Pepsi announced Wednesday it was pulling a controversial ad starring the model Kendall Jenner one day after it debuted.

The beverage giant said it was removing the ad and halting the rollout of the campaign.

"Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace, and understanding," the company said in a statement. "Clearly we missed the mark, and we apologize. We did not intend to make light of any serious issue."

Pepsi also apologized "for putting Kendall Jenner in this position."

In the commercial, Jenner rips off a blonde wig to join a multicultural group of young people holding signs with feel-good messages like "join the conversation" and "love."

Walking through the group, Jenner grabs a Pepsi and hands it to a stone-faced police officer watching the protest. He breaks into a smile, and the crowd cheers. The screen reads: "Live bolder. Live louder. Live for now."

The commercial immediately sparked backlash when it was released on Tuesday, with people saying it was tone deaf and co-opted imagery from a Black Lives Matter protest.

Critics included Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King.

Pepsi has removed the commercial from YouTube, but you can watch the full ad here:

SEE ALSO: Martin Luther King Jr's daughter just called out Pepsi for its controversial ad

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Now you can take another look at what life was once like for the real "Wolf of Wall Street." 

Jordan Belfort's former New York home has come onto the market for just shy of $3.4 million. Belfort is a former stock broker who was played by Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese's 2013 film "The Wolf of Wall Street."

This five-bedroom mansion in one of Long Island's most affluent neighborhoods, Old Brookville, was seized by the federal government and sold in 2001 to help pay back the $110 million Belfort owed his fraud victims, according to Reuters.

In true Belfort style, the house is well-equipped for a party and comes with a three-car garage, gym, large pool, and multiple entertaining rooms. It's a commutable distance from Manhattan but deep into exclusive country-club territory. 

Regina Rogers of Douglas Elliman has the listing.

SEE ALSO: The world's billionaires are flocking to Miami's luxurious Porsche Design Tower, where they can use an elevator for their cars

This five-bedroom mansion is in one of New York's most exclusive suburbs: Old Brookville. The area is awash with country clubs, making it a favorite destination for wealthy New Yorkers to keep weekend homes.

The house was once owned by Jordan Belfort, known as the "Wolf of Wall Street" and the inspiration for Martin Scorsese's blockbuster movie of the same name.

8,700 square feet in total, this mansion has an impressive entrance. Large, arched mahogany doors open into a hallway with a checkered marble floor.

Luke Kenworthy, 17, was nervous on Ivy Day — the last Thursday in March, when all eight schools drop their admissions decisions.

He had already received a rejection from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was wait-listed by the University of Chicago and Carnegie Mellon University, and was deferred at Harvard University after applying early.

"I legitimately was convinced I wasn't going to get into any Ivy League schools," Kenworthy told Business Insider.

But his incredulity turned to shock and then excitement as he opened his decision letters and saw he'd been accepted nearly all of them — Harvard, Princeton, Brown, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, and the University of Pennsylvania. He also received a wait-list spot from Yale.

The Ivy League is notoriously hard to get into, as the hundreds of thousands of other applicants to the eight elite schools are well aware. At Harvard, 5.2% of the nearly 40,000 applicants — about 2,000 — were accepted this year.

These schools look for the right mix of academic achievement and participation in extracurricular activities. Kenworthy, a senior at Mercer Island High School, near Seattle, has taken all the advanced-placement courses available at his school. (He favors his physics and comparative government AP coursework.) He also is heavily involved in student government and has taken mission trips to Serbia, Turkey, and Guatemala.

For Kenworthy, nailing his admissions essay was also important. After he was deferred from early action at Harvard, he felt compelled to change his essay topic. He worked with a mentor at CollegeVine— a junior at Duke University majoring in biochemical engineering — to improve his essay.

Kenworthy chose to write about a deeply personal childhood experience.

"To write an essay like that was a little bit weird for me, but also was very important to me, too," Kenworthy said. "The events that happened in my life very much shaped who I am."

Kenworthy graciously shared his Common Application admissions essay with Business Insider. It's reprinted verbatim below.

"The soft thumping of my dad's heart provided a small degree of solace as I cried with my head on his chest. I was in fifth grade. He had just told me that my mom, having been attacked by her boyfriend, was in the hospital. I remember being surprised with myself, surprised that I would be sad after all she had done. This was the same person who, when I was eight, threw a drunken party at our house for teens younger than I am now. This was the same person who would disappear after spending nights at the bar, the person who went to jail for trying to strangle my dad in an inebriated stupor. She had not been a part of my life for over a year since my dad received sole custody; I thought I had closure, that I was ready to move on. Yet, hot tears still ran down my cheek as I imagined her swollen face and the bruises on her arms.

"I had always been shy as a kid and the absence of my mom exacerbated this problem as I tried to unhealthily suppress my insecurities and fill her absence with others' approval. In sixth grade, I constantly sought the attention of a group of kids who, in turn, bullied me. Consequently, when I switched schools going into seventh grade, I was shy and timid, afraid to engage with new people. I pictured myself near the bottom of a rigid social hierarchy. The next year, I started to branch out more, but inside, I remained obsessed with how others perceived me.

"Entering high school, I would spend hours at a time thinking about my insecurity and talking through memories of my mom with my dad. During this time, I would always remember how I had stared numbly into the ripples of my dad's shirt as a fifth grader. I could never forget that feeling of helplessness, but with repeated reflection, I began to understand this moment in a different way. Given her circumstances — raised by an abusive, alcoholic father and a neglectful mother; involved in several dysfunctional relationships with controlling men; drinking to numb the injustices of life, but then realizing it was too late to stop — I have no way of knowing if my life would be any different from hers.

"For the first time, I began to understand an idea that has since granted me freedom: I cannot walk in my mom's shoes, and thus, no one else can truly walk in mine. The way others perceive me is inherently inaccurate, so I do not need to concern myself with what others think. This realization provided me the freedom to become untethered from the approval of others, finally at ease with myself.

"I started to open up. Throughout high school, I began talking to others about ideas that fascinated me, like space travel and philosophy, rather than frantically searching for common ground. I quit football, realizing that I largely participated for the status it brought me, and joined cross country, because I genuinely enjoy running. I started holding the door open for my classmates almost every morning, greeting them as they arrived at school, hoping to brighten their day. I became engaged in my role on student council, which paid off when I was elected student body president. Even then, it wasn't the role itself that I found meaningful, but the way I could use it to help others. The basis of my friendships shifted from validation seeking to mutual, genuine respect.

"As I listened to my dad's heartbeat that night, my mind filled with anger and sorrow. However, in hindsight, I am thankful for the lessons I learned from my mother; the pain I felt was a necessary step in the process of becoming the person I am today, someone who is unafraid to express himself."

If you have something to share about your college-admissions experience, email ajackson@businessinsider.com.

SEE ALSO: Ivy League admission letters just went out — here are the acceptance rates for the class of 2021

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NOW WATCH: 7 unprofessional email habits that make everyone hate you

When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die. It's violent, vicious, and not for the faint of heart.

Over the past six seasons, a lot of people on "Game of Thrones" have died. It's a game of survival, and you're lucky if you've made it this far. 

Some of these characters came back from the dead. We barely knew some of them, and we knew a lot of them so well that we shed a tear or two (or two-hundred) when we watched them die on our TV screens. And some? We couldn't wait for them to die, and when they did, we were cheering.

On a scale of 1 to 10 (with some exceptions), we ranked 90 notable deaths (and semi-deaths) from the series — basically, the deaths of characters who had names, had more than a few lines, and/or had some kind of impact on a major plot point or a major character. Hopefully it gives fans closure while they wait longer for the next season to arrive.

Here are 90 "Game of Thrones" deaths ranked from the least sad to the most sad:

Note: The Hound is exempt from this list. He was presumed dead and that was very sad for all of us, but turns out he never actually died. Direwolves are also exempt.

SEE ALSO: Every HBO show ranked from worst to best, according to critics

90. Ramsay Bolton

Ramsay Bolton was Roose Bolton's bastard son who had a penchant for extreme violence against innocent human beings. He was briefly married to Sansa Stark, and tortured Theon Greyjoy for several seasons. He also killed his dad, his stepmom, and his baby brother. And Rickon Stark. And Osha. And a lot of other people.

Time of death:  Season 6, episode 9, "Battle of the Bastards"

Cause of death: Sansa leaves him to be eaten by his own hounds.

Sadness ranking: -25. Ramsay's death is probably the most satisfying one on this whole show. His violence was gratuitous and he had zero redeeming qualities. Nobody loved him, not even his dad. 

89. Joffrey Baratheon

Starting with the execution of Ned Stark, Joffrey proved that he was completely out of control and wouldn't listen to anybody. He was a terrible king, and also a terrible person. 

Time of death: Season 4, episode 2, "The Lion and the Rose"

Cause of death: Poisoned by Petyr Baelish and Olenna Tyrell at his wedding to Margery Tyrell. 

Sadness ranking: -10. The only sad thing about Joffrey's death is that we don't get to hate him anymore. Joffrey was responsible for the untimely deaths of a lot of people who didn't deserve it.

88. Walder Frey

Walder Frey was the Lord of the Crossing at the Twins, and for a brief period, the Lord of Riverrun. He had over 100 descendants, and so many daughters that he didn't even know some of their names. He never had a good reputation in Westeros, and was often called the "Late Walder Frey" after delaying his assistance in Robert's Rebellion until it was already won. 

Time of death: Season 6, episode 10, "The Winds of Winter"

Cause of death: Arya Stark slits his throat after feeding him a pie made out of his own sons.

Sadness ranking: -8. He's responsible for the Red Wedding, plus he's really gross. Not sad, not even a little bit. 

Every summer, tens of thousands of migrant workers swarm a remote area of Northern California — the marijuana-growing capital of the US — to find work as "trimmers" after the weed has been harvested.

Their job is to prune the fluffy, green buds with small pairs of scissors to clear them of leaves before they wind up on dispensary shelves or in dealers' pockets.

The work is arduous and pays between $100 and $300 a day for 10 to 15 hours of labor on the black market, which generated 87% of pot sales in North America in 2016.

A startup based in the Boston area hopes to revolutionize the increasingly legal marijuana industry by assigning robots to the task.

Bloom Automation is developing a robot that uses cameras and computer vision to discern leaves from the smokeable stuff, and cut away the unwanted material. A prototype unit can trim a typical eight-inch to 18-inch marijuana branch in as little as four minutes.

The startup is planning a late 2017 commercial launch. If Bloom Automation is able to bring up the machine's level of accuracy and lower its cost (which is currently upwards of $20,000), its robot could someday replace human trimmers at marijuana cultivation sites.

"We're not aiming to take anyone's job — just improve efficiency and alleviate a significant pain point," says Jon Gowa, founder and CEO of Bloom Automation.

The machine relies on a human operator to ensure the branches load properly. Gowa says it doesn't require a mechanical engineering degree to handle.

Marijuana buds are trimmed because well-manicured weed looks better and tends to fetch higher prices at dispensaries. The leaves also have a lower concentration of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. A medical marijuana patient who buys an eighth of an ounce of untrimmed bud gets less value for their money than they would buying trimmed pot.

While trimming kush might sound like a cushy gig, it's actually one of the hardest jobs in the marijuana black market. A blogger who made $5,000 (after food and alcohol expenses) over five weeks in Northern California's trim trade wrote, "After a few weeks your hands are calloused, your lower back crippled, your wrists ache, and all the days merge into a green haze."

In California's marijuana-growing regions, some trimmers — called "trimmigrants" — come from outside the US. Many are effectively homeless. They camp in parks and alleyways.Female trimmigrants working in the male-dominated growing community can face danger. Stories of sexual assault, rape, and exploitation run rampant in the region, though few survivors press charges, according to a 2016 investigation by Reveal reporter Shoshana Walter.

Bloom Automation puts the trimming task in the hands of robots.

The robot prototype stands about three feet tall. Marijuana branches, which hold the buds on smaller stalks, slide down a conveyor belt. High-resolution cameras capture images of the branch from several angles, and a proprietary algorithm figures out which material is undesired leaves. An arm that hangs above the conveyor belt trims away the leaves.

The robot can trim about one pound of marijuana a day, which is on par with a human trimmer's average. Gowa says the company is working to increase its accuracy to about 80% of a human's ability.

Bloom Automation, which is currently enrolled in a marijuana startup accelerator called CanopyBoulder, hopes to start testing the robot at cultivation sites in Colorado this summer. It's targeting a retail launch at the end of 2017 and expects to attract mid-size cultivators.

The robot's cost will likely be prohibitive for the vast majority of small-time marijuana growers. A cultivator with about 5,000 square feet of production space would require one to two robots, according to Gowa, which could run up a bill over $40,000.

Gowa is hopeful that cultivators who contract trimmers at the start of the harvest will find new roles for those humans, like operating the robot.

"While autonomous, they're not fully autonomous. They need an operator," Gowa says. "With the deployment of robots, you also get employment."

SEE ALSO: The way people buy legal marijuana will change in 2019 — here's what to expect

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: We went inside the grow facility that makes Colorado's number one marijuana strain

Trying to decide which travel rewards card to apply for? If you've got visions of 50,000-point sign-up bonuses and jetsetting around the globe, there's a fun website you might want to consult before taking the plunge – because not all rewards points are created equal. 

RewardStock, a website geared toward helping people plan and execute reward travel with ease and financial efficiency, hosts a tool that is something of a daily market ticker for credit card reward points. Click on to the website's "Market Data" section, and you'll see a running list of airline, hotel, and credit card rewards, which updates daily with the value of the reward in cents. 

As you can see, there are some striking chasms in reward program value. A 30,000-point sign-up bonus through American Airlines would currently be worth about $580, while the same points for Delta would only be worth about $265, according to RewardStock's calculations. 

If you click on an individual reward program, you get more granular data — including how the reward value has changed over time. Here's what that looks like for Chase Ultimate Rewards, one of the most popular programs in the US today thanks in part to the blockbuster release of its Chase Sapphire Reserve card last summer: 

You can also see how much value you would gain or lose if you transferred points to a different program, and how a program compares with its direct competitors.

Chase's Ultimate Rewards points are currently worth 2.24 cents a piece, compared with 1.2 cents for Merrill Lynch's program – an 87% spread. On a 50,000 point sign-up bonus — a figure that's becoming ever more common — your reward through Chase would be worth $520 more. That's enough for a round-trip flight to Paris. 

So just how does RewardStock come up with its figures? At its most basic, it's determining the amount of money that you'd save with a program, divided by the number of required points. It takes into account taxes and availability, as well as an array of other factors. 

Hudson Callaway, a company spokesman, provided a more detailed explanation: 

"We pull up-to-date pricing data on thousands of flights and hotels representing millions of potential redemption options, and use this data to calculate the cash equivalent value of reward point currencies. ... Measuring this value across hundreds of thousands of redemption options for each program allows us to calculate a robust profile of potential values for the program, and determine the average value of those points."

Not interested in comparing the values of the myriad rewards programs yourself? If you sign up for a RewardStock account (it's free), it will help you identify reward programs and travel itineraries best suited for your needs.

"Every program is different, and our system accounts for the different rules that make some programs more valuable than others," Callaway told Business Insider. "Sometimes the results are surprising."

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NOW WATCH: This is the best response for when your kids ask 'are we rich?'

The crisis in Syria reached new, heartbreaking heights on Tuesday when one of the most devastating chemical attacks left dozens of people — including many children — dead or critically injured.

While watching a humanitarian disaster unfold before your eyes across the world may make you feel powerless, there are some things you can do to aid the people still in Syria and the 4.8 million refugees who have fled their country since the civil war began nearly six years ago.

Here are some actions you can take to help:

SEE ALSO: The deadly chemical attack is the latest to hit Syria in 6 years of brutal civil war — here's what happened

DON'T MISS: TRUMP: Syria chemical-weapons attack crossed 'beyond a red line,' and my attitude has changed

Donate to a charity

These 13 organizations received 3 or 4 stars (out of 4) from Charity Navigator, an independent nonprofit that rates charities based on their financial management and accountability. Here are links to their websites, listed in alphabetical order:

American Refugee Committee

CARE

Catholic Relief Services

Global Hope Network International

GlobalGiving

Helping Hand for Relief and Development

International Rescue Committee

Islamic Relief USA

Mercy-USA for Aid and Development

Oxfam America

Palestine Children's Relief Fund

Save the Children

United States Fund for UNICEF

Volunteer

Your time can be even more valuable than your money.

Instead of — or in addition to — donating to a charity helping Syrian refugees, volunteer with them.

Contact any of the charities listed on the previous slide (plus find more from USAID here) and ask them how you can give your time.

You can also join Doctors Without Borders and go to Syria or a European country where refugees have fled to.

If you live in several European countries or Canada, you can also list your home as a place where Syrian refugees can stay (sort of like a free Airbnb).

Educate yourself and others

Learn more about the crisis from official sources, and educate your friends and family about what you discover. The more you know about the crisis, the more you can help.

Here is more information about the situation in Syria from the United Nations Refugee Agency and the USAID Center For International Disaster Information.

Keep up with the latest news on Business Insider's Syria page.

There's a basic rule when it comes to buttoning up a suit jacket: "Sometimes, Always, Never" — if you have a three-buttoned jacket, sometimes button the top one, always button the middle one, and never button the bottom one. Where does this tradition come from? The answer dates back to a very fat king: King Edward VII. 

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The fashion show may soon be a thing of the past.

In a world where bottom lines are shrinking and fashion brands are losing market share to activewear companies like Nike and Lululemon, fashion shows are increasingly being seen as an unnecessary expense.

In 2016, The Atlantic provocatively asked: "Is this the end for Fashion Week?"

The fashion show is "definitely incurring challenges," Ketty Maisonrouge, a Columbia Business School professor and the head of the luxury marketing agency KM and Co., recently told Business Insider.

Brands both big and small are skipping years, skipping either the fall/winter or spring/summer shows, or skipping some cities on the fashion-show circuit altogether. In February, 12 brands skipped New York Fashion Week, including Tommy Hilfiger, Tom Ford, Vera Wang, and DKNY.

One issue is the long lead time that clothing takes as it moves from show to shelf. That gives fast-fashion brands a chance to copy the styles at a lower production cost before the originals even hit stores. In other words, "The only people who benefit are the people who copy it," designer Diane von Furstenberg told WWD in December 2015.

To combat this, some brands — like Rebecca Minkoff, Tom Ford, and Burberry — are trying to make the most out of their runway shows with a "see now, buy now" model, in which consumers can buy new products as soon as they hit the runway. Unfortunately, these pieces are far out of season when they're shown, and people often still wait to buy them until they need them.

Because of the massive expense of elaborate fashion shows, many fashion brands are deciding to do cheaper presentations that highlight certain aspects of the clothing and allow spectators to get up close. Others are diverting their budget to social-media marketing, which allows them to go directly to consumers without passing through buyers and the media. This could have a leveling effect for fashion brands, as smaller brands will no longer need to put forth the up-front cost to stage an elaborate show to reach buyers and customers.

"I don't know if it's a trend that will stop," Maisonrouge said.

Ultimately the fate of the fashion show rests on the reaction the brands get from skipping.

"I think the brands that have done it more than once think it's better for them," Maisonrouge said. Of whether brands would come back, she added: "If they feel like people like it this way, I'm not sure."

SEE ALSO: Consumers have a new attitude about fashion — and it should terrify H&M, Forever 21, and Zara

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NOW WATCH: 7 outdated fashion rules that men can now ignore

Fashion is dying, and athleisure is thriving in its place. The reason for that is simple.

Sports and athletic companies care much more about the consumer experience, according to Patrik Nilsson, the CEO of fashion brand Gant. And that's exactly why they're winning.

"I believe that the sporting goods industry is 10 years ahead of the lifestyle and fashion industry on many levels," Nilsson recently told Business Insider.

Nilsson was previously Adidas' North American head for seven years, and he says he learned a lot about how to focus on the consumer during his tenure there.

Sports companies, he says, have primarily been focused on how their apparel feels and performs. The goal for these companies has always been to help athletes perform better and feel more comfortable while performing. Once these same companies realized that people also care about how their apparel looks, athleisure became a dominant clothing trend in America.

"They've been growing up with trying to help athletes perform better, so they always have the consumer in the loop," Nilsson said. "I don't think the lifestyle brands have been doing that. They're doing whatever the creative director thinks is the next whim."

Nilsson is looking to change that by bringing what he learned during his time at Adidas to the smaller, Sweden-based brand he now runs: Gant. One of Gant's new lines is called Tech Prep. They look like traditional collared shirts, but they're made with high-tech fabric blends that are stretchy, breathable, and moisture-wicking.

"The sports brands have been winning against lifestyle brands because ... they have been bringing new technologies and new solutions to old problems a lot more than lifestyle brands," Nilsson said. 

SEE ALSO: Consumers have a new attitude about fashion — and it should terrify H&M, Forever 21, and Zara

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Buying a home is no easy task. You'll need to save up for a down payment, make sure your credit is in order, meet with mortgage lenders, and spend time shopping around.

But first, you'll want to consider where you're buying. After all, real estate agents don't harp about "location, location, location" for nothing.

New data from SmartAsset shows the best cities for first-time homebuyers — that is, where homes are affordable and it's easy to get a mortgage — considering seven factors:

• Mortgage lenders: the number of HUD-approved mortgage lenders in each city
• Value per square foot: the average home value per square foot
• Loan funding rate: the number of approved mortgage loans originated in 2015
• Affordability ratio: the ratio of median household income to median annual housing costs (within the first five years of ownership), including property taxes, closing costs, and homeowners insurance
• Market volatility: the standard deviation of quarterly annual housing price changes from the first quarter of 2011 to the fourth quarter of 2016
• Negative quarters since 2011: the number of quarters where home prices fell on a year-over-year basis, starting with the first quarter of 2011 and ending with the last quarter of 2016
• Homeowner stability index: the number of years homeowners stay in their homes and the number of homeowners with negative equity

SmartAsset gathered data for US cities with populations over 300,000 for a total of 64 cities and weighted each category equally to determine the final ranking (read the full methodology here).

While many cities in the Midwest and South — including San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, and others in Texas — proved exceptional for first-time homebuyers, Pittsburgh came out on top.

Read on to find out the best 15 cities to buy a first home, plus statistics on mortgages, affordability, and home value.

SEE ALSO: 7 pieces of homebuying advice you can't afford to ignore

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15. Kansas City, Missouri

Number of mortgage lenders: 52

Loan funding rate: 78%

Average value per square foot: $85.75

Affordability ratio: 5.06

14. Corpus Christi, Texas

Number of mortgage lenders: 27

Loan funding rate: 66%

Average value per square foot: $90.33

Affordability ratio: 5.35

13. Arlington, Texas

Number of mortgage lenders: 19

Loan funding rate: 74%

Average value per square foot: $94.17

Affordability ratio: 4.81

.

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Head to Slovakia if you want cheap beer.

According to the newly released Beer Price Index, which collected prices on beers from supermarkets and bars in 70 cities around the world, Bratislava ranks as the cheapest place to buy a cold one.

The BPI is the end result of extensive data collection from the travel site GoEuro, which puts together price indexes on common goods tourists like to buy.

Researchers at the company visited three supermarkets and three hotels in each of the cities they visited, combining the costs for each, standardizing the quantity of alcohol, and converting the end number into a single currency.

New York, unsurprisingly, ranks near the expensive end of the world's beer-loving cities at $5.36 a pop. Although, its beer was still found to be cheaper than eight other cities.

Lausanne, Switzerland came in as the most expensive, with an average price of $9.51 per bottle.

These price differences are partly reflected in consumption levels. New York's annual per capita consumption of four gallons pales in comparison with that of both Bratislava (18 gallons) and Kiev (27 gallons), but it still drowns out Cairo, which consumes just one gallon on average.

SEE ALSO: The best-selling beers in the world aren't what you think

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NOW WATCH: Watch This Mesmerizing Time-Lapse Of 12,400 Gallons Of Beer Fermenting Over 6 Days

L.L. Bean's wildly popular Bean Boot is about to get a lot more personality.

The company has revealed several funky new designs it will release for the rubber and leather all-weather boot over the next year. The designs will be available in limited quantities, which L.L. Bean is calling "small batch."

The good news for Bean Boot fans is that L.L. Bean seems to have finally gotten a handle on production. In 2016, the company's list of back orders actually shrank for the first time in recent years, while the total number of boots sold grew to 600,000 for the year.

With production handled, L.L. Bean is ready to have some fun. 

The designs include different leather colors like a "plum" purple or "red wine" maroon, while some will have "brick" red or "sail" orange soles. Others are in a different style from the traditional lace-ups, like the Chelsea boots. There's one boot that, at 16", is much taller than what L.L. Bean usually offers. Once winter comes around, there will also be boots that are lined with flannel or shearling. 

The shoes will be released on a rolling basis throughout the year, based on what season the boot is most appropriate for. The additional colors released already for this spring are no more expensive than the normal L.L. Bean boots, but the ones with special linings, lacing systems, or heights likely will be.

The new designs support L.L. Bean's ambitious goal tof making 1 million pairs of Bean Boots a year by 2018.

SEE ALSO: The company that made 'the world's most comfortable shoes' is releasing a brand-new style

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NOW WATCH: Here's why people love these L.L.Bean boots that sell out every winter

Ralph Lauren announced on April 5 that it would close its flagship Polo store in New York in less than two weeks.

The Fifth Avenue location is one of dozens of stores the company will shutter in an effort to cut costs and improve efficiency.

In the last quarter, same-store sales declined 5% compared with the same period in 2016.

The brand is struggling to connect with millennials and keep up with fast-fashion brands like H&M, Uniqlo, and Zara.

We visited Ralph Lauren's Polo store on Fifth Avenue the next day. It was full of unfashionable clothes and lacked shoppers despite being on one of the busiest streets in New York.

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In March 2012, Kristin Addis quit her job as an investment banker in Southern California.

"It was hard for me when our paid time off was only 14 days per year," she tells Business Insider.

"We'd go to the office puking our guts out because we didn't want to use our vacation time being sick. I felt back then like even if I wanted to, in that 14 days, I wasn't really allowed to take it all at once. I felt like 'What is this money worth if I don't have the opportunity to spend it on what I want?

"I thought there had to be more to life than that."

So she set out to find it.

Less than a year later, Addis bought a one-way ticket to Bangkok, planning to travel overland through Southeast Asia. Since then, the now 30-year-old has largely stayed on the move, documenting her journey through her blog, Be My Travel Muse, and sharing the expertise she's gathered in her book, "Conquering Mountains: The Guide to Solo Female Travel," produced with Nomadic Matt's Matt Kepnes.

Below, she talks about the new life she built traveling the world: what it looks like, the reality of working on the road, and how she affords it.

SEE ALSO: 16 people who are living the dream without spending a fortune

Addis, who had lived in Taiwan when she was 21 to study Mandarin, started her trip in Southeast Asia because she'd read a traveler could get by on $1,000 a month, a sharp drop from the $3,000-$4,000 a month price of her California life.

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 In Newport Beach, California.

"I had been saving for years," Addis remembers. "It was between putting money into buying a condo or traveling." She managed to accumulate around $20,000 in cash, plus about $60,000 in retirement funds, which she says she won't touch until it's time to retire.

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At Hohenzollern Castle, Germany.

"I've never had debt other than school debt," Addis says. "I won't spend money I don't have, and I don't want to dip into funds meant for later. If I couldn't make being a travel influencer work, I would have gotten a job before I touched my retirement savings."

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 In Maui, Hawaii.

President Trump's modeling agency could be in trouble.

Three sources, including an anonymous fashion industry insider and two bookers who have previously worked with Trump Models, told Mother Jones that they've heard the agency is on the brink of closing due to Trump's politics. Some current employees are looking for other work, while others have left to create their own agencies.  

"Yeah, it's closing," booker Virginie Deren, who works with a Paris-based firm that co-represents many Trump models, told Mother Jones in a recent interview.

Another booker who previously worked with Trump Models and still works in the industry claims that current employees are getting in touch for employment opportunities. "They're all pretty much sort of scrambling to get out," the source told Mother Jones. There are still, however, many models listed on the agency's website, and it's not clear how many employees have left. 

Trump opened the agency in 1999 — his first foray into the business side of fashion. 

In February, Refinery29 reported that various groups of people in the fashion industry, including casting directors, makeup artists, and hair stylists, were calling for a full boycott of Trump Models.

More recently, a former manager at Trump Models left the agency to create his own, calling it Anti Management. Several former Trump Models have already signed with the new agency. Anti Management's founder, Gabriel Ruas Santos-Rocha, told The Washington Post he wanted his models to be "nurtured and treated fairly." He added: "I did not start an agency with the intent of taking someone out of business. Outside of that I have no comments."

Trump Models has been under fire since 2016, when Mother Jones reported that the agency skirted immigration laws in bringing in young women who didn't have visas to work in the US.

Business Insider also interviewed two former Trump models in February of this year. They spoke candidly about their experiences working with the agency, saying that they were told to lie about their professions to customs agents. One of the two models said she was left in debt to the agency. 

A spokeswoman for Trump Models did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

SEE ALSO: 2 models who worked for Trump's controversial agency tell what it was like for them

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Fargo North High School senior Martin Altenburg is an outlier among the class of recently accepted college students.

The 17-year-old North Dakotan went into admissions season unsure how many Ivy League schools might accept him.

He already had an inclination that good things may be ahead after he applied early to Stanford and was accepted. Next came likely letters — an early notification of acceptance for regular decision students — from Harvard, Columbia, and Brown.

So as he began opening his remaining five Ivy League decision letters on a bus ride back from a science Olympiad tournament last Thursday, anticipation began to mount. Letter after letter confirmed his acceptance. When he got to the last letter, from Yale University, the entire bus took note.

"Everyone was looking over me on the back of the bus when I opened it," Altenburg told Business Insider. "They have the little bulldog video that they play when you get in and everyone sort of went crazy," he continued.

In addition to the eight Ivies, Altenburg was also accepted at Stanford University, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The California Institute of Technology, and the University of Chicago.

Attending a college outside of North Dakota — let alone an Ivy League school — wasn't even on his radar at the start of high school.

"Originally my parents didn't want me to apply to these schools because they thought we'd have to pay full price which, at a lot of these schools, is more than our yearly income," he said.

Financial obstacles weren't the only hindrance to him setting his sights on top colleges. Because he didn't have much exposure to information about top colleges, or reassurance that he and students just like him could do well in college, early in high school he never even considered he could go.

But after gaining knowledge about the admissions process and confidence that not only could he attend a prestigious school, but excel at one, he set his sights as high as he could, applying to some of the best colleges in the world.

"We're sort of a low-income family and so I wanted to push myself to see where I could be able to see the world, be able to get a job that allows me to understand how the world works, and make a really big difference," he said.

Altenburg also has a voracious appetite for learning, and has scored a 5 — the highest mark achievable — on every single Advanced Placement exam he's taken, which include biology, European history, human geography, English language, Calculus AB, and chemistry, to name a few.

"I like taking the AP exams and studying for them because it's a lot like a college environment where you learn how to study like a college student," he said.

When Altenburg ran out of math courses available at his high school, he took Calculus II at MIT his junior summer in a program called Minority Introduction to Engineering and Science (MITES). In the fall semester of his senior year, he took Calculus III at a local college in his area.

Altenburg scored a 35 out of 36 on the ACT and a 1510 on the SAT, though he didn't use his SAT score on his applications. 

In addition to all of this, Altenburg plays the violin and thinks he may minor in music while at college. He competes as a three-sport athlete in cross country, track, and swimming.

As the school year winds down, Altenburg must now decide which of the schools to attend. His top contenders are Harvard, Princeton, MIT, and Stanford.

In addition to finding a school that will help him explore his academic interests, he's looking for the school that will be the right fit. 

"I know in high school I'm sort of an outlier in terms of my interests and my motivations, and I really want to find a community in college where I'm able to relate to having a passion for environmentalism and the sciences," Altenburg said.

If you have something to share about your college-admissions experience, email ajackson@businessinsider.com.

SEE ALSO: Read the essay that got a high-school senior into 7 Ivy League schools

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Even though World War I may have ended nearly a century ago, little has changed — politicians still rattle their verbal sabres as they send their servicemembers off to defend, or in some cases, meet a foreign enemy in battle.

World War I, the "war to end all wars," claimed the lives of nine million people and destroyed large sections of Europe. But even though the war started a hundred years ago, its memory still lingers on.

Here are a few composite images that show how the memory of the war still remains throughout England:

SEE ALSO: This rare colorized WW2 photo of US troops takes you to the frontlines of Nazi Germany

German prisoners of war during WWI march towards Southend Pier, England while accompanied by guards and watched by the local populace.

Serbian soldiers march in London during the last days of WWI, November 9, 1918. The same street now stands in front of the Royal Courts of Justice.

Injured Indian soldiers of the British Army at the Brighton Pavilion recover in a converted military hospital around 1915 in Brighton, England. The room has since been converted to a music room at the Royal Pavilion.