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Amar'e Stoudemire's Range Rover Is Currently Under Water


Take A Look Inside The World's Thinnest Home

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The five-foot-wide apartment in Poland, known as the Keret House, is ready to be lived in, and Time Magazine took a look inside. 

The 46-square-foot house was built in an alley between two other buildings by Polish architect Jakub Szczesny.

Living arrangements in the house are so tiny that the fridge has room for just two sodas, and residents must climb a ladder to reach the bedroom. In the bathroom, there's a toilet and a shower that hovers almost directly over it.

This place looks so cramped, there's hardly room to turn around. 

Let's take a sneak peek inside:

DON'T MISS: The Incredible Transforming Apartment In London 

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All Of These Cars & Boats Were Destroyed By Sandy

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hurricane sandy destroy car bronx nyc

In its voyage up the Atlantic Coast, Hurricane Sandy did a tremendous amount of damage. Heavy rain and wind resulted in flooding, falling trees, and flying debris.

All of which proved there was no safe haven for cars and boats: Garages flooded, harbors were battered. Windows broke and nature invaded. 

These photos reveal just how much havoc a storm can wreak.

Underground garages flooded in Lower Manhattan.



A Bentley was flooded after someone left it outside during the storm.



Amar'e Stoudemire Range Rover went under, too.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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The SkyRoll Roll-Up Suit Bag

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This is the SkyRoll Roll-Up Suit Bag.

Why We Love It: The SkyRoll Roll-Up Suit Bag was designed so you never have to fold your suit again. The SkyRoll bags are made with an outer layer for your suits and inner layers for your shirts, shoes, toiletries, and ties. The bag then neatly rolls up and clips together.

Or you could get the SkyRoll On Wheels that has a garment bag that gently wraps and clips around a suitcase, preventing wrinkles and saving space.

SkyRoll Bag

SkyRoll Bag

Where To Buy: Available through Men's Wearhouse or the SkyRoll website.

Cost: $149.99-$249.99.

Want to nominate a cool product for Stuff We Love? Send an email to Megan Willett at mwillett@businessinsider.com with "Stuff We Love" in the subject line.

See Also: The Meteorologist's Complete Weather Station

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The 12 Most Expensive States To Raise Kids

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kids, beach, children

When it comes to children, more Americans are just saying “no.” In 2011, the U.S. fertility rate fell to the lowest rate ever reported — 63.2 births per thousand women ages 15 — 44. It’s now dropped for five straight years and reflects the longer term trend toward smaller families.

Historically, child-bearing fluctuates with the national mood — it rises when people feel optimistic and financially secure. But with the cost of children continuing to increase, and income stagnant, many experts think the U.S.’s baby boom days are over.

Today, parents are paying closer attention to the added costs of having a baby — and many are waiting to conceive until they have their finances in order. The experience of being a parent may be priceless, but it’s wise to plan ahead for the income needed to support that next generation.

If you’re a new parent this year, that cute bundle will cost you anywhere from $169,000 to $390,000 (in 2011 dollars) by the time they’re age 18, depending on your income level, according to data  released in June by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The report shows that housing constitutes the largest share of that expense — about a third of the total cost — followed by food, child care, education, and transportation. And that’s only what happens up to age 18; the total doesn’t include college tuition and fees, which at in-state public universities now average $8,655 a year, according to the College Board.  

For middle-income families — those earning from about $59,000 to $103,000 — all of those costs are up since 1995. Even after accounting for inflation, housing is up by about 5 percent, child care and education by a huge 172 percent (private school tuition has more than doubled in that period), transportation by 12 percent, and college tuition by 120 percent.

The cost of children also varies considerably depending on where you live. Yearly median child care costs run about $11,200 in the state of New York but only $4,200 in South Carolina, for example. New Hampshire and Vermont have the highest published in-state tuition charges, at around $14,000 each. Wyoming has the lowest at $4,287, followed by Utah at $5,595, according to the College Board.

To calculate the most expensive states, we looked at annual child care and housing costs from Child Care Aware of America’s Parents and the High Cost of Child Care: 2012 Report, and divided the total housing cost for a family by four. In-state tuition and fees come from the College Board’s 2012 Annual Survey of Colleges, and food costs were calculated by using the Consumer Expenditure Survey Data Table for the Northeast, Midwest, South and West regions and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. To obtain the average annual food cost for an individual child, we divided the total food cost for a family by four.

Here are the states:

12. California

  • Average yearly cost of full-time child care: $6,600
  • Average yearly housing cost: $5,300
  • Average in-state tuition and fees at public university: $9,368
  • Average yearly food costs: $1,750 (West region)

Total: $23,018

11. New York

  • Average yearly cost of full-time child care: $11,000
  • Average yearly housing cost: $4,500
  • Average in-state tuition and fees at public university: $6,560
  • Average yearly food costs: $1,700 (Northeast region)

Total: $23,760

10. Hawaii

  • Average yearly cost of full-time child care: $8,300
  • Average yearly housing cost: $4,500
  • Average in-state tuition and fees at public university: $8,665
  • Average yearly food costs: $1,750 (West region)

Total: $24,115

9. Connecticut

  • Average yearly cost of full-time child care: $8,600
  • Average yearly housing cost: $4,700
  • Average in-state tuition and fees at public university: $9,630
  • Average yearly food costs: $1,700 (Northeast region)

Total: $24,630

8. Pennsylvania

  • Average yearly cost of full-time child care: $7,700
  • Average yearly housing cost: $3,200
  • Average in-state tuition and fees at public university: $12,330
  • Average yearly food costs: $1,700 (Northeast region)

Total: $24,930

7. Illinois

  • Average yearly cost of full-time child care: $7,600
  • Average yearly housing cost: $3,800
  • Average in-state tuition and fees at public university: $12,118
  • Average yearly food costs: $1,500 (Midwest region)

Total: $25,018

6. Minnesota

  • Average yearly cost of full-time child care: $9,700
  • Average yearly housing cost: $3,500
  • Average in-state tuition and fees at public university: $10,388
  • Average yearly food costs: $1,500 (Midwest region)

Total: $25,088

5. Vermont

  • Average yearly cost of full-time child care: $6,900
  • Average yearly housing cost: $3,475
  • Average in-state tuition and fees at public university: $13,582
  • Average yearly food costs: $1,750 (South region)

Total: $25,707

4. Rhode Island

  • Average yearly cost of full-time child care: $9,200
  • Average yearly housing cost: $4,200
  • Average in-state tuition and fees at public university: $10,849
  • Average yearly food costs: $1,700 (Northeast region)

Total: $25,949

3. Massachusetts

  • Average yearly cost of full-time child care: $9,400
  • Average yearly housing cost: $4,700
  • Average in-state tuition and fees at public university: $10,619
  • Average yearly food costs: $1,700 (Northeast region)

Total: $26,419

2. New Jersey

  • Average yearly cost of full-time child care: $7,900
  • Average yearly housing cost: $5,300
  • Average in-state tuition and fees at public university: $12,399
  • Average yearly food costs: $1,700 (Northeast region)

Total: $27,299

1. New Hampshire

  • Average yearly cost of full-time child care: $7,800
  • Average yearly housing cost: $4,300
  • Average in-state tuition and fees at public university: $14,576
  • Average yearly food costs: $1,700 (Northeast region)

Total: $28,376

See Also: The 10 best states to retire in this year >

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George Lucas Is Still The Proud Owner Of Skywalker Ranch

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lucas ranch

George Lucas may have sold the rights to Star Wars, but he's still the proud owner of the 4,700-acre Skywalker Ranch.

The director has spent around $100 million developing the impressive property north of San Francisco since 1978. Although he doesn't live there (at least as of 2002), Lucas uses the land as a retreat, as well as work and studio space.

Now with his $4 billion windfall from selling Lucasfilm, perhaps Lucas will spend more money building his dreamland.

Hot off his 1977 hit Star Wars, director George Lucas began acquiring land north of San Francisco in 1979.



Now-47,000 acres, his ranch is located in the coincidentally named Lucas Valley.



Lucas called it Skywalker Ranch, after the movie protagonist. The property also contains a Lake Ewok, along with other Star Wars themed places and things.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Check Out These Amazing Images Of Sunrises From The Top Of Mount Fuji

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DAWN Mount Fuji

Self-taught photographer Yu Yamauchi captured 600 sunrises from the top of Mount Fuji in 600 days between 2006 and 2010. 

Every photograph looks different even though Yamauchi took the images at the same time each day for a duration of five months. He took the photos from the same spot, at an altitude of nearly 10,000 feet.

The resulting series, titled “DAWN,” is currently on display at Miyako Yoshinaga gallery in New York through November 21, 2012.

Yamauchi states on his website:

This space, “above-the-clouds,” exists far from the ground where we live our daily lives. It is also a space between the earth and the universe. Being there simply reminds me of the face that we live on the earth which is a planet within an infinite space of the universe.

For 500 days at a time, Yamauchi lived in a hut near the summit of Mount Fuji.

Source: Yu Yamauchi



He was 10,000 feet above sea level.

Source: Yu Yamauchi



The cloud patterns would change so quickly, Yamauchi often captured blurry images, like this one.

Source: Yu Yamauchi



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Zillow Is Trying To Cozy Up To Real-Estate Agents With Its Latest Deal (Z)

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real estate agent broker realtor

When we sat down with Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff the other week, we were struck by how eager he was to talk about how his company worked with real-estate agents.

That's far different from the story the company told when it launched—that it was leveling the playing field by giving homebuyers easy access to the kind of price information they used to have to go through an agent to get.

Agents were skeptical, and lashed back with complaints that Zillow's listings were out of date and its price estimates inaccurate.

Now Zillow is announcing that it's bought Buyfolio, a New York-based startup that helps homebuyers and agents collaborate on a purchase—swapping notes on interesting properties through a website or mobile apps.

Zillow makes money by charging agents to be prominently featured in listings, so that when prospective home buyers see a house, Zillow suggests an agent to them.

Buyfolio is Zillow's fourth acquisition. Past ones have also added to marketing services Zillow offers to agents, like managing listings and building websites.

Put simply: Zillow's trying to buy agents' affections—through services that help them close deals.

That, in turn, may actually help improve Zillow's data, by giving agents more of an incentive to keep listing data up to date in Zillow's systems.

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This Famed London Establishment Was Just Named Restaurant Of The Year

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Le Caprice London

Le Caprice, a renowned London restaurant serving modern European cuisine, was recently named London’s Restaurant of the Year by the London Lifestyle Awards.

Le Caprice dethroned last year’s winner, Searcy’s at the National Portrait Gallery, and beat runner-up and newcomer The Roof Garden’s Babylon restaurant for the title. 

Le Caprice originally opened in 1947 in London’s West End by Mario Gallati, the same man who launched the famed Ivy, but the restaurant was relaunched under new management by Chris Corbin and Jeremy King in 1981.

The Piccadilly restaurant has been on the London scene for over 30 years now in its current form, and since its rebirth it has hosted celebrity clientele and remained one of the top restaurants in London.

This year, the annual London Lifestyle Awards were sponsored by Hot Diamonds, a high-end brand which makes silver and diamond jewelry. Over 4,000 businesses were in the running for the awards, and 207,000 public votes were cast to determine which businesses would win.

View the full list of winners here.

Don’t Miss: The New "Best Bar In The World” Is A Hotel Lounge In London

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Jaguar Designed A Speedboat Inspired By Some Of Its Coolest Cars

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jaguar concept speedboat

Last month, we looked at a luxury yacht concept Mercedes-Benz created to celebrate the Silver Arrow, a line of successful racing cars it built in the 1930s.

Now it's Jaguar's turn to hit the water, and the maker of the newly revealed F-Type is looking to the future, not the past, for inspiration.

The "Concept Speedboat by Jaguar Cars" is designed to go with the new XF Sportbrake. It also bears the marks of the D-Type and the Series 1 XJ, both very good-looking vehicles.

Director of Design Ian Callum says the boat, which Jaguar will not actually produce or sell, represents "a vision of how our design philosophy might be applied to an alternative product, in which speed and beauty are also priorities."

The speedboat is designed to invoke the new XF Sportbrake.



Much like a sports car, there's not much room: The boat has only three seats.



The hull is made of fiberglass.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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The 10 Most Outrageous Things People Bought In October

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richter

October was another record-breaking month in the art world.

This month, buyers flocked toward historic hand guns and paintings. 

The most notable record broken this month was easily the most expensive piece of art sold by an artist who is currently living. 

Butch Cassidy's gun sold for $175,000.

Expensive Cassidy memorabilia 

A .45 caliber gun, once owned by Butch Cassidy, sold for $175,000 at auction

An anonymous bidder bought the Colt Single Action Army revolver. 

Cassidy originally purchased the gun in 1896. He turned the revolver over to authorities in Utah in 1900.



A Texan bought the guns Bonnie and Clyde were wearing when they died for $500,000.

Pricey Bonnie & Clyde memorabilia 

The guns that 1930s outlaws Bonnie and Clyde were wearing when they died sold this month for $500,000. 

An anonymous Texas collector purchased the guns. 

Bonnie Parker's Colt .38 snub-nose Detective Special revolver sold for $264,000 and Clyde Barrow's Colt Model 1911 Government Model semi-automatic .45 pistol sold for $240,000. 



Edward S. Curtis's "North American Indian" sold for $1.44 million.

A painting that exceeded expectations 

Edward S. Curtis's "North American Indian" sold this month for $1.44 million.

It sold for more than its original $1.2 million estimate at Swann Galleries. 



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HOUSE OF THE DAY: For Less Than $1 Million, Buy The Amityville Horror House In New Jersey

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amittyville horror house

The home that was used in the Amityville Horror movie is on sale for $935,000, according to Zillow.

Just the exterior of the house was used in the film and the house is located in Toms River, N.J., not Amityville. 

No word on what Hurricane Sandy has done to the spooky house, but considering it is Halloween, this haunted house seemed like the perfect one to feature. 

The house has four bedrooms and five bathrooms. 

The exterior of this house, which is actually 100 miles from Amityville, was used in the 1979 movie.



The house is 3,370 square feet.



We love the fireplace.



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Building Developers Could Face Lawsuits Over The Infamous 'Dangling Crane'

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One57 Crane

Some serious lawsuits could result from Hurricane Sandy's gusts of wind toppling a crane over the still-under-construction glitzy One57 building in Midtown Manhattan Monday, according to The Real Deal. 

The crane was completely bent backward by the wind. It threatened to drop over the 57th Street area during the peak of the storm.

In the worst case scenario, if the crane was not secured properly or city rules were not followed, there could be criminal negligence charges filed against One57 developers, Extell and Lend Lease, sources told The Real Deal.

Most suits will most likely come from businesses that were evacuated in the area suing over loss of profit. 

Extell said that Lend Lease “took all recommended measures to position the crane in anticipation of a hurricane,” according to a statement.

The crane continues to dangle nearly 1,000 feet in the air.

There's no word on if the incident will delay the opening of the building. 

Now tour the inside of the glitzy building >

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Three Waterfront Greenwich Mansions Burned To The Ground Monday Night

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Three multi-million dollar mansions in Greenwich, CT burned to the ground Monday night as Superstorm Sandy rolled through, NBCNewYork reports

Video released by the fire department shows the waterfront homes engulfed in flames. Firefighters tried to put out the flames that night but storm surge was too high and they had to return later. 

Sandy devastated large swaths of Southern Connecticut, cutting power to more than than half-a-million homes in the state.  

More than 70 percent of ultra-rich Greenwich — home to famous hedge-fund managers like Paul Tudor Jones and Steven A. Cohen — was without power on Wednesday. 

Fortunately, no one was hurt in the fires.   

Watch the video below: 

View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com.

See more photos of destruction left by Hurricane Sandy >

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Why Carlos Slim Is Richer Than Anyone In History

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carlos slim helu

A review of Plutocrats: The Rise Of The Global Super-Rich And The Fall Of Everyone Else by former Financial Times deputy editor Chrystia Freeland.

Who is the richest person to have lived? Given the impossibility of comparing chariots with private jets, this is an absurd question. But it is still one economists have sought to answer, with perhaps the best measure – as defined by Adam Smith – based on annual income as a multiple of the average wage of fellow citizens.

Their answer is not Marcus Crassus, whose fortune was the same size as the entire government treasury of the Roman Empire. His annual return was paltry for a plutocrat, equating to the average yearly income of 32,000 Romans. Nor was it those robber barons of the Gilded Age – Andrew Carnegie, whose wealth peaked in 1901, took home the same as 48,000 typical Americans while John D Rockefeller's vast riches yielded an annual income equal to 116,000 of his countrymen.

The wealth of these figures from history pales in comparison with the strutting financiers of Wall Street, the geeky billionaires of Silicon Valley and the grisly oligarchs who plundered Russia. Trumping them all is Carlos Slim, the telecoms tycoon whose £53bn fortune is equal to that of an incredible 400,000 of his fellow Mexicans.

There has always been a gap between rich and poor but this is just one sign of how the gulf has widened into a chasm over the past few decades. Creaming off more and more wealth is a new elite, a transglobal class of mainly self-made men carving out unimaginable fortunes. They are the subject of this timely and absorbing analysis by former Financial Times deputy editor Chrystia Freeland.

Forget the 1% targeted by the Occupy mob. Freeland is talking about the 0.1 per centers who look down with disdain at the paupers scrabbling around on a few million a year. She quotes another shocking sign of our times: three decades ago the average American chief executive made 42 times as much as the average worker; today this ratio is an obscene 380. And bear in mind the richer you are, the smaller proportion of your income you tend to pay in tax, levels diminishing even at the very top of the tree.

Despite the cheap book cover and passing mention of private parties with pop stars paid a million dollars to perform, this is no voyeuristic glimpse into the fabulous lifestyles of the rich and famous. Freeland charts the rise of this class by examining global trends and exploring the consequences of the creation of such a money-laden elite, shifting smoothly from dense academic studies and interviews with George Soros to grappling with the success of Lady Gaga.

So who are these people? They are nearly all men for a start, sacrificing family life in their search for a fortune. One executive spending a third of the year in transit says forlornly: "We are the people who know flight attendants better than we know our own wives."

Often middle-class and frequently mathematicians, they make their own money rather than inheriting it. They go to the top universities and create their first fortunes early. Many are outsiders to some extent – most Russian oligarchs, for example, were Jews clever and driven enough to get degrees from top universities under the old Soviet system – and often they are immigrants. Unsurprisingly, bankers and financiers dominate this club, followed by the technology titans, but – like pilot fish feeding on the leftover food from sharks – the likes of lawyers and even dentists who service their needs can join their ranks. "The superstars who work for the super-rich can charge super fees," observes Freeland drily.

Her findings are fleshed out with fine research, strong statistics and neat nuggets of information. She argues that technology and globalisation are creating winner-take-all superstars in many sectors who join a cosy, conformist bubble. These people flit round the world attending the same events and using the same services; they freely admit to having more in common with one another than their fellow citizens, whether coming from Africa, Asia or the west.

Some display extraordinary arrogance. "If a man is not an oligarch there is something wrong with him," said Mikhail Khodorkovsky, once Russia's richest man – although his outlook has since been tempered by his time in jail. Indeed, extreme wealth and rampant egotism can be a combustible mix; in China, at least 14 billionaires have been executed over the past decade.

Although short of solutions, Freeland highlights the danger when a small, self-serving and self-satisfied group dominate public discourse, then seek a system tilted even more in their favour. "I think the ultra-wealthy actually have an insufficient influence," says one billionaire Republican donor. Another says taxes should be virtually abolished, arguing that the government should pay the likes of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs for their contributions to society. "It's that top 1% that probably contributes more to making the world a better place than the 99%," he concludes outrageously.

Yet these super-elites are not evil people; they genuinely think what is good for them is good for the rest of society. The irony, as the author points out, is that a big intrusive state is often the plutocrat's best friend, whether it's a state capitalist regime such as China or the protectionist capitalism of the west. Just look at all those fat-cat bankers who pushed for the biggest state intervention for a century to rectify their disastrous mistakes – although, needless to say, they don't blame themselves but all those poor people who choked on cheap credit after buying their dodgy products.

As the financial meltdown showed, the best brains follow the money, so the regulators – earning a fraction of the immense incomes enjoyed by bonus-chasing bankers – were no match for the global behemoths. Such is their power and wealth, these mega-rich plutocrats proclaim free market values yet lobby hard and often successfully to bend markets in their favour, devastating the traditional middle classes and dislocating social mobility. In so doing, they are destroying the very things that gave birth to so many of them – to all our detriment.

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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Billy Joel Will Have An Even Harder Time Selling His Hamptons Home After Hurricane Sandy

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Billy Joel

Billy Joel has struggled to sell his Hamptons abode for nearly two years now.

And Hurricane Sandy didn't do the piano man any favors.

Next to Joel's Sagaponack home, where there use to be a beach, there is now an eight-foot drop off, according to The Real Deal.  

Jeffrey Colle, a high-end Hamptons developer located in Wainscott, told The Real Deal:

 “There's an enormous amount of erosion in the main dune. ... The road stops and you walk onto the sand usually, and, well, now the road stops and it’s just eight feet down."

Joel had lowered the price several times on the four-bedroom, six-bathroom house. It's currently asking $16.75 million. 

Joel and his now-ex wife bought the home in 2007 for $16.8 million, so now there's almost no chance Joel will even break even. 

Now tour Joel's Hamptons House >

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India's First Playboy Bunny Club Will Open Soon With 'Modest' Bunnies

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Sherlyn ChopraIndia's state of Goa is about to get its very own Playboy Bunny Club next month, according to a report by the AFP.

This is despite a nationwide ban on Playboy magazine, which has been in effect since the brand's launch in the 1950s due to India's strict obscenity laws banning all material deemed "lascivious or appealing to prurient interests."

The club will serve drinks and feature the brand's iconic "Bunnies," though with certain clothing restrictions to keep the uniform "modest."

Instead of the infamous fluffy tail, bunny ears, and corset, a more demure outfit with a stress on no nudity will premiere at the 22,000-square-foot club.

"Bunnies are an integral part of Playboy clubs," Sanjay Gupta, chief executive of PB Lifestyle with the rights to the well-known American brand, told AFP. "For the obvious reasons of Indian morality and sensibilities, we can't follow the traditional costumes that Playboy bunnies are associated with."

Recently, Playboy also caused controversy in India as Sherlyn Chopra, a B-list Bollywood starlet, posed for the mag. The 25-year-old Indian model has gained criticism for her choice to model for the magazine, but tells BBC News, "Never have I done a shoot with such confidence and joy." Her issue will be out this month.

PLAYBOY: This Is What Your Sex Life Would Look Like Under Mitt Romney >

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There Are A Million New Millionaires In The US Since Obama Took Office

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obama fundraising

The US has added 1.1 million new millionaires since Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, according to a new survey of high-net-worth individuals.

Amid an election campaign that has been defined by fierce fights over the taxation of millionaires and accusations that Obama is anti-wealth, the so-called "1%" of the population grew by 29%, the equivalent of a thousand new millionaires per day, over the president's first three years in office. According to analyst WealthInsight, those high-net-worth individuals now hold assets worth $18.8tn – 34% of total US individual wealth, well above the global average of 29%.

"It doesn't really fit the campaign rhetoric that one side is against the rich and the other is for," said WealthInsight analyst Christopher Rocks. "The total number of millionaires is growing and will continue to grow whether Obama or [Mitt] Romney is elected."

The number of new US millionaires fell following the financial crisis. At the end of 2011 there were just over 5.1m millionaires in the United States – 165,360 fewer than in 2007, before Obama's election and the worst of the financial crisis. The recent rise in stock markets and signs of a recovery in real estate mean the number of millionaires will be back to pre-recession levels by the end of 2012.

However, their wealth will remain below 2007 levels until the end of 2013. In 2007, high-net-worth individuals' total wealth was about $20tn; WealthInsight forecasts that at the end of 2012 the number will be fractionally lower, at $19.9tn. By the end of 2013, such individuals' wealth will top $21tn, surpassing pre-recession levels. WealthInsight calculates that the total number of US millionaires will reach 6.1m by 2016, when their assets will be worth $23.5tn.

The super rich have come back fastest in the financial services sector. The number of ultra-high-net-worth individuals – those with assets in excess of $30m, excluding their primary residences – in the sector has risen by 12% since 2007. Manufacturing accounted for the wealth of 16% of the super rich, followed by transport and logistics at 10% and technology and telecommunications at 8%.

The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression had little impact on the ultra-wealthy. At the end of 2011, in the US, the super rich numbered 39,378 compared to 40,197 in 2007. Similarly, in 2011 the wealth of "ultras" was about $5.5tn, down from $5.6 tn in 2007.

Connecticut, which is home to many hedge-fund billionaires, experienced the fastest growth in ultra-rich people under Obama, rising 26%. The largest number of ultra-rich people were found in New York, with 4,363 people defined as ultra-rich. Texas came second with 3,828, according to WealthInsight.

"Politics is short-term," said Rocks. "The trend is clear – there are a lot more rich people."

This article originally appeared on guardian.co.uk

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It Took Me 48 Hours To Escape The Manhattan 'Dark Zone'

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walking queens bridge hurricane sandy

It had only been two hours since Hurricane Sandy hit New York when the lights in my Chinatown apartment went out at 7 p.m.

My wireless internet was out too, but for a few hours I could get an AT&T signal on my iPhone. Around 1 a.m. that was gone too.

When I woke up on Tuesday, all of my electronic devices were dead. I didn't know what time it was, but I got dressed and headed to the Business Insider office on Park Ave South. Everything along the way was dark and closed. I saw a few people using payphones and I tried one of them to call my parents, one of the few phone numbers I have memorized. 

When I arrived at our Gramercy Park office, a sign out front read "Building Closed" and everything inside was pitch black.

From as far as I could see, everything north of 21st street was also dark, so I turned around and headed back to Chinatown.

Within a few hours, the neighborhood had morphed into part-refugee camp, part-black market. Instead of peddling handbags and watches, locals had set up tables selling two-for-five candles they promised would burn for 15 hours, steamed buns and loose batteries. 

If you looked closely, you could see patrons eating inside restaurants by candlelight. 

I started worrying about my own dinner, as I had only stocked up on some cheese, dry goods and water before the storm. Then I ran into the people who owned a bar below my apartment building, and they invited me back to their house to eat.

We walked a few blocks to their apartment, then climbed 17 floors because the elevators were no longer working. As we climbed the dark stairwell, we would see flashlight beams and hear people whispering before we actually saw them. Tenants carried pots and jugs to fill up with water at a hose downstairs, as the building's pump wasn't able to get water into individual apartments. 

We ate dinner by candlelight, then played board games while listening to a battery-operated radio. It felt like hours had gone by, but it was only 6 p.m.

From their window, I could see uptown Manhattan ahead. It was an eerie sight –– everything below 34th street was engulfed in darkness and the other half was lit up as if nothing had happened.

Around 9 p.m., I went back to my dark apartment and went to sleep. 

On Wednesday, I woke up again not knowing the time, but I was determined to get powered up and back online. I took a cold bath, packed an overnight bag with my dead laptop and phone and headed uptown. I passed by the Business Insider building again and stopped at a candlelit deli to get a cup of lukewarm coffee.

Around 25th street, as I hit the "light" zone I was astonished to see the drastic change within mere blocks.

Bright Box charging stationOn 29th street, I was thrilled to see several charging stations set up outside Stumptown Coffee allowing people to charge phones for free. There were also hubs on the ground so that people could charge their laptops and tablets.

As soon as my phone came back to life, the text message alerts didn't stop for the next few minutes. 

I met the co-founder of the charging station company Bright Box, who took me to their headquarters on 30th street, gave me a cup of hot coffee, told me about the company and their plans to charge people up for free for the next few days. 

After I left the kind people at Bright Box, I decided it was time to find another place to stay until the blackout was over. I set my sights on Astoria, Queens, where I could stay with a fellow BI reporter.  

There was just one problem: Traffic. Cars and buses were in a gridlock for miles heading uptown. On 35th street, I spotted a passenger paying inside a cab and I waited outside the door for him to exit so that I could hop in. When I slid into the seat, I begged the driver to take me to Queens. He answered by saying "cash only," and I waved a handful of bills at him.

It took us 47 minutes to travel six blocks when he decided to kick me out. The traffic was horrendous and he said this trip was "a waste of time." I begged him to take me a few more blocks, but we weren't moving and my driver, again, ordered me to get out. I obliged.

I had a new plan: Walk to 60th street and try to catch a cab turning onto the Queensboro Bridge. When I was in sight of the bridge, I walked up and down Second Ave. trying to flag down cabs, but they were all fully occupied. Any cab that had its windows down, I would yell in their direction: "Are you heading to Astoria?" A few vans offered me a ride, but I wasn't brave enough to hop into the middle of a packed van with eight men. 

That's when I met Brendon Budness, a production manager at TalkPoint, who was heading to the same area in Astoria as me. We heard a group of people nearby discussing the entryway of the bridge and started walking behind them. There was a fairly large-sized group of us and for the first time in days, I felt at peace. 

The walk across the bridge didn't take long. Brendon and I talked about our Sandy experiences, where we were from and why we came to New York. I don't remember when other people in the group started trailing off, but I was glad I had someone to walk with because the streets seemed kind of empty even though it was barely 8 p.m. 

On the other side of the bridge one thing stood out: electricity, from street lamps to televisions glowing bright inside windows. I was in the light again.

I finally arrived at my destination around 9 p.m. where my colleague was outside the "Queens BI office" waiting for me. I said goodbye to my new friend — he had a few more blocks to go — and ended a very long 48 hours.

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There's A $195,000 Sports Car Parked Outside Zynga And No One Knows How It Got There (ZNGA)

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Zynga's seen better days. It's shedding unwanted assets and tightening its belt.

It has company!

A passerby recently spotted a Lamborghini Gallardo parked outside Zynga headquarters, with a sheet of paper advertising it for sale for $194,900. The car lists for more than $200,000.

"HAVE YOU SEEN $ZNGA LATELY?!" wrote Andrew Vilcsak, a mobile engineering lead at Airbnb, whose headquarters are near Zynga's, when he posted the photo on Instagram.

We asked Vilcsak for more details. He told us he noted the words "Lamborghini San Francisco" on the sheet of paper, suggesting it might actually be a dealer's car.

We called British Motor Car Distributors, the local Lamborghini dealer. The general manager there declined to comment, but did add, "Good luck with the article."

We'd add: Good luck selling a Lamborghini to Zynga employees, who have seen their net worth crash along with their employer's stock price.

Here's Vilcsak's post:

2010 Lamborghini Gallardo for sale

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