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'FINALLY': Analyst cheers Under Armour CEO's loosening grip on the company

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Under Armour

A shakeup of Under Armour's executive structure announced yesterday could bode well for the long-term outlook of the company, according to one Wall Street analyst following the company. 

The biggest change: Kevin Plank, who founded the company, will retain his CEO role but pass off the title of president to Patrik Frisk, who recently served as an executive for VF Corp. Frisk will also be COO.

The result is that six executives will be reporting to Plank instead of 10, which will "finally decentralize some decision making within the company," according to analysis by Susquehanna International Group's Sam Poser.

According to Poser, this bodes well for Under Armour.

"We do believe that [Under Armour] will benefit from removing many of the day to day operational activities from Mr. Plank's plate," Poser's note reads. "We are also hopeful that Mr. Frisk will facilitate a review of Under Armour's long-term brand strategy."

Still, Poser and his team are concerned with Under Armour's short-term focus on growth through selling in discount channels without much difference in product, and hope that this signals a shift in focus.

"We wonder if the change of leadership signals any semblance of a temporary pause in [Under Armour] being a growth company in order to protect the Under Armour brand," Poser said. 

SEE ALSO: Nike is taking a page right out of its biggest rival's playbook

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NOW WATCH: At under $2 million this is the cheapest private jet in the world


This photo deeply disgusts some people, and scientists are trying to understand why

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  • Clustered holes, bumps, and similar patterns disgust some people.
  • Some 15%-17% of people may experience this disgust, called trypophobia.
  • Trypophobia is not considered a true phobia, though it's poorly understood.
  • Many researchers agree trypophobia has instinctive roots in the human brain, but disagree about its possible ties to fears from our evolutionary past.

Does a photo of a lotus fruit, below, make your skin crawl?

If you can't see it yet and think it might trigger you, now would be a good time to stop scrolling.

Previous research suggests as many as 18% of women and 11% of men — or 15% of the general population — become viscerally upset after looking at images of clustered holes or bumps, according to research on the condition colloquially known as trypophobia.

These clusters of holes are common in nature. They range from the creepy, like the back of a female surinam toad, to more mundane sights like honeycomb or clusters of soap bubbles.

A 2013 paper in the journal Psychological Science quotes how one sufferer feels when facing a triggering image: "[I] can't really face small, irregularly or asymmetrically placed holes, they make me like, throw up in my mouth, cry a little bit, and shake all over, deeply."

lotus seed pod wikipedia 3Point141 ccbysa4

Though trypophobia is called a "fear of holes," the more researchers look into it the more they find it's not so much a fear, and not only of holes.

The phobia also isn't recognized by the psychological community as such. This is because it doesn't really have the signs of a true phobia, at least in the diagnosable sense.

"Trypophobia is more akin to disgust than to fear, and that the disgust is probably an overgeneralisation of a reaction to possible contaminants,"Arnold Wilkins, a psychologist at the University of Essex, previously told Tech Insider in an email. "The disgust arises from clusters of objects, and these objects are not necessarily holes, despite the name trypophobia."

It's a complex problem, and scientists like Wilkins continue to study, quantify, and try to explain trypophobia and its origins in the human mind.

Disgust rooted in survival?

Honey combWilkins and his co-researcher Geoff Cole similarly think this strange revulsion could be rooted in biology, that we've evolved to fear these formations because when found in nature they are somehow dangerous.

To identify this effect, the researchers analyzed images found on trypophobia websites and images of holes that don't trigger trypophobia, looking for differences.

Then, when one of the self-reported trypophobics they interviewed mentioned a fear of the pattern on a blue-ringed octopus, they had what Cole has called a "bit of a Eureka moment," during which he realized a potential evolutionary reason for this fear of weirdly clustered holes — an association with a potentially poisonous or dangerous animal.

Here's the the blue-ringed octopus, which has venom powerful enough to kill a human:

Greater blue-ringed octopusTo test their theory that those feared formations are associated with danger, the researchers collected 10 images of the top 10 poisonous species to analyze. The species they selected included the box jellyfish, the Brazilian wandering spider, the deathstalker scorpion, the inland taipan snake, the king cobra snake, and the stonefish and a few more, shown below.

They showed a puffer fish, whose liver and skin contain a poison. It's the second-most poisonous vertebrate in the world:

Puffer fishAnd a poison dart frog (which is, as its name implies, also poisonous):

Yellow poison dart frogThey also showed a marbled cone snail, whose sting can be fatal to humans:

Marble Cone SnailThe researchers analyzed their look and found that these poisonous species sometimes have a pattern similar to the ones that revolt trypophobes. They think ancient selection pressures on humans to avoid the types of patterns found on some poisonous animals and plants could have evolved into trypophobia.

"There may be an ancient evolutionary part of the brain telling people that they are looking at a poisonous animal," Cole said in a 2013 press release. Put another way: The disgust some feel may well provide an evolutionary advantage, even if unconscious, because it makes people with trypophobia want to run as far as possible from the holey-looking thing.

"We think that everyone has trypophobic tendencies even though they may not be aware of it," Cole said in the release. "We found that people who don't have the phobia still rate trypophobic images as less comfortable to look at than other images."

However, an April 2017 study in the journal Psychological Reports questions the assertion that venomous animal patterns and trypophobia share a connection.

The researchers, who were based in China, showed photos of venomous animals to 94 preschoolers as well as trypophobic images, and the correlation fell apart.

"[T]he discomfort felt toward trypophobic images might be an instinctive response to their visual characteristics rather than the result of a learned but nonconscious association with venomous animals," they wrote.

Instead, they added, it could be a more primitive feature of the mind that has no apparent explanation, akin to the sound of fingernails scratching a chalkboard.

Developing a trypophobic scale

Wilkins's graduate student An Trong Dinh Le, who himself has experienced intense trypophobia, has worked with Wilkins and Cole on their trypophobia research.

The team published a follow-up paper in 2014 in The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, in which they developed a scale to better measure people's reactions to these trypophobic images. The researchers also analyzed images that induce trypophobia to understand exactly what it is that causes the unpleasant reaction.

They discovered that trypophobia-inducing images contain some characteristics that differ from other images of nature, which are generally high-contrast (lots of brightness difference between big features) with low-contrast details (not a big difference in brightness between small features). When images don't have these natural features, they are generally more uncomfortable to view, Wilkins said.

For example, the image below and at right has a lot of contrast to reveal details. Knowing this, the researchers reduces how trypophobic an image was by reducing the contrast of its details.

Here's a sample of a filtered (left) and unfiltered (right) image that scores as trypophobic:

trypophobic filtered unfilteredHowever, there are images with similar visual features that are associated with trypophobia, but — mysteriously — do not trigger a trypophobic response.

One example is the pattern of stripes on escalator stairs, which has unnatural spatial characteristics. It's unpleasant to look at and dazzles the eyes, but does not cause a trypophobic reaction, Wilkins said.

They also learned that trypophobes aren't just disgusted by clusters of holes — they respond just as negatively to clusters of bumps, as well.

"Given the large number of images associated with trypophobia, some of which do not contain clusters of holes but clusters of other objects, these results suggest that holes alone are unlikely to be the only cause for this condition," the researchers write in the paper. "We consider that the fear of holes does not accurately reflect the condition."

A different research group in Colorado has tried to better quantify trypophobic reactions by coming up with a scale to track the body's automatic responses. When someone with trypophobia looks at disgust-inducing images, their heart rates rose and their fingers began to sweat, according to an April 2017 study in the journal Personality and Individual Differences.

While that used only 37 college undergraduates, about 17% of them (roughly the same portion of people in Wilkins' 2013 study) displayed trypophobia-like fear.

"Although trypophobia at first glance seems irrational, these images might be triggering a primitive threat detection system," the authors wrote.

But what in our deep past as humans could have led to the development of a trypophobic triggering system? The jury's still out on that one — including if such a system exists at all, and if it has a role in our survival.

Jennifer Welsh wrote previous versions of this post, which we've updated to include new peer-reviewed research about trypophobia.

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NOW WATCH: Scientists have debunked these common myths about microwaves

JPMorgan Chase explains why it pulled ads from YouTube and Megyn Kelly's show, and reveals a unique strategy it uses to combat fake news

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In June, NBC's Megyn Kelly interviewed a controversial guest, Alex Jones. Ahead of the episode, some of the show's sponsors, including JPMorgan Chase, pulled its ads.

"As an advertiser, I’m repulsed that @megynkelly would give a second of airtime to someone who says Sandy Hook and Aurora are hoaxes,” Kelly Lemkau, Chief Marketing Officer of JPMorgan Chase, tweeted.

JPMorgan Chase has also stopped working with YouTube temporarily. YouTube has struggled to promise advertisers that their placements won't appear next to troubling videos.

"We've pulled out [of YouTube] until we can be 100% certain that our advertising won't be next to hate or fake news, but we are pretty certain they are going to come up with a solution," Susan Canavari, Chief Brand Officer of JPMorgan Chase, told Business Insider at the Cannes Lions festival.

When asked what YouTube's brand safety solution for advertisers might look like, Canavari said she didn't feel it'd be fair to speak on Google's behalf, but that "they do have a plan in place and we are confident they will get there." 

Canavari also discussed a unique whitelisting strategy her team uses to protect its brand against "hate and fake news" across the Internet.

Below is a transcription of that portion of the conversation. Or watch it, above.

Alyson Shontell: One thing that I've heard a lot of people talking about and that seems to be popping up as a growing trend is it's really difficult to be an advertiser right now in the digital climate. It can be really hard to protect your brand, and brand safety and brand awareness really has to be top of mind, so couple of things that you all have been in the news for recently, one was Megyn Kelly just shot a show with Alex Jones, who's very controversial and you sent out a tweet about how you were going to pull out of the episode and I wanted to just ask you how you arrived at that decision and why you thought that it was important. 

Susan Canavari: You know, we do feel like as an advertiser, it's incredibly important to our brand health that our advertising and all of our content is in contextual places that is far away from hate and fake news as possible so internally, over the last several months, we have processes in place to ensure that none of our advertiser and our content is near fake news or hate. You know, in fact we have a person that – we hired an intern who physically clicks on all of the sites that are available to us through programmatic so she's gone through 10,000 sites and has eliminated any sites that are associated with hake and fake news. So it's really – that's a really important thing to us in terms of making sure that we maintain our brand health. 

Shontell: And it does seem like blacklisting of sites is something that's becoming an essential part to brand strategy but another thing that you do is you actually whitelist sites as well, right? 

Canavari: We actually do whitelist sites and like I said, it's a manual process, we take this very seriously and we just want to make sure that our advertising and our content is in adjacent to things that we feel are where our customers are and what's important to them. So, yes.

Shontell: And you know another thing that comes up too is this idea of a duopoly and when you look at where all the digital advertising dollars are moving, Facebook and Google seem to just keep coming up. I think they have 85 plus percent, it was the latest study of ad dollars, so how do you view the duopoly and also in things like Google in particular, they're not — they can't escape this brand safety issue either, they have a lot of issues with YouTube as well. 

Canavari: Well, you know, here's the thing they do and we consider them a very close partner. We obviously — we've pulled out of YouTube until they can solve these problems but we are working on it with them. And if anything, you know, I think that they would say that the timing wasn't great for them but that they are happy that it is an issue that they are addressing. And so it is an issue I think that all publishers are going to have to address and it's sort of made them focused on what they are going to do to fix it. And like I said, we are working with them on that. We've pulled out until we can be 100% certain that our advertising won't be next to hate or fake news but we are pretty certain they are going to come up with a solution. 

Shontell: Do you have any idea what that solution will look like just in general for how the landscape can change? 

Canavari: You know, I don't want to speak for what they are doing because I don't think that would be fair but they do have — they do have a plan in place and we are confident they will get there.

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Scientists figured out a simple habit that makes people eat less when they’re stressed

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It has happened to all of us — you get home from an exhausting day of work and eat all the junk food you see around: pizza, beer and chips. Why does the body crave for that, instead of a salad? Here is the simple solution to keep stress eating away. 

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Here's when you can start legally buying marijuana in Nevada

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marijuana pot weed flower bud dispensary store

Sales of recreational marijuana kick off in Nevada on Saturday, July 1, and the state is expecting on onslaught of tourists coming to sample the local merchandise.

But visitors might have tough times finding the drug in stores.

Anyone who is 21 and over with a valid ID can buy up to an ounce of pot (or one-eighth of an ounce of edibles or concentrates) from one of several medical marijuana dispensaries that have been approved for recreational sales.

State regulators have issued the licenses necessary to 17 retail outlets in Las Vegas — as of June 27 — and may approve as many as 40 dispensaries by Saturday, the Associated Press reported.

In a legal snafu, those stores may sell the marijuana they have in stock for recreational use, but may not resupply their inventory and sell the new stuff to non-medical users. Their stock may run out as early as August, leaving recreational users without a place to buy their legal bud.

Alcohol wholesalers have the exclusive rights to move recreational marijuana from growers to retailers in Nevada, as part of a temporary court order that was extended by a Carson City district judge in June. Nevada intends to appeal the order, so that the state's medical marijuana dispensaries can obtain pot distribution licenses, according to the Associated Press.

Nevada is the only state with legalized marijuana that has such an arrangement.

In addition to Nevada, voters in Colorado, Washington, Alaska, Oregon, California, Maine, Massachusetts, and the District of Columbia have legalized recreational use of the drug.

It became legal to possess up to an ounce of pot in Nevada and use it in private residences on January 1. Before then, residents needed a medical card to shop at dispensaries.

Tourists are expected to make up 63% of recreational pot sales, Nevada officials told the Associated Press. More than 40 million people visited Las Vegas in 2016.

SEE ALSO: Here's where you can legally smoke weed now

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NOW WATCH: This is how long drugs actually stay in your system

I work in room service at a 5-star hotel — these are the biggest things I wish guests wouldn't do

This robot-made pizza in Silicon Valley should terrify Domino's and Pizza Hut

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zume pizza robot 0330

Robots could kill off huge swaths of jobs in the future — but at least they come bearing pizza.

Founded in 2015, Zume Pizza uses robotics and artificial intelligence to make pizza more quickly. The startup has expanded its delivery area across Silicon Valley since its retail launch last fall and added new team members including a former UberEats executive and a robot that can press a mound of dough into the perfect pizza crust five times faster than a human.

An increasing number of pizza eaters are ditching legacy brands like Domino's and Pizza Hut for newer fast-casual and delivery chainsBusiness Insider took a tour of Zume's headquarters in Mountain View, California, to see if the pizza is as good as its tech.

SEE ALSO: San Francisco is getting tiny self-driving robots that could put delivery people out of a job

This is no ordinary pizza. It was made by robots.



The concept of a robot-powered pizza delivery service came from friends and cofounders Julia Collins and Alex Garden, who wanted to make high-quality pizza more affordable.



Collins graduated from Stanford Business School, worked as an analyst under Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer, and helped launch New York City fast-casual chain Mexicue. She knew pumping pies full of chemical adulterants wasn't the answer — tech was.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

How Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian and tennis superstar Serena Williams met and fell in love

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Alexis Ohanian (left) and Serena Williams

The last six months have been huge for Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian. 

The tennis superstar and the Reddit cofounder, respectively, found out they were expecting a child and got engaged — all since December. 

But things weren't always perfect. In fact, when they first met, Williams tried to get Ohanian to go away by telling him there was a rat nearby. 

In the July cover story of Vanity Fair, writer Buzz Bissinger got the inside look at their love story. That, along with Instagram sleuthing, helped us compile the story of Ohanian and Williams' whirlwind romance. 

Here's how this power couple from opposite worlds fell in love. 

SEE ALSO: Reddit's founder thought people in Silicon Valley were the hardest workers — until he met his fiancée, Serena Williams

The pair met in May 2015 at the Hotel Cavalieri Hilton in Rome, when Ohanian sat down at the table next to Williams' outside by the pool, according to Vanity Fair. Williams and her friends tried to get him to leave by telling him there was a rat at his table. When it didn't work, they invited him to join them.

Source: Vanity Fair



Williams had never heard of Reddit before, and Ohanian had never watched Williams play tennis, but he agreed to come to the match later that day. He knew so little about the sport that the first photo he shared publicly of Williams shows her committing a foot fault.

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Source: Instagram, Vanity Fair



When they met, Ohanian had just gotten out of a five-year relationship with his college sweetheart, microbiologist Sabriya Stukes.

Source: The New York Times, Vanity Fair



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The bizarre and controversial 'Flintstones House' reportedly sold for $2.8 million

How to trick your phone into letting you curse

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It's ducking hard to express emotion when your iPhone plays Mom and auto corrects curse words. It's easy to imagine some priggish programmer in a Cupertino cubicle, smiling at the thought of having saved the world from profanities thanks to this feature.

Most of us get a forceful auto correct to some iteration of "duck" whenever we try to type out a choice swear word, but it can get irritating to feel like your phone is censoring you. 

Screenshot tricking phone into cursing

Luckily, there is an easy way to get around Apple's built-in censor — just create a new contact in your phone's address book with as many versions of your favorite curse words as you want. 

Screenshot for tricking your phone into swearing

You'll be able to curse to your heart's content.  Just be careful when texting your boss — the auto correct feature is actually there to protect you from any serious texting debacles. Screenshot tricking your phone into cursing

 

SEE ALSO: Avoid these 5 mistakes when texting someone you want to date

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NOW WATCH: These 2 hidden iPhone features will change the way you get your texts

This chart shows how you'll probably die

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July 4 is approaching, so here's a small reminder: Be safe!

Your chance of dying from a fireworks accident are small but not impossible.

Drawing from data collected by The Economist from America's National Safety Council and the National Academies, we made this graphic that puts a healthy perspective on the chances of dying from an asteroid compared to, say, walking.

The numbers might surprise you:

BI_Graphics_Causes of death in America_2017_02

READ MORE: NASA just released a jaw-dropping 360 degree photo that makes you feel like you're on Mars

SEE ALSO: Awe-inspiring quotes from Carl Sagan reveal how we are fundamentally connected to the cosmos

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NOW WATCH: Scientists are bashing authorities’ claims that a meteorite killed a bus driver in India

Here's the disturbing reason why barber poles are red, white, and blue

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Many believe the distinct colors of the barber poles are due to patriotism. But the truth is much more disturbing. Long ago, barbers used to do more than just cut hair. They performed surgical procedures like bloodletting. The striped poles are a legacy of their practice of bloodletting.

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The Ferrari GTC4 Lusso is unique in the world of high-performance cars (RACE)

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Ferrari GTC4 Lusso 2

Ferrari makes two kinds of dream machines: sports cars and GT cars. The former rank is currently filled by the 488 GTB mid-engine supercar and the LaFerrari hypercar; the latter is occupied by the California T and the 812 Superfast.

Then there's the oddball of this aristocratic lineup: the GTC4 Lusso.

Ferrari will never, ever build an SUV. (It has its corporate cousins Maserati and Alfa Romeo to supply them.) Nor will it build a car with four doors. So for that buyer who wants a Ferrari but doesn't need a bonkers mid-mounted twin-turbo V-8 making well over 600 horsepower, and who would prefer that their ride sent power to all four wheels, there's the GTC4 Lusso.

The vehicle is part of a very narrow niche: the "shooting brake," a sort of station wagon coupe, based on hunting coaches from the 19th century.

The GTC4 is a new model of the car once known as the FF. We spent some time with the FF a few years ago, in proper East Coast winter weather. What a car! More recently, Ferrari allowed us to spend a weekend checking out the new GTC4, which came in at $347,522.84. (The 84 cents was just because.)

Here's what we thought.

Photos by Hollis Johnson unless otherwise indicated.

The GTC4 Lusso arrived in New York City wearing a "Blue Tour de France" paint job — a kind of luminous, deep royal blue that I think looks great on Ferraris that aren't red.



The GTC4 follows the FF, which was the all-wheel-drive Ferrari I sampled in the winter of 2015.

Read the review »



The car brought out my "I wanna be an Italian" side.



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4 big mistakes guys make with their business attire, according to a menswear expert

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men in suits

G. Bruce Boyer has some advice for men who wear business attire every day: keep it balanced.

The menswear expert included in his book "True Style: The History and Principles of Classic Menswear" what he calls the four "big mistakes" that men make when dressing for work.

It's important to strike a balance between being too boring and too loud when dressing for work. You don't want to stand out too much at the office, but you don't want to fade into obscurity either.

SEE ALSO: Nobody wants to buy the most infamous house in the Hamptons, but American Express is renting it for the summer

Being too studied.

Take care not to make everything too perfect, Boyer writes. Wearing an identical suit to the same event can emphasize the fact that business dress is a uniform.

"Everything all matched up makes the uniform obvious, overly fastidious, and blatantly narcissistic," Boyer writes.

Think Patrick Bateman in "American Psycho" — now head toward the opposite of that.



Adding too many accessories.

Be careful not to overdo it, however, with the individuality. Too many accessories can be both distracting and a detriment to the image you're trying to portray.

"Like putting all the China on the table at the same time, it's too busy and signals insecurity," Boyer writes.

The key to style is refusal, and what you put on is just as important as what you don'tMost men should be seen with only three main accessories decorating their appendages: a nice watch, a good pair of cuff links, and, if they're married, a simple wedding band.



Wearing too many patterns at once.

Patterns are great. Too many patterns: not so much.

"Like an overloaded electrical circuit, the outfit quickly burns out and calls attention to itself," Boyer writes.

Too many patterns can confuse an observer, and they might elicit compliments people don't mean to give when you catch them staring at the garishness. Beyond that, combining patterns at all is absurdly difficult to do in the first place. Just keep it simple.



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Here's everything we know about Trump's 26-year-old personal assistant

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Jonathan Ernst Reuters 2

Madeleine Westerhout became a familiar face in late 2016, when she was frequently photographed guiding then president-elect Donald Trump's guests — such as Rick Perry, Mitch McConnell, and Goldman Sach's Gary Cohn — through the lobby of Trump Tower.

While some media outlets dubbed her  the "elevator girl," Westerhout was quickly establishing her role within the Trump transition team. In January, it was announced that she would be an executive assistant to the president himself — making calls for the president and helping schedule his days.

Here's everything we know about 26-year-old Westerhout.   

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

DON'T MISS: How a 28-year-old with no political experience found herself in Trump's inner circle

Westerhout grew up in California, and went to the College of Charleston in South Carolina. She graduated in 2013 with a degree in political science.

Source: The College Today



In 2012, Westerhout took time off school to work as an intern for the Mitt Romney presidential campaign.

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In 2013, she worked as a special projects and volunteer coordinator for South Carolina's former state senator, John Kuhn, during his unsuccessful Congressional bid.



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Here's how much you need to earn to comfortably afford a home in the 25 most expensive ZIP codes in America

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mansion pool luxury home

If you call one of the most expensive US ZIP codes home, there's one thing you can't live without: a high salary.

Well, either that or lots and lots of cash.

With median home prices starting at just over $2 million, these ZIP codes are the definition of exclusive. Real estate listings site Property Shark used data from 2016 home sales to determine which ZIP codes in the US were most expensive for buyers. Only ZIP codes containing more than five sold properties were considered.

California and New York dominated the list. Just two of the 25 ZIP codes are located in other states.

So what does it take to buy a home in one of these communities?

For starters, unless you're paying with cash, you have to be prepared to prove your income and fork over a down payment of at least 20%. If you qualify for a mortgage, it won't be your average, run-of-the-mill loan. At this price point, banks issue a "jumbo mortgage." It's basically the same thing ... but bigger.

To get approved for a jumbo mortgage, your monthly payment must be 38% or less of your pre-tax income. Not that you should stretch your budget that far. Many, many people own or rent homes that aren't technically "affordable." Among American homeowners, 10%, or 7.6 million, spend more than half their household income on their mortgage. But in an ideal world, your housing costs would be much lower.

The standard measure for "affordable" housing, regardless of the price of the home, is that total monthly expenses should not exceed 30% of your pre-tax income.

But a mortgage is just the beginning of your housing costs. With one of these homes, your property taxes — not to mention your air-conditioning bills — are going to be steep. It's not cheap to maintain the pool and the lawn and other ongoing repair costs. Oh, and don't forget about homeowner's insurance. 

Given all of the extra expenses of homeownership, we broke the 30% measure of housing affordability down into 5% for expenses and 25% for your monthly mortgage payment. Then, we did the math so you don't have to: If you're earning the below salaries, your mortgage will take only about 25% of your monthly income, leaving another 5% for extra housing costs — and putting you safely at 30%.

Keep reading to see how much you need to earn annually to afford a median-priced home in each of the 25 most expensive ZIP codes in the US. 

SEE ALSO: Harvard researchers say one-third of Americans overpay for housing

DON'T MISS: 32 cities around the world where the most rich people live

25. 95030: Los Gatos, California

Salary required: $399,654

Monthly mortgage payment: $8,326

Median sale price: $2,180,000
Down payment: $436,000
Mortgage amount: $1,744,000



24. 94123: San Francisco, California

Salary required: $405,154

Monthly mortgage payment: $8,441

Median sale price: $2,210,000
Down payment: $442,000
Mortgage amount: $1,768,000



23. 94306: Palo Alto, California

Salary required: $408,362

Monthly mortgage payment: $8,508

Median sale price: $2,227,500
Down payment: $445,500
Mortgage amount: $1,782,000



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The Obamas have been touring the world since leaving the White House — here's where they've been so far

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The Obamas white water rafting in Indonesia, summer 2017

The Obamas are making the most of their vacation time. Since leaving the White House in January, they have been hitting up some of the most exotic destinations imaginable.

After spending a few days on American soil in Palm Springs, Barack and Michelle Obama jetted off on a tropical tour that started at entrepreneur Richard Branson's private Necker Island.

They then headed to French Polynesia to check in to The Brando, an exclusive island resort that can be reached only by boat or by two-engined Air Tetiaroa planes.

In May, the Obamas took a six-day vacation in Tuscany, Italy, where they stayed at a luxurious villa and sampled the food of one of the world's best chefs. More recently, the entire family was spotted whitewater rafting and visiting a temple in Bali, Indonesia. They then headed to Java to visit the city where his mother lived and worked for years.

Take a look at the incredible places they have visited so far. 

SEE ALSO: The most exclusive resorts for 'people who care about the planet,' according to National Geographic

DON'T MISS: The 13 best adults-only, all-inclusive hotels in the Caribbean

After eight years in office, the Obamas headed off on a well-deserved break in January.



The first stop (after a very brief stint in Palm Springs) was Necker Island.



This 72-acre island — located in the British Virgin Islands — is owned by British entrepreneur Sir Richard Branson.



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Here's a simple way to get more sleep and have more energy during the week

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Sleeping man

Let's face it: As much as you might look forward to it, your weekend habit of sleeping in until noon isn't doing you any favors.

You can blame social jet lag. It works just like the jet lag you get from crossing multiple time zones, only it happens when our body clocks get thrown off by the gap between our weekend and weekday sleep schedules.

Luckily, there are ways to fix it. Here's how you can make sure your body clock stays on a more normal schedule:

1. Wake up at the same time every day

Yes, it's hard, because there's no real reason to keep waking up at 7 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday. But staying in the groove is important. Frank Scheer, a professor at Harvard Medical School told Science News he has virtually no social jet lag thanks to early morning wake-ups from his kids.

Even making sure you're waking up a few hours within when you usually wake up during the week would be a lot better than waking up at 2 p.m. Think about it this way: The jet lag from a New York-to-Chicago flight isn't nearly as bad as a flight from New York to San Francisco.

2. Make sure your office has good natural light

Like our ancestors, our bodies evolved to be awake when it's light out and asleep when it's dark. Dim offices with artificial light can mess up that cycle and trick our bodies into thinking it's later than it is. To fix this, find a way to get as much natural light as possible during the day by sitting by a window or taking walks outside throughout the day.

A man sleeps on a conveyer belt under an American Airlines logo at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York January 22, 2014. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly

3. Expose yourself to sunlight in the early morning

It's hard not to feel nocturnal when you leave for work before the sun has risen and you come home after it sets. The more sunlight you get in the morning, the earlier your central clock will want to get up. By re-training this part of the body, the chances of getting social jet lag go down.

4. Avoid bright screens before bed

As much fun as it is to scroll through social media before snoozing, the light our smartphones and computer screens emit confuses our body clocks because they wans to keep running as if it's still day time.

Instead of powering your body down, the light causes you to be more alert and ready to keep on going — even if it's past your designated bedtime. So while those late-night Netflix binge sessions seem like a great idea for a relaxing Friday, it's best to switch off screens at least an hour you plan to go to sleep.

The takeaway

What this boils down to is sticking with to a schedule and making sure you're getting enough sunlight during the day. The more sunlight you get during “natural” waking hours, the earlier your body clock will be set. Having a regular wake-up and bedtime should help you avoid as much social jetlag as possible.

Better zzz's await. 

SEE ALSO: 6 tips for sleeping in hot weather and staying cool at night

DON'T MISS: What time you go to bed might be just as important as how much you sleep

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NOW WATCH: This is what happens to your brain and body when you check your phone before bed

This shape-shifting furniture system transforms a tiny room into a spacious apartment

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A startup based out of Boston wants to make micro-living a little more luxurious.

Ori— named for the Japanese art of origami — makes a furniture system that transforms small spaces for sleeping, entertaining, and working. The high-tech armoir holds a full- or queen-sized bed, closet, desk, media center, and additional storage, and slides on mechanized rails to reveal different parts of the system. Apartment-dwellers can make their bedroom appear with the push of a button, or push the whole system to the wall to create space for guests.

In May, the company partnered with real-estate developers in 13 cities, including Boston, New York, San Francisco, and Vancouver, to bring the Ori system to select studio apartments as part of a pilot program. It expects to install 1,2000 units across North America through 2018.

Ori founder and CEO Hasier Larrea told Business Insider the shape-shifting furniture system aims to provide the experience of luxury when people don't have the luxury of size.

ori robotic furniture system 3

During a demo in a San Francisco studio apartment, Larrea called to an Amazon Echo device and asked it to get his bedroom ready. The system glided five feet out from the wall, exposing a full-sized bed underneath. With a tap on the unit's touch interface, the bed slid into storage and created the illusion of a walk-in closet between the wall and the unit.

It uses about one-tenth the electricity of a hair blow dryer, according to Larrea. And if the power goes out, the system can be moved manually (though it might be a two-person job).

The unit is clunky, but versatile. The shelving is made from plywood, rather than the cheap foam board you find in IKEA products. It has simple, modern finishes — an indication of Ori's partnership with industrial design firm Fuseproject, which helped create the look.

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Larrea hopes to someday license the technology to architects so they can make the system their own. He envisions Ori products in dormitories, offices, and hospitals.

"The systems and robotics that we're building prove that a 300-square-foot apartment could have the functionality of an apartment twice the size," Larrea said.

Check out the Ori furniture system in action in the video below.

SEE ALSO: I bought a bed from the Target-backed 'Warby Parker of mattresses' and I'll never buy one in stores again

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NOW WATCH: Remarkable photos show crazy micro apartments around the world

7 things successful people do the night before a vacation

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water swimming fireworks vacation party New Year's Rio

It's summer, which means it's time to reward yourself with some time off.

But before you jet off to some sunny shore, you need set your affairs in order at work.

The night before your vacation is a crucial time to prepare.

Effective planning will give you peace of mind while you're catching some rays, and it will prevent problems from cropping up when you drag your sunburnt self back into the office in a few days.

The last thing you need after leaving paradise is to have to deal with some preventable fiasco at work.

Here are seven things you should do the night before your vacation starts:

DON'T MISS: 12 signs you desperately need a vacation from work

SEE ALSO: 5 tricks to stop worrying about email while you're on vacation

Clean up

Before you leave the office, take some time to tidy up your desk.

That way, you'll at least know you're coming back to a "well-organized, inviting workspace," Michael Kerr, an international business speaker and author of "The Humor Advantage," tells Business Insider.



Set up your out-of-office messages

Remember, your phone and inbox won't just freeze up while you're gone.

"Set your out-of-office response on your voice mail and email," Ryan Kahn, a career coach, founder of The Hired Group, and author of "Hired! The Guide for the Recent Grad," tells Business Insider

"This may seem obvious, but it's often overlooked," he says. "You may be on vacation, but others may not be. Don't risk inadvertently damaging any relationships."

"Make sure your voice mail accurately gives your date of return," Lynn Taylor, a national workplace expert and the author of "Tame Your Terrible Office Tyrant: How to Manage Childish Boss Behavior and Thrive in Your Job," tells Business Insider.

She also recommends ensuring sure your boss and key coworkers know the procedure regarding emergency contact.

Kerr says that it's also a good idea to include additional info in your OOO messages.

"Let colleagues and customers know what options they have for reaching someone else who can help them," he says.

"Don't overlook the positive goodwill you'll garner from adding some humor to your message: One of my client's e-mail auto response described how she'd been kidnapped by her three small children and held in Disneyland," he says.



Make a list

The night before your vacation, take the time to sit down with a pen and paper.

Kerr suggests creating a final, detailed to-do list of action items, both personal and work-related, that you know you'll need to do once you return from your vacation.

"Doing this will reduce your mental clutter as you head out on vacation and help you feel more relaxed knowing that everything's down on paper and organized for your return," he says.



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