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It's Kim Jong Un's birthday, but nobody in North Korea is celebrating — here's why

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Kim jong un

  • Monday is Kim Jong Un's 34th birthday.
  • The day isn't a national holiday, unlike his father's and grandfather's birthdays.
  • An expert on North Korea told Business Insider it was too cold and expensive to celebrate his birthday right now.
  • Others say the lack of celebration could indicate growing discontent among citizens.


Monday is Kim Jong Un's 34th birthday — but nobody in North Korea is celebrating with him.

The country's official calendar shows it as a normal workday, according to the BBC.

North Korea has attempted to cover up Kim's birthday in the past.

The former NBA star Dennis Rodman sang "Happy Birthday" to Kim at a basketball game in Pyongyang on the day in 2014. But citizens were told Rodman sang Kim "a special song," with no mention of his birthday.

As North Korea regularly threatens anyone who insults Kim and throws massive parties to celebrate nuclear tests, it may seem bizarre that Pyongyang isn't pulling out all the stops for its leader.

Experts have posited various reasons for the silence on Kim's birthday — and some could spell disaster for his government.

kim jong un over the years

It's too cold and expensive to celebrate

Hazel Smith, a researcher at the School of African and Oriental Studies in London who lived in North Korea from 1998 to 2001, said it was "not very surprising" that the country wasn't marking Kim's birthday.

"Kim Jong Un is treated today as the supreme leader whose words are automatically seen as authoritative because he has the familial lineage of the Kim family," Smith said, adding that the birthdays of Kim's grandfather and father, Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, are already designated national holidays.

"North Korea's propagandists don't need another day to emphasise the point," she said.

Smith also said that national celebrations were costly to organise and that it was too cold to hold outdoor parties this time of year.

"These celebrations for these national days are also very expensive and involve thousands of people, and January provides the coldest temperatures of the year regularly falling to -25 centigrade," she said. "It's not very feasible to organise yet another set of parades when they have February 16" — Kim Jong Il's birthday celebration — "to plan for."

There's growing discontent within the country

North Korea

Another reason North Korea isn't celebrating Kim's birthday could be because of his unpopularity within the country as a result of sanctions.

The UN approved multiple rounds of economic sanctions against Pyongyang last year as punishment for its nuclear development.

Daily NK, a news site based in South Korea, last month quoted a source in North Korea's South Pyongyang province as saying:

"International sanctions, especially those instituted after the 6th nuclear test in September, have caused a lot of hardship for workers with many losing their jobs as a result of the gradual slowing of coal exports. So public opinion of Kim Jong Un has dropped to a new low.

"As the government pushes propaganda about its nuclear and missile development while even the more successful merchants are losing jobs and going hungry this year, people would only ridicule Kim Jong Un if they saw his birthday had been made a holiday."

The source added, however, that government authorities would still "conduct lectures" and "distribute snacks to children" on Monday.

Nevertheless, the extent of Kim's popularity remains unknown.

"I don't think we know anything for sure about his popularity one way or another apart from it's extremely dangerous to speak out against him," Aidan Foster-Carter, an honorary lecturer at Leeds University who's an expert on North Korea, told The Independent.

Maybe Kim's cult of personality just isn't big enough

North Korea

Experts also say Kim hasn't amassed a large enough cult of personality to have his birthday designated a national holiday.

Owen Miller, a Korea expert at SOAS, told The Independent that North Korea "might consider it too soon to take Kim Jong Un's personality cult up to that level."

"Kim Jong Il was anointed as successor [to Kim Il Sung] in 1980, and his cult was built up long before he became leader," Miller added. "Kim Jong Un, on the other hand, was only introduced to North Koreans a year or two before he became leader in 2011."

Some experts even suggested that Kim was trying to reinvent himself as a man of the people and that designating his birthday as a national holiday would hamper that image.

The Guardian reported in September that Kim Yo Jong, Kim Jong Un's sister who's a senior government minister, had been trying to "create a cult of personality around her brother that included presenting him as a benevolent, accessible leader."

SEE ALSO: 9 of the most outrageous things Kim Jong Un has said

READ MORE: The US and South Korea took a huge step toward peace with North Korea

DON'T MISS: Here's why Kim Jong Un is always surrounded by people taking notes

Join the conversation about this story »

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Airstream's CEO is bringing the American icon into the future by selling millennials on adventure

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Airstream Trailer

  • Airstream's CEO says the company is in a unique position.
  • It has a powerful, 85-year history.
  • The company is preparing itself to sell RVs to millennials, deal with the arrival of self-driving vehicles, and address the opportunities that electric cars present.


Bob Wheeler might have the best job in America. CEO of Airstream since 2005 and charged with steering the iconic, Ohio-based manufacturer of silvery, sleek, space-age trailers into the future, he's found himself extremely comfortable with several major challenges that are keeping other executives up at night.

His burden could be huge — Airstream has been around for 85 years and for many, it symbolizes the all-American trailer at its best, crafted from shimmering aluminum and exuding timeless cool. And the company isn't without challenges, particularly as they relate to Airstream's historic reliance on the human need to hit the open road. What if, in the future, we stop driving?

Wheeler, who saw Airstream thorough a rough patch during the financial crisis, is taking it all in stride. 

"We see everything as opportunity rather than a threat," he told Business Insider. 

Opportunities are everywhere and threats are refreshingly limited

Airstream CEO Bob Wheeler

Airstream makes everything in the US — "Nobody wants an Airstream built anywhere else," Wheeler said — and even in a world in which humans aren't behind the wheel, towing a trailer on a weeklong adventure isn't intimidating.

Wheeler and his team have been asking themselves what an autonomous vehicle looks like, and what happens when you don't have forward-facing seats. The mobility experience might make them more social, involving more entertainment and even sleeping.

"That starts to seem a lot like a recreational vehicle," he said, adding that Airstream is now focusing intently in on the intersection between transportation and residential design. "We want to make sure we're in that conversation."

Wheeler is also making sure that Airstream can satisfy the demands of a broad range of customers. The company, a subsidiary of Thor Industries (Thor was created when it bought Airstream in 1980) doesn't do just towed trailers, for example. It also manufactures what it calls Touring Coaches in collaboration with Mercedes-Benz (we sampled one for a week a few years back).

In 2016, the company acquired the tiny Oregon startup NEST Caravans, which was barely out of the prototype stage for fiberglass RVs.

"It struck a chord," Wheeler said, noting that NEST is a departure from the "bulleted" Airstream shape but consistent with the overall Airstream brand.

"It's the kind of fiberglass trailer we'd design, so we bought the company," he said. "We like to think of ourselves as curating good design."

Capitalizing on new trends

Airstream Basecamp

Beyond that, Airstream wants to curate diverse customers. Several years ago, Wheeler said, the company recognized a trend.

"Your value is measured by the the things you've done, not the physical assets you've accumulated. You don’t need a big house in the suburbs to show you're successful."

The insight has positioned Airstream — familiar with older customers who desire a "house on wheels" — to understand what millennials want.

"We didn't have to shift," Wheeler said. The "old school" brand, as he he sees it, appeals to younger people because it's a "counterpoint to the 100 million identical cell phones."

And whether a customer wants a big Classic Travel Trailer that can sleep five and costs $140,000, or one of Airstream's newest products, the relatively humble Basecamp that sleeps two and goes for $36,000, according to Wheeler, "they all share this common element of understanding adventure is somewhere past the end of your driveway."

Airstream Trailer

Taking on the out-there ideas

Insulated from the Trump-era debates about outsourced manufacturing — Wheeler said that he considers Airstream fortunate to have been able to avoid soul-searching on that score — the company can turn its attention to some out-there ideas. 

For example, Wheeler said that as electric vehicles become more prevalent, owners will encounter range issues that an Airstream can deal with.

"We've been toying with an idea of onboard battery tow vehicle," he said. "It could double range and double capacity."

The more you talk to Wheeler and learn about Airstream's goals for the next 85 years, the more you realize how many advantages the brand has. 

"We have to honor our history and our legacy, but we're in a unique position," he said. "Airstream is a conduit to a lifestyle, and with that, the possibilities are endless."

SEE ALSO: FOLLOW US on Facebook for more car and transportation content!

SEE ALSO: Say hello to a tiny Airstream trailer — that's just as stylish as the classic

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Why the Golden Globes win for 'Three Billboards' won't make it an Oscar frontrunner

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three billboards outside ebbing missouri 20th century fox final

  • "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri" won the big prize at Sunday's Golden Globes.
  • If that was a shock to you, the Globes has a history of surprising wins.
  • But having a Golden Globe doesn't mean you are a lock to win best picture on Oscar night.


If you stayed up to watch who won the big prize at the Golden Globes Sunday night, you might have done a quick Google search of the winner: "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri."

The surprise best drama in a motion picture win for director Martin McDonagh's darkly comedic tale about a mother (Frances McDormand) who buys three giant billboards to voice her frustration toward the local police seeming to do little to solve her daughter's murder, beat out favorites like "The Shape of Water" (which had the most nominations of the night), the epic "Dunkirk," and Steven Spielberg's "The Post."

But what does this mean for its chances Oscar night?

Though the Golden Globes is one of the major nights of awards season, as it's aired on NBC and all the big buzzed-about movies are in the running (in both the drama and musical/comedy categories), if you dig a bit deeper you'll find that the Globes don't often mesh with the Academy Awards.

The night is held by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA), journalists affiliated with publications outside of the US but who cover the movie and TV industry in Hollywood. It's an organization that only has around 90 members, and that's the first big red flag. The decisions are from a small collection of people, compared to the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences — which vote for the Oscars — that has over 6,000 members. 

Then there's the HFPA's history of winners. 

The Golden Globes has become known for two things: watching your favorite stars drink too much and then have to get up on stage to accept an award (it's one of the few events during awards season where the audience is given food and drinks), and the surprise winners. 

three billboards golden globes Kevin Winter Getty finalIn fact, "Three Billboards" won a bunch of surprising awards on Sunday. Before the big prize, Frances McDormand won the best actress prize and Sam Rockwell won best supporting actor.

But the "Three Billboards" dominance is simply the latest surprise in Globes history.

Just last year, Aaron Taylor-Johnson ("Nocturnal Animals") beat out eventual Oscar-winner Mahershala Ali ("Moonlight") for best supporting actor. Going further back, in 1997 "Evita," the musical starring Madonna as Eva Perón, beat out popular titles "Jerry Maguire," "The Birdcage," and "Fargo." And then there's 1989 when three actresses tied to win the best actress in a drama prize — Jodie Foster ("The Accused"), Shirley MacLaine ("Madame Sousatzka"), and Sigourney Weaver ("Gorillas in the Mist"). A three-way tie! Only at the Golden Globes.

In the last 10 years, the Globes and Oscars have only chosen the same winner in its best drama/best picture category four times. Compare that to the Screen Actors Guild Awards (which has around 130,000 active members). Its outstanding cast in a motion picture award has meshed with the Oscar's best picture six times in the last decade.

This isn't to diminish the achievement by "Three Billboards" and Fox Searchlight, which released it. The movie, along with McDormand and Rockwell, will be in the running when Oscar nominations are announced January 23. And fans of the movie will be happy to know the Globes and the Oscars both chose the big winner last year: "Moonlight."

But if the win came as a shock to you last night, trust us, that's a common occurrence on Globes night and historically it's not a major factor when the Oscars come around.  

SEE ALSO: Seth Meyers didn't hold back on Hollywood sexual misconduct in his hilarious opening to the Golden Globes

Join the conversation about this story »

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Former J.Crew CEO Mickey Drexler just dropped $13.7 million on an empty plot of land in Miami

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Mickey Drexler house

  • Mickey Drexler is the former CEO of J.Crew.
  • He stepped down from the role in July 2017.
  • Drexler has spent over $25 million on real estate in Miami in the past year.


J.Crew's former CEO is splurging on Miami real estate. 

Former CEO Mickey Drexler, who stepped down in July 2017 after 14 years in the role, has reportedly spent more than $25 million on beachfront real estate in Miami in the past 12 months. 

In February 2017, he bought Calvin Klein's five-bedroom, five-bathroom Miami Beach home for $12.8 million, The Real Deal reported. This month, he purchased a 22,719-square-foot plot of land next door for $13.7 million, according to The Real Deal. The property had been on the market since 2015, when it was listed for $25 million.

The properties are located side by side on North Bay Road, which overlooks Biscayne Bay. It wasn't immediately clear whether Drexler intended to combine the two.

The road is known as "Millionaire's Row," as Ralph Lauren, Tommy Hilfiger, and Jennifer Lopez have all owned homes there, according to Curbed. Pablo Escobar also owned a property there, though it was bulldozed in 2016. 

Mickey Drexler miami home

SEE ALSO: J.Crew CEO out after 14 years — here's where he says the company went wrong

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Here's what you should do if your luggage is lost or damaged by an airline

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man at baggage claim lost luggage

  • Luggage gets lost and damaged — here's how to deal with it.
  • It's key to resign yourself to the reality that a lost bag might never come home.
  • Airlines will cover the cost of lost luggage up to a point, so pack accordingly.


Travelers at New York's JFK airport are experiencing a true luggage nightmare.

After an unexpectedly severe winter storm shut JFK down, the facility was overloaded and then hit by a water-main break at Terminal 4. As Business Insider's Mark Matousek reported, the situation is pretty grim for what could be submerged suitcases.

I've been flying for decades and have pretty much always been a check-my-bag traveler. This means that I've endured my share of lost luggage, and recently my wife actually had to wait several days while an airline tracked down a lost suitcase.

As you might expect, I have some tips.

1. Never pack in a checked bag something you can't say goodbye to forever.

Goes without saying, but bears repeating: Valuable items such as watches, jewelry, important prescription medications, and various electronic devices and cameras are all for your carry-ons. You might also want to think twice about the bespoke suits and costly footwear, as if your bag vanishes into the void, you can claim $3,500 for domestic and about $1,500 for international.

2. Pack some extra clothing items in your carry-on.

I don't do this, but it's not a bad idea (I figure I'll just buy some new stuff while I wait to learn the fate of my bag and later hit the airline up to pay for it). The obvious things are underwear, socks, and small articles of clothing that are easy to find space for.

3. Keep track of your baggage-claim information.

When you check in, you get the documentation. If I'm traveling internationally, I usually tuck it into my passport wallet. If I'm flying domestic, I'll keep it handy in a pocket. You'll need it later to locate your bag (although your bag's code is typically cross-referenced with your reservation data).

jfk airport

4. If your luggage doesn't turn up at baggage claim, contact the carrier immediately. 

You can also go to the baggage office at the airport for assistance. I once had a bag put on the wrong plane, but it wound up at the right destination, just a few hours ahead of me. It was waiting for me when I arrived.

5. It's the airline's responsibility to find your bag and get it to you.

At home, in another city, at a hotel — doesn't matter, when the carrier locates your luggage, it's up to them to deliver it to you. I even once had this done with a set of golf clubs, shipped to my office days after they went missing.

6. Don't worry about lost luggage all that much, and don't hang around the airport.

Easy come, easy go. If your bag is definitely lost, staying at the airport isn't going to get it found. Better to leave and trust in the system. 

plaza hotel new york

7. If your luggage is found but damaged, or if items in your bag are damaged or missing, contact your carrier right away.

Time is of the essence. 

8. Buy durable luggage.

Cheap, lightweight luggage might seem like a good idea, but it's better to go for sturdy bags or reasonable quality. This doesn't have to mean Tumi or Zero Halliburton — in fact, pricey bags can wind up being targets for thieves. I'm a fan of good old Samsonite. My father traveled constantly when I was a kid and favored American Tourister, which is now owned by Samsonite. 

9. Don't let lost luggage turn you off checking bags.

Even though checking bags can add cost, depending on the airline, I'm still a fan. It makes it much easier to board and deplane, speeds things up a security, and reduces the overall level of clutter in airports. Some folks swear by their stowable rollers, but I've often advocated to friends and colleagues the banishing of all large carry-ons. 

FOLLOW US: on Facebook for more car and transportation content!

SEE ALSO: These videos show just how nightmarish the luggage crisis at New York's JFK airport was

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Here's what happens to your luggage after your plane lands at the airport

7 things science says predict divorce

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it's complicated

No one can say with 100% certainty that a couple is heading for disaster.

But social scientists have gotten pretty good at predicting who's most likely to wind up there. These couples share certain commonalities — in the way they fight and the way they describe their relationship, but also in their education level and employment status.

Below, Business Insider has rounded up seven factors that predict divorce.

SEE ALSO: 13 facts about divorce every couple should know before getting married

Getting married in your teens or after age 32

The best time to get married is when you feel ready, and when you've found someone you think you can spend a lifetime with. Don't force anything — or put it off — because a study told you to do so.

That said, research does suggest that couples who marry in their teens and couples who marry in their mid-30s or later are at greater risk for divorce than couples in their late 20s and early 30s. The risk is especially high for teenage couples.

That's according to research led by Nicholas Wolfinger, a professor at the University of Utah. After age 32, Wolfinger found, your odds of divorce increase by about 5% every year.

As Wolfinger wrote in a blog post for the conservative-leaning Institute for Family Studies, "For almost everyone, the late twenties seems to be the best time to tie the knot."

Other research, published in 2015 in the journal Economic Inquiry, found that the odds of divorce among heterosexual couples increase with the age gap between spouses.

As Megan Garber reported at The Atlantic:

"A one-year discrepancy in a couple's ages, the study found, makes them 3% more likely to divorce (when compared to their same-aged counterparts); a 5-year difference, however, makes them 18% more likely to split up. And a 10-year difference makes them 39% more likely."



Having a husband who doesn't work full-time

A 2016 Harvard study, published in the American Sociological Review, suggests that it's not a couple's finances that affect their chances of divorce, but rather the division of labor.

When the researcher, Alexandra Killewald, looked at heterosexual marriages that began after 1975, she learned that couples in which the husband didn't have a full-time job had a 3.3% chance of divorcing the following year, compared to 2.5% among couples in which the husband did have a full-time job.

Wives' employment status, however, didn't much affect the couple's chances of divorce.

The researcher concludes that the male breadwinner stereotype is still very much alive, and can affect marital stability.



Not finishing high school

It doesn't seem fair that couples who spend more time in school are less likely to get divorced. But that's what the research suggests.

A post on the Bureau of Labor Statistics website highlights a result from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979), which looked at the marriage and divorce patterns of a group of young baby boomers. The post reads:

"The chance of a marriage ending in divorce was lower for people with more education, with over half of marriages of those who did not complete high school having ended in divorce compared with approximately 30 percent of marriages of college graduates."

It may have to do with the fact that lower educational attainment predicts lower income — which in turn predicts a more stressful life. As psychologist Eli Finkel previously told Business Insider:

"What I think is going on is it's really difficult to have a productive, happy marriage when your life circumstances are so stressful and when your day-to-day life involves, say three or four bus routes in order to get to your job."

 



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

A woman died after contracting flesh-eating bacteria from eating raw oysters — here's why a food poisoning expert avoids the food

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  • A woman has died after being infected by a flesh-eating bacteria in Louisiana.
  • She became ill after eating roughly two dozen raw oysters.
  • One food expert says that he has seen more foodborne illnesses linked to shellfish in the past five years than in the two previous decades.


A Texan woman has died after contracting a flesh-eating bacteria after eating raw oysters on a trip to the the Louisiana coast. 

Jeanette LeBlanc died after a three-week battle with vibriosis, an illness typically caused by eating raw seafood, CBS reported. 

After shucking and eating roughly two dozen raw oysters with her wife and a friend, LeBlanc began having respiratory distress and a rash, which she and her wife initially assumed were signs of an allergic reaction. But, when she went to the hospital, doctors said she had been infected by Vibrio bacteria. 

"It's a flesh-eating bacteria," her wife, Vicki Bergquist, told local news station KLFY. "She had severe wounds on her legs from that bacteria." 

The CDC estimates that vibriosis causes 80,000 illnesses each year in the US, most caused by consuming contaminated food. While most people recover from the infection, one variant — the Vibrio vulnificus infection — is often deadly. One in four infected people die, often within just a day or two of becoming ill. 

raw oysters

Food-poisoning experts have advised exercising caution while consuming raw oysters for years. 

"Oysters are filter feeders, so they pick up everything that's in the water," food-poisoning attorney Bill Marler told BottomLine. "If there's bacteria in the water it'll get into their system, and if you eat it you could have trouble."

Marler says that he has seen more foodborne illnesses linked to shellfish in the past five years than in the two previous decades.

The culprit: warming waters. As global waters heat up, they produce microbial growth, which ends up in the raw oysters consumers are slurping down.

SEE ALSO: Food-poisoning expert reveals 8 things he refuses to eat — including Silicon Valley's latest obsession

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14 photos that show the complicated relationship between the US presidents and the media

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The US president's relationship with the press has long been a complicated one, and it has varied from administration to administration. To name just a few examples, President Lyndon B. Johnson attempted to thwart certain stories from going to press, while President Gerald Ford was friendly with journalists and even invited some to White House state dinners. 

The Associated Press has been documenting the lives of presidents since the early 1930s, capturing candid moments of each commander-in-chief since President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  

From press briefings to interviews aboard Air Force One, here are 14 AP photos of presidents interacting with the press.

SEE ALSO: Here's the favorite drink of every US president

President Franklin D. Roosevelt would invite members of the press into the Oval Office for briefings twice a week.

Source: The New York Times



Press briefings don't come to a halt while the president is on vacation. Here, Harry S. Truman had the press visit his Winter White House in Key West, Florida.



It was President Dwight D. Eisenhower's press secretary, James Haggerty, that established some still-standing traditions between the president and the press, like regularly scheduled news conferences.

Source: The New York Times



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In-N-Out has added its first new menu item in 15 years — here's our review

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  • In-N-Out has added hot cocoa to the menu in at least some locations. 
  • This is the first new menu item that the chain has added in 15 years.
  • We gave it a try.

 

In-N-Out has added its first new menu item in more than a decade: hot cocoa.

Made with hot water and Ghirardelli chocolate and topped with (optional) marshmallows, the drink began cropping up on menus in late December. An eight-ounce cup costs $1.60.

The West Coast burger chain has a noticeably slimmer menu than McDonald's and Burger King, with few options beyond burgers, fries, and shakes. The chocolatey addition could be a hint that In-N-Out is more seriously considering expanding into chillier regions. In November, news broke that the chain will open a distribution center for operations in Colorado.

In-N-Out's hot cocoa isn't exactly new, but returning. It debuted on the menu in the 1950s, shortly after the first In-N-Out location opened outside West Covina, California, in 1948.

"I'm not sure how it fell off the menu but it's part of our culture and something special for kids, and I'm happy that we're bringing it back," In-N-Out President Lynsi Snyder told FOX11 LA.

She added, "For a certain generation, hot cocoa is an In-N-Out classic, and we hope it will be a favorite of a new generation. It's quality cocoa from Ghiradelli and yes, we serve it with marshmallows!"

I arrived at In-N-Out in Daly City, California, brimming with optimism. I ordered a burger, fries prepared "animal style" with cheese, special sauce, and onions, and a hot cocoa.

in n out hot burger

Behold, the only new item to make the In-N-Out menu in 15 years: hot cocoa.

in n out hot cocoa review 2863

My high hopes quickly subsided. I was not given the side of marshmallows that Snyder had promised. When I popped open the lid, I saw that the hot cocoa more closely resembled Swiss Miss, which comes in a packet, than thick, decadent hot chocolate.

in n out hot cocoa review 2864

The hot cocoa was served at just the right temperature — neither lukewarm nor scalding. And it was definitely chocolatey, but as I slurped back the nostalgic drink, it tasted thin and watery. 

in n out hot cocoa review 2861

The hot cocoa came as a disappointment from the home of the double-double — named the best burger in America by review site Ranker. And I'm not the only fan who thought so. 

People took to Twitter to share their (albeit mixed) reviews:

Some Twitter users were left pining for breakfast items to come to In-N-Out.

The hot cocoa at In-N-Out will be available year-round and is free for kids on rainy days.

SEE ALSO: In-N-Out's reclusive 34-year-old heiress reveals shocking details about her family and relationships

Join the conversation about this story »

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Everything we know about Recy Taylor, the sexual assault survivor who inspired Oprah's iconic Golden Globes speech

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Oprah Winfrey Recy Taylor

Oprah Winfrey's much-talked-about Golden Globes speech— which may or may not spark a 2020 bid for the White House— mentioned the story of Recy Taylor.

• Taylor was a young African American woman from Alabama who fought for justice after she was abducted, raped, and threatened by a group of white men in 1944.

• The rapists were never prosecuted, but her efforts helped to lay the groundwork for the monumental Montgomery bus boycott.



Oprah Winfrey's rousing speech didn't just prompt a standing ovation at the Golden Globes — it's got people talking about whether or not she'll make a run for the White House in 2020.

The media mogul focused on the importance of the #MeToo movement, heaped praise on the free press, and called on listeners to take steps to fight injustice.

She also took time to share the story of the late Recy Taylor.

Taylor was a young African American woman living in Alabama when she was abducted and raped by a group of white men in 1944. Her quest for justice proved to be a pivotal but often overlooked moment for the American civil rights movement.

"Recy Taylor died ten days ago, just shy of her 98th birthday," Winfrey said, during her speech. "She lived, as we all have lived, too many years in a culture broken by brutally powerful men. For too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dared speak their truth to the power of those men. But their time is up."

Here's a look at the story of the late Recy Taylor:

SEE ALSO: Oprah is 'actively' thinking about running for president after her rousing Golden Globes speech

Taylor was born in 1919 to a family of sharecroppers living in Abbeville, Alabama. The New York Times reported that she helped raise her six younger siblings after her mother died when she was 17.

Source: The New York Times



By September 1944, the 24-year-old was married to Willie Guy Taylor and had a baby daughter, Joyce Lee.

Source: The Washington Post



On the evening of September 3, Taylor was walking back from church with her friend Fannie Daniel and Daniel's son West, when they noticed a green Chevrolet pass by them several times.

Source: The Daily MailThe Washington Post, "At the Dark End of the Street: Black Women, Rape, and Resistance"



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

This stunning Japanese island you've probably never heard of is the top trending travel destination for 2018

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  • TripAdvisor has released its annual Travellers’ Choice awards for "Destinations on the Rise."
  • Japan's Ishigaki was crowned the top trending destination in the world for 2018.
  • The sandy white island is popular among snorkellers and foodies.


Ishigaki, a stunning white island in Japan's Okinawa archipelago, is the top trending travel destination for 2018 on TripAdvisor — but you'd be forgiven for never having heard of it.

The Japanese island has topped TripAdvisor's "Destinations on the Rise" list, which, as part of its sixth annual Travellers’ Choice awards, used an algorithm that measured the year-on-year increase in positive TripAdvisor traveller feadback around accommodation, restaurants, and attractions, as well as increased booking interest.

Ishigaki is the largest of the Yaeyama Islands in Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture and is home to many sandy white beaches, rare coral, mountains, and mangrove forests. 

It's a popular destination with snorkellers and foodies, and is known for its speciality Yaeyama soba noodles, which are made of flour instead of the more traditional buckwheat, according to TripAdvisor.

ishigaki 2 GettyImages 665884706

The average price for a night's stay in a hotel on the island is £114· One of TripAdvisor's best-rated value hotels is the Art Hotel Ishigaki, which costs from £87 per night in June.

Okinawa has been tipped as the new Bali or Hawaii, and international tourism is growing fast. Bloomberg previously reported that the number of visitors to Okinawa rose 10.5% to 8.77 million in 2016, according to Okinawa prefecture data. This compares to the 8.93 million visitors that went to Hawaii that year, representing an increase of 2.9% comparatively.

ishigaki GettyImages 681012932

Here are the top 10 "Destinations on the Rise" in 2018, according to TripAdvisor:

1. Ishigaki, Japan.

2. Kapaa, Hawaii.

3. Nairobi, Kenya.

4. Halifax, Canada.

5. Gdańsk, Poland.

6. San Jose, Costa Rica.

7. Riga, Latvia.

8. Rovinj, Croatia.

9. Nerja, Spain.

10. Casablanca, Morocco.

casablanca Mosquée Hassan II

SEE ALSO: The 23 best cities to move to if you're a broke millennial in search of an adventure in 2018

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This trichologist or 'hair doctor' says it’s a myth that over-washing your hair will damage it — here's why she's an advocate of daily shampooing

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Anabel Kingsley, Trichologist at Philip Kingsley, www.philipkingsley.co.uk   Professional shot high res (1) (1)

  • There are many myths out there about hair loss and what causes it.
  • Washing your hair too frequently is one of them, according to hair doctor Anabel Kingsley.
  • You should ideally wash your hair every day, and never leave more than three days in between shampooing, she says.

 

There are plenty of myths out there about how often you should wash your hair. One of those, according to trichologist Anabel Kingsley, is that washing your hair too often will damage it or cause it to fall out.  

Many people say that you should only wash your hair once or twice a week, and berate anyone who shampoos any more than that. Kim Kardashian once proudly claimed that she only washes her hair twice a week — but then not everyone is blessed with a Kardashian head of hair.

The common argument is that frequent shampooing will strip the hair of its natural oils and dry it out.

But Kingsley, daughter of the late "celebrity hair doctor" Philip Kingsley who has spent years studying the hair and scalp at their clinic, disagrees. 

Speaking from personal experience, Kingsley, who recently spoke out about suffering from hair loss following the death of her father, told Business Insider: "Shampooing can be really really upsetting for people suffering from hair thinning because when you massage the shampoo into your hair all of the hairs that were ready to fall come out at once instead of gradually."

But it's not falling in reaction to being washed too frequently, she said.

It's no different than your skincare regime

"You should think of washing your hair as a a skincare regime, after all your scalp is just skin," Kingsley told BI. "It has oil and sweat glands, and with all of the secretions being produced, added to pollution, you don't want it sitting on there for days."

Hair gets greasy for the same reason that your face gets oily: the glands in the skin produce a substance called sebum, which keeps hair from drying out.

The sebaceous glands that produce sebum sit next to the hair's roots in the layer of skin called the dermis. Channels from the sebaceous glands lead to the hair follicle — that's how sebum secretes onto your scalp. Take a look at this diagram.

"Ideally we say you should wash your hair everyday, and certainly if you have greasy hair," Kingsley said. "Every follicle has an oil gland attached to it and people with fine hair usually have more hairs on the scalp, therefore you'll find hair gets really quite greasy by the end of the day, and the only way to get rid of it is by shampooing.

"If you have really coarse hair and shampooing each day isn’t realistic because you need to use straighteners etc., then you should definitely not leave it more than three days in between."

Hair is tougher than you think

Hair specialists at The Belgravia Centre agree that anyone with greasy hair ought to wash their daily, and say that they usually advise their clients about hair washing on an individual basis, depending on their hair type.

Daiva Valioniene, a Belgravia nurse who specialises in hair loss, added: "If you have thinning hair, washing it more often would be a positive because it can look fuller once it is washed."

The hair shaft is also pretty resilient, according to Kurt Stenn, author of "Hair: A Human History," but the trick is to use a gentle shampoo.

He previously told Business Insider that the hair shaft is "a very tough structure and can handle a lot of trauma, [including] washing."

"In fact," he said, "gentle washing could be done several times a week or even every day if it’s gentle enough. If it’s harsh, then even once a week is going to be too much.

"You should use the most gentle shampoo possible because the hair shaft itself is not growing so it can’t repair itself and once you destroy a shaft it's destroyed."

Washing Hair on Beach

SEE ALSO: A trichologist or 'hair doctor' says the rise in veganism has caused an increase in cases of hair loss — this is her advice on how to prevent it

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Virgin Atlantic is offering a full refund on flights booked today if it can't cure a passenger's fear of flying

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  • Virgin Atlantic is offering a free place on its "Flying Without Fear" course for anyone who books a flight on January 9.
  • If the course fails to cure a passenger's phobia of flying, it will even offer a full refund on the flight.


Virgin Atlantic — one of the biggest airlines in the UK — is offering a full refund on flights booked today if it can't cure a passenger's fear of flying.

As part of the airline's "Screw it, let's do it" campaign, if you book a Virgin Atlantic flight on Tuesday, January 9, 2018, you'll then be able to book into the airline's £267 "Flying Without Fear" course completely free — and if it doesn't cure your phobia before you take off, the full cost of the flight will be refunded.

According to the airline, 3.8 million Brits decide not to travel overseas on holiday every year due to a phobia of flying.

The offer — in conjunction with Dr. Cliff Arnall, the founder of Blue Monday — is an effort to "encourage people to reject the idea of January blues and be more adventurous."

"We're offering aviophobes the chance to stop their phobia holding them back," the company wrote on its website.

Virgin Atlantic Airbus A330

The flight — which can be booked by any UK resident over 18 travelling to any Virgin Atlantic destination — must take place between March 4 and December 31, 2018, in order to be eligible.

Once you have your eticket, you simply need to email it to screwit@fly.virgin.com to be eligible for a free place on the one day course — one of which will take place at Leeds Bradford airport on February 4 for 10 people, with another on offer at London Gatwick for 40 people on March 4.

The "Flying Without Fear" programme, which began in November 1997, runs courses more than 20 times a year, claims to "free 3,000 people a year" from their fears, and is "packed full of information, techniques, and strategies" to "help you to learn new ways to think about flying."

However, the airline states: "If you can provide sufficient evidence that your fear of flying is not cured, we will provide a full refund for the flight purchased. This will be determined by our professionals who administer the Flying Without Fear programme."

Shai Weiss, Chief Commercial Officer at Virgin Atlantic, said in a press release: "We want everyone to be able to say 'screw it, let's do it' and try something different, fly somewhere new. Hopefully, by guaranteeing to cure people of one of the main things holding them back, we can inspire Britain to choose something more positive than the clichéd Blue January nonsense. Nothing should hold anyone back from seizing the day in 2018."

If it sounds like a pretty good gamble, you'd better be quick — only 50 free places on the course are available, and the contest closes at 11.59 p.m. tonight.

SEE ALSO: 4 things you need to know before you start collecting air miles — and exactly how to start

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NOW WATCH: Airline seats have shrunk as much as 4 inches over the years

British men spend nearly 15% more time relaxing than women

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retirement beach old people

  • Men have five more hours of "leisure time" per week than women each on average.
  • New statistics from the ONS shed light on the gap between men and women when it comes to free time.
  • The ONS also found that people between 25 and 34 take the least free time of all.


LONDON — British men average five more hours of "leisure time" per week than women, new data released by the Office for National Statistics this week shows.

The data, which looks at the year 2015, shows that adult men have around 43 hours leisure time per week on average, while women only have about 38 hours to themselves each week.

The disparity between men and women has increased since the year 2000, the ONS said. Back then, men had an average of 42 hours of free time, compared to an unchanged figure of 38 hours for women.

Here's the chart:Screen Shot 2018 01 09 at 10.15.07"Leisure time for women could be less than for men because although women are more frequently engaged in part-time work than men, they spend more time completing unpaid work such as household chores and childcare," the ONS said.

"The hours spent on unpaid work are likely to replace those hours that could have been spent on leisure activities."

Breaking down the statistics further the ONS found that people who live on their own without children take as much as 14-15 hours more leisure time than those with kids.

People aged from 25-34 took the least leisure time of all, clocking just 35 hours for men, and 32 for women, as the chart below illustrates: Screen Shot 2018 01 09 at 10.19.11 The ONS classes leisure time as any time spent on "socialising, cultural activities, resting and taking time out, sports or outdoor pursuits, hobbies, computing and games, mass media, eating out and travel associated with these leisure activities."

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NOW WATCH: We talked to Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman about tax reform, Trump, and bitcoin

How a City trader raised £8 million to open the world's first private members' wine club with 26,000 bottles in a Fort Knox-style cellar

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  • Grant Ashton is CEO and founder of 67 Pall Mall, which claims to be the world's first private members' club for wine lovers.
  • Previously a city trader for 30 years, Ashton opened the club after he managed to collect too much wine.
  • He raised £8 million from 87 investors to finance the project, which is aimed at making some of the world's rarest wines more affordable.
  • Now, the club has the most wines by the glass in the world and 2,750 members.


Grant Ashton had spent 30 years running trading floors in the City of London and Canary Wharf when he took a year off. It was hardly a holiday.

As well as starting a green gas business and taking Chartered Financial Analyst exams, he set out to solve a far less taxing issue: How to sell off the vast wine collection he had amassed.

"I started collecting, and like most collectors, you over-collect," Ashton told Business Insider.

This happy conundrum soon became a business plan when he fell in love with Sir Edwin Lutyens' Grade II-listed building, which had been empty for 15 years in central London. Fittingly, for a man who has worked at the likes of UBS and Barclays Capital, it was also once the west end branch of Hambros Bank.

Ashton has transformed it into setting for 67 Pall Mall, the world's first private members' club for wine lovers.

OUTSIDE OF PROPERTY

The 17,000 sq ft building now boasts 26,000 bottles of wine, and 12,000 hand-blown crystal glasses. It is home to 2,750 members, 18 sommeliers, the biggest wine list in the UK (4,000 wines), and 800 wines by the glass — the most in the world.

It was built with £8 million of finance — the "front to back cost of the club to date" — that Ashton personally raised from a now 87-strong list of investors.

As well as pulling this patchwork of investors together, he did the accounting, the legal work, and even cleaned the toilets. The club was a truly personal project.

"I started this club because I had too much wine, I wanted to share my wine with a bunch of my friends who had too much wine as well," Ashton said.

He and his investors realised that the world of wine had become far too expensive, meaning people who enjoy a glass of the good stuff often "downgrade" their choices. We've all had that moment when you settle for the cheapest bottle on the menu.

Ashton thinks his membership gets around this and opens up more expensive wines to people. "The key offering we have is our wine is very, very subsidised," he said.

"We can afford to show very, very good pricing relative to what things cost because it’s a membership club. People upgrade their choices. That’s what interests me in this — that’s kind of what got me involved."

And the demand since the club's launch in December 2015 suggests he hit upon something: 67 Pall Mall had 1,200 members before even opening its doors. It opened a second floor in October last year and started accepting new full members once again, with 2,750 now on its books.

The cost of membership is £1,500 a year, plus a £1,500 joining fee. Candidates require a proposer and seconder from within the club’s existing membership.

Overseen by Master Sommelier Ronan Sayburn, one of the cheapest bottles at 67 Pall Mall will set you back £40, while the most expensive can come in at an incredible £16,882. By the glass, the price range goes from £7 up to a whopping £667.

But of course it's not all about the wine.

On the first floor, the club boasts a Members' Lounge with an impressive-looking bar...

downstairs bar

...and a wine library.

WINE ROOM DOWNSTAIRS

A relaxed mezzanine leads to the second floor...

mezzanine books

...where you'll find the Club Room...

UPSTAIRS CHILL AREA

...which contains another bar and a coal fire, one of Ashton's favourite features.

UPSTAIRS BAR

There's also the 'Naughty Corner,' where members can find spirits should they tire of the vino.

GIN BAR   UPSTAIRS

Perhaps the coolest feature of the club is the Members’ Reserve facility, which allows members to store wine from their own collection in the club’s cellars, or the Chatwood "Invincible" Strongroom.

The room, a secure facility built for Hambros Bank in 1934 where the club also stores its finest and rarest wines, is a space that's like "something out of Goldfinger or Fort Knox," according to Ashton. It currently houses 26,000 bottles of wine and counting.

"Part of the proposition of the club is, if you have bottles of wine stored downstairs, you can sit here and say 'I’d like my bottle of Dom Perignon '02 please,' and they’ll go downstairs and grab your bottle from your box," Ashton said.

Members can even order the wine from an iPad, where they can view what they have in the downstairs collection, click on it, and order it to their table.

"You pay £20 corkage and you drink your own wine," he said. "Ours is very well priced, but... a lot of people store their own wine here because they have an emotional attachment."

And the vino stays fresh thanks tothe Coravin wine access system, which allows bottles to be accessed and resealed without ever taking the cork out.

coravin machine.JPG

It pushes a needle through the cork, injects argon gas, then takes the out needle of the cork, allowing it to reseal.

"That allows us to have a huge list of wine, some of which have been open for 18 months," Ashton said. "It allows us to have 800 wines by the glass, and they don’t spoil, because you never take the cork out."

Demystifying the "dusty wine list"

And if members are daunted by the wine list, the sommeliers are on hand to help.

"They’ll find something amazing. They’ll bring me something I wouldn’t normally order," Ashton said. "Part of what we do is demystifying the huge dusty old list of wine. People get really intimidated by page after page."

And there's food to discover, too.

Head Chef Marcus Verberne — formerly of the likes of Caprice, The Ivy, and HIX — serves up a breakfast menu (a highlight is the 'Summer bubble 'n' squeak with fried duck’s egg & girolles'); a grazing menu, featuring oysters and charcuterie; and a more formal European a la carte menu in the first floor dining room, shown below.

dining area downstairs

"I suspect we’ll do some more dining," Ashton said, explaining that the club owns another floor in the building currently being used as office space. "Over time we'll find somewhere else for our offices to be and move up there and do something more as well," he said. "But give me a couple of years, I’m a bit tired."

So who are 67 Pall Mall's members?

"Anyone who loves wine is who’s here," Ashton said. "Anyone from a chateau owner, a lot of winemakers, wine trade, wine journalists...a lot of wine professionals are members.

"The rest are wine lovers, not people who have got huge collections or who have the most amazing knowledge — we’ve got those as well — but people who are interested in wine, interested in a nice social mix."

He added that 67 Pall Mall is a "non-fussy, nice, simple, ordinary, social club" where there's no formal dress code and members often wear jeans.

"This is not a sort of 'look at me' club, we’re not really that, we’re all about being a nice, gentle social club that’s fun. There’s always a glass of wine nearby. The ethos of it is very relaxed.

He added: "The nature of this is it’s not grown out of some hospitality group somewhere. It’s kind of authentic, it comes from the heart — a bunch of wine lovers. If you put a load of wine on a nice list, price it well, fill it full of nice people, not idiotic people who are just interested in the price, you’ll have a nice place."

members in club room.JPG

Working with wine

67 Pall Mall is also attracting an influx of young entrepreneurs in the city who can "sit down at 7 in the morning and get up again at 12.30 [at night] having sat here all day working, talking, drinking," Ashton said.

"If I as a 25-year-old a very long time ago thought, 'I’m going to open a wine club and raise millions of pounds,' they would have looked at me and said 'Don’t be silly, come back when you’re 40," he added.

"Now, we have an awful lot of entrepreneurs who are members here. They like wine, but they also quite like the nice, social club that’s a bit 'grown up' but not stuffy.

"Sitting around a boardroom table or conference room isn’t what people do as much anymore… they want to sit here, be social, in a relaxed setting that isn’t Starbucks or Costa coffee."

He said the club allows guests to use cell phones "if they do it discretely," and they can work on their laptops during the day. "But at 6 o'clock, but the laptop away — nobody needs to work after 6," he said. "That’s the nature of this club."

The club is currently made up of 70% men, something that Ashton is keen to change, partly through the decor done by renowned design studio Russell Sage.

"Getting the right kind of gender balance in this place is really important," he said. "We have a big push to get to 40% ladies, ideally 50/50."

While Ashton calls the downstairs floor "amazing, beautiful" with 80-year-old panelling, the goal of the second floor was to be "slightly younger, slightly cosier, slightly more feminine."

grant   ali image main.JPG

All in all, it's easy to understand why Ashton is there "too much," as he says.

"I love it, don’t get me wrong," he said. "I’d never go back to trading bonds for a living. I spent 25 years sitting behind a computer screen in the city. This is much more fun."

The wine way of life

Despite his love of the club, Ashton said "there would have been a lot easier things to do" than open 67 Pall Mall.

"It’s cost a lot of time, a lot of cups of tea with people explaining what we were going to do, getting everybody comfortable with what we do — getting the planning, getting the licensing, getting the investors together," Ashton said.

"I have swept floors in this place, I have literally cleaned the loos. I also raised the £8 million it took to do. I originally did all of the accounting, all of the fundraising, all of the legals, every single thing."

Still, he said it beats working for a living.

"That’s what I’ve learned from 25-30 years sitting behind a Bloomberg screen. Getting out in the world, meeting new people rather than just being on the phone all the time to people, it’s very good fun. The City had some amazing years, but it’s a lot tougher to work there than it used to be, and this is a lot more fun."

We can raise glass to that.

SEE ALSO: 21 of London's most exclusive private members' clubs, ranked by price

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Taking a lot of ibuprofen could be putting men's fertility at risk, according to a new study

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  • Men who take ibuprofen for long periods of time could be putting their fertility at risk.
  • According to a new study, prolonged use may decrease the testes' ability to produce testosterone.
  • This could result in a condition only usually seen in smokers and older people.


If you have a headache, it's likely you'll find a painkiller like paracetamol or ibuprofen in the cupboard. These pills are such a normal part of our lives, we barely think about popping a couple to soothe our ailments.

However, in recent years, ibuprofen in particular has been linked to an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes, meaning we should be more cautious when taking anti-inflammatory drugs.

According to a new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), men who take ibuprofen for months at a time could also be putting their fertility at risk.

Researchers recruited 31 healthy young men (18 to 35 years old) to take part in the study. They looked at the impact of ibuprofen on their health over six weeks, by performing tests on cells and tissue samples.

After six weeks, the men who took ibuprofen had disrupted production of their male sex hormones, which led to a condition called "compensated hypogonadism."

The condition is normally seen in older men and smokers, and is caused by the body having to boost testosterone levels because normal production in the testes is insufficient. Tests showed their testosterone levels hadn't changed, although the testes weren't producing adequate levels. This is because the pituitary gland — the region of the brain associated with producing — had ramped up testosterone production.

Compensated hypogonadism can lead to fertility issues, muscle wastage, and erectile dysfunction. Luckily, in the test subjects the condition was mild, but the researchers said people should be concerned if they use anti-inflammatory drugs regularly over long periods of time.

"If you go on and stress the pituitary gland over the long term, this state could become permanent and you develop a more serious condition," said David Møbjerg Kristensen, lead author of the study from the University of Copenhagen, according to the Guardian.

Based on the results, researchers don't recommend taking ibuprofen for longer than the 10 days it says on the packet. There's nothing to suggest taking anti-inflammitories occasionally at the recommended dose will cause you harm, as long as you aren't pregnant, but next time you reach for the medicine cupboard, it's worth keeping the risks in mind.

SEE ALSO: New health advice says men and women should only eat 1,800 calories a day — here's the idea behind it

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Meghan Markle had a surprisingly relatable life before becoming the world's most famous royal to-be

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Prince Harry Meghan Markle engagement photos

  • Prince Harry's fiancée Meghan Markle is an actress on the television drama "Suits," which films in Toronto, Canada.
  • Markle may be a millionaire and soon-to-be royal, but she doesn't live a lavish lifestyle.
  • Markle previously rented a modest home and car in Toronto, and favors affordable fashion brands.

 

Prince Harry's fiancée Meghan Markle isn't a commoner — but she's not yet royalty either.

Sure, the 36-year-old actress and Los Angeles native was earning close to half a million dollars a year starring in the USA Network drama "Suits," but she didn't live in the lap of luxury.

Up until her recent engagement to Prince Harry, Markle rented a three-bedroom bungalow in Toronto, Canada, and leased an Audi SUV. And before she landed the role on "Suits," she was juggling a few side hustles to make ends meet.

Below, take a peek inside the surprisingly relatable life of Meghan Markle:

SEE ALSO: Working for Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace may sound like a dream to some, but the pay is less than you think

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With an estimated net worth of $5 million, she's rich — but she doesn't act like it.

Markle has starred on the television drama "Suits" since 2011 and earns about $50,000 per episode, according to knownetworth.com and Town & Country Magazine.

But the actress also makes around $80,000 a year from sponsorships and endorsement deals, bringing her annual salary to about $450,000. Celebritynetworth.com estimates Markle is worth $5 million.



Markle rented out a bungalow in Toronto — where a 3-bedroom goes for $1,770 a month on average — for part of the year while filming 'Suits.'

"Suits" shoots eight months out of the year in Toronto. During production, Markle rented out a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home with a private backyard garden in the Seaton Village of Toronto.

Back in 2013, the self-proclaimed "California girl" told Esquire, "I am an adopted Canuck now."

According to Numbeo, the cost of a three-bedroom rental in Toronto, outside the city center, is $1,770 a month, but it's unknown exactly how much Markle was paying. 

The couple who owned the home bought it for $508,000 a decade ago, and recently sold it for nearly $1.4 million after Markle moved out.



While she was auditioning for acting roles before landing 'Suits,' Markle maintained a 'super-lucrative' side job writing calligraphy invitations, she told Esquire.

"I've always had a propensity for getting the cursive down pretty well," Markle told Esquire. "What it evolved into was my pseudo-waitressing job when I was auditioning. I didn't wait tables. I did calligraphy for the invitations for, like, Robin Thicke and Paula Patton's wedding."

Pre "Suits," Markle also worked as a briefcase holder on "Deal or No Deal," which she calls a "learning experience ... [that] helped me to understand what I would rather be doing." 



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Instagram is a narcissist's dream — here are 7 signs you've found one

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According to a recent study, narcissists tend to follow other narcissists on Instagram.

Generally, says the study, which will be published in a forthcoming issue of the journal Computers in Human Behavior, we see Instagram users who post selfies and "groupies" as more narcissistic than people who post photos taken by others. But when certain types of narcissists see selfies and groupies, they evaluate the posters in a more positive light.

That's just one of a series of habits scientists have documented among narcissistic Instagram users in the last few years. Below, we've rounded up some of those key behaviors.

SEE ALSO: 5 ways narcissism makes people stronger, smarter, and more successful

'Grandiose' narcissists post photos of their progress toward health and fitness goals

A 2016 study published in the journal Social Networking recruited Instagram users under age 26 and had them complete the Five Factor Narcissism Inventory.

Results showed that "grandiose" narcissists — who are typically extroverted and attention-seeking — are more likely to post photos emphasizing their physical appearance. Specifically, they post photos highlighting their progress toward health and fitness goals.



'Vulnerable' narcissists request followers

That same 2016 study found "vulnerable" narcissists — who are typically more introverted and hypersensitive — are more likely than others to request followers on Instagram. For example, they might post "#followforfollow."



Narcissists use Instagram to look cool

Narcissists use Instagram primarily to look cool. That's according to a 2016 study published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior. For the study, 239 undergrads who were active Instagram were measured on the Hypersensitive Narcissism Scale and asked about their motivations for using Instagram.

The authors write: "Narcissists can post and manipulate specific photos to make themselves and their lives appear to be a certain way. Instagram appeals to narcissists, because many interactions on it are 'surfacy' or 'shallow.'"



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

A pizza chain created by a former Starbucks exec just raised another $73 million — here's why it should terrify Domino's and Papa John's

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  • Fast-casual chain MOD Pizza raised another $73 million, bringing its total equity capital raised to more than $180 million. 
  • The chain now has 302 locations, opening roughly 100 stores in the last year alone. 
  • Here's what it's like to visit.

 

MOD Pizza has raised another $73 million, bringing the fast-casual pizza chain's equity capital raised to more than $185 million. 

"We're going to continue to grow at the rate we have been growing — which is really fast," CEO and co-founder Scott Svenson told Business Insider on Tuesday. 

MOD Pizza is one of the fastest-growing chains in the industry, opening 110 locations in 2017. The fast-casual pizza chain now has 302 locations, more than doubling its size over the last two years. 

"It's been fun and exhilarating, but wild is a good way of describing it," Svenson said. According to the CEO, MOD Pizza plans to continue to open roughly 100 stores a year.

In the most recent round of funding, the fast-casual pizza chain raised $33 million from existing investors, including PWP Growth Equity and Fidelity Management & Research Company. The company also closed on a $40 million credit facility. 

Business Insider's Melia Robinson recently visited a MOD Pizza in Daly City, California. Here's why she believes traditional pizza delivery chains should be terrified:

SEE ALSO: This fast-casual pizza CEO says the industry's 'crazy over-hyped phase' is over — and now he's taking on Chipotle and Domino's

Svenson — who has food industry experience as a former Starbucks executive — and his wife, Ally, co-founded MOD Pizza in 2008.



The chain draws inspiration from fast-casual king Chipotle with its assembly line. Customers can choose from a selection of toppings in front of them.

The menu also features nine "classics," or signature pizzas, from a classic cheese to the Dillon James, which features mozzarella, asiago, chopped basil, garlic, and sliced tomatoes.



Employees, called "the MOD squad," slice and prep ingredients daily to ensure freshness.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

The best photo from every single year since Kate Middleton met Prince William

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Not only has the world grown to love the Duchess of Cambridge ever since she started dating — and eventually married and had children with — Prince William, but we've watched her grow up, too.

From university nights out to royal engagements to children, the Duchess of Cambridge has been a national sweetheart since the first day she graced our tabloids as the potential girlfriend of young Prince Wills.

To celebrate her 36th birthday, Business Insider has compiled the best photo from every year of her incredible life since she first met Prince William at St Andrew's University back in 2002.

Scroll on for a snapshot of every year since she entered the public spotlight, including everything from her wild university days to her third royal pregnancy announcement.

SEE ALSO: The most iconic image from 26 royal weddings throughout modern British history

March 26, 2002: Middleton walked in the annual St Andrews Charity Fashion Show during her first year of university wearing a see-through dress, pictured below. Prince William and Middleton established a friendship early on in their first semester of university and later moved in together with two other friends in their second year.

Source: The Guardian.



2003: Prince William and Middleton maintained a close relationship during their second and third years of university. Around Christmastime in 2003, during their third year, it's believed that the pair started dating following Middleton's split from her former boyfriend — also at St Andrew's.

Source: The Guardian.



2004: While the couple's relationship was kept under-the-radar during their time spent at university (pictured), their relationship was exposed after the pair were seen skiing together on holiday with Prince Charles and Prince Harry in Klosters, Switzerland.



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