'House of Cards' fans that already finished season 3

That's 13 episodes. Each episode is about 50 minutes long.

@TanjaBumbar said on twitter (TWTR, Tech30) it was a "Really good season, it was amazing having all 13 episode [sic] available at the same time."

@MurphyOReilly thought it was a great season too. "Fantastic end to an enthralling season," he tweeted.

Sebastian, or @challi1337, said he has "extremely mixed feelings about the ending and a few other scenes."

None gave away any secrets, respectfully. Well, except for this mysterious comment from @TanjaBumbar: "Mrs Underwood you finally made the right decision."

All four Twitter users appear to live in Europe. This makes sense considering Netflix unloaded all the new episodes at 12.pm. PT/3 a.m. ET Friday morning, making it hard for US fans to complete the task. One woman, Olivia Armstrong, however did. Armstrong says she lives in Brooklyn and finished the show in 13 hours and 15 minutes. She even live-blogged her experience. Her latest tweet? "Sleeping forever byeeeee."

It was 8 a.m. in the U.K. when @MurphyOReilly says he started. He didn't go outside ("fresh air is so overrated!") and bought American snacks to keep him in the mood.

He survived on Mike and Ike's, Oreo's and Doritos during his "12 hour 5 mins" binge session.

"House of Cards" is one of Netflix's original shows. The streaming media company has been heavily investing in the production of its own content over the past few years. The shows are also getting praise from critics. Kevin Spacey just won the best actor Golden Globe for his role as Frank Underwood on "House of Cards."

Netflix is also planning to release movies starring Adam Sandler and the sequel for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" later this year.

Netflix has not yet responded to requests for comment.

Related: Nothing stops Frank Underwood...or Netflix

CNNMoney (New York) February 27, 2015: 5:46 PM ET

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Iran hacked an American casino, U.S. says

For the first time, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the Iranian government was behind a damaging cyberattack on the Sands Las Vegas Corporation (LVS) in 2014. He mentioned it while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee this week.

Sands owns several well-known properties, including The Venetian and Palazzo in Las Vegas and two other resorts in Macao and Singapore.

The attack made headlines, because Las Vegas Sands is a large publicly-traded company. In February 2014, it said unidentified hackers broke into its computer network and stole customer data: credit card data, Social Security numbers and driver's licenses numbers.

The U.S. government accuses Iran of hacking the Las Vegas Sands Casino Corporation, which owns The Palazzo and several other resort-hotel-casinos around the world.

At the time, it sounded like just another digital break-in. But the nation's leading intelligence official says it was much worse than that.

On Thursday, Clapper described it as a "destructive cyberattack" on par with North Korea's hack of Sony. In that case, hackers wiped computers, destroyed data and froze the company to a halt.

It's unknown what damage Iranian hackers did to the casino company. Las Vegas Sands declined to comment for this story.

However, the company thinks hackers broke into its casino in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and "certain company data may have been destroyed," according to documents it filed Friday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Of all targets, why Adelson's company? The businessman is a major donor to Republican politicians. He's staunchly pro-Israel, the ultimate foe of the current Iranian regime. And in the past, Adelson has casually suggested that the U.S. drop nuclear bombs on Iran.

If Clapper's assertion is true, this is the latest example of a frightening trend: governments are hacking private companies.

Chinese hacker spies have stolen business plans from U.S. power plants. Russian hackers have broken into American and European oil and gas companies. And most recently, leaked documents show American and British spies hacked a phone SIM card maker in the Netherlands.

Computer security experts widely agree that companies aren't prepared to handle this threat. It comes down to resources. A government is a predator with billions of dollars at its disposal to amass a formidable cyber army. Its prey is a lean, for-profit company with a small security team.

Clapper told senators that hackers in Iran and North Korea pose less of a threat than China and Russia. But they're still a serious foe.

"These destructive attacks demonstrate that Iran and North Korea are motivated and unpredictable cyber actors," Clapper told senators on Thursday.

Related: Anthem probe looking at China as possible source of hack

Related: NSA tied to super-sneaky malware found in companies worldwide

Related: The NSA failed to hack your phone

CNNMoney (New York) February 27, 2015: 5:54 PM ET

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Kelly Osbourne quits E!'s 'Fashion Police'

Kelly Osbourne (center) has quit E!'s 'Fashion Police.'

E! announced on Friday that Kelly Osbourne will be departing the network's style and red carpet show to "pursue other opportunities."

"We would like to thank her for her many contributions to the series over the past five years during which time the show became a hit with viewers," the network said in a statement.

The departure comes as "Fashion Police" is facing scrutiny over one of its hosts comments.

On Monday's telecast, co-host Giuliana Rancic made a comment about the dreadlocks of actress-singer Zendaya Coleman, saying the hair probably smelled like "weed" or "patchouli oil." Some felt the comment was racially insensitive.

The backlash from Rancic's comment fell onto Osbourne who took to Twitter to convey her displeasure over the situation.

"I DID NOT MAKE THE WEED COMENT [sic]", Osborne tweeted on Tuesday." I DOT NOT CONDONE RACISM SO AS A RSULT [sic] OF THIS IM SEREIOUSLY [sic] QUESTIONONIG [sic] STAYING ON THE SHOW!"

Giuliana Rancic has since apologized for her comments.

E! said that the show would return as scheduled on Friday, March 30 and that no decisions have yet been made on Osbourne's replacement.

The woman who broke into the BBQ 'boys club'

BuzzFeed's newest traffic driver: debate about the color of a dress

'House of Cards' fans that already finished season 3

CNNMoney (New York) February 27, 2015: 7:32 PM ET

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China under pressure as money floods out of the country

For years, China has kept its currency from strengthening too much against the dollar. Now, it might need to arrest a slide in the value of the yuan to prevent strain in the country's financial system.

A sharp depreciation could further accelerate capital outflows, affecting domestic property and debt markets. It could also make it harder for Chinese businesses to repay U.S. dollar debt.

The yuan -- or renminbi -- has lost nearly 1% against the dollar in the last two months, after falling 2.5% last year, and investors are losing faith in a rebound.

Worried investors initially pulled money out of China over poor economic growth prospects, leading to currency depreciation. But the two trends are linked, according to RBS economist Tiffany Qiu, who said that "massive currency depreciation again may have caused further capital outflow."

Experts say currency volatility and capital flight are among many risks that China faces as it reforms its financial system and integrates into the global economy.

Giving markets a greater role makes it harder to maintain strict controls on money coming in and out of the country. And promoting the yuan as a global currency means the government needs to get used to more fluctuations in its value.

All eyes will be on the government next week, when it will announce its economic agenda.

Historically, China has kept tight control of the yuan. Favorable exchange rates have helped to boost exports and manufacturing, and drawn accusations from the U.S. that the currency has been kept artificially low.

But Beijing has begun to loosen its grip -- last March, the central bank doubled the permitted trading range for the yuan.

Since then, the currency has largely moved down as concerns about slowing economic growth have spread.

Those worries, and waning property prices, mean investors "may have quickened their asset diversification into foreign assets," wrote Donna Kwok, an economist at UBS, in a research note.

Overseas property investment by Chinese, for example, has skyrocketed in prime cities such as London.

Related: Hong Kong buyers send London real estate soaring

Kwok expects the yuan to lose more value this year, but says it won't suffer a steep plunge. Capital flight will continue, too, though not at a rate that will alarm policymakers just yet. China's huge trade surplus and massive currency reserves provide a healthy cushion.

But if the situation persists, economists expect the central bank to use a variety of tools to keep enough cash flowing through the financial system, including moves that would allow banks to keep less cash in reserve.

CNNMoney (Hong Kong) February 27, 2015: 12:30 AM ET

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Get ready for lawsuits over net neutrality

The agency passed new Internet regulation prevent network owners -- like AT&T (T, Tech30), Comcast (CMCSA), Time Warner Cable (TWC), and Verizon (VZ, Tech30) -- from discriminating against what kind of traffic runs over their networks.

Comcast warned that a bitter legal fight is coming.

"After today, the only 'certainty'... is that we all face inevitable litigation and years of regulatory uncertainty," said Comcast's executive vice president, David Cohen.

It's similar to the warning AT&T's made earlier this month.

Comcast's legal threat is real, which is why despite the cheers of victory from populist groups on Thursday, the net neutrality fight is far from over.

The FCC rules won't be official until maybe summertime. That's when major telecom companies will challenge the rules in court.

A similar legal fight is why we're in this mess now. The last time the FCC tried to protect "Open Internet" rules, Verizon sued and the agency eventually lost in federal court.

Related: Telecoms say they aren't against net neutrality, they are against how the rules were changed

But Comcast also made a veiled threat to cancel plans to invest in its own broadband network.

"After seeing the Order, we'll have to engage in additional internal scrutiny on what our investment plans with respect to broadband will be going forward," Cohen at Comcast warned.

Telecom industry experts question this logic.

During Thursday's vote, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler called the telecom industry's bluff over investment, saying that companies will continue to expand despite the new net neutrality rules.

Plus, if Comcast wants to merge with Time Warner Cable, a megadeal that's under review by the FCC, it will need to keep to its promise to invest in its network.

The whole purpose of the proposed merger "is to create the scale that will allow Comcast to make larger investments in R&D, innovation, and infrastructure to enable us to compete more effectively in this incredibly dynamic marketplace," Comcast promised in 2014.

Unless that marketplace suddenly has become uncompetitive, it still needs to invest. As does Time Warner Cable, Carter, Cablevision and the other large broadband Internet providers.

Related: FCC adopts historic Internet rules

Related: What does net neutrality mean for you?

Related: 4 bad things Internet companies can't do anymore -- if the FCC gets its way

CNNMoney (New York) February 26, 2015: 6:54 PM ET

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BuzzFeed's newest traffic driver: debate about the color of a dress

Some people say this dress is black and blue; others see white and gold.

If you were online on Thursday night, you know what happened: social media services were overrun with comments about the colors of a woman's dress. Some people saw black and blue; others saw white and gold.

It was a debate tailor-made for BuzzFeed -- and in some ways made by BuzzFeed. By midnight Eastern time, the web site said the dress story was a record-breaker: "it drew more visitors to our site at one time than ever before."

The picture of the dress originated from a Tumblr post by a user named Swiked, who asked Tumblr users for help in figuring out the dress's true colors. Once BuzzFeed spotted the story on Tumblr, there was no stopping it.

Cates Holderness, a community growth manager at BuzzFeed, wrote this post, published at 6:14 p.m.: "What Colors Are This Dress?"

Two hours later, she rhetorically asked on Twitter, "what have I done."

The Twitter hashtag #TheDress was still the No. 1 trending topic in the United States after midnight. By then, BuzzFeed had registered 16 million views for Holderness's story, and it was still growing. The next-biggest BuzzFeed story this week has garnered about 6 million views.

BuzzFeed's traffic levels -- and purposefully silly, over-the-top coverage -- had some of the hallmarks of cable news breaking news coverage.

According to BuzzFeed, the story helped bring more than 670,000 people to the site simultaneously as it peaked during prime time.    

Of that number, 500,000 of the people were visiting on mobile devices, and half of those visitors were reading the post about the dress.

There was a poll, of course, and there were a series of followup posts. Dozens of other news and entertainment web sites weighed in (this one included).

The debate was so fervently viral that BuzzFeed apparently became overwhelmed with traffic for a brief period.

"Great work everyone, we broke BuzzFeed," tweeted BuzzFeedBiz editor Tom Gara.

Gara's tweet came along with a screen grab of an email from BuzzFeed's senior project manager Amy Filmore asking the site's editorial staff to hold off on publishing posts due to a "very high traffic load."

The debate engaged fashionistas, color scientists, and A-list celebrities. "I don't understand this odd dress debate and I feel like it's a trick somehow," pop star Taylor Swift wrote on Twitter. "PS it's OBVIOUSLY BLUE AND BLACK."

Kim Kardashian West tweeted, "What color is that dress? I see white & gold. Kanye sees black & blue, who is color blind?"

Holderness tweeted, "I have never been more proud of starting literally millions of arguments."

Strangely, or maybe not, the hotly contested social media debate came just hours after web sites and cable news channels were captivated by escaped llamas running loose in Arizona.

The two stories helped to make February 26, 2015 one of the most viral days in social media history.

"This was the best day of Twitter yet and it was a privilege to share it with you all," tweeted Matt Ford, the national editor for The Atlantic.

CNNMoney (New York) February 27, 2015: 1:01 AM ET

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Revenge porn king wants a clean slate

Craig Brittain raked in thousands of dollars by posting naked photos of women online. Now, he wants his own revenge: on the websites that wrote about him.

Brittain, the operator of the now defunct site www.isanybodydown.com, submitted a request to Google to remove links containing "unauthorized use of photos of me and other related information" from its search engine. He lists 23 links, including news sites like Forbes, Salon and the Huffington Post. He even includes the FTC.

He filed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) request, claiming the sites pulled unauthorized statements, identifying information and photos from his Facebook page and his old site.

For Google (GOOG) to act on a DMCA request, Brittain would be required to be the rights holder or it would need to be a case in which "fair use" laws didn't apply.

"He doesn't have much to stand on," said Mary Anne Franks, associate professor at University of Miami School of Law.

She said that he doesn't own the copyright to most of the material contained in the links. The only caveat would be if Brittain owns rights to any of the photos, but even then, that would mostly likely fall under "fair use." (If it didn't, he would still need to go to each site individually to get the photos taken down.)

Even in Europe, which has a "right to be forgotten" rule, his request is likely to be ignored.

In January, the FTC banned Brittain from posting any more nude photos and required him to destroy the images.

Brittain ran the site from 2011 to 2013, posting 1,000 photos of women, oftentimes with their contact information. The pictures were submitted to him by an ex or solicited by Brittain on Facebook. He allegedly charged women $200 to $500 to remove the pictures.

Related: Reddit's stand against revenge porn

CNNMoney (New York) February 25, 2015: 10:24 PM ET

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America: The new destination for rich Chinese shoppers

These high-spending travelers make most of their trips in Asia, but the U.S. is gaining popularity fast.

HSBC expects Chinese tourists will drive sales of luxury goods in the coming years, and describes America as their "new Eldorado," or golden city.

Visitor numbers are climbing after the U.S. relaxed visa requirements for China last year, making permits valid for a decade, rather than one year. About two million Chinese tourists visit the U.S. each year, and the U.S. government forecasts annual growth of about 20%.

The economic potential is big: Chinese tourists spend more than any other foreigners at an average of $7,200 per visit.

The U.S. is particularly appealing for a number of reasons, including prestige. Wolfgang Georg Arlt, director of the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute, said wealthy Chinese view a trip to America as a social necessity.

"It is part of the confirmation of their status and lifestyle to have visited at least San Francisco, Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon and New York," he said.

Related: Why Chinese moms want American babies

There's also more choice of products for Chinese shoppers. And they avoid the risk of counterfeit goods prevalent in China. But the main lure is price.

Renee Hartmann, of China Luxury Advisors, said luxury merchandise in the U.S. tends to be around 35% cheaper than in China. The company advises Bergdorf Goodman, as well as brands like Prada (PRDSY) and Tom Ford on how to reach the Chinese consumer.

Still, getting a Chinese tourist in the door won't guarantee sales. Experts say retailers need to pay attention to their product lines and customer service. For clothing, that means making sure it reflects Asian sizes and tastes.

Stores may also need to hire Chinese-speaking staff and train workers to respect the high expectations Chinese shoppers have in terms of welcome, service and interaction, said Nathalie Remy, a partner at McKinsey.

Related: Where the super rich are buying homes

"They like to take their time," Remy said. "Shopping is entertainment. It's not so much about the efficiency of quick checkout, they expect to be entertained."

Right now only a tiny fraction of China's population -- around 4% -- has a passport. As the middle class expands, so too will the number -- and type -- of tourist.

Once confined to group tours, Chinese tourists are getting the taste for independent travel. And as the profile of the Chinese tourist changes, retailers risk losing out if they adopt a one-size fits all approach.

"We're seeing lots of different types of travelers," said China Luxury Advisor's Hartmann. Retailers need to do more direct consumer marketing, rather than just working with tour operators. "It's hard to take on a strategy and apply that to every Chinese tourist," she said.

CNNMoney (London) February 25, 2015: 8:31 PM ET

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Bill O'Reilly now scrutinized for story of murdered nuns

For the second time in as many days, Media Matters for America on Wednesday released a report detailing "an apparent fabrication" by O'Reilly.

The latest round of scrutiny is over a claim by O'Reilly that he witnessed the murder of nuns in El Salvador.

Media Matters produced two clips of O'Reilly talking about the murders. During a December 2012 broadcast of "The O'Reilly Factor," the host recalled describing the atrocity to his mother.

"When I would tell her, hey, mom, I was in El Salvador and I saw nuns get shot in the back of the head, she almost couldn't process it," O'Reilly said. "She couldn't process it, you know."

O'Reilly didn't detail when or where in El Salvador he saw those murders.

In a statement to CNNMoney on Wednesday night, O'Reilly said that reporters covering the conflict in El Salvador were shown "depictions of nuns who were murdered." He noted that his reference to the nuns in 2012 came on the day of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.

"While in El Salvador, reporters were shown horrendous images of violence that were never broadcast, including depictions of nuns who were murdered," O'Reilly said. "The mention of the nuns on my program came the day of the Newtown massacre (December 14, 2012). The segment was about evil and how hard it is for folks to comprehend it."

"I used the murdered nuns as an example of that evil," O'Reilly continued. "That's what I am referring to when I say 'I saw nuns get shot in the back of the head.' No one could possibly take that segment as reporting on El Salvador."

The United States was rocked in December 1980 by the murder of three American nuns and a lay woman. O'Reilly notes in his book "The No Spin Zone" that he went to El Salvador to cover the strife shortly after he was made a correspondent by CBS News in 1981. In a 2009 interview, he said he had arrived in the country "right after" the murder of the nuns.

Media Matters cited a professor of religion at the University of Florida who wrote that "no priests or nuns were killed in El Salvador for more than eight years" after January 1981. The professor, Anna L. Peterson, also noted that "thousands of lay Christian activists continued to die at the hands of death squads and the military."

Peterson did not respond to CNNMoney's request for comment.

Media Matters has been digging in to O'Reilly's past statements since Mother Jones magazine questioned O'Reilly's claim to have been in a "war zone" during the Falklands war. He was actually reporting from Buenos Aires, thousands of miles from the Falkland Islands.

On Tuesday, Media Matters challenged O'Reilly's repeated claims to have been at the scene when George de Mohrenschildt, a friend of Lee Harvey Oswald, committed suicide.

Media Matters, which is dedicated to correcting misinformation in conservative media, has long kept a critical eye on O'Reilly and his colleagues at Fox News. The group is currently urging supporters to demand that Fox News "hold O'Reilly accountable for his deception."

O'Reilly has dismissed Media Matters in the past as a "vicious" propaganda outfit.

"Those fascists have tried everything they can try to get me off the air," O'Reilly said in 2012.

In a statement to CNNMoney on Wednesday, Fox News made it clear that it still has O'Reilly's back.

"Bill O'Reilly has already addressed several claims leveled against him," a Fox News spokesperson said. "This is nothing more than an orchestrated campaign by far left advocates Mother Jones and Media Matters. Responding to the unproven accusation du jour has become an exercise in futility. FOX News maintains its staunch support of O'Reilly, who is no stranger to calculated onslaughts."

Related: Bill O'Reilly faces new questions: His JFK story

Related: Jon Stewart scoffs at Bill O'Reilly controversy

CNNMoney (New York) February 25, 2015: 11:51 PM ET

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8 tax audit red flags

While chances are low that your return will be targeted by the IRS, why put yourself at risk at all?

Here are 8 relatively easy ways to steer clear of an audit:

1. Report all of your income. Wages from most jobs are reported on W-2 forms, while any interest, dividends and capital gains you made are reported on 1099s, as is income earned by independent contractors or freelancers.

Those forms are sent to both you and the IRS. So be sure to include all information from them on your federal tax return.

Here's why: The agency uses an automated form-matching program to flag discrepancies between what you report and what the IRS has on file, according to the National Association of Enrolled Agents, who are tax preparers authorized to represent clients in an audit.

Any discrepancies will trigger a correspondence audit. Basically, the IRS will send you a letter telling you how much more you owe based on the income you failed to report.

It's up to you whether to just pay the bill or challenge it if you think the IRS didn't calculate it correctly.

2. Run a small business? Prove it. Very few people make a profit when they first start their own business. The IRS understands this... up to a point.

Report losses for three or more years and the agency will start to suspect your business is more of a hobby than a venture aimed at turning a profit, said former IRS tax attorney Garrett Gregory of Addison, Texas.

Such "hobby loss" cases may trigger a field audit, which is in-person and more onerous than a correspondence audit.

Related: Filing a false tax return comes with big penalties

To prove you have a real business, be sure to keep records of your business expenses and document how much time you spend on the business and what you do with it.

You want to prove that you "breathed it, ate it, slept it, drank it," Gregory said.

3. If anything seems weird, explain it. The IRS has its tentacles up for unreported income, so explaining anything that looks questionable may dissuade the agency from pursuing an audit.

For example, if your net income is too low to live on given such factors as where you live and your family size, include a disclosure statement detailing how you supported yourself, including any savings, loans or credit cards that you used to pay the bills, the NAEA recommends.

4. Watch the home office deductions. Typically your office is in one place -- either in a rental space or in your home. So don't report a deduction for both. (If you legitimately have offices in both places, explain why in a disclosure statement.)

If your rental expense is for a business storage unit or equipment, the NAEA recommends labeling that cost as a "storage rental" or "equipment rental."

5. Report the sale of mutual funds: If you sold a mutual fund that you bought before 2011 outside of a tax-advantaged retirement account and you reinvested the money in another mutual fund, you must report it on your federal return, said enrolled agent Stephen DeFilippis of Wheaton, Ill.

If you don't, the IRS will assume the total proceeds from the sale are all taxable gains. And it will send you a letter that recomputes your tax bill accordingly.

In that case, you'd need to go back and prove to the IRS that only a portion of the proceeds represent your capital gains and the rest was your cost basis (i.e.; the amount you originally invested in the fund). Or, if you sold the fund at a loss, that you don't owe any tax on the sale.

6. Come clean about any money overseas: U.S. taxpayers who have bank or investment accounts abroad must report any income they earned on those accounts to the IRS.

While that's always been the case, under the relatively new Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) your foreign financial institution may soon start to report that information to the IRS like any other bank or brokerage would in the United States.

If you've had the account for years, never reported it, and the IRS finds out about it from your foreign bank or investment firm, you could owe some serious penalties in addition to back taxes if the account has generated taxable income, Gregory noted.

Related: IRS will do fewer tax audits this year

To pre-empt such expensive surprises, the IRS has sponsored an offshore voluntary disclosure program that lets people come clean on their own volition and by doing so, reduce any penalties they may owe.

7. Report the sale of your home: When you sell your home, the title company will send you and the IRS a 1099-S form, recording the proceeds from the sale.

Even if all your capital gains on the sale are tax-exempt (because they didn't exceed $250,000 if you're single or $500,000 if you're married), DeFilippis recommends you report information from that 1099-S on your return anyway.

His reason: the 1099-S is part of the IRS form-matching program. Not reporting it may generate a correspondence audit.

8. Be smart about mortgage interest: When you own a home with your spouse, your lender will send you and the IRS a Form 1098, which records how much mortgage interest you paid during the year.

But sometimes the form only includes the name and Social Security number of one spouse, DeFilipis said. Should that person die, and the surviving partner tries to claim the mortgage interest deduction, that may trigger a correspondence audit.

So have the lender change the name and Social Security number on the 1098 before filing. Or, if there's not time for that before April 15, file for an extension and submit your return when you have an amended 1098 in hand.

CNNMoney (New York) February 24, 2015: 7:01 PM ET

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Lloyd Blankfein: 'There's no place for pure capitalism'

China's economy may be slowing down from its breakneck pace of recent decades, but it's still running far ahead of free markets like the U.S.

So does China's rapid growth call into question the hands-down success of capitalism?

"The U.S. is not pure capitalism," Goldman Sachs (GS) CEO Lloyd Blankfein told CNN's Poppy Harlow. "In fact, there's no place for pure capitalism, unregulated capitalism. We have a regulated system."

Blankfein, arguably the most powerful man on staunchly free market Wall Street, said that "at the end of the day, everything is going to be a hybrid."

That's why the Goldman executive believes there's enough "overlap" in the American and Chinese systems to allow the two countries to find places to work together through investment and bilateral trade.

Related: Brazil's scandalous boom to bust story

Not every year can be a banner year: China's economy is clearly going through some growing pains. Last year the country's economy grew at 7.4%, its slowest pace in 24 years.

But Blankfein, who has said the 21st Century could very well be the Chinese century, doesn't sound worried.

"Not every year in this century is gonna be China's year, even if it turns out to be their century," he said.

After all, Blankfein noted, last century was very good for America but the U.S. still suffered more than a few deep recessions and even a Great Depression.

Related: Why this tech party isn't like 1999

China moves toward 'sustainable' growth: The mantra in China had been "growth at all costs," but Blankfein said the country's leaders now realize rapid growth created the "twin ills" of corruption and environmental damage.

Efforts to fight China's infamous smog are not exactly helping the country's economic growth in the short-term. They are forcing factories and mills that heavily pollute to shut down, leaving some people out of work.

The same can be said about China's clamp down on corruption. Uber-rich Chinese politicians and business people are now less likely to spend freely in restaurants and casinos.

China is also taking steps to limit a dangerous surge in credit, despite the negative implications to near-term growth.

"They are constantly watching their growth slow down so they can have much more sustainable growth," Blankfein said.

Related: Caterpillar CEO says China's slowdown is a good thing

US has to do 'better' on inequality: While growth in the U.S. has improved, Blankfein said inequality remains a destabilizing force in the American economy.

He said inequality isn't necessarily being caused by the affluent. Instead, Goldman's CEO said the gap between the rich and the poor has been driven by "the rise of technology" and the "winner take all market."

In one sign of growing inequality, a recent Urban Institute report shows whites now have 12 times the wealth of blacks and nearly 10 times more than Hispanics. That's up from seven times for blacks and six times for Hispanics in 1995.

"We have to do a better job" of distributing wealth, he said. "Everybody has to join in."

So what does the Goldman chief say needs to be done to fight inequality?

He said the government needs to invest more on training, education and housing to ensure everyone has free or cheap access.

"If you don't have it, you lose access to the escalator that could take you up and through the middle class and higher," Blankfein said.

Related: Wealth gap between middle class and rich widest ever

CNNMoney (New York) February 24, 2015: 6:47 PM ET

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Latest challenge for Bill O'Reilly: His JFK story

This time, the scrutiny is being directed at an account of his investigation into John F. Kennedy's assassination.

O'Reilly's telling of it has gone like this: In 1977, Russian-born George de Mohrenschildt, who knew Lee Harvey Oswald, had been contacted by congressional investigators. O'Reilly, a reporter for a Dallas TV station, had tracked de Mohrenschildt down in Palm Beach, and arrived at the door to his daughter's home just as he shot himself.

O'Reilly shared that account in his book, "Killing Kennedy," and has repeated it on Fox News.

"As the reporter knocked on the door of de Mohrenschildt's daughter's home, he heard the shotgun blast that marked the suicide of the Russian, assuring that his relationship with Lee Harvey Oswald would never be fully understood," O'Reilly wrote in his book. "By the way, that reporter's name is Bill O'Reilly."

The question being raised: Was O'Reilly really there?

Jefferson Morley, a visiting professor at the University of California and a former editor at the Washington Post, doesn't think so. Writing for his website JFKFacts.org in 2013, Morley used phone recordings to dispute the dramatic account.

Morley's post resurfaced on Monday in a new report from liberal watchdog group Media Matters for America.

The phone recordings, from the day of the suicide, came from the widow of Gaeton Fonzi, a congressional investigator involved in the JFK assassination probe.

Fonzi knew O'Reilly, and the recordings describe a conversation in which O'Reilly asked for confirmation of the suicide, according to Morley. Morley has posted a partial transcript and the recordings, though they are inaudible.

On the recordings, O'Reilly acknowledges he is in Dallas and plans to head to Florida, according to Morley.

Fonzi also recalled in his 1993 memoir that O'Reilly called him to confirm the suicide.

"Funny thing happened," Fonzi recalled O'Reilly saying over the phone. "We just aired a story that came over the wire about a Dutch journalist saying the Assassinations Committee has finally located de Mohrenschildt in South Florida. Now de Mohren--schildt's attorney, a guy named Pat Russell, he calls and says de Mohrenschildt committed suicide this afternoon. Is that true?"

Fonzi's widow, Marie, told Morley in 2013 that "Gaet liked O'Reilly and did lots to help him." But she insisted O'Reilly was nowhere near the scene of the suicide. "I know O'Reilly was in Dallas," she said. "There is no question about it."

Another possible red flag in O'Reilly's account: An Associated Press report at the time quoted a member of the Palm Beach County, Florida sheriff's office who said that de Mohrenschildt was home alone at the time of his suicide "except for two maids who said they did not hear the shot."

When reached for comment, a Fox News spokesperson referred CNNMoney to Henry Holt and Company, the imprint that published O'Reilly's book on the Kennedy assassination.

These questions follow another public dispute involving O'Reilly's characterization of his time covering the Falklands War in 1982.

O'Reilly has made several references over the years to being in a "war zone" and a "combat situation" during that conflict. Since he and most reporters covered the war from Buenos Aires, the question was whether a protest he covered fit those descriptions.

Related: Bill O'Reilly tries to end Falklands controversy: 'I want to stop this now'

Related: What Bill O'Reilly has said about his time during the Falklands War

CNNMoney (New York) February 25, 2015: 1:00 AM ET

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Regulator: United doesn't need to accept mistake fares

The news comes after a week and a half investigation conducted by the department.

"After a careful review of the matter, including the thousands of submissions from consumers and information from United, the Enforcement Office has decided that it will not take action against United for not honoring the tickets," the regulatory agency said.

Related: Best time to buy airfare

On February 11, for a period of about four hours, United's Danish site showed fares from the U.K. to various destinations around the world at a fraction of their intended prices.

The error was caused by third-party software supplied to United (UAL), the airline said.

Thousands of would-be passengers who thought they had snagged first-class transatlantic fares for as little as $70 soon found out their reservations were canceled.

Related: United won't take its $70 first-class tickets

The cancellations caused uproar among frequent travelers and passengers. Thousands submitted complaints to the U.S. Department of Transportation in hopes their flights would be honored.

A United Airlines spokesperson told CNN "we appreciate that the U.S. DOT has decided that the February 11 exchange rate error does not warrant enforcement action."

United said customers were contacted directly through email and other methods and that all charges related to the canceled reservations have been refunded.

In the past the DOT has ruled in favor of passengers but in this case they argue many customers acted in "bad faith."

Related: Fly business class to London for 50% less

"The Office (DOT) is concerned that to obtain the fare, some purchasers had to manipulate the search process on the website in order to force the conversion error to Danish Krone by misrepresenting their billing address country as Denmark when, in fact, Denmark was not their billing address country."

In the past, several airlines including United have honored some "mistake fares."

CNNMoney (New York) February 23, 2015: 7:35 PM ET

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Google Wallet to come pre-installed on Android phones

Google (GOOG) made the announcement in a blog post on Monday.

The Google Wallet app was first introduced in 2011. It stores credit card, loyalty card and coupon information digitally. Google Wallet users simply need to tap an NFC-enabled smartphone on a tap-and-pay credit card reader when they pay for things in stores. They can also pay with their Google Wallet accounts while shopping online, eliminating the need to enter any credit card or payment information during checkout.

"This is great for customers and for mobile payments and we're looking forward to working with Google to help more customers experience the benefits of tap to pay on their Verizon Wireless smartphone," according to an email statement from a Verizon Wireless spokesperson.

Google Wallet works like Apple Pay. Google hopes more people will use its mobile payments app by selling Android phones pre-loaded with the Google Wallet. The app will not come pre-installed on iPhones.

For mobile payments platforms to gain widespread adoption, both Google and Apple (AAPL, Tech30) have to convince people to trust carriers with their financial information. "Most people are still much more comfortable with banks than carriers when it comes to finances," tech analyst Rob Enderle told CNNMoney.

Related: Apple's plan to change how you pay for everything

CNNMoney (New York) February 23, 2015: 6:47 PM ET

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Bill O'Reilly tries to end Falklands controversy: 'I want to stop this now'

O'Reilly's latest rebuttal to a report published by Mother Jones focused on a protest he covered in Buenos Aires for CBS News at the conclusion of the 1982 conflict between Argentina and Britain.

At issue: O'Reilly has made several references over the years to being in a "war zone" and a "combat situation." Since he and most reporters covered the war from Buenos Aires, the question was whether a protest there fit those descriptions.

In previous accounts, O'Reilly has also said "many were killed" in the protest and that he was forced to rescue his photographer, who had been "run down" and bloodied in the mayhem.

Following the Mother Jones report, several former colleagues also in Argentina at the time disputed those claims.

On his Fox News show on Monday, O'Reilly mocked the "far-left zealots" who he said had described the protest as a "day in the park." That was a reference to former CBS News correspondent Eric Engberg, who backed the Mother Jones report and said the Buenos Aires riot was "relatively tame."

O'Reilly showed CBS News footage from the protest, including a report that had been filed by Engberg. CBS News posted the footage on its website earlier on Monday.

Engberg's report, which originally aired in June of 1982, described police officers firing tear gas and plastic bullets at protesters.

"It is not known how many were hurt, but witnesses reported at least some serious injuries," Engberg reported at the time. The report also mentioned arrests and beatings.

Dan Rather introduced the broadcast by noting that "some television crew members were knocked to the ground."

O'Reilly said Monday he stands by his claim that people were killed in the riots. "I saw people hit the ground hard. I saw them hauled off, put into ambulances and police vehicles," O'Reilly said. "And the local reportage was that there were fatalities. We have not been able to say how many, alright? But I believe there were."

After showing the footage, O'Reilly spoke to former NBC News Miami bureau chief Don Browne, who backed O'Reilly's characterization of Buenos Aires. "It was a country at war," Browne said.

On his show, O'Reilly made it clear that he intends to put the whole matter to rest. "I want to stop this now," he said. "I hope we can stop it. I really do."

CNNMoney (New York) February 23, 2015: 11:40 PM ET

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CBS staffers dispute Bill O'Reilly's 'war zone' story

The people all challenge O'Reilly's depiction of Buenos Aires as a "war zone" and a "combat situation." They also doubt his description of a CBS cameraman being injured in the chaos.

"Nobody remembers this happening," said Manny Alvarez, who was a cameraman for CBS News in Buenos Aires.

Jim Forrest, who was a sound engineer for CBS there, said that when he heard O'Reilly retell the Argentina riot story to interviewer Marvin Kalb several years ago, he contacted Kalb and said "I was on that crew, and I don't recall his version of events."

The contradictions come several days after Mother Jones, a left-leaning magazine, first reported about the discrepancies in O'Reilly's claims about his coverage of the Falklands War. O'Reilly was a young correspondent for CBS News at the time, assigned to cover the war from Buenos Aires, which was more than 1,000 miles from the offshore conflict zone.

In the years since, O'Reilly -- now the biggest star on Fox News -- has repeatedly referred to his experience in the "war zone."

In his 2001 book, "The No Spin Zone," O'Reilly wrote, "I've reported on the ground in active war zones from El Salvador to the Falklands."

On his show "The O'Reilly Factor" in 2013, O'Reilly told a guest, "I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, where my photographer got run down and then hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete. And the army was chasing us. I had to make a decision. And I dragged him off, you know, but at the same time, I'm looking around and trying to do my job, but I figure I had to get this guy out of there because that was more important."

Mother Jones challenged some of these claims. O'Reilly responded by accusing the magazine of trying to smear him to hurt Fox News, and said the report's co-author, David Corn, is a liar and an "irresponsible guttersnipe."

Eric Engberg, a CBS correspondent who was also in Buenos Aires at the time, defended Corn in a Facebook post on Friday and said, "It was not a war zone or even close. It was an 'expense account zone.'"

Longtime NBC News correspondent George Lewis, who was also there at the time, agreed with Engberg, writing on Facebook, "Cushiest war I ever covered."

Did O'Reilly's photographer get "run down" and bloodied?

CNN has interviewed seven people who were there for CBS, and none of them recall anyone from the network being injured.

"If somebody got hurt, we all would have known," Alvarez said.

In a Friday interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, O'Reilly said the photographer's last name was Moreno. Roberto Moreno was there for CBS. He now lives in Venezuela, and he declined to comment to CNN.

But Mia Fabius, who was the office manager for the CBS Miami bureau at the time, has stayed in touch with Moreno for decades, and she said Moreno has never spoken about any injury in Argentina.

Further, Fabius said no injury report was ever filed.

Engberg, Alvarez and Forrest spoke on the record about their recollections of the Argentina coverage. Four other people who were there for CBS spoke on condition of anonymity, some because they still work in the television industry and others because they don't want to be publicly criticized by O'Reilly.

All of the people said they're unaware of any civilians being killed in the riot. In O'Reilly's 2001 book, he said "many were killed."

"There were certainly no dead people," Forrest said. "Had there been dead people, they would have sent more camera crews."

Alvarez called the claims of deaths "outrageous, outrageous."

"People being mowed down? Where was that? That would have been great footage. That would have turned into the story," he said.

CNN's report from Buenos Aires at the time described "a squad of tear-gas-armed troops" and a crowd "hurling coins, rocks, and even bricks at both police and journalists," but no deaths.

O'Reilly has repeatedly defended his claims, including on Fox News on Sunday morning. "I don't know if he was there," O'Reilly said, implying that Engberg may not have witnessed the riot. He called Engberg "Room Service Eric," alleging he often stayed in his hotel during unfolding news events.

Speaking on CNN, Engberg called that "the most absurd thing I've ever heard" and said "I never ordered room service during a riot." Engberg also said he, as well as an entire team from CBS, was out in Buenos Aires and in a position to see the protest.

O'Reilly also cited a New York Times account of the riot that said "one policeman pulled a pistol, firing five shots over the heads of fleeing demonstrators." This supports the depiction of a dangerous protest, though does not confirm O'Reilly's claim that people were killed that night.

Related: What Bill O'Reilly has said about his time during the Falklands War

Related: Bill O'Reilly rips Mother Jones again: 'Bottom rung of journalism'

CNNMoney (New York) February 22, 2015: 3:46 PM ET

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Upgrading from Windows 7 or 8? You'll love Windows 10

Over the six years since Windows 7 was released, Microsoft has made its PC operating system far more intuitive and powerful by packing it with tablet- and smartphone-like features.

A lot of those features debuted with Windows 8, but they still weren't working perfectly.

Microsoft went back to the drawing board with Windows 10 to develop an operating system that will be familiar to Windows 7 users but doesn't compromise on modern features. (Note: You're not crazy -- Microsoft skipped Windows 9 altogether.)

Windows 10 has a Start Menu, just like Windows 7 -- only better.

On the left Start Menu column, you'll find a list of your most used apps, most visited folders and recently added software. There's also a button that will show you all your apps in a single list.

On the right part of the Start Menu, there is a grid of app tiles that you can arrange however you like. The "live" tiles will show you updates, such as the latest stock prices, the last show you were watching on Netflix, social media updates, weather, news and sports scores.

If you want, you can take the Start Menu full-screen by clicking the "expand" button -- it's kind of like having a tablet or smartphone screen for a desktop. But, crucially, it's only there if you want it. The default is the familiar Windows desktop experience.

Windows 10 provides some design changes that Windows 7 users will welcome. For example, taskbar icons glow at the bottom when they are opened, but only the app icon that is currently being used is completely highlighted. In Windows 7, all open apps are highlighted, confusingly.

Folder icons are far less glitzy and much more intuitive in Windows 10, making it much easier to view the contents of the folder at a glance before you open it. Gone is the confusing and redundant "libraries" directory. The task manager is also much simpler to use.

Windows 7 users should be unafraid of upgrading when Windows 10 hits store shelves later this year. There is hardly any learning curve, and the new bells and whistles alone are definitely worth checking out.

Related: Microsoft fixes a serious 15-year old bug

Better than Windows 8: So what if you've upgraded to Windows 8? Here are the big differences you'll notice in Windows 10.

Windows 8's odd tablet-style layout was confusing to Windows die-hards. You won't find Windows 10 difficult to use. Windows 10 boots straight to the desktop, and it stays there.

If you have a convertible laptop or Windows tablet, Windows 10 has a "tablet mode" that recognizes when there is no keyboard or mouse present. But rather than make two separate tablet and desktop interfaces like Microsoft did for Windows 8, Microsoft chose to make the Windows 10 desktop and apps more finger-friendly for tablet users. They only morph a little to fit the device they're running on.

So if you download a "modern" app from the Windows Store, it will run in a window, just like standard Windows software. The only difference is that it has a diagonal arrow button between the "close" button and the "expand" button at the top right of the window. That will take the app into "tablet mode," going full-screen. But you can easily get out of that by moving the mouse to the top of the screen and clicking the button again.

Windows 8's unhelpful charms bar has been replaced with the Windows 10 action center. There, you get notifications and access to handy quick settings, such as brightness controls, airplane mode, Wi-Fi and tablet mode toggles.

Also different is Windows 8's app-choosing feature, that let you go back to the last-used app by swiping in fro the left. It has been replaced with a far more useful display of all your open apps on a single screen.

Touchscreen users can access the action center with a swipe in from the right, just as they can view all the open apps by swiping in the from the left. But, mercifully, Windows 10 put buttons for both on the taskbar so mouse and keyboard users won't accidentally launch those features by putting the cursor too far to the left or right.

Window 10's New Features: Windows 10 isn't just about correcting Windows 8's mistakes, though. There are new features that Windows 8 users will love.

The coolest new feature is Cortana, Windows 10's version of Siri, which appears net to the Start button on the taskbar.

"She" has a sense of humor ("I know Siri, but I don't KNOW her, know her, if you get what I mean," Cortana says in response to an obvious question). But in addition to barking voice commands and queries, the search feature is genuinely helpful.

It will search your apps, the Windows Store, the Web and your files to answer search queries. It's a super-quick way to launch an app (just start typing and hit Enter when the app appears). And like Windows 8's outstanding search function, Cortana can help you access deeply hidden settings with a few keyboard strokes, helping you avoid hunting and pecking through control panel settings.

Windows 10 also comes with multiple desktops, which is helpful for cleaning up a messy workspace.

I have been testing the preview version of Windows 10 for a few weeks. There are plenty of things not to like, including the fact that you still can't access all your settings from the "settings" app. We'll cover more of the hits and misses in a fuller review once Microsoft gets closer to releasing Windows 10.

But the preview has shown me enough to confidently say that Windows 10 will be a breeze to use, a welcome change for both Windows 7 and Windows 8 users, and a big hit for Microsoft.

Related: Microsoft unveils next version of Office

Related: Microsoft unveils Windows 10

CNNMoney (New York) February 22, 2015: 12:59 PM ET

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Facebook's bus drivers set for raises after union vote

Anti-gentrification protesters block a bus of tech workers in December 2013.

Most of the 90 drivers who ferry workers to and from the Facebook (FB, Tech30) campus in Silicon Valley voted Saturday in favor of a contract that would boost their wages and address a major scheduling issue, according to the Teamsters.

Some would get an increase of as much as $9 per hour, though the average increase would be about $5 an hour, according to Rome Aloise, a union official who negotiated the contract with Loop Transportation, which was hired by Facebook.

The agreement must still be approved by Facebook, Aloise said.

In San Francisco, the buses used by Facebook -- and similar services used by other Silicon Valley companies -- are seen as an icon of income inequality: Well-paid tech workers boarding coaches in neighborhoods where the less well-off are struggling to keep up with skyrocketing rents.

Related: Tech workers squeezing out renters in San Francisco

The drivers, said Aloise, are currently paid on average of $17.93 an hour. Loop Transportation has previously said its typical wage is between $18 and $20.

Neither Loop Transportation nor Facebook responded to requests for comment on Sunday.

Under the new contract, base wages would increase to between $21 and $25, according to Aloise. In three years, wages would fall between $22.50 and $28.50.

The contract also addresses a scheduling concern of the drivers: split shifts.

Drivers said they work several hours for the morning commute, then return to the bus depot and sit unpaid for several hours before returning to their route for the evening commute. Some have said their schedules meant 12- or 16-hour days, though many hours were unpaid and unproductive.

In the future, drivers who work both the morning and evening commute would receive 10% shift differential pay, and those who work only mornings or evenings would be paid for at least six hours of work per day.

Related: Sex, drugs and Silicon Valley

The contract also includes health benefits, a retirement plan and workplace policies, like a grievance procedure, Aloise said.

And Facebook's drivers may not be the only ones to be covered by a union contract.

The Teamsters said drivers for Compass Transportation -- which has contracts for Apple (AAPL, Tech30), eBay (EBAY, Tech30), Yahoo (YHOO, Tech30) and games maker Zynga (ZNGA) -- will vote Friday on unionizing, the first step toward similar contract negotiations.

Cost of living: How far will my salary go in another city?

CNNMoney (New York) February 22, 2015: 3:49 PM ET

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No dogs allowed: San Francisco's pet housing crisis

According to San Francisco animal welfare nonprofit SF SPCA, there's been a surge in owners abandoning their pets due to an inability to find pet-friendly housing.

Over the last year, one in four people who left pets with the organization cited problems finding pet-friendly housing. The organization started tracking the numbers this year after staff noticed that housing issues were becoming an increasingly common problem, according to spokesperson Krista Maloney.

An influx of highly-paid tech workers in recent years have pushed out many low- and middle-income renters and driven rents higher. With limited space to build on and tight regulations, the short supply of housing in the city has only made matters worse.

Competition for each apartment is so fierce that landlords can afford to be more selective about tenants, said Mark Campana, president of Anchor Realty, which does not allow pets in any of its roughly 1,000 units.

Related: 10 least affordable rental markets

"Now with the market moving with great speed and with vacant units in high demand, an owner doesn't have the incentive to be pet-friendly," said Campana.

Michael Harrington, president of Pacific Union Property Management, said that while some landlords may be flexible about allowing small dogs, they know they can always find another tenant without an animal.

"We're definitely in what I would call a landlord's market," said Harrington.

Sam the chihuahua was left at the SPCA by an owner who couldn't find pet-friendly housing.

Just because a unit is advertised as pet-friendly doesn't mean it will go to a pet owner, said Dr. Emily Weiss, vice president of research and development at ASPCA.

That might explain why data from online rental listing company, Lovely, showed that the percentage of listings that said they allowed "some pets" actually grew from 34% to 39% between 2012 and 2014.

Pet-friendly options also tend to be more out of reach for low-income renters, said Weiss. According to a recent analysis of listings by HotPads, pet-friendly units in San Francisco cost an average of 12% more than those that don't allow pets. That's compared to a national average of 3.5% in major metro areas, the company found. And that doesn't include pet deposits or additional "pet rent," which may be required on top of normal rent.

San Francisco even lags behind New York City, where the share of dog-friendly apartments is almost three times higher and just over half of all landlords allow "some pets," according to Lovely. Yet, pet ownership in the city has long faced the same challenges that the SPCA is seeing in San Francisco, said Sandra DeFeo, executive director of the Humane Society of New York.

"People with more means tend to find places that will accept them with pets," she said.

Jackie Tom, president of leasing company RentalsinSF, said it was hard enough finding an apartment that would accept her Great Dane 15 years ago. Today, the market is even more stressful and more expensive for pet owners, she said.

"There are a lot of wonderful pet owners and not enough affordable housing for them," said Tom, who manages 35 pet-friendly units in the city. "They can keep their pets, but there is a price."

Related: 'Why I have a roommate at my age'

Eric Andresen, president of the San Francisco Apartment Association and Viking Services Corp., which manages about 2,300 housing units in the area, said he would be surprised if the housing crunch really made the city less pet-friendly overall.

He notes that many residents have learned to skirt landlords' pet restrictions by claiming their pets as assistance animals, abusing laws meant to help people with disabilities. The problem has become so widespread in recent years that Andresen recommends landlords simply allow pets so they have some control over the animals in their buildings.

"Then at least you can protect yourself with a pet deposit," said Andresen. "And it certainly puts your relationship with your tenant in a more cooperative place."

CNNMoney (New York) February 20, 2015: 7:54 PM ET

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What Bill O'Reilly has said about his time during the Falklands War

That's the central question raised by Mother Jones in a report published Thursday, and the answer appears to be both yes and no.

The Fox News host insists he never said he was in the Falkland Islands during the conflict. As a reporter for CBS News at the time, O'Reilly and his colleagues were based in Buenos Aires, far from the war zone in and around the islands.

Some of O'Reilly's accounts stem from a protest that occurred in Buenos Aires at the time, though that wouldn't qualify as a war zone.

As longtime CBS News correspondent Bob Schieffer told Mother Jones, "Nobody from CBS got to the Falklands... For us, you were a thousand miles from where the fighting was."

Here is the public record of what O'Reilly has said:

2001: O'Reilly wrote in his book, "The No Spin Zone: Confrontations With the Powerful and Famous in America," that his time covering war made him ready for anything. "You know that I am not easily shocked," he wrote. "I've reported on the ground in active war zones from El Salvador to the Falkland Islands, and in chaotic situations like the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles."

2004: In his syndicated column, O'Reilly recalled how he had "survived a combat situation in Argentina during the Falklands War." He was presumably referring to a protest he covered in Buenos Aires, but his reference to a "combat situation" could reasonably be interpreted as a "war zone."

2008: Seven years ago on the "O'Reilly Factor," the host invoked his experience "in the war zones" to taunt Bill Moyers, the veteran journalist with whom he's feuded for years. "By the way, I missed Moyers in the war zones of the Falkland conflict in Argentina, the Middle East and Northern Ireland," O'Reilly said. "I looked for Bill, but I didn't see him."

2013: During an interview on his Fox News show, O'Reilly once again described the protest but said it took place "in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands."

"Because I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, where my photographer got run down and then hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete," O'Reilly told his guest.

The Falklands War 1982: Very few journalists made it inside the war zone to cover the conflict.

Some of O'Reilly's statements seem much less questionable.

2009: During an on-air segment with Bernard Goldberg, himself a former CBS News journalist, O'Reilly said that the network "sent me to El Salvador and to cover the Falkland Islands war in Argentina.

2011: After reading an email from a viewer who was honeymooning down in Argentina, O'Reilly noted his history with the region.

"Tell everybody down there I covered the Falklands War," he told the viewer. "They'll remember."

2012: O'Reilly read an email from a viewer based in the Falkland Islands and said he had "a little soft spot" for the region, given that he "covered the Falklands War."

2015: After Mother Jones dogged him all day Thursday for a response, O'Reilly casually -- and carefully -- invoked his assignment in Argentina.

"When I was at the network news, when there was a conflict, a war, any kind of really violent crime spree, whatever, they're all over it," O'Reilly told Goldberg. "I mean, even minor wars, like the Falklands War -- you know, I was down there in Argentina and Uruguay. The Salvadoran War, I was there. When Grenada hit, there was big coverage of Grenada. All of that."

A little later in the segment, perhaps anticipating the Mother Jones report, O'Reilly clarified his earlier comments.

"I didn't go to Grenada. I want to make that clear to everybody," O'Reilly said, while laughing. "I don't want to get in trouble. But I was in Salvador and Argentina."

Related: Bill O'Reilly rips Mother Jones again: 'Bottom rung of journalism'

Related: Mother Jones demands apology

CNNMoney (New York) February 20, 2015: 6:46 PM ET

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MSNBC says 'prime time lineup is solid'

Maybe, but the channel is pushing back against a report that Rachel Maddow is about to replace one of her proteges, Chris Hayes.

However, change is definitely afoot at the network, as demonstrated by Thursday's twin cancellations of "Ronan Farrow Daily" and "The Reid Report."

MSNBC is searching for solutions to a ratings deficit that seems to worsen with each passing month. Lately the channel has been averaging just 60,000 to 80,000 viewers ages 25 to 54 on weekdays. CNN, the parent of this web site, usually averages more than twice as many viewers in that demographic; Fox News often times averages four times as many.

So what's MSNBC going to do? Among staffers, there is rampant uncertainty.

On Friday, representatives for the channel reiterated that it will continue to "Lean Forward" -- its slogan that sums up its progressive point of view -- while trying to broaden its coverage beyond politics.

An MSNBC spokesperson refuted that the goal is to "move away from left-wing TV," a claim made by an "MSNBC source" to The Daily Beast.

That Daily Beast report also said "two well-placed sources" predicted that Maddow would take Hayes' slot, and that a search is underway for a new 9 p.m. host.

The report sent a shiver through some corners of MSNBC on Thursday night, given how close Hayes and Maddow are. The two hosts share an agent -- and a cerebral liberal sensibility.

"Contrary to the rumors from unnamed sources, we have no plans to take Chris Hayes' show off the air, or move Rachel Maddow's show," an MSNBC spokesperson said Friday. "Our prime time lineup is solid."

Staffers at the 8 p.m. show do not feel they're on solid ground, however. It is possible the show will be shifted to some other time slot.

Hayes' show, "All In," is the most recent addition to MSNBC's prime time lineup -- it was launched in the spring of 2013 after Hayes had a successful run on weekend mornings.

In the press, "All In" has been portrayed as faltering, and several staffers involved with the show, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they've felt unfairly targeted, considering the channel's across-the-board ratings struggles.

On Thursday, for instance, Chris Matthews drew 104,000 viewers ages 25 to 54 at 7 p.m., Hayes had 109,000 at 8 p.m., Maddow had 116,000 at 9 p.m., and Lawrence O'Donnell had 90,000 at 10 p.m.

Some nights are worse for Hayes; he generally loses a bit of the prior hour's audience. Then again, he's been in the job for about two years, while Matthews has been a fixture on MSNBC for well over a decade.

One MSNBC staffer who has worked with Hayes bemoaned "the 8 o'clock time slot problem -- nobody's ever been able to draw the ratings that I think [MSNBC president] Phil Griffin wants to see."

The ultimate calculation, about Hayes and about every other cable news host, is this: Does management think another host could reliably attract a bigger audience?

No more talent changes are believed to be imminent, but there will be more. Ronan Farrow and Joy Reid, two of the channel's lowest-rated hosts, will be replaced by news anchor Thomas Roberts next month, the channel confirmed on Thursday.

The replacement of two strong progressive voices for Roberts was interpreted by some as a step away from liberal politics, at least during the workday.

On the other hand, this week's appointment of Bravo TV star Tom Colicchio as MSNBC's "food correspondent" might be a signal of what's to come. The channel called it part of a "larger strategy to cover a broader set of stories that move and inspire Americans through its progressive lens."

Ultimately, MSNBC may be trying to pull off something quite tricky -- encouraging its loyal and mostly liberal fans to stick around while welcoming new viewers who aren't as fervent about politics, policy or President Obama.

Griffin said in an end-of-2014 memo that in 2015, "we're going to get on the road -- and outside of Washington -- a lot more."

"We're going to keep opening up our aperture, while investing in original reporting on the broad range of stories that move and inspire Americans," he wrote. "And we're going to use new technologies, events and creative tools to engage and mobilize our passionate audience."

MSNBC executives portrayed the Colicchio announcement as the first of several such announcements to come.

Hayes, who has declined to comment on the speculation about the fate of his show, did tweet a nod to The Daily Beast report. On Friday afternoon he wrote: "Tonight we'll probably talk about why going to war in Iraq again is a bad idea," and he added the hashtag "#leftwingTV."

More Media: Bill O'Reilly rips Mother Jones again: 'Bottom rung of journalism'

CNNMoney (New York) February 21, 2015: 3:59 PM ET

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What Bill O'Reilly has said about his time during the Falklands War

That's the central question raised by Mother Jones in a report published Thursday, and the answer appears to be both yes and no.

The Fox News host insists he never said he was in the Falkland Islands during the conflict. As a reporter for CBS News at the time, O'Reilly and his colleagues were based in Buenos Aires, far from the war zone in and around the islands.

Some of O'Reilly's accounts stem from a protest that occurred in Buenos Aires at the time, though that wouldn't qualify as a war zone.

As longtime CBS News correspondent Bob Schieffer told Mother Jones, "Nobody from CBS got to the Falklands... For us, you were a thousand miles from where the fighting was."

Here is the public record of what O'Reilly has said:

2001: O'Reilly wrote in his book, "The No Spin Zone: Confrontations With the Powerful and Famous in America," that his time covering war made him ready for anything. "You know that I am not easily shocked," he wrote. "I've reported on the ground in active war zones from El Salvador to the Falkland Islands, and in chaotic situations like the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles."

2004: In his syndicated column, O'Reilly recalled how he had "survived a combat situation in Argentina during the Falklands War." He was presumably referring to a protest he covered in Buenos Aires, but his reference to a "combat situation" could reasonably be interpreted as a "war zone."

2008: Seven years ago on the "O'Reilly Factor," the host invoked his experience "in the war zones" to taunt Bill Moyers, the veteran journalist with whom he's feuded for years. "By the way, I missed Moyers in the war zones of the Falkland conflict in Argentina, the Middle East and Northern Ireland," O'Reilly said. "I looked for Bill, but I didn't see him."

2013: During an interview on his Fox News show, O'Reilly once again described the protest but said it took place "in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands."

"Because I was in a situation one time, in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands, where my photographer got run down and then hit his head and was bleeding from the ear on the concrete," O'Reilly told his guest.

The Falklands War 1982: Very few journalists made it inside the war zone to cover the conflict.

Some of O'Reilly's statements seem much less questionable.

2009: During an on-air segment with Bernard Goldberg, himself a former CBS News journalist, O'Reilly said that the network "sent me to El Salvador and to cover the Falkland Islands war in Argentina.

2011: After reading an email from a viewer who was honeymooning down in Argentina, O'Reilly noted his history with the region.

"Tell everybody down there I covered the Falklands War," he told the viewer. "They'll remember."

2012: O'Reilly read an email from a viewer based in the Falkland Islands and said he had "a little soft spot" for the region, given that he "covered the Falklands War."

2015: After Mother Jones dogged him all day Thursday for a response, O'Reilly casually -- and carefully -- invoked his assignment in Argentina.

"When I was at the network news, when there was a conflict, a war, any kind of really violent crime spree, whatever, they're all over it," O'Reilly told Goldberg. "I mean, even minor wars, like the Falklands War -- you know, I was down there in Argentina and Uruguay. The Salvadoran War, I was there. When Grenada hit, there was big coverage of Grenada. All of that."

A little later in the segment, perhaps anticipating the Mother Jones report, O'Reilly clarified his earlier comments.

"I didn't go to Grenada. I want to make that clear to everybody," O'Reilly said, while laughing. "I don't want to get in trouble. But I was in Salvador and Argentina."

Related: Bill O'Reilly rips Mother Jones again: 'Bottom rung of journalism'

Related: Mother Jones demands apology

CNNMoney (New York) February 20, 2015: 6:46 PM ET

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MSNBC says 'prime time lineup is solid'

Maybe, but the channel is pushing back against a report that Rachel Maddow is about to replace one of her proteges, Chris Hayes.

However, change is definitely afoot at the network, as demonstrated by Thursday's twin cancellations of "Ronan Farrow Daily" and "The Reid Report."

MSNBC is searching for solutions to a ratings deficit that seems to worsen with each passing month. Lately the channel has been averaging just 60,000 to 80,000 viewers ages 25 to 54 on weekdays. CNN, the parent of this web site, usually averages more than twice as many viewers in that demographic; Fox News often times averages four times as many.

So what's MSNBC going to do? Among staffers, there is rampant uncertainty.

On Friday, representatives for the channel reiterated that it will continue to "Lean Forward" -- its slogan that sums up its progressive point of view -- while trying to broaden its coverage beyond politics.

An MSNBC spokesperson refuted that the goal is to "move away from left-wing TV," a claim made by an "MSNBC source" to The Daily Beast.

That Daily Beast report also said "two well-placed sources" predicted that Maddow would take Hayes' slot, and that a search is underway for a new 9 p.m. host.

The report sent a shiver through MSNBC on Thursday night, given how close Hayes and Maddow are. The two hosts share an agent -- and a cerebral liberal sensibility.

"Contrary to the rumors from unnamed sources, we have no plans to take Chris Hayes' show off the air, or move Rachel Maddow's show," an MSNBC spokesperson said Friday. "Our prime time lineup is solid."

Staffers at the 8 p.m. show do not feel they're on solid ground, however. It is possible the show will be shifted to some other time slot.

Hayes' show, "All In," is the most recent addition to MSNBC's prime time lineup -- it was launched in the spring of 2013 after Hayes had a successful run on weekend mornings.

In the press, "All In" has been portrayed as faltering, and several staffers involved with the show, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they've felt unfairly targeted, considering the channel's across-the-board ratings struggles.

On Thursday, for instance, Chris Matthews drew 104,000 viewers ages 25 to 54 at 7 p.m., Hayes had 109,000 at 8 p.m., Maddow had 116,000 at 9 p.m., and Lawrence O'Donnell had 90,000 at 10 p.m.

Some nights are worse for Hayes; he generally loses a bit of the prior hour's audience. Then again, he's been in the job for about two years, while Matthews has been a fixture on MSNBC for well over a decade.

One MSNBC staffer who has worked with Hayes bemoaned "the 8 o'clock time slot problem -- nobody's ever been able to draw the ratings that I think [MSNBC president] Phil Griffin wants to see."

The ultimate calculation, about Hayes and about every other cable news host, is this: Does management think another host could reliably attract a bigger audience?

No more talent changes are believed to be imminent, but there will be more. Ronan Farrow and Joy Reid, two of the channel's lowest-rated hosts, will be replaced by news anchor Thomas Roberts next month, the channel confirmed on Thursday.

The replacement of two strong progressive voices for Roberts was interpreted by some as a step away from liberal politics, at least during the workday.

On the other hand, this week's appointment of Bravo TV star Tom Colicchio as MSNBC's "food correspondent" might be a signal of what's to come. The channel called it part of a "larger strategy to cover a broader set of stories that move and inspire Americans through its progressive lens."

Ultimately, MSNBC may be trying to pull off something quite tricky -- encouraging its loyal and mostly liberal fans to stick around while welcoming new viewers who aren't as fervent about politics, policy or President Obama.

Hayes, who has declined to comment on the speculation about the fate of his show, did tweet a nod to The Daily Beast report on Friday afternoon. He wrote: "Tonight we'll probably talk about why going to war in Iraq again is a bad idea," and he added the hashtag "#leftwingTV."

More Media: Bill O'Reilly rips Mother Jones again: 'Bottom rung of journalism'

CNNMoney (New York) February 20, 2015: 7:16 PM ET

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No dogs allowed: San Francisco's pet housing crisis

According to San Francisco animal welfare nonprofit SF SPCA, there's been a surge in owners abandoning their pets due to an inability to find pet-friendly housing.

Over the last year, one in four people who left pets with the organization cited problems finding pet-friendly housing. The organization started tracking the numbers this year after staff noticed that housing issues were becoming an increasingly common problem, according to spokesperson Krista Maloney.

An influx of highly-paid tech workers in recent years have pushed out many low- and middle-income renters and driven rents higher. With limited space to build on and tight regulations, the short supply of housing in the city has only made matters worse.

Competition for each apartment is so fierce that landlords can afford to be more selective about tenants, said Mark Campana, president of Anchor Realty, which does not allow pets in any of its roughly 1,000 units.

Related: 10 least affordable rental markets

"Now with the market moving with great speed and with vacant units in high demand, an owner doesn't have the incentive to be pet-friendly," said Campana.

Michael Harrington, president of Pacific Union Property Management, said that while some landlords may be flexible about allowing small dogs, they know they can always find another tenant without an animal.

"We're definitely in what I would call a landlord's market," said Harrington.

Sam the chihuahua was left at the SPCA by an owner who couldn't find pet-friendly housing.

Just because a unit is advertised as pet-friendly doesn't mean it will go to a pet owner, said Dr. Emily Weiss, vice president of research and development at ASPCA.

That might explain why data from online rental listing company, Lovely, showed that the percentage of listings that said they allowed "some pets" actually grew from 34% to 39% between 2012 and 2014.

Pet-friendly options also tend to be more out of reach for low-income renters, said Weiss. According to a recent analysis of listings by HotPads, pet-friendly units in San Francisco cost an average of 12% more than those that don't allow pets. That's compared to a national average of 3.5% in major metro areas, the company found. And that doesn't include pet deposits or additional "pet rent," which may be required on top of normal rent.

San Francisco even lags behind New York City, where the share of dog-friendly apartments is almost three times higher and just over half of all landlords allow "some pets," according to Lovely. Yet, pet ownership in the city has long faced the same challenges that the SPCA is seeing in San Francisco, said Sandra DeFeo, executive director of the Humane Society of New York.

"People with more means tend to find places that will accept them with pets," she said.

Jackie Tom, president of leasing company RentalsinSF, said it was hard enough finding an apartment that would accept her Great Dane 15 years ago. Today, the market is even more stressful and more expensive for pet owners, she said.

"There are a lot of wonderful pet owners and not enough affordable housing for them," said Tom, who manages 35 pet-friendly units in the city. "They can keep their pets, but there is a price."

Related: 'Why I have a roommate at my age'

Eric Andresen, president of the San Francisco Apartment Association and Viking Services Corp., which manages about 2,300 housing units in the area, said he would be surprised if the housing crunch really made the city less pet-friendly overall.

He notes that many residents have learned to skirt landlords' pet restrictions by claiming their pets as assistance animals, abusing laws meant to help people with disabilities. The problem has become so widespread in recent years that Andresen recommends landlords simply allow pets so they have some control over the animals in their buildings.

"Then at least you can protect yourself with a pet deposit," said Andresen. "And it certainly puts your relationship with your tenant in a more cooperative place."

CNNMoney (New York) February 20, 2015: 7:54 PM ET

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Mark Zuckerberg says Happy New Year in Mandarin

With the start of the Lunar New Year Thursday, the Facebook founder and CEO posted a video in Mandarin to his Facebook page around 2 a.m.

In the 31-second video, Zuckerberg stands in front of hanging lanterns featuring the Chinese characters for fortune and spring. In addition to wishing everyone a happy new year, he said the Facebook (FB, Tech30) offices would be celebrating with "lion dance performances and traditional Chinese food."

This isn't the first time Zuckerberg has publicly demonstrated his command of the Chinese language. In October, he gave a 30-minute Q&A at Beijing's Tsinghua University -- completely in Mandarin.

Learning the language was Zuckerberg's New Year's Resolution several years ago -- but it hasn't been his only very public goal. Two years ago he challenged himself to meet a new person a day. Last year he attempted to pen a daily thank you note. This year, he vows to read a book every two weeks "with an emphasis on learning about different cultures, beliefs, histories and technologies," according to his Facebook page.

Here's the Lunar New Year message he delivered entirely in Mandarin, translated by CNNMoney:

"Hello everyone, happy Lunar New Year! At Facebook, we will have a big Lunar New Year celebration. During the celebration, we will have lion dance performances and traditional Chinese food. I wish everyone a Happy New Year. I wish everyone in the year of the Sheep, happiness and to be proud of all things."

-- Gwen Sung contributed to this story.

Related: Mark Zuckerberg wants to make us all smarter

Related: Mark Zuckerberg's 2015 resolution: Start a book club

CNNMoney (New York) February 19, 2015: 7:04 PM ET

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The $160,000 Oscars gift bag

The 2015 Academy Awards are set to take place on Sunday.

Regardless of who takes home gold at this Sunday's Academy Awards, all best and supporting actor and actress nominees, along with the nominees for best director, are getting a gift bag worth $160,000. That's double what the bags were worth last year.

With swag from luxury vacations to car rentals to L.E.D. "lipo," stars will get the goods delivered to their doorsteps the day after the Oscars, courtesy of marketing company Distinctive Assets.

The gift bags are not affiliated with the Academy Awards or the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, who are behind the awards.

If good looks, real talent, high profiles, cushy homes and big bank accounts aren't enough to make you green with envy, here's just a sample of what's inside the gift bags they'll be unwrapping come Monday.

Rocky Mountaineer
Value: $14,584

Once award season stress is over, stars can unwind aboard a luxury train through the Canadian Rockies.

Hair follicle stimulant:
Value: $1,200

A receding hairline can be an actor's worst nightmare, so thankfully, the gift bag includes a product that stimulates hair growth with "polypeptide-enriched media and wound healing technology that helps revitalize the scalp," courtesy of Wellness360 Center.

"Glamping" adventure
Value: $12,500

Nothing says celebrity like being able to hike, cycle and camp with private chefs to prepare your meals and a support van to show up with a pork loin sandwich, chilled mango soup and freshly squeezed lemonade. Nominees will get to rough it like that, thanks to tours designed by Terravelo.

A year's worth of Silvercar rentals
Value: $20,000

The all-Audi car rental company is letting celebrities take a whirl all year.

Italian luxury hotel package
Value: $11,500

Three nights in a suite in Tuscany, another three in another suite in Lake Como and another three nights in another suite in Sorrento.

Pulsewave Vibrator
Value: $250

A-list celebrities deserve A-list sex toys, so this vibrator with patented medical technology from Afterglow fits the bill.

A psychic reading
Value: $20,000

The bag provides a gift certificate to have Olessia Kantor, the founder of Enigma Life, fly out to meet with each nominee to teach them mind control techniques, chat about their horoscopes and analyze their dreams. Maybe they should have done this before awards season.

Hydroxycut
Value: $45.94

Celebrities never feel thin enough. This bag gives them Hydroxycut gummies, shakes and bars to help.

Ventura Lipo-Light
Value: $4,068

This L.E.D. light claims to help you lose 3-9 inches in as little as 3 weeks. That is, if celebrities have those inches to lose.

Mediterranean sea salts
Value: $1,548

These french salts from La Baleine were "harvested by man like it has been for 2,000 years!" This sounds chic enough for a star.

Custom furniture
Value: $28,000

Nominees will get a custom-designed piece of furniture from architect Elena Foccoli.

CNNMoney (New York) February 19, 2015: 6:06 PM ET

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Bill O'Reilly's 'war zone' stories questioned

In interviews, O'Reilly said the story was a "giant piece of defamation," "a lie," and a smear. He called one of the writers, David Corn, a "disgusting piece of garbage," a "guttersnipe liar," and a "far-left assassin."

Corn, the Washington bureau chief for Mother Jones, told CNNMoney that O'Reilly was resorting to ad-hominem attacks to distract from the substance of his report, which he co-authored with Daniel Schulman.

"There's an undeniable contradiction" in what O'Reilly has said about his Falklands coverage, Corn said, urging reporters to focus on that part of the story.

The back-and-forth comes two weeks after "NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams apologized for misstating his experience on an Iraq War mission in 2003. Williams was later suspended amid further scrutiny of his claims; a fact-checking investigation is ongoing.

Related: Should Brian Williams be allowed back?

Williams was the #1 nightly news anchor; O'Reilly is the #1 nightly cable news host. But the similarities may stop there.

Fox orchestrated a full-throated response right away on Thursday; O'Reilly told TVNewser that he had "talked to about eight or nine reporters."

When asked for comment, a Fox News spokeswoman deferred to O'Reilly's other interviews.

Corn and Schulman's report detailed several times when O'Reilly said that he had spent time in a "war zone" while covering the Falklands conflict as a reporter for CBS News. 

The problem, as CBS News's chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer explained to Mother Jones, is that the only "war zone" was in and around the islands, and "nobody from CBS got to the Falklands." 

Schieffer, who was the network's lead correspondent covering the conflict at the time, said he "came close" to reaching the Falklands, but the task proved "impossible." He, O'Reilly and other reporters were based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Corn said Mother Jones started to piece together the report last week. It began to ask Fox News for comment on Thursday morning, and never heard back from O'Reilly or any of the network's representatives.

Shortly after its report was published on Thursday afternoon, however, O'Reilly condemned it in a series of interviews with other outlets. He insisted that everything he said about his coverage of the conflict was true. 

"I was not on the Falkland Islands and I never said I was," O'Reilly told Politico. "I was in Buenos Aires."

The Mother Jones report highlighted an example from 2013, when O'Reilly recalled that he had been "in a war zone in Argentina, in the Falklands."

In another interview, this one with Mediaite, O'Reilly said his descriptions referred broadly to the story he was assigned to cover.

"If you were assigned to a war, you put on your resume you covered the Falklands, the Middle East, El Salvador, wherever it is where you were sent," he said. "This is what journalists do."

O'Reilly said he bore witness to a chaotic scene in Buenos Aires after the war -- something he called a "combat situation."

Corn told CNNMoney this was akin to "saying that if you're in D.C. covering a protest during the Vietnam War, you were in Vietnam."

Corn is a regular on cable news; he was a paid contributor to Fox News until 2008. He now has a similar position at Fox's rival MSNBC. He is perhaps best known for breaking the news about Mitt Romney's "47 percent" remarks.

O'Reilly asserted that Corn has been out to get Fox News for years. He said to TVNewser that he thought once reporters "verify what I'm saying, because it's easily verifiable, then I expect David Corn to be in the kill zone."

Corn said he thought the "kill zone" comment was intended to be threatening.

--Brian Stelter contributed reporting.

CNNMoney (New York) February 20, 2015: 1:00 AM ET

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Brian Williams' daughter: "I can't wait until he's back on TV"

Appearing alongside NBC talk show host Seth Meyers on Wednesday at the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, Williams said the past two weeks of professional turmoil have been "tough, obviously toughest on my dad," but she assured the audience, "I know you can trust him."

"One thing this experience has not done is shake my trust and belief in him as a man," Allison said about her father.

"He's a really good man," she said. "He's an honest man. He's a truthful man. He has so much integrity. He cares so much about journalism. And yes, he's a really good dad, but I know you can trust him because, as any good daughter does, I have tested him on that."

The nearly full crowd laughed at that point.

Williams, one of the stars of HBO's "Girls," spoke about the controversy at the very start of the long-scheduled event. Meyers set her up by saying he assumed that it's been a "difficult time" for the Williams family.

"Yeah, this has been a really hard time," she said. "We have also been very, very lucky, counting our blessings. We have our health, we have each other."

Williams' mother was in the audience for Wednesday's event.

"My dad has always been there for us 100% of the time, even sometimes before we knew we needed him," Williams added. "And so this, to be here for him, is the least we can do."

Allison Williams' remarks are probably as close as we'll come to hearing from Brian Williams for a while.

NBC News has barred the anchor from speaking to the press without permission, and he hasn't addressed the matter since he apologized on February 4 for telling an exaggerated story about a helicopter mission in Iraq.

The controversy has only metastasized since then, with mounting questions about other possible exaggerations. NBC's internal investigation into those disputed accounts appears to be far from complete.

Following her general comments about trust, Williams specifically invoked Iraq. She was in ninth grade when the war started and her father traveled to the Middle East for NBC.

"There was a father-daughter dance at the end of that year," she said. "Before he left, he was assuming he'd be back in time for the dance. And then, as the date was coming, it didn't seem like he was going to make it."

"But he had promised," she recalled, "and so a couple days before I was so upset. And I got a surprise call from Iraq from my dad and he was asking if I had a date to the dance."

"So that's the kind of man he is," she said, "and I can't wait until he's back on TV. And I know that many of you guys feel that way."

On that note, the audience applauded.

After the initial remarks about her father's character, most of the discussion dealt with Williams' time at Yale, her role on "Girls," and NBC's live production of "Peter Pan."

Williams appeared earlier in the evening at a Michael Kors store in Manhattan to mark the launch of an eyewear line. A publicist for that event reportedly asked journalists in attendance to steer clear of questions about Williams' "personal life."

Those questions never used to be off-limits. When she appeared on "The Daily Show" last month, Williams joined Jon Stewart in taking some playful shots at her father.

And last year, she appeared on NBC's "Late Night" shortly after Meyers took over as host. Her appearance came one night after Brian Williams sat down with Meyers.

"This is -- you know, again, we're only seven shows in -- first father-daughter, back-to-back," Meyers joked at the time.

Allison Williams' appearance on Wednesday came exactly two weeks after her father's on-air apology, which was widely deemed insufficient.

In the wake of his six-month suspension, some NBC News staffers have expressed doubts that he'll ever return to the anchor chair, but public opinion thus far has been mixed.

Magid Associates, one of the leading media consulting firms, found that nearly half of network news viewers think Williams can restore his credibility.

And a CNN/ORC poll released on Wednesday morning showed that 52% believe Williams should be allowed back on "NBC Nightly News," while 40% said he should not.

Related: What else has NBC News dug up on Brian Williams?

Related: Some viewers think Brian Williams deserves a shot at redemption

CNNMoney (New York) February 18, 2015: 10:44 PM ET

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