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4 lottery winners who lost it all


Take a tour of the luxurious Italian villa where the Obamas are reportedly vacationing

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The Obamas have been vacationing in plenty of amazing destinations since the 44th president left office in January. From Richard Branson's private Necker Island to Marlon Brando's former hideaway in Tahiti, it's been mostly tropical.

After a stop in Milan, Italy, for a sold-out speech on climate change, the former president is reportedly making his way to the Tuscan countryside. According to La Repubblica, Obama is heading to Borgo Finocchieto, a luxurious hilltop villa in Buonconvento, where he will be joined by his wife, Michelle. 

Ahead, take a look around Borgo Finocchieto. 

SEE ALSO: A photographer spent 25 years documenting rich people — here's what she learned

Borgo Finocchieto is a private village made up of five houses that can house up to 44 guests.



It sits on a property of six acres.



The village's long history goes back to 1318, but by the 1980s, it was abandoned.

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Inside Johnny Depp's 'extravagant and extreme' lifestyle that costs him $2 million a month

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Johnny Depp

Johnny Depp's former business managers have alleged that the actor is living an extravagant $2 million-a-month lifestyle, complete with 14 houses, 70 guitars, and an enormous appetite for wine.

The news comes after Depp launched a $25 million lawsuit in December 2016 against his business managers at The Management Group claiming "gross mismanagement" of his affairs, and TMG countersued.

He said the company failed to properly pay his taxes on his behalf, made unauthorized loans, and overpaid for "security and other services," costing him "tens of millions of dollars" and leading to financial trouble, which he claims he only became aware of in March of last year.

The lawsuit lifts the lid, in extraordinary detail, on Depp's alleged "extravagant and extreme" spending habits. We took a look through to discover how the "Pirates of the Caribbean" star splurges his earnings. Figures are quoted in TMG's lawsuit, which is available in full here.

In May, The Hollywood Reporter published a piece that detailed other alleged spending habits. It also revealed that Depp was reportedly causing problems on the set of the upcoming "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales" by drinking heavily and showing up late, which left hundreds of extras waiting for hours.

Here's how Johnny Depp spends $2 million a month according to his ex-managers and reports:

SEE ALSO: Johnny Depp reportedly drank heavily and was constantly late on the new 'Pirates' movie set

According to TMG, Depp has spent $75 million to 'acquire, improve, and furnish 14 residences' around the world.

This includes a 45-acre chateau in the south of France, valued at $13.5 million, a chain of islands in the Bahamas, a number of houses in Hollywood, and penthouse lofts in downtown Los Angeles. He also has a horse farm in Kentucky. Each house has a full staff.



He has also spent 'millions' on 45 luxury cars.

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A 1959 Corvette is just one of his many motors.



He spent $18 million on a 150-foot luxury yacht.

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JK Rowling reportedly bought the yacht off him in 2016.



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The best brunch spots in America, according to OpenTable

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Mother's Day is right around the corner, and for many, that means celebrating Mom over mimosas and eggs Benedicts. 

In honor of that, reservation-booking platform OpenTable has put together a list of the 100 best restaurants for brunch in America, taking into consideration more than 10 million reviews in all 50 states and Washington, DC. The restaurants had to hit a minimum overall score and have a number of qualifying reviews to be considered. Those that were chosen earned the highest ratings in the "great for brunch" category.

Here they are in alphabetical order:

187 Rue Principale - Emmaus, Pennsylvania

ACQUA - Forest Lake, Minnesota

Aksum - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Baker House - Lake Geneva, Wisconsin

Beachcomber Cafe - Crystal Cove - Newport Coast, California

Biltmore Brunch - Coral Gables, Florida

The Bistro at Childress Vineyards - Lexington, North Carolina

Blue Ridge - Asheville, North Carolina

Boulevard Bistro- New York, New York

Bravo! Restaurant and Cafe - Kalamazoo, Michigan

Brennan's - New Orleans, Louisiana

brennans new orleans

Café 43 - Dallas, Texas

Cafe Benedicte - Houston, Texas

Cafe Modern - Fort Worth, Texas

Cafe Monte - Charlotte, North Carolina 

Cafe Pacific– Palos Verdes, CA

Café Sebastienne - Kansas City, Missouri

Camp Verde General Store and Restaurant - Camp Verde, Texas

Canyon Cafe at Loews Ventana Canyon Resort - Tucson, Arizona

Chateau Morrisette - Floyd, Virginia

Chez Zee - Austin, Texas

Chicken and the Egg - Marietta, Georgia

Circle Brunch - The Breakers - Palm Beach, Florida

Claire's at the Depot - Warrenton, Virginia

The Comus Inn at Sugarloaf Mountain - Dickerson, Maryland

Cooperage Inn Restaurant - Baiting Hollow (Calverton), New York

Dante Next Door - Cleveland, Ohio

The Davenport Signature Buffet - Spokane, Washington

Deerpark Restaurant-Biltmore Estate - Asheville, North Carolina

The Dining Room at Salish Lodge & Spa - Snoqualmie, Washington

El Techo - San Francisco, California

el techo san francisco

Eleven at Crystal Bridges - Bentonville, Arkansas

Ellyngton's at the Brown Palace - Denver, Colorado

Farm & Table - Albuquerque, New Mexico

The Fieldhouse - Billings, Montana

Freddie's Beach Bar & Restaurant - Arlington, Virginia

The Frog and Turtle - Westbrook, Maine

Galvez Bar & Grill - Galveston, Texas

Garden Terrace at The Inverness Hotel - Englewood, Colorado

Gertrude's - Baltimore - Baltimore, Maryland

Golden Mast - Okauchee, Wisconsin

Grand Cafe at Omni Los Angeles - Los Angeles, California

Grand Dining Room at the Jekyll Island Club Hotel - Jekyll Island, Georgia

Grand Finale Restaurant - Cincinnati, Ohio

The Greenhouse Bistro & Market - Homosassa, Florida

Harding House - Nashville, Tennessee

Home Restaurant - Silver Lake - Los Angeles, California

home restaurant los angeles

Hotel Del - Crown Room - San Diego, California

The Hunt Room at the Desmond Hotel - Malvern, Pennsylvania

Inn at Barley Sheaf Farm - Holicong, Pennsylvania

Iron Rooster - Annapolis, Maryland

Italia Trattoria - Spokane, Washington

J Graham's Cafe - Louisville, Kentucky

Lake Elmo Inn - Lake Elmo, Minnesota

Lake Terrace - The Broadmoor - Colorado Springs, Colorado

The Lakehouse - Mandeville - Mandeville, Louisiana

Lilac - Billings, Montana

Lucille at Drury Lane - Oak Brook, Illinois

LuLu's - Richmond, Virginia

M ST. Cafe - Saint Paul, Minneapolis

The Magnolia Thomas Restaurant - Woodstock, Georgia

Market Street Grille - Harrison, Ohio

Michele's - Dover, Delaware

Museum Cafe - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Nasher Cafe - Durham, North Carolina

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Oasis Cafe - Salt Lake City - Salt Lake City, Utah

Old Mill Room at The Boar's Head - Charlottesville, Virginia

The Old School Farm To Table - Nashville, TN

Oxford Exchange - Tampa, FL

Palace Bar - Miami Beach, FL

The Palmetto Cafe - Charleston, SC

Porch Cafe - Galveston, TX

Post & Beam - Los Angeles, CA

Provence - Carrboro - Carrboro, NC

The Pump House - Fairbanks, AK

Queen Mary Tea Room - Seattle, WA

The Rainbow Room - New York, NY

Red Gravy - New Orleans, LA

The Regency Room - The Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center - Roanoke, VA

regency room roanoke

Regi's American Bistro - Baltimore, MD

Region's 117 - Lake Frederick, VA

The Restaurant at Burdicks - Walpole, NH

Restaurant Pomme - Gordonsville, VA

Restaurant506 at The Sanford House - Arlington, TX

River Crab - St. Clair - St. Clair, MI

The Roycroft Inn - East Aurora, NY

Salty's on Alki Beach - Seattle, WA

saltys seafood seattle

Seasons At The Ocean House - Westerly, RI

Seaview's Main Dining Room - Galloway, NJ

SpringHouse - Alexander City, AL

Sterling Brunch Buffet - Bally's Las Vegas - Las Vegas, NV

Sundy House - Delray Beach, FL

Taste of Belgium - Clifton - Cincinnati, OH

Terrain Garden Cafe - Glen Mills, PA

Timmer's Resort - West Bend, WI

TJ's at The Jefferson Hotel - Richmond, VA

V's Italiano Ristorante - Independence, MO

The Veranda Restaurant - Fallbrook, CA

West Cafe - Portland, OR

The Westgate Hotel - Sunday Brunch & Le Fontainebleau Room - San Diego, CA

SEE ALSO: The 14 best bars in America

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NOW WATCH: Here's what happens when you combine Eggplant Parmesan with Eggs Benedict

Kroger will now chop vegetables for you

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Kroger Meal kit

Kroger is diving into the fast-growing meal-kit business.

The supermarket chain is offering meal kits — or packages that contain recipes and accompanying ingredients — at a handful of stores and launching them nationwide over the next year, Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen said Wednesday in a letter to shareholders.

The $1.5 billion meal-kit market is currently dominated by Blue Apron, a subscription service that now delivers more than 8 million meals a month — up from about 1 million meals per month two years ago. Blue Apron costs $20 for a meal that services two people.

But Kroger has two major advantages compared to Blue Apron. 

First of all, Kroger's boxes are cheaper, costing about $14 for a meal that feeds two people.

Kroger also goes a step further than Blue Apron by doing most of the food prep for customers. No chopping, slicing, dicing, grating, or other work is necessary — all the ingredients are ready to be cooked.

This means the meals can take a lot less time to make. Kroger says its meals take about 20 minutes to prepare "from kit to fork," whereas Blue Apron meals tend to require about 45 minutes of prep and cooking time. 

Customers can select from a variety of different meals at Kroger stores where the kits are currently offered. Soon, they will be available nationwide. 

Weekly meal prepping just got so much faster! #deliciousandnutritious #veggie #nochop #inspired #prepandpared #yum #spring

A post shared by The Little Clinic Dietitians (@krogernutritioncincy) on May 6, 2017 at 2:30pm PDT on

McMullen says meal kits are one of many "megatrends" that Kroger is hoping to tap into this year.

"Our culinary team has developed delicious meal kits that are available in pilot stores today, and we have plans to quickly make them available at scale over the course of the next year," he said. "Meal kits are one of many offerings designed to meet our customers’ changing definition of convenience."

The meal-kit business is rapidly growing, and getting increasingly crowded along the way.

More than 100 companies now offer the kits, including Plated, HelloFresh, Sun Basket, and Amazon (in limited cities).  Supermarkets including Publix, Fresh Market, and Whole Foods are also testing the kits in some stores.

SEE ALSO: The real reasons Trader Joe's wine is so cheap

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NOW WATCH: This car tent will keep your ride protected from the elements

11 countries that desperately want people to have more sex

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There are few things more important than fertility in determining a nation's future viability.

Demographers suggest that a country needs a fertility rate of just over two children per woman to hit "replacement fertility" — the rate at which new births fill the spaces left behind by deaths.

But because of certain cultural and economic forces, only about half of the world's 224 countries currently hit replacement fertility.

For those that don't, encouraging people to have sex can involve strategies that range from highly explicit to downright bizarre.

SEE ALSO: Japan's sex problem is setting up a 'demographic time bomb,' and it could be spreading

Denmark

If you aren't going to have a kid for your own family, Danes are told, at least do it for Denmark.

No, literally, do it for Denmark.

The small Nordic country has such a low fertility rate — about 1.73 children per woman — that Spies Rejser, a Danish travel company, has come up with ingenious incentives to persuade women to get pregnant.

First, it offered to provide three years' worth of baby supplies to couples who conceived on a vacation booked through the company.

Now it has come up with a sexy campaign video titled "Do it for Mom," which guilt trips couples into having kids to give their precious mothers a grandchild.



Russia

Vladimir Putin once brought Boyz II Men to Moscow to rile men up right before Valentine's Day.

Can anyone blame him? As Tech Insider recently reported, the country is experiencing a perfect demographic storm. Men are dying young. HIV/AIDS and alcoholism are crippling the country. And women aren't having babies.

The problem got so bad that in 2007 Russia declared September 12 the official Day of Conception.

On the Day of Conception, people get the day off to focus on having kids. Women who give birth exactly nine months later, on June 12, win a refrigerator.



Japan

Japan's fertility rate has been below replacement since 1975. 

To offset that decades-long trend, in 2010 a group of students from the University of Tsukuba introduced Yotaro, a robot baby that gives couples a preview of parenthood.

If men and women begin thinking of themselves as potential fathers and mothers, the students theorized, they'll feel emotionally ready to take a stab at the real thing.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

We went to the best bar in the world to find the drink of the summer — here's the verdict

A 24-year old got a mysterious disease where her body attacked her brain — and everyone thought it was in her mind

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There's a blank year in 25-year-old Caroline Walsh's once-spotless memory.

She's pieced parts together from stories her friends have told her and a collection of photos on Facebook. But she cannot remember the day it all began — when her father found her in the middle of a seizure, her body writhing on the floor. She also can't remember waking up with her hands tied to a hospital bed, begging her sister to help her escape, or the next day when she proclaimed she was the Zac Brown Band.

Instead, Walsh's first recollection of that time is of a recovery room filled with family and flowers. By then, her doctors had diagnosed her with a mysterious disease called autoimmune encephalitis, or AE for short. While there's lot we still don't know about the condition, experts believe it's part of a larger class of illnesses in which the body turns on itself.

In Walsh's case, the disease attacked her brain, setting off a chain reaction of symptoms that mimicked those of other mental illnesses like depression and schizophrenia. If treated properly and early enough, people with AE can make a near-complete recovery. But if they go undiagnosed or land in a psychiatric ward, they can die.

Something brewing

A stroll down a real street called Memory Lane in London leads you to the London Institute of Psychiatry, where J.A.N. "Nick" Corsellis sliced into the brains of three corpses and found the first evidence of AE.

Deep in the dense part of the brain called the limbic system, the normally lithe network of rubbery-smooth tissue had become puffy and inflamed. It was as if something had attacked it from within.

Most of the people these brains once belonged to had been diagnosed with cancer, then seemed to make a full recovery. But their personalities began to change. A partner or friend was usually the first to notice an odd shift in their behavior — usually a progressive increase in forgetfulness, though others experienced a sudden bout of mania or depression. A 58-year old bus driver found himself waking up most days not knowing where he was.

Corsellis saw inflammation in parts of the brain linked with memory and mood, but he couldn't explain what had caused the swelling that triggered the symptoms.

"The first question to arise ... is whether the assertion of a connection between carcinoma [cancer] and 'limbic encephalitis' is now justified, even if it cannot be explained,” he wrote in a 1968 paper in the journal Brain. It was first time the condition was mentioned in a scientific journal.

Walsh's symptoms became noticeable one day at work when she started repeating herself. She joked with a co-worker that she was coming down with early-onset Alzheimer's.

"I was just getting very confused all the time,” Walsh says.

The next week, more mysterious problems cropped up — Walsh had a knack for remembering names, but one day when she met up with some new friends, she introduced herself half a dozen times and struggled to commit anyone's name to memory.

"They'd say it and then a couple minutes later I'd have no clue what their name was or what we were even talking about," she says.

At the office the next day, things got worse. "My personality was just off. I thought it was work. I pulled my boss aside into a conference room and I started to cry, which was just not me," she says. When she wasn't feeling stressed and anxious, she felt depressed.

"Something was just brewing, I could feel it," she says.

When the body attacks itself

Our immune system is our body's defense against the outside world.

Most of the action is coordinated by white blood cells, which direct the lines of attack like football coaches, churning out antibodies that target the opponent for destruction.

white blood cellBut sometimes the process can go awry. In generating an immune response against a virus or other disease, the body can wind up up attacking itself — a larger class of illnesses known as autoimmune diseases.

It's as if "some wires get crossed," says Brenden Kelley, a neuroradiologist at Henry Ford hospital in Detroit who's part of the small community researching autoimmune encephalitis.

Sometimes, this abnormal response can be caused by a virus like the flu or a bacterial infection. Other times, certain types of cancer appear to be the source.

"In picking targets that match the cancer, the body may also pick targets that match places in your body that don't have cancer," says Kelley.

Knee deep in the water

Three months later, Walsh relocated to her childhood home outside of Boston, and saw two doctors who both incorrectly diagnosed her with the flu.

Then one morning around 4 a.m., as her dad, a Boston police officer, got ready for work, he heard a loud crash. He found his daughter on the ground, her limbs thrashing. He screamed her name, but she didn't respond.

The most common cause of the type of seizure that Walsh had that day — known as a grand mal seizure (literally "great sickness" in French) — is epilepsy. Other causes can include extremely low blood sugar, high fever, and stroke.

At the hospital, Walsh's doctors tested her extensively, doing multiple lumbar punctures or "spinal taps," a painful, dangerous procedure that involves collecting and analyzing the protective fluid surrounding her brain and spinal cord. In most cases, this is where doctors will first spot autoimmune encephalitis, Kelley says.

But sometimes, as in Walsh's case, the characteristic markers of inflammation are too subtle to draw a definite conclusion.

caroline walsh 1When Caroline's sister Alana arrived at the hospital, Caroline was lying motionless on her hospital bed under the harsh lighting. Her hands had been encased in heavily padded mitts that looked like boxing gloves, and were fastened to the railings on her bed to keep her from pulling out the IV tubes keeping her hydrated. She asked Alana to come closer so she could whisper something into her ear.

"You have to fight 'em, you have to get me out of here," said Caroline, motioning her head towards the nurses as she eyed them suspiciously.

When Alana asked her sister what she was talking about, Caroline explained that she'd been abducted while she was asleep and was now being held hostage at the hospital.

A few hours later, after drifting into the sleepy, dazed state she was in for much of her hospital stay, she woke with a jolt and proclaimed she was the country singer the Zac Brown Band. She started belting out her favorite song of his, a catchy tune about taking a break from reality called "Knee Deep."

"Gonna put the world away for a minute," she sang, getting louder with every verse. "Pretend I don't live in it."

When her family couldn't stop Caroline's crooning, Alana got up and closed the doors to her room in an attempt to keep her from waking up everyone on the ward. Caroline continued.

"Mind on a permanent vacation, the ocean is my only medication, wishin' my condition ain't ever gonna go away."

Over the next week, Walsh proceeded to seize more than a hundred times. Alana recalls that nearly every time she sat down to talk with her, Caroline would seize half a dozen times. They weren't massive seizures like the one that had landed her in the hospital, but small, barely perceptible ones.

"You'd know because her eyes would drift away and she'd stare in one spot, she was having little ones almost every minute," says Alana. "She was very shaky and confused; her heart rate was extremely high, and the doctors just seemed so confused by everything every time we talked to them, they were like she can't be going into these seizures all the time, it's just too much."

Eventually, the doctors decided to put her in a medically-induced coma.

Smoke from the fire

In children, infections like strep throat appear to be a trigger of AE. Susan Schulman, a pediatrician in New York, says she's seen hundreds of cases of a related condition, called PANS (pediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome), in her patients. Her first case, in 1998, was a five-year old girl from Brooklyn who flew into a panic about keeping the clothes she wore on the Jewish holiday of Shabbat separate from her regular clothes.

"She was driving her mother crazy," Schulman says. At first, she believed the girl had childhood obsessive-compulsive disorder, but medication made the child's symptoms worse, and she returned to Schulman's office with more intense OCD symptoms and a nasty case of strep throat. Strangely, after Schulman treated the strep with antibiotics, the OCD symptoms vanished.

"I said you know what, that's odd," Schulman says.

caroline walsh 3Around the same time, an NIH pediatrician named Susan Swedo published an article in the American Journal of Psychiatry describing 50 cases of a phenomenon she called "pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections." Schulman realized that the sudden psychiatric symptoms she had observed in her young patients — which ranged from OCD to rage and paranoia — were likely connected to their infections.

"I see infection as the match that lights the autoimmune reaction. The inflammation is the fire; the symptoms you see is the smoke coming out of the fire," Schulman says.

Autoimmune conditions that affect the brain only represent a fraction of all autoimmune diseases. Scientists have identified as many as 80 others, which range from type 1 diabetes, which develops when the body attacks its insulin-producing cells, to multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, and rheumatoid arthritis. More are being recognized each year.

Kelley and others at Henry Ford are currently researching autoimmune diseases that affect the brain. By working with scientists who specialize in the brain and the immune system, Kelley hopes to find out what these conditions have in common so the team can eventually figure out what causes them.

"A lot of these conditions are variants on the same theme," he says. 

In Walsh's case, "these are people who tend to not have a lot of other medical problems and then all of a sudden they feel like they're going crazy, they're losing themselves," Kelley says. "It tends to be very clear that something's not right, but precisely what's going on can be difficult to piece together."

Putting the pieces together

When Walsh woke up in her hospital room, she wasn't sure why she was there.

"I was like why are all these people in my room? Why is it decorated with all of these flowers?," she recalls.

A day or so before, a specialist had diagnosed Walsh with autoimmune encephalitis and started her on a regimen of powerful steroids, now considered one of the best treatments for the disease. The drugs began to reduce the inflammation in her brain. In Walsh's case, the affected area was her hippocampus, the region responsible for making and storing memories.

"I just remember I kept asking, 'What?' you know, 'Wait, why am I here?' and they would tell me, but I kept forgetting," she says.

caroline walsh 4In patients whose autoimmune encephalitis seems to be triggered by cancer (as opposed to Walsh’s, which may have been set off by the flu), the treatment focuses on treating or removing the cancer first. “When you remove the cancer, you remove the stimulus," Kelley says.

The treatment for autoimmune encephalitis can vary based on the trigger, but timing is always key. If doctors treat whatever is triggering the condition, many people with the disease can go on to lead fairly normal, full lives.

"It's a race against time in a way," Kelley says.

As Walsh began to regain her ability to remember, she realized she'd have to re-learn a lot of basic things.

"I remember going to get up to use the bathroom, and one of the nurses went to bring me a wheelchair and I was like, ‘Oh no I don't need that,'" says Walsh. "So then I just thought about standing and suddenly I just had no idea, I couldn't function to walk."

She regained those skills over the next 10 days at Spaulding Rehabilitation Center, the same place the survivors of the Boston Marathon bombing were brought after the attack. There, Walsh re-learned how to put one foot in front of the other and how to hold a spoon.

Walsh now works part-time as a nanny and volunteers with Spaulding and the Boston Boys and Girls Club. Instead of going back to sales, she plans to work with children in some capacity. She recently attended a Spaulding fundraising event with her sister, Alana, where she bumped into the physical therapist who helped her walk in a straight line for the first time.

"We were in our dresses and we were both dancing together," Walsh says, "and Alana was like, 'You know she taught you to walk again?'"

SEE ALSO: Why psychedelics like magic mushrooms kill the ego and fundamentally transform the brain

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NOW WATCH: Animated map of what Earth would look like if all the ice melted


My mom wrote me over 100 'lunchbox letters' when I was a kid — and 15 years later, I've realized her advice still works

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One day in 2003, when I was in 6th grade, my mom put a letter in my lunchbox with some advice on it. "Don't be quick to judge the girls at school — it's up to you to look for something good in each one." 

My mom, Stephanie Skylar, was the Executive VP and Director of Marketing for Chief Super Market Inc., a local grocery chain in Lima, Ohio. She worked long and difficult hours and was looking for a way to stay connected to me. As an 11-year-old learning how to navigate the scary waters of female friendships, this written encouragement instantly helped give me confidence. 

After that first letter, we agreed upon the rules of our project. My mom would write a letter each night (sometimes pre-writing a few if she was going to be out-of-town) and I would keep the notes safely inside a Skechers' shoebox. Throughout the year, I collected over 100 'lunchbox letters,' filled with my mom's wisdom that would guide me through my adolescence and into my adulthood.

More than a decade later, when I was completing my masters project at Ohio University, I created a website showcasing all of the letters in chronological order and paired it with my commentary. These are some of my favorites: 

Here's a picture of my mom and me in 2003 on the left, and again in 2016 on the right.



This is the shoebox I kept the letters in. We decorated it with a "seal of approval" and our signatures, proving our dedication to the project.



"Don't be quick to judge the girls at school — it's up to you to look for something good in each one."



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Why Patagonia has vowed to fight Trump on his order to take away public land

This smart watch has mechanical clock hands

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ZeTime is a new watch from MyKronoz Switzerland. It has mechanical clock hands over a touch screen that receives phone notifications, sends calendar reminders and keeps track of your heart rate, activity, and sleep. It's compatible with all IOS & Android phones and the battery lasts 30 days on a single charge. ZeTime raised over $5 million crowdfunding and will ship in October.

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9 tips and tricks to unlock cool Uber features you never knew about

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Uber has always wanted to make calling a car as easy as a push of a button. And while the company has nailed that experience, there's still a lot more you can do to become a power user of Uber. 

Here are seven tips and tricks to take your Uber game to the next level.

SEE ALSO: Uber's bad year: The stunning string of blows that continue to upend the world's most valuable startup

Add bookmarks so you can save time typing in your favorite destinations.

While Uber has gotten better about showing you places you frequent as suggestions when you open the app, you can make it much faster by bookmarking certain locations, like your favorite local bar or a friend's house. 

Here's how to use the Saved Places feature, according to Uber:

Once en route to a favorite place, riders should look for the option to save that address in the Uber feed. To access a saved address, tap "Where to?", and then "more saved places" and select from the list. A rider's Saved Places will even start to show up on their home screen "shortcuts" if we predict that’s where they could be going, so they can get moving with just one tap.



Schedule an Uber pick-up in advance.

Scheduling a ride is great if you know you have an early airport run or need to have an Uber waiting as you wrap up a meeting. To schedule, tap on the button that looks like a calendar to the right of the "Where to?" destination field in the app. You can schedule rides for up to 30 days out.



Order food while you're on your way home.

Uber wants to time it so you can arrive home right as your burrito is being delivered to your door.

If UberEats is available in your city, you can see different restaurant delivery options inside your ride's "feed" while you're on a trip. Even better, Uber calculates how long it will take for your food to arrive after your ride is done so you know how long you'll be waiting.



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Stunning portraits show what women at work look like around the world

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About 47% of all women participate in the world of work.

They take up careers as teachers, coaches, farmers, priests, soldiers, and beyond. These 42 stunning portraits from Reuters show women at work around the world.

SEE ALSO: The most famous author from every state

Shinto priest Tomoe Ichino, 40, performs rituals of the indigenous faith of the Japanese people in Tokyo, Japan. She wears a pink robe because it makes her feel confident.

"In general, people think being a Shinto priest is a man's profession. If you're a woman, they think you're a shrine maiden, or a supplementary priestess," Ichino said. "People don't know women Shinto priests exist, so they think we can't perform rituals. Once, after I finished performing jiichinsai (a ground-breaking rtitual), I was asked, 'So, when is the priest coming?'"



Cristina Alvarez, 29, says she doesn't face inequality as a butcher in Mexico City, Mexico.

"I've never felt any gender inequality," Alvarez told Reuters. "I believe women can do the same jobs as men and that there should be no discrimination."



Elizabeth Mamani, 36, is a reporter working at Radio Union in Bolivia's national congress building in La Paz, Bolivia. She is sometimes barred from events because of her gender.

"When I started in this job, I did feel discrimination (from officials who controlled the access of members of the press to events). To counter discrimination in this profession, we as women, must excel, we must prepare ourselves in every field," Mamani told Reuters.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

A look inside Twitter's New York office, where employees enjoy rosé on tap, a basement café, and a fully-stocked kitchen run by a top chef

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Twitter logo inside their NYC HQ

We need more than 140 characters to describe Twitter's Manhattan office.

The social media platform company, which employed 3,860 people around the world as of 2016, first moved to this Chelsea, Manhattan office, in 2015. Today, more than 400 Twitter employees work there. Out of all of the company's 30-plus offices around the world, it's the second-largest office after the San Francisco headquarters.

Recently, Business Insider took a trip to the office to see if it was hashtag-worthy.

Here's what we saw when we visited:

SEE ALSO: A look inside Kickstarter's Brooklyn office, where employees enjoy perks like a secret rooftop garden, coffee on tap, and plenty of dogs

DON'T MISS: A look inside Facebook's New York office, where employees of the $280 billion company enjoy virtual reality games and an in-house pastry chef

We swung by Twitter's Manhattan hub on a sunny May morning. The company's signature bird logo greeted us in front of the building — which is really two early-20th-century warehouses stuck together.



Our first stop was the lobby, which has a coffee bar ...



... a touch screen that we used to check Twitter ...



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The 4 strangest, craziest products we've seen lately

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HoverBike

Every week, innovative new tech gadgets come on the scene. But for every practical invention, there is also a totally outlandish, off-the-wall gizmo. 

Here at Business Insider, our inboxes are flooded every day with emails from startups and companies "pitching" their game-changing products.  

We can't write about everything, of course. But some of these products are so odd, unusual or just plain fun that it feels wrong to let them languish, unheralded, in the depths of our inboxes.

So we've compiled some of our recent favorites. And who knows, they might just change the world.

See for yourself:

SEE ALSO: This $279 weighted blanket could help you sleep better and feel less stressed

HoverBike, a bike and hoverboard in one

The HoverBike is a two-wheeled bicycle powered by your hoverboard. The bike weighs less than 10 pounds and has an attachment for two different types of hoverboards, which then work to power the bike. HoverBike's Kickstarter campaign launched in May, and the company says early bird orders will begin shipping by July. 

The company says a pledge of $129 will get you your own HoverBike. As with any Kickstarter campaign, pledge at your own risk. 



Mighty Stash Pack, a reinvented lunch bag

A company called Dynomighty has launched a Kickstarter campaign for what it claims is a reinvented lunch bag. Called the Mighty Stash Pack, it's an expandable bag that flips inside out for easy cleaning. When flat, the bag is only about an inch thick but once packed, it expands to the shape of a tent "to hold ample food for any adult lunch."

The bag will eventually cost $20, though a pledge of $15 to the company's Kickstarter campaign right now will get you one at a discount.



Rolkaz hemp skateboards

Rolkaz Collective has created a skateboard made entirely of hemp, flax, and plant-based resin "with the belief that skateboarding and the care for our planet should go hand in hand." There are two styles available, the Drifter and the Mala, for pledges of $150 and $120 respectively. Both styles come in raw, purple, lime, and blue. 

For more information or to back this project, check out the company's Kickstarter campaign



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Kellyanne Conway started a company when she was 28, and it has made her millions

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Kellyanne Conway's climb from pollster to White House counselor has been closely watched by the media.

When Conway joined the Trump administration, she and her husband, New York City lawyer George Conway, disclosed assets worth up to $39.3 million. Much of that wealth came from Kellyanne's polling business, which she started in 1995, at the age of 28.

While attending law school at George Washington University, Conway worked as an assistant at a firm headed by Richard Wirthlin, who was President Ronald Reagan's pollster and strategist.

According to New York magazine, after graduation, Conway quickly recognized "there was money to be made" in advising private corporations and politicians on how women vote. The Polling Company — where Conway served as president and CEO — focused on that demographic, working with a roster of private clients that included American Express, Hasbro, and Boeing

The company's political clients have included Newt Gingrich, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, and ultimately, President Trump.

In October of 2016, Politico reported that the presidential election had netted The Polling Company $1.9 million from the various candidates Conway had worked with. $952,000 of that reportedly came from the super PAC that had backed both Ted Cruz, and later, (under a different name) Trump.

Today, much of Conway's income — somewhere between $1 million and $5 million — comes from The Polling Company, and the couple has earned thousands in dividends from stocks. One Citibank account has been valued at between $500,000 and $1 million, according to financial disclosure forms.

While The Polling Company's website states that Conway resigned as President and CEO as of January 20, 2017, an investigation by Slate uncovered evidence that she still retains ownership of the company, which could be considered a federal crime under the criminal conflict of interest statute

Last week, Rep. Elijah Cummings of the House Oversight Committee sent a letter to The Polling Company's new CEO, Brett Loyd, requesting more information about Conway's current standing with the company.

SEE ALSO: How Kellyanne Conway makes and spends her $39 million fortune

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NOW WATCH: 'I'm not Inspector Gadget': Kellyanne Conway refutes claims that she suggested Trump’s team may have been spied on with microwaves

A healthy fast-food joint that got panned by a New York Times food critic is crushing it

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The biggest restaurant story of the year has arguably been New York Times critic Pete Wells' withering review of Locol, a fast-food concept that brings high-quality, affordable food into urban neighborhoods. Wells awarded zero stars to the restaurant, calling the chili bland, the burger dry, and the chicken, well, "the best thing to do with it is pretend it doesn't exist."

Food blogs erupted in protest. Most did not take issue with the content of the review. Some called it "mostly right." But critics argued the review was in poor taste, given the restaurant's admirable mission to change lives in some of the most neglected food deserts in America.

Locol has two locations, in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles and a gentrifying part of Oakland. The company makes hires from disadvantaged areas, regardless of an applicant's work experience, criminal record, or even literacy, and pays above most fast-food wages.

I recently made a return trip to Locol to see how the food fared since Wells' review. Take a look.

SEE ALSO: This fast-food chain you've probably never heard of is making a killing selling $8 burgers

Welcome to the fast food revolution, according to Locol's website.



As more Americans turn to plant-based foods for health or environmental reasons, new fast-food chains are seizing the opportunity to compete with legacy brands like McDonald's, KFC, and Domino's. They serve low-calorie menus at similar prices.

Source: Business Insider



Locol has carved a niche in the space by serving neighborhoods where residents don't have access to or can't afford high-quality meals.



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A huge company you've never heard of probably made the belt you're wearing right now

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ryan seacrest distinction

No matter what brand of belt you're currently wearing, there's a pretty good chance it was made by one company: Randa.

Randa Accessories is likely the biggest brand you've never heard of. It churns out belts, ties, luggage, small leather goods, casual bags, jewelry, and seasonal accessories, including footwear, hats, and gloves.

It claims to be the "world's largest men's accessories company," supplying retailers like Nordstrom, Macy's, Kohl's, J.C. Penney, and Amazon, as well as private labels for numerous other brands.

Randa is well-known in the retailer space as the first phone call you make if you want an item to slap your label on. It creates products for brands like Dockers, Levi's, Kenneth Cole, Cole Haan, Dickies, Chaps, Columbia, Timberland, Tommy Bahama, Tommy Hilfiger, and more, totaling north of 50 brands. Randa also maintains some proprietary labels that it has developed in-house, such as luxury goods brand Trafalgar and Ryan Seacrest Distinction, which is sold exclusively at Macy's.

"We don't, believe it or not, want to make every brand," David Katz, Randa's chief marketing officer, told Business Insider. He added that Randa looks to have a "balanced portfolio" across different prices and uses, to minimize risk while avoiding cannibalization.

But the company's biggest category, by far, is belts: Randa makes 40 million belts a year while selling more than 70 million units of product total.

randa accessories belt

To satisfy this demand, Randa has built the largest belt factory in the world: A wholly-owned operation in Guatemala, called Tata, that churns out 12 million belts a year all by itself.

Randa traces its lineage back to 1910, when two immigrant brothers used a pushcart on Manhattan's Lower East Side to sell silk ties they had made in New Jersey. Though there were certainly larger businesses in the area, the brothers were more shrewd than the competition, and they ended up forming their own company that then bought another business called Rosenberg and Apakater. That was later shortened to R and A, or Randa. 

It's technically still a family company, as CEO Jeffrey O. Spiegel is the son of Herbert Spiegel, one of the brothers who originally founded the company. Herbert still serves as the company's chairman.

A series of strategic acquisitions over the following century allowed the company to grow both in the categories and the brands it offers on the way to becoming the dominant player it is today.

Like the broader retail industry, the accessories business has taken some hits as consumers continue to spend less on goods and more on experiences. According to Katz, Randa is in a good position for the future as it shifts its business to make items that are synonymous with experiences.

As it sees customers' changing preferences, Randa has started selling things like leather belts and neck ties that stretch for comfort, as well as smaller wallets that can fit in front pockets.

"We want to make sure we have accessories that match the lifestyle experiences they're spending money on," Katz said. "We're doing that. That's where we're winning."

SEE ALSO: Yes, cargo shorts really are that bad — here's what you should wear instead

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NOW WATCH: Every man should know what 'genuine leather' actually is before buying a belt

The story of an Ivy League MBA dealing with a failed business highlights 2 questions to ask when you're feeling down on your luck

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In her 2003 book, "Radical Acceptance," Tara Brach writes about an encounter with her friend Carl, an Ivy League graduate with an MBA whose business had recently failed.

Brach, a psychologist and Buddhist meditation teacher, went over to Carl's house one day to check on him; predictably, she found him looking dejected.

At some point she asked him: "Carl, what's happening right now?" "What inside you most needs attention?"

Brach writes:

"He glanced up at me, perhaps a bit surprised, but then said simply and clearly, 'I feel like an absolute failure.'

"He went on to describe the anxiety that was taking over his body and mind — the racing thoughts, cold sweats, the sudden gripping around his heart. …

"After a few minutes of talking he thanked me for being interested. 'It just helps to say this out loud."

If there's a lesson in this anecdote, it's not that everyone should hope they're visited by a psychologist/meditation teacher during their lowest moments.

Brach goes on to explain how you can apply this same strategy of inquiry — which is a product of modern psychology and ancient Buddhist wisdom — on your own, and why it's generally so effective.

One way to use this strategy is to figure out what you're feeling physically. Scan your body and note the different sensations. Ask yourself: "What is happening?" or "What wants my attention right now?"

What you're really doing when you use this technique is naming your emotions. As Brach writes, "Mental noting, like inquiry, helps us recognize with care and gentleness the passing flow of thoughts, feelings and sensations." It's a core component of traditional mindfulness practice.

In other words — and this idea might sound familiar if you've ever sat through a guided meditation— you want to acknowledge your current experience without judgment.

Psychologists have known for a while about the power of labeling your emotions. When you give a feeling a specific name — say, fear, or sadness, or frustration — it starts to release its chokehold on you.

It's why Harvard psychologist Susan David often asks her clients to come up with two other options for whatever they think they're feeling. And it helps explain why one study found that participants who described their emotions in greater detail did a better job of regulating their negative emotions.

Brach is quick to note in "Radical Acceptance" that "inquiry is not a kind of analytic digging — we are not trying to figure out, 'Why do I feel this sadness?' This would only stir up more thoughts" (emphasis mine).

That is to say, you're not leading yourself through an hourlong psychotherapy session — though that could, in other circumstances, be helpful. You're simply opening yourself to the full range of your emotions.

This is, of course, much harder than it sounds. Brach acknowledges that "it may take some practice to learn how to question ourselves with the same kindness and care we would show to a troubled friend."

She also shares a simple exercise she uses when she's anxious before giving a talk:

"I often pause and ask myself what is happening or what wants my attention. With a soft mental whisper I'll name what I am aware of: 'afraid, afraid, tight, tight.'

"If I notice myself anxiously assuming that my talk will be boring and fall flat, I simply continue naming: 'story about blowing it, fear of rejection,' then, 'judging, judging.'"

It's sort of counterintuitive. When you stop resisting the emotions, or pretending not to feel them, they start to dissipate.

SEE ALSO: The 'dogs from the cellar' is a perfect metaphor to explain how your childhood still influences your relationships today

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There's a 'secret society' of wine experts that meets every Tuesday morning to drink at the world's best restaurant

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eleven madison park 10

The meeting place is referred to simply as EMP. 

That's short for Eleven Madison Park, New York's famous dining establishment, which was recently declared the world's best restaurant

But the elite group of people who meet at EMP every Tuesday at 10 a.m. isn't there for the restaurant's $295 tasting menu. In fact, they generally don't consume any food at all during their meetings. They're there for the wine.

The group is made up of a dozen professional wine drinkers, or sommeliers, who are aspiring to join the highest rank in their profession. Earning the Master Sommelier distinction — which requires passing a series of tests that involve tasting, theory, and service — is nearly impossible. Most who try fail. Only 236 people in the world have ever earned the title. 

Needless to say, the training is arduous. The meetings at EMP are a sort of boot camp for Master Sommelier candidates, but only the top wine drinkers in the city are invited to attend. 

In her new book "Cork Dork," author Bianca Bosker embeds with this secret society of wine drinkers, which is "rumored to be the Holy Grail of New York blind tasting groups, the highest-level in the city," she writes.

To get tapped for the group, it's all about who you know and what you know. 

"There weren't auditions, applications, or interviews to get in. Instead, like country clubs or Skull and Bones, your best bet was to befriend the right people, work at the right places, and look for occasions, such as competitions, to show you knew your Meursault (a Chardonnay grown in Burgundy's Meursault village) from your Marsannay (a Chardonnay grown about twenty miles over in Burgundy's Marsannay village)."

eleven madison park 3

In one particular meeting Bosker attended, the group tasted eight wines and took turns describing the look, smell, and taste of each one. Ultimately the taster guessed what grape the wine was made from, as well as where and when it was made.

The sommeliers' wine-tasting abilities were on full display at the meeting: 

"Dana paused and took a deep breath, crescendoing to his final conclusion: 'I'm going to call this 2010 — no, 2011 Viognier. France. Rhône Valley, Northern Rhône, Condrieu.'

Morgan pulled out the bottle and read off the label. It was indeed a Viognier, a floral, richly perfumed grape. It was from France, from the Northern Rhône. Within the Northern Rhône, it was from Condrieu, an appellation five hundred acres in size that is about half as big as Central Park. And it was a 2012."

The members of the group are so intense, they have special routines intended to ensure their tongues and noses are perfectly primed for meetings. Some give up coffee or all hot beverages entirely. Others avoid eating hours before and skip brushing their teeth.

Quirky routines aside, they all follow a fairly similar script when it comes to deciphering which wine they are drinking, which Bosker describes in detail in her book. 

The first step is to look at the wine, followed by smelling it. Then comes sipping, which involves tasting for acidity, alcohol content, tannins, and sweetness, Bosker writes. All of these qualities offer clues about the wine's identity. 

According to Bosker, those training to become Master Sommeliers will taste more than 20,000 wines over the course of studying for the exam. 

SEE ALSO: You should always order the wines you've never heard of — here's why

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NOW WATCH: Here's How Many Bottles Of Wine It Takes To Pass The World's Toughest Exam

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