might be more fruitful hunting ground.

Leff said that a few years ago he jumped on a nightly rate of 66 cents for a beachfront villa at a Le Meridien resort in Thailand. The hotel company had loaded the price in Ugandan shillings instead of U.S. dollars. He said the hotel gave him the room for $33, "and that included tax and a free breakfast."

Leff's advice: If you see a deal that sounds too good to be true, go ahead and book it but don't be too disappointed if the company rescinds the offer.

___

Follow David Koenig at http://www.twitter.com/airlinewriter

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One Fund, many $ decisions

As One Fund Boston administrator Kenneth Feinberg makes the tough calls over how to divide up nearly $30 million between people with a wide range of injuries — from double amputations to damaged limbs to brain damage and shrapnel wounds — experts say they expect little legal wrangling.

The fund has applied for charitable status and is limited to donations, which gives the administrator more freedom to act as he sees fit, unlike the 9/11 Fund, which was an unlimited pool created by the federal government.

"I don't think anyone has the right to sue because they think (Feinberg) did it unfairly," said Michael Mone, a Boston lawyer who represented some of the victims. "A charity has the right to give what they desire."

To be eligible for the 9/11 Fund, victims of the Sept. 11 attacks had to give up their right to sue the airlines whose planes were hijacked. Of the more than 3,000 people killed, the families of fewer than 100 sued.

"In order to bring litigation, there has to be someone who bore some responsibility," Mone added. In the case of the Marathon bombings, one of the suspects is dead, and the other was a student without any known assets, and the attacks took place on public sidewalks, not inside buildings or aircraft as in the 9/11 attacks.

"Feinberg is very qualified to decide how the money can be distributed," Mone said. "He's always gotten praise about deciding who gets what. Ninety-nine percent of the people are going to look at the One Fund and say, 'That's where I'm going to get recovery.'"

Eric MacLeish, a Cambridge lawyer who founded the Massachusetts 9/11 Fund, said that fund distributed about $3 million to more than 100 families. An advisory committee made recommendations to the fund's board. Each case was assigned a number, so board members never knew who they were, MacLeish said.

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