When the American Confederacy lost the Civil War in May 1865, 10,000 Southerners fled the US for a small city in Brazil, where they could rebuild their lives and carry on their traditions.

Now, 150 years later, their story has been seemingly erased from the history books.

But deep in the heart of Brazil, descendants of these confederate expats gather annually to celebrate their controversial history and maintain their traditions and culture. In 2015, Vice's Mimi Dwyer attended the festival and revealed what life is like in the city called Americana.

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Each year, the small Brazilian city of Americana throws a huge celebration to commemorate the 10,000 Confederates who fled the American South after their side lost the Civil War.

They settled in Americana in the Brazilian state of São Paulo, which remains a sort of enclave for the long-dead expats' descendants.

The photos can cause discomfort, as they are a reminder of the events that led to the Civil War. But for the 2,000 Brazilians in attendance, the American South is part of their heritage.

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Silicon Valley is working on ways to change the way that we drive, eat, live, and now thanks to a new type of school, the way our children learn. The school is called AltSchool, and it's the brainchild of a former Google executive, Max Ventilla. The school merges traditional education with the type of high-tech learning that you would expect from Silicon Valley. AltSchool has even funded itself like a startup, raising $170 million from investors like Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund. 

Following is a transcript of the video:

I’m Max Ventilla, I’m the founder and CEO of AltSchool. I had been at Google and left to start a company called Aardvark that they acquired in early 2010. And at the same time my daughter was 2 years old and we were in the thick of thinking about preschool. My daughter is such a different person than I am and the world that she's going to grow up in is so different than the world that I grew up in. That future is going to demand of her this ability to kind of constantly make her own path instead of, you know following a roadmap that’s given to her. And her education needs to prepare her for that.

It is really hard to run a bad school, let alone a great school. And so to kind of manage that complexity, to manage that challenge, traditional schools have to simplify and they do that through making a number of assumptions. Like, the future is largely similar to the past or 10 year olds are pretty much the same. None of those assumptions turn out to be true. You know in AltSchool if you look at “What are the objectives that 10-year-olds are pursuing,” the vast majority of them are not 10-year-old objectives. There are things that an 11-year-old, or 12-year-old, or 13-year-old would be expected to work on and in other areas maybe they're behind and you know they're working at a 9-year-old or a 8-year-old level in some domain.

Personalizing education is pretty easy to do on a screen. The problem is now kids are on a screen which is in many ways the last thing that you want. So the challenge for us is, how do you personalize education off of a screen? 

A pillar of AltSchool and any school is assessment and assessment needs to be accurate, it needs to be actual, and it needs to be non-invasive. And that's hard. How do you get a signal about what kids are learning and what they know and what they don't know? You know, not just once a week but once a day, once an hour, once a minute. And again that's where technology can come in. You can allow kids to kind of naturally learn in an emergent way and you can give tools to teachers so that they can document in real time.

We believe a generation from now, the best education can be the one that the most kids get, rather than the fewest kids get. That education will be intensely personal, it will be intensely offline, but it will tie back to a digital representation of what's happening. So you'll be able to use technology to be much more flexible, to be much more coordinated, to be much more rigorous, and allow an experience that, you know, in many ways looks totally un-technical. 

If you believe that to really be part of a solution, for you know, a very different education in the future versus now, you need to bring technology and great traditional education together. 

Kids are different. Even two 10 year old twins are different and we need to be able to meet each child where they are in terms of, not only how has their academic and non-academic learning progressed to that point but what interests them what motivates them what frustrates them and we are nowhere near the level of personalization that we aim to be.

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Costco is the holy grail of bulk buying, the cathedral of wholesale. But it's not all about 10-pound jars of peanut butter.

A stop at Costco's humble food court — after walking miles around the cavernous warehouse — is a shameless reward for buying enough paper towels to fill your entire car trunk.

The food court is simple yet esteemed by Costco diehards. Amazingly, it's one of the biggest pizza chains in the US, and nationwide it sells roughly 100 million hot dogs a year, at extremely low prices.

After several readers expressed their unwaveringly high regard for Costco's hot dogs and pizza, we took a trip to the retail giant's Brooklyn location to discover all its revered food-court glories — and it totally exceeded our expectations.

 Marina Nazario contributed reporting on a previous version of this article.

SEE ALSO: How to order the right way at Chick-fil-A

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The food court at Costco doesn't offer the most varied selection — but it's cheap, quick, and provides a nice treat for customers after a long day of shopping.

We ordered one of each item on the menu, excluding the salad, smoothies, and ice cream — those are pretty uninteresting, run-of-the-mill items that are hard to get wrong.

We did not expect the servings to be so enormous and dirt cheap. This entire selection costs just over $25. Let's delve in and go through the choices.

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Contrary to popular belief, there are only a handful of pots and pans you need to do virtually any type of cooking.

We spoke with professional chef David Mawhinney at Haven's Kitchen about the tools you need in the kitchen and what to cook with each one. 

The long story short? You don't need to buy specialty items like a deep fryer, pasta cooker, wok, or anything copper.

These are the seven pots and pans to keep in your kitchen:

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It's common practice for high-end condo buildings to tout all kinds of amenities to attract buyers. But 443 Greenwich, a luxury building in the Tribeca neighborhood of New York, claims to have an entirely different perk: it's apparently "paparazzi-proof." 

While the building's management can't comment on the identity of its residents, it has been reported that the building's "paparazzi-proof" architectural features — such as its lower-level parking and interior courtyard garden — have proved attractive to high-end clients who value their privacy.

Most recently, singer Harry Styles is said to have purchased a $8.71 million condo in the building, joining rumored neighbors Justin Timberlake and Jessica Biel. Other big names like Jennifer Lawrence, Ryan Reynolds, and Blake Lively have reportedly looked into buying property there. Earlier this year, actor Mike Myers purchased a $14.65 million loft in the building, but just a week later, he put it back on the market. It later sold for $14 million.

As for the eight penthouses, one is still available for $55 million. Prices for the available lofts range from $3.9 million to $14.5 million.

Ahead, take a look inside one of the building's gorgeous four-bedroom condos.  

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Built in 1882, the 443 Greenwich building was originally a book bindery. Today, it's a landmarked building with 53 residential condominiums, including eight penthouses.

Calling itself "paparazzi-proof," the building's privacy has been a big draw for celebrity buyers. Jennifer Lawrence considered a space here, and actor Mike Myers reportedly purchased — then put back on the market — a $14.65 million condo in January.

Source: Curbed

One of the building's major privacy-geared benefits is its lower-level lobby and parking space, guarded by wrought-iron gates. The building has on-site valet parking.

While President Trump claims that the penthouse he owns at the top of his namesake tower in New York measures a total of 33,000 square feet, it actually doesn't measure more than 10,996 square feet, according to city records obtained by Forbes.

Trump first obtained the triplex apartment measuring 6,096 square feet on floors 66, 67, and 68 in 1983, when Trump Tower opened, according to records.

In 1993, Trump expanded his apartment into two neighboring residences, creating a new unit totaling 10,996 square feet.

That's where the paper trail of city records ends. If Trump has added or cut square footage from his apartment since then, he never told the city. 

Aside from Trump, the only person who lives on those floors is Alabama businessman Joel R. Anderson. The rest of the space on the floors has common areas like hallways, elevator shafts, and mechanical rooms.

Even taking all of that into account, it's hard to see where Trump is getting his 33,000-square-foot number from. Trump also claimed that his apartment would be worth $200 million if he ever put it up for sale, though a Forbes estimate considering the actual square footage pins it at $64 million.

SEE ALSO: See inside Trump's New Jersey golf club that's about to become the 'summer White House'

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If you stand outside just about any Broadway show in New York City, you'll see a few cheerful people in bright red "TodayTix" t-shirts handing out tickets to theatergoers as they walk inside.

For the past three years, TodayTix has sold tickets to Broadway and Off-Broadway shows through its mobile app. Rather than delivering the tickets digitally, the New York-based startup's concierges hand-deliver them to buyers outside of shows before they walk in.

While TodayTix has yet to disclose any of its financials, CEO and cofounder Merritt Baer recently told Business Insider that the app has sold $100 million in tickets to date. And on Monday, TodayTix unveiled a complete redesign of its app and branding to help fuel its expansion in the U.S. and internationally.

“We had taken a lot of time as a company being a product, being a utility to buy tickets for Broadway shows,” Baer said, noting that TodayTix "now wants to be a consumer brand around theater and arts culture."

Tapping into a $50 billion market

The new TodayTix app makes it easier to browse shows on and off Broadway in New York City as well as the 9 other cities the startup operates in. Shows can now be purchased up to 30 days in advance, and curated lists such as Broadway shows with Tony nominations are available to browse. The new TodayTix branding, which will be featured in a new ad campaign and on its iconic red concierge t-shirts, showcases Broadway actors from well-known shows like "Hamilton' and "Significant Other."

“Our look and feel felt like we were just trying to be a theater ticket app, and not actually trying to help people discover or get enthusiastic or be inspired by theater," Baer said.

With 60 employees, TodayTix has raised $16 million in VC funding to date. The startup isn't yet profitable, according to Baer, but he sees the app eventually becoming the Fandango of ticketing for the roughly $50 billion theater market.

“Some people don’t see the scale of the opportunity," he said. “Wherever there’s theater you want to see, we’ll have it."

SEE ALSO: How two former Broadway producers created an app that solves the biggest annoyance with buying theater tickets

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If you missed this year's Kentucky Derby, now's your chance to live vicariously through the photos.

The race, which took place on Saturday, May 6 at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky, has been dubbed "the most exciting two minutes in sports." Fortunately, the celebrations lasted much longer than that.

Drawing a massive crowd each year, the event is a chance for guests to dress up and put on their most extravagant hats while sipping on a refreshing mint julep cocktail, the signature drink of the festival.

Take a look at the celebrations below:

SEE ALSO: 27 vintage photos that show the glamorous past of the Kentucky Derby

Around 158,000 fans came out to watch this year's Kentucky Derby.

Source: Kentucky Derby

It was the 143rd running of the race.

There were 20 horses competing.

Maple, a food-delivery startup that launched in New York in 2015, announced in a letter that it would be closing shop on Monday.

"Over the past several months we've been spending most of our time thinking about the future of our business — what comes next for Maple? The more time we spent trying to answer this question, the more evident it became that of all the paths we had contemplated, the most compelling next step in Maple’s story involved a shift from our current approach," the letter reads.

"While an incredibly difficult decision for us given the effect on our core operations, it became clear that we needed to close the Maple operation here in New York and look for a partner with scale — one that would allow us to leverage all that we had built across a broader platform."

Maple had a preset menu for lunch and dinner every day of the week, excluding Saturdays. Meals could be ordered on Seamless, Maple's homepage, or Maple's app. Each meal was whipped up by line cooks in one of the startup's five kitchens before being handed over to a delivery person who brought it to its destination. All of Maple's employees were W2 workers.

Maple was founded by Caleb Merkl and Akshay Navle. Menus were developed by Executive Chef Soa Davies, who previously worked in research and development at the three-Michelin-starred restaurant Le Bernardin.

Maple raised $22 million in Series A funding in March 2015. Greenoaks Capital led the round, with contributions from Thrive Capital, Primary Ventures, Bonobos CEO Andy Dunn, and Momofuku founder David Chang. It had previously raised $4 million in seed funding in November 2014.

According to leaked documents that were reported on by Recode in December, Maple appeared to have lost money on every meal in 2015, though it began earning a profit of 30 cents per meal by March 2016. The documents showed that the startup was forecasting an operating loss of $16 million for 2016.

Though the initial plan was to offer lunches for $12 and dinners for $15 (including tax, tip, and delivery), Maple eventually abandoned that pricing model and started charging delivery fees on meals of varying costs.

Maple isn't the only food delivery startup to struggle and sell its parts to a competitor in an increasingly crowded space. Last March, SpoonRocket, a California-based delivery service, shut down and sold its IP to a Brazil-based company. In its footsteps, startups like Din and Bento have also closed down.

Deliveroo, which, according to Maple's announcement today, is absorbing some of the startup's team, is one of the highly funded competitors trying to take on incumbents like Seamless parent company GrubHub and UberEats. Deliveroo has raised nearly half a billion dollars from investors including Yuri Milner's DST Global, Accel Partners, and General Catalyst.

"Given the overlap in our goals and the significant scale of Deliveroo's operations, working together makes sense," the Maple letter reads. "As a result, some members of the Maple team will join Deliveroo operations in London, and our technology will be used to help accelerate growth and efficiency across the platform."

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While sportswear makers in the US face shrinking growth and increased competition, Adidas is staying ahead. 

When Adidas' parent company announced earnings in Germany on Thursday, the brand posted a stunning 36% growth in North America.

Fueled by the continued success of the retro "Originals" line and a popping running and training line of sneakers — both of which posted double-digit sales increases — Adidas has momentum in a market that was one of its weakest only a few years ago.

Adidas' North American head Mark King told Business Insider the brand differs from its competitors in one huge way. While it maintains a sports company with a performance focus, it also has a focus on style that is just as important.

"It's that mixture, that coming together of performance and style that gives us an advantage over pretty much everybody we compete against," King said.

Adidas has participated in — and been buoyed by — the shifting consumer tastes into casual everyday stylish sportswear, otherwise known as athleisure. King calls athleisure a "transformation," rather than a trend.

"We are definitely going to benefit from that, because we make not only performance products, but we make these style products that are right in the sweet spot of this [transformation]," King said.

Brands that have not fared as well in the current climate, like Under Armour, don't have this infusion of style and performance in their products. Under Armour CEO even admitted the brand needed to become "more fashion" to compete with brand like the resurgent Adidas. Even Nike posted slowing growth as of late, and revised guidance to be lower on in their fiscal year outlook.

 To King, this is only the beginning, and Adidas is looking to sustain this growth in the region.

"We're just really excited about the opportunities that are still ahead of us," King said.

The two keys to sustaining interest for Adidas is staying "very connected to the consumer" and acting "with speed to bring products to the market place that are really relevant in the moment," King said. 

"That's really the magic," King said. "To have the right product in the right market at the right time."

SEE ALSO: Under Armour's shoe business has ground to a halt — and it could spell trouble for the company

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Eleven Madison Park, recently crowned the "best restaurant in the world," is moving — for the summer, at least. 

The interior of the three-Michelin-starred resturant, located at the foot of New York City's Madison Square Park, has barely changed since it opened 20 years ago. Now, Chef Daniel Humm and business partner Will Guidara are ready for an overhaul.

Starting June 9, the restaurant will move to a new summer location in the Hamptons while its dining room and kitchen are redesigned back in New York City.

Before the temporary relocation, Humm and Guidara are having some fun, serving up an 11-course retrospective tasting menu highlighting signature dishes from the restaurant's history. The full 11-course meal is available for $295 a person, but a condensed, five-course meal is available for $145 in the bar section.

Below, take a look at the award-winning food, along with the years the dishes were introduced to the menu. The dishes appear in the order they are served on the tasting menu. 

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Sea Urchin, 2006: cappuccino with peekytoe crab and cauliflower.

Prawn, 2007: roulade with avocado and yogurt.

Little Neck Clam, 2011: clambake with velouté and parker house rolls.

Last December, Y Media Labs cofounder and CTO Sumit Mehra gathered with the company's 80-ish United States-based employees in Hawaii for their annual all-hands meeting.

It was there Mehra made the announcement: The very same "grand mansion" where they were standing, all 5,000 square feet of it, would be free for them and their families to use for as long as they worked for Y Media Labs. Everybody gets access to the Hawaiian residence for a week, in order of how long they've been at the company, no matter their job title. No strings attached. 

To cut right to the chase, here's a drone flyover of the house:

Zillow lists the value of the home at around $2.48 million; Mehra tells Business Insider that comparable mansions in the area go for $10,000 a week on Airbnb. The main house has 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms; the "Ohana" guest house has another two of each. All in all, it sleeps ten. You can bring your whole family, or go solo. 

Mehra tells Business Insider that the mansion was intended as a "thank you" to his employees, as suggested by his wife during their own recent Hawaiian vacation. It took a few months to line the place up — Mehra says that he tried to buy it outright, but the owner wouldn't sell. Now, he says, they're spending "six figures" a year to rent it indefinitely.  

Mehra says that it's also a reflection of his "gratitude" to employees for the success of the company. Y Media Labs, which helps design and market custom apps for the likes of Apple and American Express, grew from a bootstrapped startup with no outside funding, to a company with around 280 employees — 80 or so in Silicon Valley, and another 200-plus in India. In May 2015, Y Media Labs was bought by advertising company MDC Partners. 

"We wanted a way to thank our employees, in a non-traditional way," says Mehra. 

Dibs

When Mehra first announced the free mansion offer, it actually slammed Y Media's administrative staff: He says for the first week or so, they were buried under questions, trying to either book a trip, or else just trying to figure out if there was some kind of catch, or if it was really only for senior management.

But nope, Mehra says. In the spirit of fairness, and to reward the most loyal employees, employees get to book a week at a time, with priority given to those there longest. That means a junior salesperson gets to pick their week ahead of a senior VP of engineering, assuming they joined early enough.

As a cofounder of Y Media Labs, that suits Mehra just fine: "That actually allows me to get first dibs anyway," he jokes.

He says that they opened the house to employees starting in January, and there hasn't been a single week where it's been unoccupied, with employees rotating in and out on the regular. Some employees have actually tried to go back, but they have to wait until everybody else gets their turn.

Two final, important notes: Mehra says he's a big believer in paying employees what they're worth, and this is more of a company-wide investment in keeping employees happy than it is a replacement for raises, bonuses, or a competitive salary. 

Second, the employees in India also have access to the house. But in recognition of the fact that it's harder for them to get there than their California-based counterparts, Mehra is working on finding and offering them specific perks, too. 

"The house is open to everyone," says Mehra.

SEE ALSO: The CEO paying employees $10,000 to leave San Francisco explains how it's helping him build a $20 million business

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The Motiv ring tracks heart rate, fitness and sleep. The ring is the size of a wedding band, made out of ultra-light titanium. It's expected to ship this summer and can be preordered for $199.

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The world's population is expected to top nine billion people by 2050 — a figure that has someworried there won't be enough resources on the planet to support animal agriculture at that scale.

While Silicon Valley startups like Hampton Creek and Impossible Foods chip away at creating meat-free proteins that could someday feed the masses, an unlikely group of investors has joined forces to bring food industry giants on board.

Seventy-one investors worth a combined $1.9 trillion are working together to put pressure on the world's largest food companies to "future-proof" their supply chains by bringing more meat alternatives to market. Founded in 2015, the FAIRR (Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return) initiative aims to make the food supply chain more sustainable by promoting plant-based foods, while also helping investors cash in on a lucrative new business.

The substitute meat market is expected to climb 8.4% annually over the next three years, reaching $5.2 billion globally by 2020, according to Allied Market Research.

Jeremy Coller, a titan of the private equity industry and founder of FAIRR, tells Business Insider that because members of the coalition make up a large percentage of investors in these grocery chains and food manufacturers, they essentially have the power to say, "We own you." The investors can then steer food companies towards more sustainable supply chains.

FAIRR has producedextensive briefings on the animal agriculture industry, in the hopes of educating shareholders at food giants like McDonald's, Domino's, and Yum! Brands on the environmental and financial gains of diversifying their supply chains.

In 2016, the group fired off a letter to 16 multinational food companies, asking that they "explore and report back on" efforts to scale back their reliance on animal products.

In a copy of the letter provided to Business Insider, FAIRR writes that large retailers have an important role to play in making meat-free alternatives available and affordable for consumers.

"We warmly welcome the fact that Tesco [a European supermarket chain, named in the copy given to Business Insider] offers a wide range of plant-based and lower-meat options to consumers; however, we believe there is room for further progress to be made," the letter said.

It goes on to make recommendations on how the company can improve, including giving non-animal protein products preferential placement in grocery stores (like in the meat aisle, as opposed to the vegetarian foods section) and making the packaging more attractive.

The letter also encourages companies to invest in "product reformulation," a food and beverage manufacturing term that means swapping some ingredients for better ones, which in this case, means ingredients not sourced from animals. It also suggests spending on consumer education to "raise awareness of the environmental and health benefits of more sustainable diets."

FAIRR targets food companies including Kraft Heinz, Nestle, Unilever, Walmart, and General Mills. As the coalition grows, so will the number of food companies the group goes after.

Coller, who has been a vegetarian since he was 12, is on a mission to wipe out factory farming. (These large industrial operations raise over 99% of farm animals in the US.) He's invested in several plant-based protein startups, including Impossible Foods, Hampton Creek, Clara Foods, and Beyond Meat, which sells burger patties made from pulverized beets in select Whole Foods.

However, Coller avoids talking about animal welfare when he's around investors involved in FAIRR, because he says most are more concerned with the bottom line. With FAIRR, he appeals to investors who look at the meat alternatives market and see an opportunity to pioneer a new multibillion-dollar industry.

"FAIRR is totally about materiality, not morality," Coller says.

SEE ALSO: A startup selling 'bloody' plant-based burgers is ramping up — and McDonald's should pay attention

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Business Insider is hiring an entertainment intern to join our growing team in summer 2017. We’re looking for someone who is obsessed with all things movies, box office, TV, music, awards shows, and more — from the latest headlines to the biggest industry developments.

We are looking for someone with knowledge of entertainment news who is also interested in the business side of the industry and what goes on behind the scenes. Ideal candidates are self-motivated and interested in smart analysis and original reporting on entertainment content.

As an intern at Business Insider, there's no getting coffee, filing, or making copies.

Our interns are an integral part of our team. Many of our current writers and editors started as interns.

BI Interns spend their time doing meaningful work: researching, writing, pitching, and producing features — even breaking news if the timing's right.

Interns are encouraged to work full-time (40 hours a week) if their schedule allows. The internship is paid and located in our NYC headquarters, and can run for up to 6 months.

APPLY HEREwith a resume and cover letter if this sounds like your dream internship, and specify why you're interested in working on the Entertainment team.

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Americans can't get enough fast food, which is why it represents a $238 billion and growing industry in the US, according to the market-research firm Euromonitor.

But fast-food lovers aren't loyal only to legacy chains like McDonald's, KFC, and Taco Bell. In fact, these giants don't even break the top 25 in our latest ranking of the top fast-food chains in America.

Business Insider teamed up with Restaurant Business, a publication that focuses on the food-service industry, to compile this list. Using proprietary data collected by Restaurant Business and its sister research firm Technomic from 2016, we looked at nearly 100 of the largest US chains and rated them on three criteria we considered the most telling for all-around fast-food excellence: financial performance, customer satisfaction, and overall value. Our calculations accounted for sales growth, average sales at each location, consumer-sentiment ratings, and the average cost of a meal, among other metrics.

Keep reading to see the 25 best fast-food chains in America right now.

Emmie Martin, Tanza Loudenback and Alexa Pipia contributed to an earlier version of this article.

25. Jet's Pizza

Headquarters: Sterling Heights, Michigan

US sales in 2016: $368 million

Number of US locations: 404

Customer satisfaction rank: 24

Value rank: 35

Brothers Eugene and John Letts opened the first Jet's Pizza restaurant in Michigan in 1978, and since then it has spread to 18 US states. 

Jet's claims not to scrimp on ingredients. And its pizzas aren't dirt cheap. On average, customers can expect to spend $8.05 on a meal at the chain. Its signature style, the deep-dish square pizza, comes in many varieties or customers can choose to create their own from scratch. 

24. Jamba Juice

Headquarters: Frisco, Texas

US sales in 2016: $547 million

Number of US locations:828

Customer satisfaction rank: 16

Value rank: 37

Founded in 1990 in a California beach town, Jamba Juice was years ahead of today's ubiquitous green smoothie and healthy-living trends and remained a favorite for loyal customers over the years.

The chain's menu has expanded sine then, now offering Greek yogurt or acai berry bowls with soy milk. There's also plenty of new fruit and vegetable smoothies. 

23. Potbelly Sandwich Shop

Headquarters: Chicago

US sales in 2016: $446 million

Number of US locations: 454

Customer satisfaction rank: 25

Value rank: 16

When Potbelly opened in 1977, it was an antique shop. The young couple who ran it decided they wanted to serve lunch to their customers, and the store evolved into a local lunch spot. In 1996, entrepreneur Bryant Keil bought Potbelly and turned it into a franchise; he stepped down as CEO in 2008 and is no longer involved.

Today, not only do all the Potbelly stores serve sandwiches and fresh cookies, but each location has its own potbelly stove.