I 'aven't heard of any news personally, but 'ave ye tried logging in after changing y'er username and removing the *'s? It could be the problem, although unlikely. It never hurts to give it a shot.
You could try disabling your firewall and antivirus while you login to it and seeing if that helps. Also try opening it in Google Chrome's incognito mode. That way any extensions you may or may not have aren't interfering.