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The 24-year-old daughter of tech billionaire Michael Dell shares what ‘growing up Dell’ taught her about life and business

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alexa dell daughter michael dell instagram

  • Alexa Dell, 24, is the daughter of billionaire founder Michael Dell.
  • Growing up, she had a "front seat to the master class" on building world-changing technologies, led by her father, Dell told Business Insider.
  • Dell said her father taught her to explore lots of interests and find her passion, work hard, and exercise to become happier and more productive.

 

As the daughter of a computer industry pioneer, Alexa Dell, the 24-year-old daughter of Michael Dell, didn't assume she would someday work in tech.

Looking back, her journey into the app space seems kind of inevitable.

Alexa Dell said she grew up "having a front seat to the master class" led by her father in the '90s. She was inspired by the work her father and "for a lack of a better word, his friends" did in making the world more connected through personal computers and the internet.

"The idea that if we can make the world a smaller place with technology, we can really exponentially expand the boundaries of innovation and what's possible within the world," Dell said. "That movement was incredibly intriguing to me, and I wanted to be part of that."

In 2013, Dell dropped out of Columbia University to pursue a career in tech. She now runs a business consulting firm and works as an adviser to dating app company Bumble.

Business Insider recently caught up with Dell at the SXSW film festival and tech conference in her hometown of Austin, Texas, to hear her life lessons from growing up as a Dell.

It's OK to have lots of interests

Dell had no shortage of interests growing up, including photography, fashion, tech, and editorial. Her parents, Michael and Susan, encouraged Dell and her three siblings to explore their interests and find what fires them up.

As a high school student, Dell spent her summers in New York City working at fashion houses.

Pit stop in NYC before Italia 🍋

A post shared by Alexa Dell (@alexakdell) on Aug 26, 2017 at 11:22am PDT on

In 2013, Dell left college to work at a dating app company that she declines to name. The experience offered a glimpse into life at a startup, where she said a person's good ideas mattered more than their age, status, or gender. Startups wanted to affect change quickly.

"I could much faster and much more efficiently present and execute on my ideas," Dell said, adding: "I knew the space would be best-fitting for the change I wanted to have."

'Hard work is the foundation of success'

Dell said there never was a "bring your daughter to work day" at her father's company, but as a child, she often visited the headquarters in Red Rock, Texas, near her childhood home.

She watched him build a multinational corporation out of a startup that was once based in Michael Dell's freshman year dorm room. While studying at University of Texas at Austin, Michael launched the company formerly known as PC's Limited with a $1,000 family loan.

"The advice that he's given me is that hard work is really the foundation of success," Dell said.

An active lifestyle makes for a happier work-life

Alexa Dell's Instagram has a rare few family photos. In a post captioned "Squad goals," Dell poses atop Grand Canyon National Park with her parents dressed in athletic wear.

"Both my parents are very active," Dell said.

Scooby’s 1st hike

A post shared by Alexa Dell (@alexakdell) on Nov 11, 2017 at 10:38am PST on

She learned from her parents that a healthy lifestyle can lead to increased productivity at work. Dell's home office has a treadmill desk where she prefers to take conference calls.

"It's great because your blood is circulating and you can think better, you can think more clearly," Dell said. "That's something I kind of learned from them."

SEE ALSO: Alexa Dell left social media after exposing her family to security risks — here's her advice for teens on apps

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Dell's CMO says this is the biggest mistake marketers make


The 25 best places to travel in the US this year, according to TripAdvisor reviews

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Molokini crater maui

  • TripAdvisor compiled data for its annual Travelers' Choice Awards to find the best places to travel in 2018.
  • The site factored in reviews for attractions, restaurants, and hotels.
  • The best place to travel in America is New York City, followed by Maui and Las Vegas.

 

Travel site TripAdvisor recently announced the winners of its annual Travelers' Choice Awards, honoring the travel destinations that are at the top of everybody's must-see list.

We've already taken a look at the best international cities to travel to this year, so it's time to see which American cities deserve a visit.

TripAdvisor chose the winners based on an algorithm factoring in reviews for attractions, restaurants, and hotels, as well as traveler booking interest within a 12-month period.

The list of winners for American destinations contains familiar favorites such as Los Angeles, Seattle, and New Orleans, as well as some unexpected gems. Florida, California, and Hawaii each have three entries on the list. If you're traveling on a budget, August is the month you are most likely to save money on booking, with six destinations offering their best prices in the last full month of summer. 

Below are the 25 highest-rated US cities, as well as the average hotel price and cheapest month to travel for each destination. Take a look to see where your next vacation should be:

SEE ALSO: 13 of the best places to visit if you're planning a vacation in April

DON'T MISS: The 25 best places everyone should visit this year, according to travelers who have been there

25. San Antonio, Texas

Average annual hotel rate: $143 per night

Least expensive month to go: May (6% savings, compared to annual average)



24. Austin, Texas

Average annual hotel rate: $206 per night

Least expensive month to go: July (9% savings, compared to annual average)



23. Sedona, Arizona

Average annual hotel rate: $241 per night

Least expensive month to go: July (5% savings, compared to annual average)



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

'Pacific Rim Uprising' beats 'Black Panther' to win the weekend box-office, but delivers a weak punch domestically (CMCSA)

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pacific rim uprising 1 Universal Legendary

  • "Pacific Rim Uprising" wins the domestic box office with a less-than-stellar estimated $28 million.
  • But the movie is flexing its robotic muscles overseas, especially in China.
  • "Black Panther" is now the highest-grossing superhero movie of all time domestically.

"Black Panther" has finally been taken down from the top of the box office after five weeks straight atop it. But sadly for the industry, it doesn't seems like a powerhouse is taking its place.

Universal/Legendary Picture's "Pacific Rim Uprising," the sequel to the 2013 original — which follows the battle between human-built giant robots against huge sea monsters — scored an estimated $28 million on over 3,700 screens to win the domestic box office, according to Variety.

That's less than the original movie's opening ($37.2 million) and drastically under the $155 million budget of "Uprising." But like most blockbusters these days, Hollywood is less interested in the domestic and more interested in the international performance.

In that regard, "Uprising" has a better outlook. Playing in 62 markets outside of North America, the title is looking to have a $146 million worldwide opening weekend, with a hefty $65 million coming from China. That's on par with what the opening of "Black Panther" had there.

Speaking of the Marvel sensation, "Black Panther" steps down from one throne to sit on another.

With a $16.6 million weekend, its domestic total is now over $630 million, which adds to its all-time total as the top superhero movie of all time. On Saturday, "Black Panther" passed "The Avengers" to be the top movie all-time in the genre (not counting inflation).

And the movie pulled it off in just 36 days in theaters.

SEE ALSO: The fired directors of "Solo: A Star Wars Story" reveal the credit they will be taking on the movie

DON'T MISS: 'Black Panther' is now the highest domestic grossing superhero movie of all-time — and it did it in just 36 days

Join the conversation about this story »

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How 'Isle of Dogs' stacks up against Wes Anderson's 8 other movies

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Wes Anderson Michael Loccisano Getty

For over 20 years, the director Wes Anderson has given us some of the most interesting movies the medium has seen — often doing it with beautifully detailed set designs, playful scores, and scripts that dance between drama and comedy.

Recently Anderson has used stop-motion animation to pull this off. Almost a decade after wowing us with "Fantastic Mr. Fox," he returns to stop-motion with his latest movie, "Isle of Dogs" (opening Friday). This movie follows a Japanese boy's journey to find his dog, with the help of other dogs.

Here we look at Anderson's nine feature-length movies and rank them worst to best:

SEE ALSO: 9 characters who could die in "Avengers: Infinity War," ranked by how likely they are to meet their end

9: "The Darjeeling Limited" (2007)

Family has always been a major theme in Anderson's movies, and this one is no different. But things like story creativity, unique production design, and character development that make his other work shine don't land right in this one. Mainly the characters. There's a certain point in this movie when you just don't care anymore about the three brothers' (played by Adrien Brody, Owen Wilson, and Jason Schwartzman) bonding journey through India.



8: "Bottle Rocket" (1996)

Anderson's debut feature is understandably his least ambitious work, but the drive to be one of the most creative storytellers working today is there. You can see it in the entertaining dynamic between the friends Anthony and Dignan (played by the brothers Luke and Owen Wilson) and in the execution of the movie's great robbery scene.



7: "The Royal Tenenbaums" (2001)

Anderson kicked up his ambitious vision with regard to costumes and production design in this movie and has pretty much not looked back since. Looking at three gifted kids of a New York City family, and how they all grow up to have lives that never match their potential, the movie is a work that if you don't fully love, at the very least you respect. It also possesses Gene Hackman's last great performance before his retirement.



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We put a $43,500 Chevy Colorado ZR2 and a $38,000 Toyota Tacoma TRD Sport up against each other — here's the verdict (GM)

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Toyota Tacoma TRD Sport

  • Both the Toyota Tacoma TRD Sport and the Chevy Colorado ZR2 are aimed at people who want to go off-road in their pickups.
  • We sampled these midsize off-road warriors back-to-back.
  • The Chevy Colorado ZR2 is a nicer truck. The Toyota TRD Sport is very capable, though less refined.

Chevy is credited with single-handedly reviving the compact-pickup-truck segment in the US, but the truth is that Toyota has long ruled it with its Tacoma. It was just that the "Taco" stood more or less alone, with only the Nissan Frontier to challenge it in the entry-level-pickup space.

The Chevy Colorado arrived in 2014 to crash the party. By rights, this segment isn't the same as it was back in the day when the Chevy S-10 and the Ford Ranger were in the game. These new pickups are midsize, sitting a notch below the big stuff — Chevy's Silverado and Toyota's Tundra, for example.

I recently had a chance to check out the off-road, high-performance version of the Chevy Colorado, the ZR2. Soon after, I borrowed the Tacoma TRD Sport, the competition from Toyota.

OK, I didn't go rock busting or explore a desert. But I did tool around in both trucks on the daunting winter roads of suburban New Jersey.

Here's what I thought.

Editorial note: I heard from a number of readers about this comparison. Many asked why I hadn't put the ZR2 up against a TRD Pro. The answer is that that the TRD Pro wasn't available, and in any case, the TRD Sport stacked up pretty well. But I'll be testing the TRD Pro in April, so look forward to a rematch.

SEE ALSO: We drove a $63,000 Ford Raptor and a $58,000 Chevy Silverado Z71 to see which pickup truck we liked better — here's the verdict

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Let's start with the fetching 2018 Colorado ZR2, in "Cajun red tintcoat."

Our test truck was $43,475 — the Colorado ZR2 is already a lot pricier than the $20,000 basic Colorado, but our tester came well-optioned out of the box before a few extras added about $700.



Our ZR2 came with a crew cab and a "short box" bed. Some folks don't much like short boxes, but I think that for most owners it's ideal.



The Colorado ZR2 kind of blends aggression with sporty sleekness. But I don't think the various fascia elements — grille, badge, headlights — are in good balance.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

2 under-the-radar members of the Trump family are quietly speaking out in support of gun control

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Tiffany Trump

  • Members of President Donald Trump's extended family are coming out in support of March for Our Lives, and breaking with him on gun control policy.
  • White House senior adviser Jared Kushner's brother, Joshua Kushner, attended the rally, and Trump's daughter Tiffany Trump liked photos of the marches on Instagram.
  • Trump, while initially pledging to take on the National Rifle Association, has backed down from his tough rhetoric in recent weeks.

It looks like two under-the-radar members of President Donald Trump's extended family are quietly pushing for gun control.

The brother of Trump's son-in-law and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, Joshua Kushner, attended the March for our Lives rally in Washington, DC on Saturday. He posted a photo of himself with his girlfriend, model Karlie Kloss, and another of her holding a sign that read "Load minds not guns" on his Instagram.

Stories_•_Instagram"Schools Not Warzones" the sign he held read. Another image on his Instagram said "#IWillMarch."

Tiffany Trump, the president's youngest daughter, liked that post.

The 24-year-old also liked an Instagram album of the rally that included a man holidng a sign that read "Next massacre will be the GOP in the midterm elections."

The younger Trump has largely stayed out of the public eye — unlike her older sister, White House adviser Ivanka Trump, who keeps a highly visible profile.

Tiffany Trump was the president's only child with his second wife, Marla Maples, whom he divorced before marrying first lady Melania Trump in 2005.

The president, meanwhile, has endorsed arming teachers in schools, and has stood by the National Rifle Association and their anti-gun control policy proposals on numerous occasions.

He does support background checks on gun buyers, and his administration has recently banned bump stocks, attachable add-ons for rifles that increase their fire rate.

During the rallies on Saturday, which brought hundreds of thousands of demonstrators to the White House, Trump was at his private Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida. He hasn't personally made a statement about the nationwide protests.

Deputy White House press secretary Lindsay Walters released a statement on Saturday.

"We applaud the many courageous young Americans exercising their First Amendment rights today," she said. "Keeping our children safe is a top priority of the President's, which is why he urged Congress to pass the Fix NICS and STOP School Violence Acts, and signed them into law."

The younger Kushner was also spotted at the Women's March in January 2017, where he told marchers he was there "observing," the Washingtonian reported.

joshua kushner womens marchThe Kushner family has a history of support for the Democratic Party, and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon reportedly referred to Kushner and his Ivanka as the "Democrats" in an effort to degrade them.

Although Trump has vacillated on his position on gun control, he has frequently drawn the ire of both supporters and opponents of gun laws.

At a meeting with senators late last month, Trump accused Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of being "afraid of the NRA." But the president then subsequently abandoned his efforts to the oppose the group in pursuing tougher gun control measures like raising the age at which Americans could purchase guns.

Many students at the rallies called Trump out personally on Saturday, in signs and in speeches.

Here are Kushner's Instagram posts:

#marchforourlives

A post shared by Joshua Kushner (@joshuakushner) on Mar 25, 2018 at 9:04am PDT on

#iwillmarch

A post shared by Joshua Kushner (@joshuakushner) on Mar 23, 2018 at 3:42pm PDT on

SEE ALSO: 17 inspiring and witty signs from the global 'March For Our Lives' protests for gun reform

DON'T MISS: 'ENOUGH IS ENOUGH': Hundreds of thousands descend on Washington and across the US for the 'March for Our Lives' rally against gun violence

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Harvard professor Steven Pinker explains the disturbing truth behind Trump's 2 favorite phrases

Fender has unveiled a lineup of acoustic guitars that electric players will love

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Fender California Series

  • Fender recently launched a new range of extroverted acoustic guitars.
  • Lately, the company has been rolling out new products in areas where it traditionally hasn't competed strongly.
  • I checked out the range at an event in New York.

Fender is arguably the most successful electric-guitar brand on the planet. Its Stratocaster and Telecaster designs have been played by everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Lucinda Williams, in every imaginable musical genre. Much of the time, those guitars are plugged into Fender amplifiers.

CEO Andy Mooney told me that when he first got the job and went out the festival circuit to see how many acts were using Fender gear, it was something like 80%.

So Fender, a company started in 1946, does electric. But as Mooney also pointed out to me, there's been notable growth in acoustic-guitar sales of late, driven mainly by women taking up the instrument, inspired by artists such as Taylor Swift.

Fender hasn't traditionally been strong on the unplugged side. That's been the realm of competitors such as Gibson, Taylor, and especially Martin, a 185-year-old Pennsylvania company that makes the acoustics that pretty much every musician who pays attention wants to own.

Under Mooney — who took over as CEO at Fender in 2015, after working at Nike and Disney — Fender is in the midst of a serious product rollout. In 2017, it introduced Fender Play, an online learning system.

Earlier this year, the company debuted a new line of effects pedals for electric players (another category where Fender has spent much time competing in the past), and this month, the company officially unveiled a new lineup of acoustic guitars.

Enter the California Series

Fender California Series New

Called the "California Series," they aren't going to be for everybody. The quick take here is that these are acoustics for electric players — and very much intended to deliver a visual punch when played live.

The colors are bold, and while the designs of the guitars' bodies aren't radical, the necks are a bit of a departure and the headstocks could have been taken from a Stratocaster. (Fender has done this before — and there's currently one acoustic, the Sonoran, in its range that evokes the look of the company's electrics.)

Fender held an event in New York to introduce the lineup, and I attended and got to sample a few of the new guitars. These are China-made instruments, but the quality is quite good (as it is for Fender's more traditional Paramount lineup of acoustics, which I've also fiddled with) and there's no questioning how much fun it is to get your hands on such expressive axes.

But really, what you notice right away, either grabbing basic chords or working single-note riffs and passages over the neck, is how quick these guitars play.

This is due to what Fender calls a "slim-taper" C-shaped neck, made from mahogany and borrowed from the company's electric lineup. I'm no shredder, but what quick playing I can do was speed up considerably when I sat down with a $700 matte-black Redondo Special, one of the large dreadnought-style guitars in the range.

Chords sound rich, but there's also something about the general vibe of the California Series that makes you want to pick out notes and strum hard and overdrive the tone. That said, the guitars seem versatile and dynamic, and what little fingerstyle playing I did came off nicely.

Aimed at younger players

Fender California Series

Fender appears to be pitching the lineup at younger players who might not aspire to sitting alone on a stool at a coffeeshop on an open-mic night, plucking out gentle ballads.

The best word to describe the California Series could be "extroverted." At the event, Fender convened a panel to discuss the state of the guitar, moderated by Matt Sweeney (he of the recent Iggy Pop-Josh Homme band and YouTube's delightful "Guitar Moves" fame) with Mooney, several music writers and executives, and artist-producer Doc Mckinney alongside Gina Gleason, who plays lead guitar for the band Baroness.

The discussion highlighted a relatively new trend, in an effort to explore the ongoing relevance of acoustic guitars: performers who wouldn't normally be associated with guitars potentially bringing them onstage. The fascination of rap and hip-hop artists with 1990s alternative guitar-based music was a prime example. The upshot is that it can be good to have a guitar in your hands that doesn't look like it aspires to be Willie Nelson's legendary Trigger or Father John Misty's Martin D-28.

Before you say this isn't about serious music, consider that flashy acoustics are nothing new.

For every old-school Spanish shape in a basic natural finish, there have also been sunburst jumbos with exotic pickguards and mother-of-pearl inlays on the fretboard.

I should know because I own one of these, a 10-year-old Epiphone Hummingbird based on famous Gibson dreadnought design. It's the type of guitar that you want to sling over your should and take out for some enthusiastic busking. It feels weird to play it while sitting on the couch.

Affordable pricing and good quality

Fender California Series

The California range is priced from $400 to $800, with considerable variety of size and shape. The Player is the least expensive, the Special is up next, and the Classic tops the group.

It's worth pointing out that with all-wood construction (sitka spruce top and natural mahogany back and sides) and a bone nut and saddle, the Classic is pretty impressive deal.

All the guitars come with Fishman electronics onboard and basically beg you to plug them in (I didn't, but I will later when I get a chance to check out these guitars in-depth).

"We've never really had the same commitment to pedals and acoustic guitars as we've had to electric guitars and amps," Mooney told me, describing the new California range as a fork in the road that will redefine Fender's product mission moving forward.

"Electric guitars have been a 70-year journey for us," he said. "I always like to look at these things as the first step in a another 70-year journey."

SEE ALSO: Fender is filling the biggest gap in its product lineup with a new range of effects pedals

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The odds that a gun will kill the average American may surprise you

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march lives crowd attendance thousands people nyc dave mosher business insider

  • About 2 million people in the US marched for stricter gun control on Saturday.
  • The protests were part of a "March for Our Lives" event organized in the wake of the Florida high school shooting in February that left 17 dead.
  • Nearly 13,000 people in the US were murdered with firearms in 2015, not including suicides.
  • The US government on Wednesday weakened a decades-old restriction on federal research into guns.
  • It remains to be seen if lawmakers will appropriate money to fund the scientific work.

NEW YORK — Mass crowds of adults, teenagers, and children took to the streets on Saturday in support of stricter gun control laws.

About 2 million people attended more than 750 "March for Our Lives" rallies across the US, and the main event held in Washington, DC may have rivaled attendance at the January 2017 Women's March, according to Axios.

The protests occurred just six weeks after 17 people were shot to death at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. In that February 14 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, a 19-year-old former student is believed to have committed the murders using a legally purchased AR-15 assault rifle.

Teenage survivors of the Parkland shooting helped organize the nationwide marches, which came the same week Congress voted to weaken a restriction on federal research into gun violence — a rule that's been in effect for about 22 years.

It remains to be seen if lawmakers will fund such research by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after President Donald Trump signed a bill containing the measure into law.

Below is some of the core data that is available on gun violence in the US (highlighted in red; suicides and accidents excluded), and how it compares to other causes of death over the lifetime of an average American:

Gun violence is a leading cause of death in America_BI Graphics

Assaults by firearm kill about 13,000 people in the US each year, which translates to a roughly 1-in-315 lifetime chance of death from gun violence.

That's about 50% more likely than the lifetime risk of dying while riding inside a car, truck, or van. It's also more than 10 times as high as dying from any force of nature, such as a hurricane, tornado, earthquake, flood, or lightning strike.

These measures suggest Americans are more likely to die from gun violence than the combined risks of drowning, fire and smoke, stabbing, choking on food, airplane crashes, animal attacks, and natural disasters.

Where the data come from

florida school shooting

The chart above does not account for a person's specific behaviors, age, sex, location, or other factors that could shift the results; it's an average of the entire US population.

But it clearly shows that gun violence in the US is a leading cause of death, which is how the CDC describes firearm homicides in its National Vital Statistics Reports.

Most of the data comes from an October 2017 report by the National Safety Council and a November 2017 report by the National Center for Health Statistics on causes of death in the US, primarily those that occurred in 2015. (The NSC report uses 2014 data wherever newer data was unavailable.)

Mass shootings aren't part of the data sets above, but the Gun Violence Archive project keeps a sourced tally, which we've independently counted. The organization considers any event where four or more victims were injured (regardless of death) to be a mass shooting.

In 2015, some 333 mass shootings left 367 people dead and 1,328 injured, according to their tally. The statistics rose in 2016 to 383 mass shootings, 456 deaths, and 1,537 injuries. In 2017, there were 346 mass shootings that led to 437 deaths and 1,802 injuries.

Foreign-born terrorism data comes from a Cato Institute terrorism report, and some natural-disaster data comes from Tulane University.

We calculated the lifetime odds of death by applying 2015 life expectancy and population numbers in the US, and our analysis assumes each cause of death won't change drastically in the near future. (Mortality data from previous years suggests these rankings are relatively consistent, with the exception of skyrocketing accidental poisonings due to the opioid epidemic.)

You can view our full dataset and sourcing here.

A dearth of US gun-violence research

aiming gun american flag hand arms control regulation second amendment rights shutterstock_352729169

Although gun violence is one of the leading causes of death in America, it is also one of the most poorly researched, according to a January 2017 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"In relation to mortality rates, gun violence research was the least-researched cause of death and the second-least-funded cause of death after falls," the study's authors wrote.

The study ascribed this dearth of research to restrictions — namely an addition to a 1996 congressional appropriations bill called the Dickey Amendment, which stipulated "none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control."

This is the rule that Congress recently voted to weaken with its new funding bill, which Trump signed on Friday. The new provision gives the CDC explicit permission to research the causes of gun violence, though it maintains a ban on "using appropriated funding to advocate or promote gun control."

gun deaths public federal research funding causes of death jama

The previous lack of clarity on researching gun violence has hindered many scientists from better understanding the problem.

"The fundamental, foundational work of documenting the full scale of the health consequences of firearms has not been done," Sandro Galea, an epidemiologist and the dean of the Boston University School of Public Health, told Mother Jones in a January 2017 story. "It's the kind of project that we do all the time. It just hasn't been done with firearms because there haven't been resources."

With the Dickey amendment change, it now remains to be seen if Congressional appropriators will provide funding for CDC research into gun violence.

What questions have been researched by private institutions like the Harvard Injury Control Research Center show a clear connection between gun ownership, gun availability, homicides, and violent death.

A roundup of gun-control and gun-violence studies by German Lopez at Vox shows Americans represent less than 5% of the world population but possess nearly 50% of the world's civilian-owned guns, police are about three times more likely to be killed in states with high gun ownership, countries with more guns see more gun deaths, and states with tighter gun control laws see fewer gun-related deaths.

This post was updated to clarify Dickey amendment changes and is an updated version of a story that was published on Feb. 15, 2018.

SEE ALSO: Stunning photos show how many people joined the March for Our Lives protests in cities across the US

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Join the conversation about this story »

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10 reasons why Oasis was the greatest British band since Led Zeppelin

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Oasis

  • Led Zeppelin was the biggest rock band of the 1970s.
  • The only band to come along after with such swagger and ambition was Manchester's Oasis.
  • The group was controversial, but in retrospect, undeniably great.

I grew up in the 1970s, when Led Zeppelin was nearly ubiquitous on the radio. It was rare for an hour to go by without "Stairway to Heaven" or "Whole Lotta Love" getting a spin.

I put Zep behind me when I got older and discovered punk, but two winters ago, I took a deep, deep dive into all things Robert-Jimmy-John Paul-and-Bonzo and refreshed my point of view from the perspective of age.

Zep was at one time extremely outré in my world — bands like The Smiths, New Order, the Replacements, and the Violent Femmes offered a different take on rock n' roll. It probably goes without saying that I was a big Elvis Costello fan at one juncture, and he was not exactly what you'd call a Zep fan.

But time heals all youthful transgressions, and in the 2010s, Zep was ripe to revisit. There's really no way around it: In terms of scope and ambition, musical skill and adventurism, Zep was untouchable during its prime, from 1970 until about 1975, the period of the band's first four albums: I, II, II, IV.

Yes, the Rolling Stones and the Who were also doing their best work at this time, but Zep rose above. (It was truly a band, whereas The Who, for example, was turning into a vehicle for Pete Townshend's grand and influential ideas.)

Obviously, rock became quite fragmented after Zep folded in 1980, following the untimely death of drummer John Bonham. The alternatives gave way to new stuff. Punk to post-punk to New Wave to pop punk to emo, classic rock to metal, R&B to rap and hip-hop. It was quite difficult to find a Really Big Band à la Zep to assume that mantle. U2 came the closest, but the group's monumental seriousness made it less a fun act than a quasi-religious experience, culminating in the deeply spiritual 1987 album "The Joshua Tree."

And then, against all odds, came Oasis. I completely missed Oasis the first time around. The Gallagher brothers of Manchester, Noel and Liam, along with the rest of the band, got too big too fast. It was Oasis-Oasis-Oasis all the time, typically presented sort of grotesquely in the context of some pitched Britpop battle with other groups, like Blur and Suede and the other ones with one-word names.

The overall vibe of the whole lad-rock thing was, to my eyes and ears, even stupider than the many, many swaggering post-Zep experiments that completely missed the dynamic nature of Zep's music.

The problem with this particular line of rock is that the lineage isn't always going to be comfortable. Zep was a departure from the Stones and The Beatles, and the relationship between the four members was much more productive, if less dazzling, than what one witnessed in more volatile bands, such as Cream.

Oasis is going through a bit of a revival at the moment, with both Liam and Noel releasing new individual albums and Liam really bringing it at the "One Love Manchester" concert to mourn the victims of the terrorist attack at an Arianna Grande concert. Noel skipped that event, and the viciously entertaining rivalry between the brothers began anew. Just like the mid-1990s. Prior to all this, I'd decided to give the entire Oasis catalog a re-listen.

This was one heck of a band. Here's why:

SEE ALSO: Everyone thinks 'Coda' is Led Zeppelin's worst album — but it's really surprisingly great

DON'T MISS: Fender has unveiled a lineup of acoustic guitars that electric players will love

1. Oasis was an absolutely electrifying live band.

I give you their 2005 appearance in their home town as proof. I never saw Oasis live, so this was the concert that really pushed me over the edge from having a pretty skeptical if not dismissive stance toward the group to basically getting it.

Everything clicks, from Liam looking improbably cool in a naff white bucket hat to Noel looking about as cool as it's possible for Noel to look, in trim black leather, next to his much cooler younger brother. The band's signature, elevating mass of sound, verging at all times on noise but somehow blissfully melodic and routinely transporting, is at all times in evidence.

Also the crowd is vast and very much into it. The mid-to-late 2000s was the period when the traditional music business, capable of producing juggernauts such as Zep, U2, and Oasis, was being rapidly dismembered by the internet, so in some ways Oasis live was a throwback.

Sure, bands and artist now have to tour incessantly to pay the bills, but with the oddball exceptions of people like Ed Sheeran, big acts like Taylor Swift, and stalwarts like The Who and the Rolling Stones, bands struggle to match the arena expectations of previous generations. 

Oasis always seemed as if it were their destiny.



2. Oasis really knew how to organize an album for maximum impact.

I give you their 1994 debut, "Definitely Maybe," as Exhibit A.

It's a bit hard to imagine, in the midst of mid-1990s music culture, much of which was quite dark, edgy, gloomy, confrontational, and alternative, to encounter the blistering opening track, "Rock 'n' Roll Star." Well, I guess we knew what these guys had in mind.

Declarations are one thing, execution another. And "Definitely Maybe" showed Oasis' incipient talent for crafting a track-list for maximum effect. "Live Forever," "Supersonic," and "Cigarettes & Alcohol" define the propulsive, anthemic nature of the rest of the sequence, which is rarely less than mind-boggling in its ambition.



3. Noel and Liam haven't mellowed.

We have to touch on this aspect of brother love, obviously.

But not that much, except to say that Oasis when it was huge was defined by conflict — endlessly entertaining conflict. True, the never-ending tabloid sniping showed that Noel and Liam were hip to an emerging celebrity-entertainment axis that fans of say, Bob Dylan, would sneer at.

But at least they were good at it, and while the whole thing at times was clearly performance art and a savvy marketing strategy, their mutual hatred has lately seemed entirely genuine and no less hilarious than it was back in the good old days.

Just check out Liam's recent diss of Noel's stature — to schoolchildren.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Stormy Daniels: Here's what Trump said when I asked about Melania and newborn, Barron, just before the affair

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  • Adult-film actress Stormy Daniels told Anderson Cooper in a "60 Minutes" interview that during her alleged affair with now-President Donald Trump in 2006, he told her "not to worry" about his wife or newborn son.
  • Trump told her that he and now-first lady Melania Trump had "separate rooms," she said.
  • Trump has not directly addressed the actress' claims, but White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says he denies them.


Adult-film actress Stormy Daniels told Anderson Cooper in a "60 Minutes" interview that during her alleged affair with now-President Donald Trump in 2006, he told her "not to worry" about wife Melania or his son Barron, who had been born several months prior. 

Cooper asked Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, if Trump had mentioned Melania or Barron, who was born in March 2006.   

"I asked," said Clifford, referring to Trump's family. 

"He brushed it aside, said, "Oh yeah, yeah, you know, don't worry about that."

"We don't even — we have separate rooms and stuff," Trump added, according to Clifford. 

The actress claims she had an "intimate" relationship with Trump between 2006 and 2007. Clifford entered an agreement with Trump and his attorneys in 2016, in which she received $130,000 to stay silent about her accusations.

Clifford is now seeking to void her "hush agreement" with Trump and has offered to return the $130,000 so she can speak publicly about her experience.

Trump has not directly addressed Clifford's accusations, but White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says he denies the claims.

Trump returned to Washington from a weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, shortly before the Clifford's "60 Minutes" interview, according to People Magazine

Melania remained in Florida with Barron.

“The First Lady will be staying in Florida as is their tradition for spring break,” deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters said in a statement. 

Bryan Logan contributed to this report. 

SEE ALSO: Stormy Daniels said she was threatened to keep silence on Trump in much-hyped '60 Minutes' interview

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Bill Hader breaks down how 'SNL' stage fright inspired his new HBO show about a hitman, and tells a funny Tom Cruise story

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  • Bill Hader used the anxieties he had on "Saturday Night Live" to create the character for his HBO series, "Barry," about a hitman who wants to be an actor — though he's awful at acting.
  • Hader said the biggest challenge was making a hitman show that didn't imitate classics in the genre like "Get Shorty" or "Grosse Pointe Blank."
  • He also opened up about helping to voice the "Star Wars" character BB-8 (and if he's getting any residuals from the work) and working alongside Tom Cruise in "Tropic Thunder."


Since walking away as a “Saturday Night Live” cast member in 2013, Bill Hader has bounced around doing a bunch of things: showing off his dramatic chops in the indie “The Skeleton Twins,” playing the leading man in “Trainwreck,” doing a lot of voiceover work (“Inside Out,” “Sausage Party,” “The Angry Birds Movie,” “The BFG”), and contributing to the voice of BB-8 for “The Force Awakens.”

Now he’s returning to television for the HBO series, “Barry” (series premieres March 25), which he said was inspired by the years of anxiety he battled with while on "SNL."

Cocreating the series with Alec Berg (“Silicon Valley” executive producer), Hader plays the title character, a former Marine who is now a hitman completely burnt out and in a midlife crisis. While on a job in Los Angeles, Barry suddenly finds acceptance when he mistakenly becomes part of a local theater class while tailing his target. Now Barry has to try to find a way to continue his passion (acting) while continuing his day job as a hitman. The show also marks the first time Hader has ever directed, as he helmed the first three episodes.

Business Insider sat down with Hader last month to talk about how he channeled his fears on "SNL" — or, as he put it, "the thing that you're good at is destroying you" — into a creative way to tell a hitman story, if he has received any residuals for voicing BB-8, and what it was like watching Tom Cruise become Les Grossman on the set of “Tropic Thunder.”

Jason Guerrasio: Was it harder to convince HBO of the “Barry” storyline or that you could play a hitman convincingly?

Bill Hader: [Laughs] I think it was maybe both. To be honest, HBO was really open. They didn't need a lot of convincing. I had a meeting with them and said, "I want to do a show," and they said, "We'd love to do something with you." And they had seen “The Skeleton Twins,” and they liked my performance and saw that I wanted to branch out and do more than just sketch comedy. I think if Alec and I came in and pitched a broad comedy idea they wouldn't have been as interested. However, you say hitman and it conjures up images of a guy in a skinny tie with two 45s.

Guerrasio: Grosse Pointe Blank.

Hader: Exactly.

Guerrasio: But you take that idea of an outsider looking for a community and then bring in the whole arc of a guy dealing with a dead-end job. The kicker is, though, it just happens to be the job he hates is being a hitman.

Hader: That's exactly what it is. We thought what's the thing that we could relate to and just copy-paste hitman into it.

Guerrasio: So why a hitman?

Hader: I totally pulled it out of thin air, I'm going to be totally honest. Alec and I worked on an idea for a month and a half and it just wasn't jelling.

Guerrasio: What was that?

Hader: I can't remember, it was based on a guy I knew back home in Oklahoma and it was much more a weird guy in the Midwest. It was more in tune with the shows you see now that are led by comedians. This show is his daily life and daily struggles. And then we hit this place where it had no narrative pull, and I like things like that. Where each episode ends and you go, "What's going to happen next?" And it didn't have big stakes. That got us thinking, the biggest stakes are life and death. And I just said, "Well, why don't I play a hitman?" And Alec was like, "Ugh, I hate that word."

Guerrasio: But if it's Jason Statham saying, "Why don't I play a hitman?” it's like, seen that before, but you saying it makes things interesting.

Hader: Yeah, because I said, "It's me." I remember going to HBO saying, "OK, it's me as a hitman — but me." And they laughed and we pitched what essentially the pilot was, beat for beat. How art can heal a person. I love reading, I love music, to me these aren't recreational, they fulfill my life. So we made it as the thing this guy is good at is hurting him.

Guerrasio: And is it true the show also gave you an outlet to explore some of the anxieties you went through performing on "Saturday Night Live"?

Hader: 100%. That was the thing, at "SNL" the anxiety was so high. The longer I was on the show the better I was getting at the show but my anxiety didn't go down. It was actually going up. So, again, the thing that you're good at is destroying you.

Guerrasio: Did you throw any specific experiences you dealt with on "SNL" into "Barry"?

Hader: I do have a stage-fright thing, it's gotten better. That was in the pilot a little. The closest thing in the pilot is when Barry goes to the bar with the theater class. I remember when I first got to "SNL" I was suddenly getting to hang out with Amy Poehler and Seth Meyers and Rachel Dratch, and Tina Fey, and Chris Parnell, all these people that I admired. And I would be at a bar with them and I felt very out of place. I have to work with them and they are all geniuses and I don't feel equipped.

BarryAlec Berg Bill Hader John P Johnson HBO finalGuerrasio: You direct the first three episodes of the season, did that just happen by accident?

Hader: I wanted to direct. I said I wanted to direct the pilot and that was kind of a big thing. HBO came back and said, "We want to do this pilot," and I went, "Cool, I want to direct it." And they went, "Huh, well, have you directed before?" And I was. like, "No. But I've been on a lot of sets." And they were like, "Hmm." And I think the only reason they let me direct it was because Alec would be there and he's directed a ton of stuff for them. It was a thing I wanted to do my whole life. Before I wanted to be an actor. My heroes were all filmmakers. So getting a chance to do that was amazing.

Guerrasio: You've said you watched a lot of true crime shows and movies to prepare for this, was that for a visual style or story?

Hader: More story. It's so hard because you just don't want to make it a TV show about other TV shows or movies.

Guerrasio: You did not want to end up down the "Get Shorty" road.

Hader: Yeah. It's so easy to end up there. And that’s not to disparage Elmore Leonard or "Get Shorty.” I remember we were out in the desert shooting a scene and I turn to Alec and I go, "We're doing 'Breaking Bad' right now." And he's like, "Yeah, I was thinking about that." We're thinking, hitman that wants to be an actor, chemistry teacher who wants to be a drug dealer, we were like “Fu--! How did we not see this?" But, I love "Breaking Bad" so it seeps in no matter what.

Guerrasio: Gonna change it up a little before we’re done. Did you do any BB-8 stuff for "The Last Jedi"?

Hader: No, no, no. That was really funny. That is J.J. Abrams being a really nice guy. That is him saying, "Oh, I know you like Star Wars, do you want to come in and do the thing?" But anybody could do that, what I did. It's a Peter Frampton talk box with an app J.J. had.

Guerrasio: It must be nice to be in the mythology.

Hader: Yeah. I mean, I'm singing BB-8 pictures now.

Guerrasio: Is there such a thing as BB-8 residuals?

Hader: That's a good question, I should ask my business manager. [Laughs] You're finding out how bad I am at this. If my dad reads this he would lose his sh--. “You gotta know how much f---ing money you have, you moron!”

Guerrasio: [Laughs]

Hader: I mean, I would hope so. But that was just J.J. calling me up and saying 'Hey, man, you wanna come do this?' And I was like, sure. I did a voice initially, I tried it as a voice. And it didn't work. And I was like, “Well, there you go, it didn't work.” And months later, I mean, there were billboards already out for the movie, and he called again and was like, “You wanna try again?”

tropic thunder paramountGuerrasio: I read once in an interview you did that you were kind of shocked to run into Tom Cruise at the premiere of "Tropic Thunder" because when you worked with him on the movie he was Les Grossman the whole time. Did you mean he was in character the whole time?

Hader: No. He wasn't Method or anything like that. It was just easy to talk to him because he was in that makeup. We're talking about "Risky Business" and I'm asking him questions about "Eyes Wide Shut" and he was so cool and so nice, but he was dressed as Les Grossman. But then seeing him at the premiere and he's like, "Hey, man" and I'm, like, "Jesus, you're Tom Cruise!" and I got star struck because I finally was next to him without makeup.

Guerrasio: Did you come up with any bits on the fly on set for Tom to do as Les?

Hader: No. That was him and [screenwriter] Justin Theroux and [director] Ben Stiller. I was off to the side. I was just laughing at it all. I would improvise little things. I was just always trying to get him to yell at me. I would come up with stupid things to get him to get mad. I basically did an impersonation of an executive from Paramount that me and Ben know. Ben just liked the energy of me being this weird, calm guy and Les being this raging dude. But I don't think you can do Les Grossman right now. [Laughs] You would be in jail. It just seems he was a dying breed and hopefully dying in prison. [Laughs]

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Home video shows an 8-year-old Meghan Markle playing the Queen and ordering her 'servants' to make 900,000 cookies

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  • A home video shows Meghan Markle playing the Queen in a childhood play at just 8 years old.
  • It was discovered by the mother of her childhood friend, Ninaki Priddy.
  • She bosses around "servants" ordering them to make her cookies, sew her a dress, and do her groceries.
  • Priddy says it shows that Markle was "always the centre of attention, always the ringleader."


A home video of eight-year-old Meghan Markle playing "the Queen" in a childhood play has been published — and it shows that the actress was always meant to be in the spotlight as a royal.

Shot on January 29, 1990, the 11-minute video was filmed at the ninth birthday party of Markle's childhood friend, Ninaki Priddy.

After Priddy's mother recently discovered the footage, Ninaki told Mail Online: "The show was called 'Your Royal Highness' and the star was Meg. It’s very funny to see this now and given what is going on with her life it’s quite eye-opening."

She added that Markle was "always the centre of attention, always the ringleader — it was my birthday but she took the starring role!"

The video shows Markle wearing a gold crown in the garden of the Priddy's LA home. She is acting out the role as a fictional Queen, while her classmates from Hollywood's Little Red School House are princesses and servants.

Markle — known now for her role in legal drama "Suits" — is seen introducing the play by saying, "Your Royal Highness, Take One!"

She then sits on a blanket as one of her friends comes over, gives a bow, and asks: "Your Highness, isn’t there anything to do around this kingdom anymore?"

Markle replies: 'Yes, make 900,000 cookies and sew me a nice dress."

She adds that the cookies and dress are for a meeting she's having, during which she is hosting "people from Florida and Canada, Mississippi, Missouri."

At one point Markle yells: "10 minute break!" and a friend replies: "Oh thank you, Your Highness." Markle then herds her friends inside.

Later in the play, she's heard saying: "Go do the grocery shopping, I didn't have time to do it." According to Ninaki, the story, which Markle created, "came out of the blue."

"It wasn’t something we had done before. She just came up with it on the spot," she said, adding: "My parents were in the audio-video industry so we always had a camera around. We would do little videos."

You can watch the video here:

The film shows that Markle's love of acting began at a young age, but her career appears due to draw to a close.

The seventh season of "Suits" will air on Wednesday, March 28, but it will be the last that will feature Markle, who has given up acting as she gets ready to marry Prince Harry on May 19.

SEE ALSO: 'Knocked Up' and 'Grey's Anatomy' star Katherine Heigl has confirmed she's joining the cast of 'Suits' as Meghan Markle departs

SEE ALSO: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have sent out invitations to the royal wedding — here's what they look like

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NOW WATCH: Why 555 is always used for phone numbers on TV and in movies

Regular people who went undercover in jail uncovered 13 'ingenious' life hacks inmates use to survive life behind bars

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  • On "60 Days In," law-abiding citizens volunteered to go behind bars for two months to get a firsthand glimpse of what jail is like.
  • Some scenes showed the creative ways inmates use household materials to exercise, make birthday cake, or put on makeup.
  • We compiled 13 of the most ingenious life hacks shown in the series.


When you're serving time in jail, you usually don't have access to even the most basic of amenities. 

That means if inmates want to exercise, make birthday cake, or put on make-up, they'd have to get creative with what few resources they have.

The resourcefulness of inmates was one aspect of jail life that was highlighted on "60 Days In," an A&E documentary series that wrapped up its fourth season on Thursday. The show followed nine law-abiding citizens who volunteered to go undercover as inmates at Atlanta's Fulton County Jail and southern Indiana's Clark County Jail for two months to expose problems from within the system.

While some of the inmates' "life hacks" were innocuous — like making jewelry and decorations out of potato chip bags — others involved using household materials to make contraband drugs.

"A lot of this stuff is ingenious, it really is," Fulton County Jail chief jailer Mark Adger told Business Insider. "If they would just put their minds to legitimate work, a lot of these guys would probably be millionaires."

Here are 13 of the most inventive things the inmates came up with behind bars:

SEE ALSO: These photos of prison cells around the world show how differently countries treat their criminals

DON'T MISS: Regular people who went undercover at a jail for 2 months discovered inmates will go to staggering lengths to get high — and how they smuggle illegal drugs behind bars

Inmates don't have access to exercise equipment, but they still found an ingenious way to work out. They made their own weights by filling a trash bag with water, wrapping it in their jumpsuit, and slipping it through a broom handle.



Inmates passed the time by playing games involving dice made from toilet paper.



They got creative with the few food items they bought from the jail's commissary. For example, they'd melt down hard candy and turn it into taffy.



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Meet 'Stormy Daniels', the porn star Trump's lawyer paid to keep quiet about an alleged sexual affair — who's finally telling her side of the story

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Adult film star and director Stormy Daniels says she met President Donald Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe in July 2006, and the two allegedly began an affair.

He was married to Melania Trump at the time, and she had just given birth to their son Barron.

Just weeks before the 2016 presidential election, Trump's longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen paid $130,000 out of his own pocket so Daniels would keep silent about the alleged affair.

In January 2018, news of the hush money broke, and Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, was thrust into the national spotlight. Now, she's suing Trump and accusing him of invalidating their agreement — and telling her side of the story. Her highly anticipated "60 Minutes" interview aired on Sunday night.

Here's what you should know about her:

SEE ALSO: Inside the marriage of Donald and Melania Trump, who broke up once before, reportedly sleep in different bedrooms, and are weathering rumors of his affairs

DON'T MISS: During much-hyped '60 Minutes' interview, Stormy Daniels said she was threatened to keep quiet on Trump

Daniels was born and raised in Louisiana.



She started stripping as a teenager and soon entered the porn business.



In 2002, she became the lead actress in a film for Wicked Pictures, a porn movie studio based in California.



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The fabulous life of the Saudi Arabian millennial ambassador who bought a $12 million DC castle as a Georgetown student and flies in a private jet for $30,000 an hour

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  • Prince Khalid bin Salman al-Saud is the younger brother of Saudi Arabia's famous Crown Prince Mohammad and the son of King Salman of Saudi Arabia.
  • He is Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the US, and recently bought a $12 million home in Virginia, according to a new report.
  • He's also spent $8 million since becoming ambassador last year, a bill that includes costly trips on a luxury 767 jet.


Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the US, Khalid bin Salman al-Saud, was revealed on Thursday to have purchased a $12 million mansion outside Washington, DC, last year.

That kind of spending is nothing new for the 28-year-old al-Saud. He's a member of Saudi Arabia's royal family — his father is King Salman of Saudi Arabia, and his brother is the kingdom's Crown Prince Mohammad, the millennial future leader who visited President Donald Trump in Washington earlier this week.

The Daily Mail also reported that al-Saud has spent $8 million since he became ambassador last year — a bill that includes $30,000-an-hour trips on a luxury 767 jet.

Take a glimpse into the lavish lifestyle of al-Saud below:

SEE ALSO: Inside the rapid rise and unprecedented power grab of Saudi Arabia's millennial crown prince — who Trump is about to meet with

Khalid bin Salman al-Saud is Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States.



The 28-year-old is a member of Saudi Arabia's royal family — he's the son of King Salman of Saudi Arabia, and his older brother is Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.



Ambassador al-Saud was in the room when the Crown Prince met with President Donald Trump this week.



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'Solo: A Star Wars Story' actor says they were doing 30 takes per scene before the original directors were fired and Ron Howard took over

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  • An actor who worked on "Solo: A Star Wars Story" revealed to Vulture some of the drama behind-the-scenes that led to the movie's original directors, Phil Lord and Chris Miller, being fired.
  • The source said the directors seemed unsure of what they were doing on set and would demand 30 takes or more per-scene.
  • The source also claimed the first assistant director stepped in and helped direct "a lot of the scenes."
  • Ron Howard took over the film once Lord and Miller were fired and the source said he was much faster and basically reshot everything Lord and Miller did.


We are starting to get more details on what it was like on the set of "Solo: A Star Wars Story" before original directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller were fired by Lucasfilm over creative differences, and Ron Howard took over.

An actor on the movie spoke to Vulture anonymously about the experience of working with Lord and Miller and then Howard, and painted a picture of a set that didn't find its footing until Howard came on board. 

The Vulture source said that Lord and Miller ("The Lego Movie," "21 Jump Street") were out of their element. The duo would typically demanded 30 takes or more per-scene and seemed unsure what they wanted at times.

"Phil and Chris are good directors, but they weren’t prepared for 'Star Wars,'” the source said. “After the 25th take, the actors are looking at each other like, ‘This is getting weird.’ [Lord and Miller] seemed a bit out of control. They definitely felt the pressure; with one of these movies, there are so many people on top of you all the time."

han solo cast photoThe source also said that the more experienced first assistant director stepped in and helped Lord and Miller direct "a lot of the scenes." (A spokesperson for Lord and Miller told Vulture, “This information is completely inaccurate.”)

Once the veteran Howard took over the film, the production became much smoother and the director worked fast only needing two to three takes, according to the source. 

And though the source confirmed reports that Howard reshot the majority of the movie, it seems the director didn't add a lot of new material. According to the source, Howard redid most of the scenes that Lord and Miller shot.

“It’s exactly the same script," the source said. "They’re filming exactly the same things. There’s nothing new. [Lord and Miller] used whole sets. But Ron is just using parts from those sets. I guess they’re not shooting wide angle. Maybe to save money."

On Friday, Lord and Miller announced at the GLAS Animation Festival that they were taking an executive producer credit on the movie.

"We were really proud of the many contributions we made to that film," Miller told the audience, according to Variety. "In light of the creative differences, we elected to take an executive producer credit."

"Solo: A Star Wars Story" opens in theaters on May 25.

SEE ALSO: 'Billions" creators discuss their charmingly devious characters who have everyone on Wall Street saying, "You know that was based on me right?"

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HBO's 'Silicon Valley' is better without TJ Miller — and the show weaves in his absence in a clever way

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  • "Silicon Valley" season five premiered on HBO Sunday, and it proved it's thriving without TJ Miller's Erlich Bachman, who left the show after season four.
  • Without Bachman, other characters get more screen time. 
  • The show is better without him, and weaves his exit into the story in an unexpected way.

Warning: Mild spoilers for the "Silicon Valley" season premiere.

TJ Miller's abrupt exit from "Silicon Valley" last year might be the best thing to ever happen to the show.

In the season five premiere of “Silicon Valley,” which aired Sunday night on HBO, Pied Piper CEO Richard Hendricks takes the gang (now just Jared, Gilfoyle, and Dinesh) to their brand new offices at a co-working space. Initially impressed with Richard’s choice for their new digs — an open floor plan, a fireplace, “an intuitive kitchen layout” (according to Jared), large windows, and modern light fixtures  the guys are disappointed when Richard shows them where their office will actually be. Unlike most of the co-working space, their office is a sad, windowless room with fluorescent lights, and outlets on the floor that are basically magnets for stubbing your toes.

Silicon Valley

“Silicon Valley” is at its best when the show throws its characters into impossible situations. The show doesn’t let its characters succeed, and if they do, it’s not for long. And while sometimes this makes the show frustrating, it’s what makes it great, too. Disgusted with the idea of working in such terrible conditions, the guys convince Richard that this money-saving space is an awful idea. This actually turns out to be easier than expected considering how stubborn Richard is, especially about Pied Piper's finances.

Just as easily as Pied Piper gets an acceptable new office space, the show adjusts to life without Erlich Bachman, one of its main characters who isn’t on the show anymore.

Since TJ Miller’s exit was announced after the season four finale in May, everyone has been asking the same question about the show’s future: What is the show like without TJ Miller’s Erlich Bachman?

Better than it has been in years, it turns out.

Without Bachman’s bitter spirit, it’s a little more upbeat. The jokes and storylines are a bit more clever, since the writers aren’t relying on Bachman to say (or do) something stupid. Miller’s absence also leaves more room for the side characters we’ve come to love over the years, from Jared to Jian Yang to Dinesh to Gilfoyle. With less time to waste having Bachman spit out insults, the other characters have more to say and do. Jared has quickly become the best character on the show, and one of the best characters on TV, and season five has given him way more to do so far. 

Silicon Valley

After the season four finale aired last year, Miller announced he was leaving the show and that he would never return, not even for a quick cameo. The last time we see Bachman, Hooli CEO Gavin Belson leaves him behind at an opium den in the Tibetan mountains.

The season five premiere addresses Bachman’s absence in a surprising but fitting (and not desperate) way, which is a huge credit to the writers. Instead of just a one-liner explaining what the heck happened to Bachman, they’ve made his disappearance an arc that will probably take up the entire season. According to Dinesh, no one has heard from Bachman in months, though he still owns 10% of Pied Piper and the incubator. But Jian Yang plans to change that by faking Bachman’s death so he can get Bachman’s shares in Pied Piper, and so he can officially take over the incubator.

While Bachman was a great character that helped define the series, his schtick got a bit tired. Bachman served his purpose, and his exit has improved the show and can potentially increase its longevity.

Now we just have to wait and see if Jian Yang can actually convince people that Bachman is dead. He’s already off to a good start.

SEE ALSO: 29 great Netflix shows that might have flown under your radar

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The Stormy Daniels '60 Minutes' interview scored the show's best ratings in nearly a decade

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  • Stormy Daniels' "60 Minutes" interview about her alleged affair with President Trump scored the CBS show its best ratings in nearly a decade.
  • The interview is expected to post the highest ratings for the show since Barack and Michelle Obama gave their first post-election interview in November 2008, which netted 24.5 million viewers. 
  • In the interview, the adult-film actress said she was threatened with physical violence in 2011 after she attempted to share her story of an affair between her and Trump.

Stormy Daniels' highly anticipated interview with "60 Minutes" is expected to give the CBS news-magazine show its best ratings since November 2008, when Barack and Michelle Obama sat down for their first post-election interview, Deadline reports.

The adult-film actress opened up in the interview on Sunday about her alleged affair with President Trump. Daniels told Anderson Cooper that she was once threatened with physical violence in 2011 after she attempted to share her story of the alleged affair.

Daniels' interview scored over twice the average number of viewers for "60 Minutes," according to Nielsen's preliminary "overnight" measurement. Once the final numbers are in, the interview is expected to post the highest ratings for the show since the Obamas' 2008 interview netted 24.5 million viewers. 

"60 Minutes" benefited on Sunday from a huge ratings lead-in of an NCAA basketball game between Kansas and Duke that went into overtime. Daniels was the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter over the course of Sunday evening, including for several hours after the interview concluded. 

The White House has denied the alleged affair, which Daniels said began in 2006 and lasted 10 months. Shortly before the 2016 presidential election, Daniels signed a nondisclosure agreement and accepted $130,000 in "hush money" from a company linked to Trump's personal attorney.

Daniels sued the president earlier this month in California state court, claiming the agreement was not valid in part because Trump did not sign it. She was also hit with a cease-and-desist letter  from Trump's personal counsel following the "60 Minutes" interview.

SEE ALSO: Stormy Daniels says Trump told her "you remind me of my daughter" after she spanked him with a magazine

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Bad news for people who prefer well-done meat: it's linked to an increased risk for high blood pressure

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grilling grill

  • Eating well-done meat has been linked to increased risk for developing hypertension or high blood pressure, according to preliminary study results presented at an American Heart Association meeting.
  • Consuming more meat or fish that's been grilled or roasted at high temperatures was also associated with an increased risk.
  • High blood pressure increases the chance that someone will develop heart disease and suffer a stroke or heart attack.

People who like their meat well-done have a higher risk of developing high blood pressure, according to preliminary study results presented at an American Heart Association meeting.

Specifically, eating meat or fish cooked at high temperatures, over an open flame, or well-done in general all seem to be linked to a higher chance of hypertension, which can eventually damage blood vessels and lead to a heart attack or stroke, along with other issues.

That finding comes from an analysis of more than 100,000 participants in several ongoing studies. None of the participants started with high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, or cancer, but 37,123 developed high blood pressure over the next 12 to 16 years, according to data from the researchers.

The researchers looked at participants who ate at least two servings of red meat, chicken, or fish every week. They found that people who ate grilled, broiled, or roasted meat or fish more than 15 times per month had a 17% higher chance of developing high blood pressure.

People who preferred meat well-done as opposed to rare had a 15% higher chance of developing high blood pressure as well — sorry, President Trump.

The researchers also found that eating meat that was highly charred was associated with a 17% increased risk for hypertension. Charring meat is also unfortunately associated with an increased cancer risk.

The researchers behind this work can't be sure if eating meat directly caused the risk of high blood pressure. Although they noticed a trend, it's still possible that these groups of people had something else in common that led to their increased risk.

Still, dietitians and nutrition experts generally recommend that people limit their consumption of processed and red meats. This is more evidence that points in that same direction.

SEE ALSO: There's more evidence that exposing yourself to cold temperatures could trigger weight loss

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18 British words and phrases that don't mean what you think they do in America

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Barack Obama Prince Harry

  • Brits and Americans might speak the same language, but there are plenty of British words, phrases, and slang that mean something totally different in America.
  • These differences can cause embarrassment or even get you into trouble. If you ask a British woman about her pants, for example, she'll assume you're asking about her underwear, not her trousers.
  • Brush up on these British words, phrases, and slang that mean something completely different in America to avoid any trouble down the road.

 

It's been said that England and America are two countries divided by a common language.

Different words, different pronunciations, and different spellings have created two distinct separations in the English language: British English and American English.

Words, phrases, and slang that mean one thing in the UK often mean a totally different thing in the US – and vice versa.

As a British expat living in New York, I can tell you with absolute certainty that there's nothing worse than saying something to an American and being met with a blank stare or a stifled giggle. I'm ashamed to admit that I've accidentally ordered a doughy, cheesy, savory "biscuit" instead of a cookie more than once.

Here are some common British words, phrases, and slang that mean something entirely different across the pond in America:

SEE ALSO: 6 major differences between how Americans and Brits work

DON'T MISS: 11 things you say that will automatically ruin your chances in a job interview

Pants

Don't ask a British person about their pants. You'll get a very funny look, and maybe even a slap round the face, because you'll be inquiring about their underwear and not their trousers.

How we'd say it in Britain: "When you get dressed you put your pants on first, then your trousers."

 

 

 

 



Jumper

In Britain, a jumper isn't a sleeveless dress worn as part of a school uniform — we'd call that a pinafore dress in the UK.

What we call a jumper in Britain is a cozy, knitted pullover you'd put on when it's cold out, or as it's known in America: a sweater.

How we'd say it in Britain: "Can you pass me my jumper? I'm freezing."



Football

We're talking about the game that made David Beckham famous. The one where your kick a ball with your foot. Not the game where you throw a ball and catch it in your hands, with the occasional kick thrown in for good measure – that game has no business being called football.

How we'd say it in Britain: "David Beckham was one of the best football players to ever play the game."



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