It's been 25 years since

first hit the airwaves, making avid fans and amateur sleuths out of us all.

Though the groundbreaking cop drama centered on some of New York City's most gruesome crime stories, when stars Dann Florek, S. Epatha Merkerson, Carolyn McCormick and

think back on the show's early days, all they can do is laugh.

In celebration of the show's September anniversary and WE TV's current

Binge-A-Thon, PEOPLE sat down with the four actors, who dished on everything from cracking jokes during gory corpse scenes to scary run-ins with real life criminals.

Florek: It's somewhere in between. At times it feel so far back, but the fact that I've been involved with the brand all along, it's kind of crazy. Now I'm thinking back to how it all started. I remember the call, getting the job, and everything. It's a big part of my life.

McCormick: For me it all felt like one long episode. It's hard to differentiate one moment. Except for my different hairstyles. And I remember being pregnant twice on the show. They tried to hide it. They were successful the first time, but the second time I was just too big.

Florek: I can't remember titles and I only remember a handful of details. Somebody will say in the airport, "Do you remember the one with the rape?" and I'm like, "Dude, there's about 100 of 'em!"

McCormick: There were so many antics going on when the cameras weren't rolling, especially if there's a dead body in the room. Everyone gets really inappropriate and very funny. The only one who suffers is the poor guest star who has to be crying over the body and stuck trying to really emote while we're all making jokes.

Merkerson: I've always been taken by the sense of humor of real police officers. Doing the show, I realized that if you get caught up in that darkness, it will stay with you. The makeup artist Carla White was extraordinary, so if there was a sliced neck, you really felt like that's what you were seeing. But then there would be songs because sometimes the actor playing the dead person could sing.

Florek: Sing through the neck!

Merkerson: So I think you find those ways to get yourself out of it.

Hennessy: I never had to step away. We all had these very intimate relationships with the plot lines based on our own personal feelings about whatever story that the plot was based on. So at points it was tough, especially if the character differed from your own personal point of view on the issue of, for example, capital punishment. Or one episode with the death of babies.

Florek: I think it was also cumulative. Episode one is one thing, but when you're getting to about episode 20 of the year, it's hard. You know it's just photos and makeup, but it reminds you of things. After a while I was ready for the break.

Florek: [The show] was groundbreaking. It was so real and so honest that it changed the way you watched television.

McCormick: It was before you had so much cable and Netflix and Showtime, so we were very anonymous. It took years to for it to become, "Hey, you're the girl on

." We thought we were doing this quiet little show at this funky little abandoned pier that no one was really watching. But we were having so much fun.

Merkerson: For Van Buren, I think that character was a precursor to a lot of women in positions of authority on television. She was the first African-American female to have a position of power on television. I'm very proud that people will come up to me and say "We loved what you did." Cops will even say, "You represented."

Hennessy: The writing really set a bar too. The stories were ripped from the headlines and most of our writers were former attorneys. Lawyers and cops would come up and say to me, "You guys are the first people who tell it like it is."

Florek: We shot it at this desolate pier. People were nervous to come down to audition. Cabs wouldn't even go there.

Merkerson: The neighborhood was so dangerous that we all got picked up at home. Which was great, because once that whole area changed, they couldnât take that part out of our contracts!

Hennessy: New York City is an amazing character in the show, but there were also challenges, like getting permits and the pedestrian contingent yelling "Hey I love you guys!" in the back of a scene.

McCormick: Remember when it was minus six degrees on Riverside Drive, and Dann was directing –

Merkerson: Yes! Earlier in the script meeting I had said, "Van Buren should be in this scene. This is a high-profile case. Van Buren should be there." Dann tried to talk me out of it and I said, "No, she should be there." So he was like, "Okay."

Florek: You were right. Then it was 10 below zero –

Merkerson: He walked up to me while I was freezing my ass off and he said, "Never volunteer."

Florek: One time early on [a cast member and I] were at some restaurant downtown where all the models hung out. We come out and the cabâs coming and he goes, "NEW YORK CITY POLICE, WE NEED THIS CAB NOW!" The cab pulls over and we jump in. Then we pull up somewhere, hop out, and the cabby goes, "You owe me 40 dollars." [My castmate] says, "This is New York City police, pal." We walk away and I'm going, "We're gonna go to jail!"

Merkerson: Each one of us can probably tell you any number of stories because at the time we were always together. It's been hilarious thinking back.

Florek: I was sitting at a bar and a guy walks up, and he's just looking at me. He goes, "I know you're a cop," and I'm like, "I'm not a cop". And he goes, "Dude, I know you're a cop." I'm like, "I just do a TV show." And he goes, "All I'm saying is this: I know people." And I'm thinking he's gonna have me beaten up! You could tell he was like a low-level fake mafia guy.

fans that recognize me immediately. They know I'm Van Buren, and there are no two ways about it. Some of them will ask me for legal advice, and I'll say to them "I just did that on television". Or I'll get people who say, "Where do I know you from?" Instead of going through a bunch of [questions], I'll go

, and they'll go, "No, I don't watch that."

McCormick: Sometimes I'll get, âYou look like the younger version of this girl that used to be on

. And I'm like, "Younger – really?"

Florek: Sometimes I just say, "I'm the guy who killed all those people in Florida," and walk away.

Merkerson: I'll channel-search and watch for a few minutes. Especially if I see an actor who now has a huge name. "I'll go, "Lauren Lenny was on the show? Lena Dunham! I didnât know she was on."

McCormack: I was in Paris and we turned on the hotel TV, and an episode was on and it's me walking outside, speaking perfect French! I was like, "Boys, look, look at mommy speaking French!"

Hennessy: Every time I see myself in Italian, French, or German, it's at least two octaves higher. I used to sing tenor in choir with the boys, and this is who you choose to cast for me?

Binge-A-Thon continues with its two night marathon Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET. And throughout August, catch episodes Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays from 5-11 p.m. ET.

Summary:
Dann Florek, S. Epatha
Merkerson, Carolyn McCormick and Jill Hennessy sit down with PEOPLE 25 years after starring on the seminal show


Franklin and his fellow Peanuts characters

Franklin Armstrong, the first African-American member of the

gang, is turning 47 today – but if it wasn't for a persistent former high school teacher, Charlie Brown's best friend might've never joined the crew.

When Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, Harriet Glickman, a retired Los Angeles teacher, was moved to action. "Like so many others, I felt helpless and like I had to do something," she tells PEOPLE.

So she decided to write a letter to some of the most popular cartoonists of the time – one of them being Charles Shulz, the creator of

– to "talk to them about what it would be like for a black child to see themselves in a comic strip."

Glickman admits she never expected a response, joking that the letter she sent out, which now sits in the Charles Shulz museum in California, was "quite long."

To her surprise, she received two replies. One cartoonist rejected the idea, saying he was afraid his strip would be dropped from publication if he drew an African-American character. The other response came from Charles Shulz, who said he liked the idea, but worried African-Americans might feel the character was patronizing.

Determined to prove to Shulz that African-American families would welcome the inclusion, Glickman asked if she could run his "dilemma" by some of the very people he was afraid of offending.

Shulz wrote back that he'd welcome their opinions, but again stressed his concern that he "would receive the same sort of criticism that would make it appear as if I were doing this in a condescending manner."

Flooded with letters from fans urging the cartoonists to integrate his strip, Schulz eventually changed his mind. On July 1, the cartoonist wrote back to Glickman, "You'll be pleased to see the character in the strip in the week of July 29."

"That was pretty exciting," she says.

In the July 31 funny papers, Franklin Armstrong was born. Glickman remembers the comic "had a huge effect. When people saw it there were a lot of positive reactions."

Newspapers, magazines and even pastors praised Schulz's show of racial solidarity in the coming weeks – but the reaction was far from universally popular.

Glickman remembers that during the period of public school integration, some Southern publications asked Schulz not to show African-American and white characters in the same classroom.

The former high school teacher says that even United Features Syndicate asked Schulz if he was sure about the idea, to which she says he responded, "either you print it as I draw it, or I quit."

Glickman says Shulz "was so well known and so loved, that he had the courage to do" what others wouldn't.

Much to her regret, Glickman never met the cartoonist, who died in 2000. But after his death, she did visit his studio, which she describes as "an almost spiritual experience. To see where he drew the strip, and read my letter, it was a very personal reaction that I had."

Franklin, who Glickman says became almost like a son to her over the years, became an integral part of the

crew, and will be featured in FOX's

, opening in 3D Nov. 6.

Summary: Harriet Glickman, a high school teacher from Los Angeles, convinced Peanuts creator Charles Shulz to include the first African American member of the gang 47 years ago today


Norwegian Markus Johansen has posted a video of his struggles using the English voice control system of his luxury Audi car.

The video, published on March 4, has been viewed almost 800,000 times on YouTube.

The thickly-accented Johansen can be heard uttering a number of commands to the system, to no avail.

“TV…this device is not available,” the voice control system replies.

Johansen’s lack of success quickly escalates into anger.

“I’m not going to turn on my TV, I’m going to play music, music!”

Failing to understand Johansen, the car provides an automated response, much to Johansen’s frustration.

“You can interrupt the speech-dialogue at any time by pressing the talk button on the steering wheel to enter a command.”

“I am commanding you to shut up,” shouts Johansen. “Shut up!”

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While saying he's confident the U.S. economy is getting stronger and will continue to do so, Evans wants to make sure it is strong enough before moving rates higher. He also wants to see inflation get to the Federal Reserve's 2 percent target—saying he'd be willing to "overshoot" modestly on inflation to help boost jobs.

Read MoreEconomistsslash Q3 GDP forecast, see growth ahead

Economists have lowered their estimates for third-quarter economic growth by a tenth of a percent to 3 percent, according to the National Association for Business Economics. The government is scheduled to release its advance estimate for third-quarter gross domestic product at the end of next month. The NABE survey was taken a few days after the weak August jobs report.

This Friday, the Labor Department issues the September employment report. Nonfarm payroll growth is expected to rebound to 215,000, following the disappointing 142,000 in August.

The European Central Bank meets Thursday, and it's expected to provide additional details about its asset purchase program, as the Fed moves away from bond buying with the goal of ending it altogether next month.

Evans said he doesn't see evidence of financial market bubbles as a result of Fed policy. "The world economy is dictating lower interest rates around the world. In Europe, interest rates are low. The [German] Bund is low. Japan, they're low. There's not a chance that the U.S. through higher [Fed] fund rates policy can engineer higher interest rates around the world."

On the Fed's other stimulus lever, economists mostly expect the first interest rate hike to be in June, though some see it sooner. But the real debate is how quickly the central bank would raise rates once it starts.

Read MoreNo rest for the volatility-weary on Wall Street

With just two trading days left in the third quarter, U.S. stock futures started off the week sharply lower following Friday's big rally, which capped a volatile week of triple-digit moves up and down for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Summary: The Chicago Fed president says it should be "quite some time" before it's appropriate to start increasing interest rates from their near-zero levels.


"A lot of [Wednesday's] volume came in these way-out-of-the-money puts," options expert and CNBC contributor Dan Nathan said Wednesday on CNBC's "Fast Money." "The options market is implying that this trade basically has zero probability of being in the money."

Alibaba has fallen 33 percent from its high hit in November, and Nathan pointed out that the stock is sitting at key support near the $80 level.

"We know September is the one-year anniversary of the IPO and 1.4 billion shares are coming off lockup so maybe this is a trade hedging for a big move to the downside," said Nathan, founder of RiskReversal.com. The stock saw a 1 percent move higher during the last lock-up expiration on March 18, where 437 million shares were made available for sale.

But whether investors are bullish or bearish ahead of the massive expiration, Nathan stressed that buying puts this far out of the money is "not the right protection play if you are long Alibaba."

Summary: Options expert Dan Nathan outlines a bearish bet on Alibaba.


08/21/2015 AT 08:15 AM EDT

A Pennsylvania guidance counselor is accused of seducing a teenage boy by promising him that she'd get him into Harvard if he had sex with her.

Emily Feeney, 40, turned herself in to authorities on Wednesday on charges of institutional sex assault, unlawful contact with a minor, corruption of minors and indecent assault, according to

Investigators say the two never actually had sex but Feeney, a guidance counselor and swim coach at Malvern Prep in Malvern, Pennsylvania, pursued him relentlessly, sending the 16-year-old boy inappropriate emails and text messages that included a topless picture of herself.

"I adore you – always have, always will," the married mother allegedly wrote in one of the messages,

"If you'd just stop fighting and let it happen, you'd be a lot less uptight and much happier," read another message from Feeney to the boy.

"I'm not interested in you end of story I'm 16 I'm not into you," the boy wrote back in February.

But the rejection only led Feeney to "ratchet up the pressure," telling the boy that she could get him into Harvard – but only in exchange for sexual favors, according to Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan.

"The defendant was extraordinarily predatory in the way she attacked this 16-year-old boy, going after him again and again and again," said Hogan.

The boy eventually told his parents of the messages in mid-May. They took matters to police, who opened an investigation.

Following her court appearance Wednesday, Feeney's lawyer, Michael Engle, asked the public to withhold judgment.

"She's understandably upset," Engle said of his client. "These are serious charges and we're taking the matter very seriously."

Feeney was put on leave from Malvern Prep in May after the allegations surfaced and was later fired.

She has not yet entered a plea to the charges.

Summary: "I'm not interested in you end of story I'm 16 I'm not into you," the boy wrote to Emily Feeney in February


BRASILIA -- Brazil's Supreme Court will investigate the speakers of both houses of Congress and 32 other sitting politicians in connection with a multibillion-dollar kickback scheme at state-controlled oil company Petrobras.

The scandal has shaken the political establishment and undermined support for President Dilma Rousseff, who was narrowly re-elected last year and is struggling to stave off an economic recession and a downgrade by credit rating agencies.

A court official said on Friday that 12 senators and 22 congressmen from five parties are under investigation, all but one from Rousseff's governing coalition. The most prominent are the president of the Senate, Renan Calheiros, and the Speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, Eduardo Cunha, both of the PMDB, Brazil's largest party and Rousseff's main coalition ally.

The Progressive Party has 21 members under investigation, the PMDB six and the Workers' Party five, including Senator Gleisi Hoffmann, Rousseff's chief of staff during her first term. The party's treasurer João Vaccari will be investigated.

Read More Brazilian companies push for deal to minimize Petrobras scandal

Only one opposition politician, Senator Antonio Anastasia, of the PSDB party, was on the list, which includes Senator Fernando Collor de Mello, a former president who resigned in 1992 to avoid impeachment for corruption.

Under Brazilian law, elected politicians can only be tried by the highest court, which must now decide with the help of prosecutors whether there is enough proof to put them on trial.

Summary: Brazil's Supreme Court will probe 34 politicians in connection with a multibillion-dollar kickback scheme at state-controlled oil company Petrobras.


Brendan Smialowski | Pool | Reuters

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif speaks with the Iranian media at the Beau Rivage Palace Hotel, March 27, 2015, in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif—who will address the media with EU foreign affairs representative Federica Mogherini—said in a tweet that negotiators have "found solutions" and are "ready to start drafting immediately.

Mogherini added that the representatives had "good news" in a tweet.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the parties have moved closer to resolving "major issues" on Iran's nuclear program. He noted that negotiations would continue after Thursday.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani also tweeted that negotiators had reached "solutions."

Representatives from the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Russia and China failed to reach an agreement with Iranian officials by the initial Tuesday deadline.

Read MoreIran deal: 'No happy ending' for Middle East

Negotiations have become a politically divisive topic globally. The talks hold ramifications for the international oil market, as sanctions on the Middle Eastern nation have restricted oil exports.

Brent crude was down nearly 3 percent on Thursday.

Summary: A statement is expected to say that enough progress has been made to continue talks on Iran's nuclear program until June 30.


Now to be clear, Richard Fisher does make a lot of sense, on paper. Cramer can understand why he would call for rates to be raised, based solely on the domestic situation. But the U.S. economy isn't operating in a vacuum.

Import countries like Mexico and Brazil have such weak currency that they will certainly be crushed if rates were to rise. Additionally, Europeans are desperately trying to do anything in their power to devalue the euro just to get their economies moving.

"The turmoil out there is so palpable, the ongoing destruction so obvious to me that we might as well be back in August of 2007 when the Fed knew nothing about what was really happening," said the "Mad Money" host.

Cramer wouldn't be surprised if rising rates caused the collapse of countries in Latin America and epidemically spread around the globe—it could be catastrophic and take down the U.S., too.

Plus, where is the emergency? Why does this rate hike have to happen right now at a time with low inflation in the U.S.?

The good news is that Fisher is not a voting member, and fortunately, Cramer sees that Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer has a good grasp on reality. Fischer understands how fragile things are right now, especially in Brazil which has billions in U.S. denominated debt.

---------------------------------------------------------- Read more from Mad Money with Jim Cramer Cramer Remix: Oil prices could hurt this Cramer: How to play Apple and make a fortune Schultz to Cramer: The key Starbucks' success ----------------------------------------------------------

Cramer's ultimate hope is that the Fed will allow Fischer's view to trump Fisher's.

"If the Fed wants to show us that it knows something this time, and not nothing like the last time, then it should let Stanley Fischer's hand stay steady on the tiller while wishing Richard Fisher well in his coming retirement," Cramer said.

Summary: Jim Cramer is calling for the Fed to ignore requests to raise rates, as it could mean trouble worldwide.


Since the changes in Cuba policy made by President Obama, it's become much easier to invest in small businesses run by individuals in the island nation. However, it's still illegal to do deals with the Cuban government unless the contracts involve food, medicine or telecom and Internet equipment.

"Back-and-forth commerce (that) aggregates between Florida and Cuba will be a major industry," Herzfeld said. "Tourism certainly. There is a tremendous shortage of hotel rooms in Cuba, which will lead you to look at the cruise lines, because they actually have the most hotel rooms available that could be put into use immediately. And agriculture is something we could invest in now. Food's exempt from the embargo."

Read MoreCuban cigar market hopes for 25-30% of US market

Cuba is still a communist country—one of the few remaining in the world. As such, its government controls nearly 100 percent of the island's businesses and trade. Recently, however, the country has begun permitting individuals to start small businesses such as restaurants, barbershops and clothing stores.

Herzfeld will be one of the presenters at the "The Cuban Opportunity Summit" hosted by Wharton on April 1 at the Nasdaq market site. CNBC is the official broadcaster.

Summary: The founder of an investment firm is raising money for a private equity fund geared toward direct investment in Cuba.


In an internal memo responding to the EU announcement obtained by Re/code, Google said that while some Google apps come preloaded on Android devices, the OS often comes with competing apps such as Facebook while other apps are readily available through the Play Store.

"All told, consumers have a lot of choice, and they are exercising it," read the memo. "And many, many other companies have very successful mobile businesses—including Apple, the most valuable (mobile) company in the world."

Google acquired Android in 2005, and it quickly displaced competitors as the most popular mobile OS in Europe. Apple's iOS is still leading in the U.S., but in Europe, its market share looks far less impressive.

Summary: Android is now the most popular phone OS in all but a few European countries.


Though trends also improved at Abercrombie, its men's business continued to pressure results. Management added that it is not surprised its namesake label has lagged improvement at the Hollister brand, in light of the "historical issues" it has faced.

Read More9 retail brands trying to find their way

Abercrombie over the years had built up a reputation as an exclusionary brand, thanks in part to its sexualized marketing and comments by former CEO Mike Jeffries, who exited the company in December.

"Although A&F was painfully slow to react to both the changing tastes of its core market as well as to the shifts in the dynamics of shopping, we believe the management team is slowly getting to grips with the new realities of retailing," said Neil Saunders, CEO of Conlumino retail research.

Though trends at Abercrombie are improving, analysts have favored the turnarounds at competitors American Eagle and Urban Outfitters. The retailer is also competing against consumers' penchant for the cheaper merchandise at fast-fashion and off-price stores.

Despite Wednesday's bounce, Abercrombie shares are still down 56 percent over the past year, near $19.

Summary: Abercrombie & Fitch reported same-store sales that vastly improved from the first quarter.


It’s no coincidence that the first song on “Do It Again,” the new collaborative album from Robyn and Röyksopp, sounds like the intro music for when an artist emerges from the shadows to take center stage. Swedish pop star Robyn and Röyksopp, the Norwegian electro-pop duo of Svein Berge and Torbjorn Brundtland, are going on the road together this summer, and this five-song EP, which sprawls to 35 minutes, arrives just in time for the merch table. “Monument,” that opening salvo, is nearly 10 minutes of undulating rhythms that creep and crawl to create a trance-like beauty, with a faint wash of horns midway in. Like much of this mini album, it’s not thumping music for the club; it’s the soundtrack for when you get home. The title track is more in line with the hands-up euphoria of Robyn’s previous hits (“Dancing on My Own,” “Show Me Love”): It’s a juicy nugget of industrial-strength dance pop destined to be a summer jam. (Out Monday)

Robyn and Röyksopp perform at the Blue Hills Bank Pavilion on Aug. 22.

Summary: “Do It Again,’ the new collaborative album from Robyn and Röyksopp, is the best of both worlds: slinky electronica and hands-up dance pop.


But it's this on-site assembly that could be problematic. Alicia Syrett, a board member of New York Angels, said she's worried about Bento's ability to comply with food-safety and sanitation standards.

Demant stressed that once food leaves the kitchen the driver doesn't open the containers. He added: "That's how our whole system is built and modeled. We've gone through all the necessary regulations with the San Francisco Health Department and any cities we expand to in the future, we'll do the same."

Nikhil Kalghatgi, a partner at Vast Ventures, questioned how Bento expects to compete with other on-demand food players.

Read MoreHere are the GrubHub's priciest delivery and takeout burgers

Demant said that unlike its competitors, Bento let's people customize every part of their meal. "You're really getting the exact meal that you want," he said.

For now, Bento only delivers in San Francisco, but the CEO told CNBC the start-up has plans to expand to Oakland and Palo Alto by the end of this year.

The company launched in March 2015 and has raised $325,000. Bento is seeking $1 million in its seed round and currently has seven employees.

Summary: One entrepreneur pitches his new take on takeout to a panel of experts on CNBC.


After a whipsaw week in the markets that saw the Dow Jones industrial average travel more than 10,000 points in five trading sessions, investors are searching for clues that the selling may be over. According to one trader who relies heavily on the charts, once such sign could be found in the currency markets.

"Fast Money" trader Brian Kelly said that, in the past year, the S&P 500 Index has seen three declines of 5 percent. In each of those instances, a rally in the U.S. dollar marked the end of that selling.

"Each of those times, a day or two before the stock market bottoms, the U.S. dollar tends to bottom. The thesis behind this being a stronger dollar means a strong U.S. economy," said Kelly.

Read MoreHow the yen dethroned the dollar in a single day

Summary: A crazy week on Wall Street not seen since the financial crisis, Fast Money trader Brian Kelly says the dollar holds the key to what’s next.


Two MIT engineers who developed the chip say it does a far better job of converting the energy captured by solar cells into usable electricity than current technology does, and the invention lends itself well to creating self-powering electronic sensors that can be used in a wide range of applications. (Tweet This)

They introduced the device last week at the Symposia on VLSI Technology and Circuits in Kyoto, Japan.

Read MoreLexus unveils real-life hoverboard

Sensors are a crucial ingredient to the "Internet of Things," the notion that devices, or even organisms, can be linked to networks, through which they can deliver important information, such as performance levels, maintenance issues or research. For example, scientists have proposed embedding sensors in human skin that can measure everything from blood pressure to vitamin levels. Sensors are also used commonly in electronic devices (even cars and planes), or even in research applications such as measuring air quality.

But such devices require a power source, and carrying around batteries or removing sensors to charge them is often not feasible. Devices need batteries that either last a very long time or possess the ability to recharge themselves. Renewable energy sources such as solar power could, in theory, provide that kind of power.

But solar power has an efficiency problem: Circuits today can convert only about half of the energy that solar cells collect into usable electricity. For that reason, solar energy isn't often practical for smaller devices that have little space to spare for solar cells, or devices that have to operate in low light environments.

Summary: Powering small devices with solar energy, including wearables, medical devices, and the Internet of Things is more feasible with new circuit.


The divorce of billionaire Harold Hamm has been filled with unusual arguments.

Hamm's wife, Sue Ann, says she has a right to divide his $17 billion fortune. Hamm, CEO and founder of energy giant Continental Resources, argues that his success and company are mainly the result of luck and factors beyond his control, so it shouldn't count as marital wealth.

Now, another strange wrinkle in the case has emerged—and it's one that some observers said could result in a new trial, or at least an appeal.

Read MoreSex, drugs and biotech in nasty divorce case

Citing interviews with multiple people who had been at the Oklahoma trial, Reuters reported that Eric Eissenstat, general counsel, senior vice president, secretary and chief risk officer for Continental Resources, has been "one of the most important people in the courtroom." He reportedly interjected during proceedings, talked to the judge, and at one point stood in the jury box next to a witness, according to Reuters.

Summary: Another strange wrinkle in oilman Harold Hamm's divorce case has emerged.


The reasons behind the deferral of a trip by a UN expert on migrant rights are a shameful reflection on Australia, a human rights advocate says.

Francois Crepeau, UN special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, said on Friday he had been invited by the Australian government for a visit between September 27 and October 9 to assess the situation of migrants and asylum seekers in the country and in its offshore detention centres in Nauru and Papua New Guinea.

But while preparing for the trip, he discovered that under the Border Force Act 2015, it was possible for detention centre workers who disclosed "protected information" to be sent to jail for up to two years, he said.

Mr Crepeau said he had been concerned this would discourage people from fully disclosing information.

He was also extremely disappointed the government had not granted him access to any offshore detention centres, despite months of efforts to gain its cooperation.

Australia director of Human Rights Watch Elaine Pearson called on the government to give Mr Crepeau access and ensure no one would be prosecuted for giving him information.

"It is shameful that a UN expert had to postpone a visit to Australia due to lack of cooperation from the Australian government and a fear of reprisals," she said in a statement on Saturday.

"The Australian government already had a reputation for lack of constructive engagement with the UN on refugee policy issues (and) this lack of cooperation just reinforces that view."

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull earlier this week said he had concerns about asylum seekers being held in Pacific island camps, but gave no indication of immediate change to the hardline policy.

The Australian Greens called on the federal government to give "free and unfettered" access for the United Nations to Australia-run detention centres.

"There is no question about it, the government should be cooperating with the United Nations," Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young said in a statement on Saturday.

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Summary: A UN expert on migrant rights has delayed his trip to Australia amid concerns he won't be granted proper access to detention centres.


A cityscape of stacked houses and colourful laundry by Egon Schiele is set to be one of the star lots of next month's high-end London art auctions, with a pre-sale estimate of between £22-£30m.

Sotheby's has announced it will be selling Schiele's 1914 work Häuser mit bunter Wäsche (Vorstadt II), a painting it regards as one of the most important works by the Austrian artist ever to come to market. Unlike other Schiele paintings, there are no restitution issues. It has had only two owners: it was first bought, in the year it was painted, by Schiele's friend and patron Heinrich Böhler and then sold in 1952 to Rudolf Leopold, who founded the Leopold Museum in Vienna, which is now selling it.

The museum is certainly not short of Schieles, owning more than 200 works – the largest collection in the world. Peter Weinhäupl, the museum's managing director, said: "While this painting will be missed, the museum is fortunate to hold eight further Schiele cityscapes of superb quality in its collection."

Helena Newman, chair of impressionist and modern art at Sotheby's Europe, called the painting a "masterpiece of 20th-century art".

She added: "The painting is unquestionably one of the greatest Schiele oils ever to come to the market but, quite aside from its rarity and quality, it is also distinguished by an illustrious provenance, having never before appeared on the auction market, and having previously resided in just two great collections since the artist painted it."

Schiele, who died in 1918 at the outrageously young age of 28 – one of that year's flu pandemic victims – painted the work based on motifs he drew when living in the southern Bohemian town of Krumau, the birthplace of his mother.

Schiele had retreated there in 1911 with his lover Valerie "Wally" Neuzil, wanting to escape the claustrophobia of Vienna, but they were effectively driven out when locals took exception to his rather liberal lifestyle and use of young girls as models.

Sotheby's will sell the work, translated as Houses with Colourful Laundry (Suburb II), at its impressionist and modern art sale on 22 June, and anticipates exceeding the current auction record for Schiele set by another of his cityscapes in 2006, which sold for $22m.

The auction houses will be hoping for better results than have been seen in the equivalent big sales in New York over the past week. At Christie's on 4 May, $156m of impressionist and modern art was sold, below the total pre-sale estimate of $162m-$232m, with 10 lots failing to sell, including Monet's Iris Mauves.

It was a similar situation at Sotheby's on 3 May, which sold lots for $170m, above the low estimate of $159, but with some notable disappointments. There were 15 unsold lots and the top lot, Picasso's Femmes Lisant (Deux Personnages), sold for below its estimate price.

Summary: Sotheby's predict the work, owned by only two collectors since it was created by Egon Schiele in 1914, should sell for over £22m, writes Mark Brown


Douglas Healey | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Signage for SAC Capital Advisors at its offices in Stamford, Conn.

Read MoreWith full coffers, Cohen's SAC tries on new name

Before signing off of the settlement and fine, Swain extensively questioned prosecutors on how they arrived at the profit and avoided loss amounts for four former subsidiaries of SAC, which has since become a private money manager and renamed itself Point72.

The judge also asked whether that amount took into account all individuals who acted on the insider information or just the eight former SAC employees who were named in a July 2013 indictment.

Of those eight former SAC employees, six have pleaded guilty and two, Michael Steinberg and Mathew Martoma, were found guilty at trial of charges related to insider trading.

In addition to the fine—which Swain referred to as "unprecedented" and "that exceeds the requirements" by law—she also approved Bart Schwartz as the independent compliance consultant who is now expected to identify and correct any future compliance deficiencies within entities owned by SAC's founder, Steve Cohen, now housed within the Point72 parent company.

Read MoreSAC's Cohen considering settling civil case with SEC

Cohen himself still faces a separate Securities and Exchange Commission investigation over failure to supervise his employees that could result in a lifetime ban from the securities industry. That case was stayed until all criminal cases were resolved; in March, administrative law Judge Brenda Murray issued an order to continue the stay, noting that the U.S. attorney's office should file a written notice on or before May 28 as to whether the stay should continue.

Steinberg is scheduled to be sentenced on April 25, and Martoma is set to be sentenced on June 10.

Point72's general counsel, Peter Nussbaum, noted during the sentencing that the firm is "absolutely committed to moving forward in a positive and responsible manner."

Summary: Five months after its initial terms were set, a historic criminal settlement between SAC Capital and prosecutors was approved Thursday.


12/01/2015 AT 09:00 AM EST

Pixee Fox has spent $120,000 on plastic surgeries to look like her favorite animated characters.

"I've always been inspired by cartoons and Disney movies – all the curves and tiny waists," Fox told

The model – who aspires to look like Tinkerbell and

– has had a nose job, eyelid surgery, a brow lift, lip fillers, cheek fillers, four breast surgeries, a Brazilian butt lift, permanent makeup, and most recently had six ribs removed to achieve her extreme look.

The Sweden-born Fox said getting ribs removed has always "been a dream" of hers, but had trouble finding a surgeon who agreed to do the procedure.

"The procedure would not be done by most plastic surgeons, particularly in the United States where surgery on patients with

is discouraged," Beverly Hills plastic surgeon

tells PEOPLE. "While it seems to have been done safely in this case by a qualified surgeon, I doubt this will become a trend."

Despite the risks and long healing time, Fox is happy she underwent the controversial surgery. She already had been

, and is thrilled she is now able to wear an even smaller one.

"I am so happy," she said. "This makes me able to corset even tighter."

Fox currently has a 16-inch waist, but is hoping to break the

"I'm pretty close to the world record, and I think if I just get time to heal and work out and continue my lifestyle, I'm probably going to go down to 14 inches soon," she said.

Even though she has already had numerous plastic surgery procedures, Fox wants to get hip and butt implants next.

"I'm really happy with the way I look now, but I still see things that could be fixed," she said.

Fox says she receives lots of encouraging messages from her social media followers – she has 151,000 followers on

– many of whom view her as an inspiration.

"I don't want to inspire people to get plastic surgery," she clarified. "What I want to do is get a message out there that it's important, whatever you decide to do, that you should follow your dreams and dare to be yourself."

Summary: "I've always been inspired by cartoons and Disney movies – all the curves and tiny waists," said Pixee Fox


updated 12/07/2015 AT 03:25 PM EST

•originally published 12/07/2015 AT 02:20 PM EST

The best name game ever came to a close Monday upon

Here are two things we know: 1.

is already way cooler than us. 2. We were a little

in our own staff guessing game. Below, see the names PEOPLE staffers suggested for

As in, "their son Rises Intha West." Alternatively, "Larry."

– Zoë Ruderman, features director

What better way to honor the second coming of Kanye than naming his son after a) his signature sneaker line and b) the 2004 jam that shot him to superstardom? And even though the baby boy arrived early, Kim's due date was Christmas Day, making the Yeezus/Jesus word play all the more timely â¦ and festive.

– Michele Corriston, associate editor

It's Kim's middle name, he was born in December/due at Christmas, and it pairs nicely with North IMO!

– Kate Hogan, deputy features editor

That family could use a member who prefers to stay out of the spotlight, as in the "mellowest" Kardashian. I think it would be good for mom and especially dad to have a chill little guy around. – Saryn Chorney, senior editor

The Kardashian-West family is about one thing and one thing only: fashion. North is already a

, so it makes sense to ensure that the new baby will be a fashion maverick from day one as well.

– Julia Emmanuele, features writer-reporter

You know, the sound Kanye makes in

It's the perfect compliment to big sister North's moniker, and foreshadows his sure-to-be-famous future.

– Diana Pearl, features editorial assistant

, there's a new royal in town. (And a new best friend for

–Brittany Talarico, style news editor

– Alison Schwartz, senior editor

Pantone's color of the year and the baby of the year – Kimye's new son – should be named thusly. Yes, Rose Quartz is pink, a color normally associated with femininity, and Rose is an actual girl's name, but we think Kardashian and West should bash gender norms, all while proving just how

Sometimes, the simplest answer is the best.

– Lydia Price, features editorial assistant

Summary: Might we suggest Rises Intha?


Brandalism takes aim at German car manufacturer Volkswagen. (brandalism.org.uk)

Members of the anti-advertising Brandalism campaign have given the corporate sponsors of this year’s UN Climate Summit a public dressing-down with a series of mock billboards.

Six hundred billboards, created by guerrilla art group Brandalism, appeared throughout Paris ahead of the 12-day summit, skewering alleged corporate and political complicity in climate change.

A clever play off a Levis call-to-action. (brandalism.org.uk)

Volkswagen and Exxon Mobile were among those corporations in the Brandalism firing line, while US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela also received the satire treatment.

One ad, titled “We’re sorry that we got caught”, lampoons Volkswagen over the recent ‘Dieselgate’ emissions scandal that led to the car-manufacturer recalling 2.46 million cars in their home country of Germany alone.

Ah, the cleaning power of "green wash"! (brandalism.org.uk)

Brandalism points the finger at corporate profiteering. (brandalism.org.uk)

Brandalism claims the ads aim to critique “the corporate takeover of the COP21 climate talks”, highlighting “the links between advertising, consumerism, fossil fuel dependency and climate change”.

“We are taking their spaces back because we want to challenge the role advertising plays in promoting unsustainable consumerism,” Brandalism spokesman Joe Elan said in a statement on their website.

How's that for optimism? (brandalism.org.uk)

Climate change leaves this cruise boat high and dry. (brandalism.org.uk)

“Because the advertising industry force feeds our desires for products created from fossil fuels, they are intimately connected to causing climate change.”

The Brandalism movement, first founded in July 2012, specialises in “subvertising” – “the art of subverting advertisements” – for the purpose of opening up “questions about the ills created by advertising, the false needs and destructive desires it attempts to instil in us”.

A cigar-chomping corporate megalomaniac holds the world in the palm of his hand. (brandalism.org.uk)

Visit the Brandalism gallery for more samples of their culturejamming work.


12/31/2015 AT 01:35 PM EST

shared a cup of Joe with the one and only

, and there was no talk of politics!

star kicked off season 7 of his hit web series

on Wednesday. And although the Commander in Chief isn't a professional comedian, he proved he's got a great sense of humor.

Seinfeld, 61, picked up his "are-you-kidding-me-super-special-guest" at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in a classic 1963 Corvette Stingray Split Window Coupe, even going through the bushes to knock on Obama's Oval Office window.

While the host is used to visiting beloved diners and coffee shops with his guests, he was unable to pull some strings with POTUS. The pair tried not once, but twice to leave the White House premises, only to get denied by Secret Service agents each time. Seinfeld settled for second best: Obama's custom-built Cadillac.

While chatting in his bullet-proof car, the president revealed the one thing he wishes he could do. "I would love to just be taking a walk and then I run into you. You're sitting on a bench. And suddenly I say, 'Hey Jerry, how ya doin?,'" Obama admitted adding, "That moment when you lost your anonymity. And anonymity is not something you think about as being valuable."

On to the chit chat over hot cups of coffee. Obama revealed the scariest part of living at the White House, even agreeing with Seinfeld that it was a bit like

. "So you're looking around and thinking, what the hell is this?" the president confessed.

The duo talked about some of the craziest politicians the Leader of the Free World has met during his tenure,

's sunscreen obsession, and the president's love for nachos. Obama also compares politics to the sport of football before promoting Obamacare.

At the end of it all, the president was able to make his childhood dream come true. Obama got in the driver's seat to take the Stingray around for a spin in the driveway of the White House. And may we say POTUS is one cool driver.

"I know how to drive man. C'mon," he said.

Summary: Obama goes behind the wheel for the first time in eight years.


President Joko Widodo has condemned the "act of terror" in the capital Jakarta that has claimed at least four lives, and urged citizens not to be cowed.

"The state, the nation and the people, they, we, can't be afraid, can't be defeated by this act of terror," he told reporters.

"I hope the people stay calm because it's all under control."

The president said he had co-ordinated with police on the manhunt for the perpetrators.

"We all grieve for the victims of this incident," he said.

"We all condemn this act that has disturbed the public security."

The president was to cut short his visit to Cirebon, West Java on Thursday, and return to the capital.

Summary: Indonesian President Joko Widodo is not speculating on what was behind the Jakarta blasts that have killed at least three people.


Rising 70 metres above the treetops on the edge of Flushing Meadows in New York are a trio of concrete watchtowers, their circular platforms topped with rusting rotor blades, like flying saucers retired from service. Below, a gargantuan steel ring hovers 10 storeys above the ground, its perimeter adorned with metal spikes. A spider's web of cables extends from this corroded crown to a great central oculus, as if ready to channel some cosmic force into the earth.

Sealed off by an oddly festive candy-striped hoarding, this sinister contraption is the remains of the New York State Pavilion, constructed for the 1964 World's Fair. "It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen," says Christian Kellberg, who grew up in Flushing, Queens, and sneaked in under the fence as a 10-year-old while the fair was being put together. Now he is producing a book on the building. "It was impossibly futuristic, with those Jetsons towers and an endless ceiling of multicoloured tiles, turning the sky into one big stained-glass window."

Thousands of visitors streamed into the park to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the fair, to be greeted by armies of jugglers and fire-eaters, magicians and Belgian waffle stalls – peddling the snack that was introduced to America here in 1964. This fleeting festival brought back a tiny bit of the merry chaos that reigned for two years over this 1,000-acre site.

The State Pavilion is not the only remnant of those heady days. There is the majestic concrete table-top of Terrace on the Park, a T-shaped mega-structure built as the city's first heliport-cum-banqueting hall, where the Beatles landed for their first US concert. There is the skeletal steel globe of the Unisphere in front of the neoclassical Queens Museum – built to represent New York City at the 1939 World's Fair, which was held on the same spot. There is the rippling curtain wall of the Hall of Science, and the geodesic dome of the Winston Churchill pavilion, now repurposed as an aviary for the local zoo. But above it all towers this rusting carcass, the one remaining structure that has failed to find a use.

Designed by Philip Johnson, the flamboyant doyen of architectural opportunists, the State Pavilion was to be the biggest and best building of them all, with "Sky Streak" glass lifts zipping visitors up to the "Astro-View" observation decks, from where they could gaze down on the multicoloured roof of the "Tent of Tomorrow". Inside was the world's biggest map, depicting all of New York state, laid out in sparkling terrazzo, across which troupes of acrobats and dancers would perform, and the animals of the kiddies' petting zoo would snuffle.

The walls of its accompanying 360-degree "Theaterama" building were plastered with works by Johnson's pop-artist friends, including Andy Warhol's screenprints of the state's Thirteen Most Wanted Men – hastily obliterated with silver paint a few days after it was installed, the shock-dose of reality proving too much for the fair's officials.

"I loved the 1964 fair," wrote art historian Robert Rosenblum, who visited both the 1939 and 1964 editions, "because it provided an extravagant surplus of outrageous kitsch, where the collision of postwar realities and prewar fantasies gave one the choice of weeping or smiling."

Launched with a saccharine smile in the midst of the Vietnam war, the 1964 fair was conceived as an expedient alliance between the city's controversial "master builder" Robert Moses and dream-conjuror Walt Disney, funded by a plethora of corporate sponsors. Moses, 70, had been instrumental in the 1939 fair in his former role as the city's park commissioner, employing the big-budget extravaganza as a way of turning Flushing Meadows into the jewel in the crown of his network of green spaces. The earmarked site, at the geographic centre of New York, had for years been a marshy dumping ground, home to mountains of ash, so vividly described by F Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby as "a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens". Moses swept all this away, leveraging the fair's funds to build swaths of highways and services, planting and water features.

"He imagined it as his own Versailles," says Louise Weinberg, archive manager at the Queens Museum, explaining how the success of the 1939 fair consolidated Moses's power as the ultimate tsar of city construction. She is standing in the middle of the museum, above the forest of Formica skyscrapers that fills the floor below, LED lights twinkling as model aeroplanes touch down at a miniature La Guardia airport. Covering an area of 10,000 square feet, this is the model of New York that Moses had built as president of the 1964 fair – a monument to his own achievements, depicting the 700 parks, seven bridges, 17 expressways and dozens of public housing projects whose construction he had presided over.

As a showcase of the future, the fair was as much a celebration of Moses's ambitions as anything else. In the General Motors pavilion, the spirit of his unstoppable highway-building urge was shown in a series of dioramas, depicting how "machines of tomorrow" would clear the way for man to exist on the south pole, under the sea, in the desert and deep in the jungle. A three-storey "road-builder" on caterpillar tracks would be "capable of producing from within itself one mile of four-lane elevated superhighway every hour", preceded by tree-clearing machines, equipped with laser-beams to slash down anything in their path.

This construction mania jarred, however, with a different kind of utopianism that was coming into fashion. Suspicious of top-down planning, this local and communitarian spirit was extolled by Jane Jacobs, whose The Death and Life of Great American Cities railed against Moses for gleefully slicing his asphalt arteries through existing neighbourhoods. His biographer, Robert Caro, speculates that the threatening presence Moses cast over the fair – as "a figure not inviting but hostile, a figure of arrogance, controversy and rage" – may have kept many from attending.

Moses's patriarchal puritanism also killed any sense of joy. The bawdy fun of 1939 – which featured such wondrous attractions as Oscar the Amorous Octopus (a man in a rubber suit swimming among naked showgirls) and the "Rotolactor" merry-go-round of cows being milked mechanically – was replaced by a showcase of brands peddling their wares and religious pavilions dishing out moralising messages. It was a spectacular commercial failure, welcoming 20 million fewer visitors than forecast.

Fifty years on, with Moses now a harmless pantomime villain and World's Fair nostalgia at its peak, there are calls to breathe new life into the collapsing corpse of the New York State Pavilion, with Kellberg's book and a documentary film by Matthew Silva on the way. "There is growing support to see the structure revived," says Salmaan Khan of People for the Pavilion, set up to campaign for its revival. Melinda Katz, Queens' borough president, has formed a taskforce dedicated to preserving the pavilion, although funds are the big question. It will cost around $40m (£24m) just to stabilise the structure. Still, there is no danger of it being torn down: it is on the National Register for Historic Places, and the National Trust for Historic Preservation recently declared it a national treasure.

With plans circulating for an air and space museum, or a venue for open-air concerts (Led Zeppelin and Grateful Dead played here in the 1970s), to say nothing of bungee-jumping off the towers, there is no shortage of ideas – or popular interest. "Over 5,000 people queued for four to five hours just to see inside the pavilion," Kellberg says of the anniversary celebration. "If that isn't a good example of pent-up demand and squandered opportunity, I don't know what is."

Summary: Oliver Wainwright: With its soaring space-age turrets, its candy-striped roof and its Tent of Tomorrow, the New York State Pavilion astonished visitors to the 1964 World's Fair. Is it about to stage a comeback?


The equities markets are mercifully closed, after the worst trading day since Lehman Brothers went bust. The headline number is 634 points, or a 5.55% decline for the Dow. The Nasdaq lost nearly 175 points, representing a 6.9% fall.

Certain sectors obviously fared worse than others — financials got crushed, with Bank of America BAC and Citigroup C down 17.63% and 14.65%, respectively — but almost nobody was spared. Nearly 4,000 NYSE-listed companies, or 94% of all exchange issuers, lost value today. In fact, 1,400 of them hit 52-week lows. On the Nasdaq, nearly 2,500 of issuers (93%) closed lower with 642 of them experiencing 52-week lows.

Within the S&P 500, there were only two gainers: Gold producer Newmont Mining Corp. NEM , up a piddling 0.57%, and chipmaker National Semiconductor Corp. NSM , which closed up just a single penny. Beyond that, you mostly had to hit the Nasdaq to find success stories, like Broadsoft BSFT up 9.7% on better-than-expected earnings news.

If you’re looking for a silver lining, however, you might be able to find some in a comparison to 2010. As @pcdunham tweeted after market close, the S&P 500 was down 17% from its May 2010 highs to its July 2011 lows. It’s also off 17% from this past May’s highs to today’s 2011 low. Obviously not apples to apples, but also not necessarily an indicator of a new normal…

Summary: The equities markets are mercifully closed, after the worst trading day since Lehman Brothers went bust. The headline number is 634 points, or a 5.55% decline for the Dow. The Nasdaq lost nearly 175 points, representing a 6.9% fall. Certain sectors obviously fared worse than others -- financials got crushed, with Bank of America and…


Richard Dreyfuss as Bernie Madoff in ABC’s “Madoff.”

Alas, you can no longer name your dog Bernie. If you do, it will automatically mean one thing (taxing the billionaire class) or quite another (the billionaire class). This two-part miniseries is about the Bernie who was part of the billionaire class, who put the Wall Street in Occupy Wall Street, until he wound up in jail for his Ponzi scheme. His victims felt the Bern, indeed, as they got quite burned by his narcissistic and greedy moves. His story was done and done again by the news media as it unfolded in 2008-09, but here’s the first scripted ripped-from-the-headlines version (HBO has one on the way, too, with Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer). And it’s not entirely awful, thanks to Richard Dreyfuss’s interesting performance as the titular villain. He doesn’t try to show us Madoff’s soft side, nor does he make him into an obvious monster. He gives us a Madoff who charmed his clients into giving him their money, conning them into feeling as though he was bringing them into an exclusive club. He was a snake with a smile. The miniseries is bloated, and the rest of the cast, including Blythe Danner and Peter Scolari, don’t have much to do. But Dreyfuss brings distinction.

Inside Llewyn Davis 8 p.m., TMC

American Pickers 9 p.m., History

Shadow of Doubt 10 p.m., ID

Summary: Richard Dreyfuss’s interesting performance as the titular villain in “Madoff” is the best part of ABC’s mediocre miniseries.


It's fair to say that when a criminal investigation has detectives turning to the assistance of psychics and paranormals, it has hit a rocky point. And so it goes for the investigators working the notorious Gardner heist, one of history's greatest unsolved mysteries. But it's hardly for lack of effort. It's just that so many of the prime suspects have wound up murdered.

In The Gardner Heist: The True Story of the World's Largest Unsolved Art Theft, journalist-turned-gumshoe Ulrich Boser gives his own account of the burglary of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. On 19 March 1990 - St Patrick's Day, a fact that would later become a clue - two men dressed as police officers talked their way into the museum after hours, gagged and bound two night watchmen, and made off with some of the world's most precious paintings. The 13 paintings ripped crudely from their frames, including masterpieces by Vermeer, Rembrandt and Degas - a haul valued at around $500m (£347m) - have not been seen since.

The first of many obsessives to star in Boser's tale is none other than socialite Isabella Stewart Gardner, the museum's founder and namesake. Boser details the incredible dedication (and money) that the heiress put toward her pristine collection of Old Masters, early moderns, and other masterworks.

But it's not long before the story plunges into the murky depths of contemporary organised crime. Following in the footsteps of detective-to-the-art-world Harold Smith, Boser follows the works through whispers in the underworld. In following the old leads collected by Smith (who died in 2005), Boser tracks the true cast of characters that surround the missing paintings and brings new facts to light in a mystery now entering its second decade.

Boser rejects the idea of a shadowy "Dr No" villain, presumed by many to have masterminded the heist for personal enjoyment. He explains that art theft is more mundane and fantastical than that: stolen art is sometimes fenced to insurance adjusters, or serves as a black-market bond.

Boser's investigation leads him to suspects ranging from James "Whitey" Bulger, the notorious Boston-based Winter Hill Gang crime lord and the FBI's second most wanted fugitive, to Thomas "Slab" Murphy, the IRA lieutenant who organised the Warrenpoint ambush. Myles Connor – a former rockabilly and probably the greatest art thief who ever lived - is just one of the violent, colourful figures in Boser's tale of hardnosed FBI agents, corrupt Boston police, and slimy mob lawyers.

By Boser's accounting, every cat burglar between Boston and Dublin has a bead on the missing masterpieces. To his credit, the book is a thrill despite the frustrating nature of the investigation, in which he painstakingly tracks audacious leads from mendacious thugs only to arrive at dead ends. And a few dead suspects. And to be sure, no art.

Still, Boser does turn up some new evidence and makes a conclusive case for the identity of the thieves who did the job. The mystery remains unsolved, but the case is reinvigorated in its retelling by a man who fully appreciates the value of the masterpieces and the magnitude of the criminal conspiracy that carried them away in the night.

Summary: Ulrich Boser's retelling of the greatest art theft in modern times doesn't provide a solution but captures the dedication required to build up an art collection - and to steal it


03/10/2016 AT 09:45 AM EST

is a vision in red.

star stepped out on Wednesday at the Alzheimer's Association's "A Night at Sardi's" event in Beverly Hills.

Cuoco wore a sleeveless, sparkling Naeem Khan red dress with cutouts at the sides – giving a glimpse of her toned abs and back.

The 30-year-old stayed true to the vibrant color on the event stage as well, sporting a red crop top, tiny black shorts and fishnets to perform "Dance 10, Looks 3" from

Cuoco posted a photo of the skin-baring ensemble on

, noting that she "nailed" the performance.

Jesse Grant / Getty Images

for the event's finale. Together, the group delivered a colorful performance of "You're the One That I Want" and "We Go Together" from

The group sported a '50s-style wardrobe and were surrounded by sock-hop dancers.

Afterwards, the stars took to their respective Instagram accounts, posting photos of the costume-clad cast.

"We'll always be together!" Rauch captioned an

of herself alongside Rauch and Cuoco, including the caption, "Girls only #sardisfinalshow."

Summary: Kaley Cuoco teamed up with her Big Bang Theory costars for a lively, '50s-inspired Grease performance


No-load funds are those that you can buy and sell without paying a sales charge. Load funds carry sales charges and are typically available to those who invest with a broker or financial advisor. It's true that your overall investment costs will generally be lower if you go the no-load route.

But Christine Benz, author of the "Morningstar Guide to Mutual Funds," claims frugal investors should not automatically shun load funds. "If you're not comfortable putting together an asset allocation plan, selecting specific funds and monitoring that portfolio, then paying an advisor or broker to do it for you can be money well spent, even if it means paying a sales charge to buy or sell," she said.

Certified financial planner Ivory Johnson of Delancey Wealth Management said all things being equal, loaded mutual funds have several disadvantages that are important to consider relative to no loads. First, the load reduces your initial investment. Second, since you've paid "extra," you're less likely to sell if it performs poorly. And if you do sell and want to avoid another sales charge, you'll have to exchange within the same fund family.

(Read MoreThree ways to curb your taxes near retirement)

Summary: High mutual fund costs can be a drain on returns, so know how the sales charge works—ahead of time. CNBC's Sharon Epperson explains how to find value.


04/11/2016 AT 03:10 PM EDT

Veronica and Vanessa Merrell, the 19-year-old masterminds behind hilariously adorable

, are on a roll right now – scoring their first-ever

nomination this year. The awards ceremony honors the best on social media, and the nomination has been a long time coming, considering the sisters have been making videos since 2009.

The pair, who is nominated in the social media-centric show's first-ever

this year – alongside Jelly and Day and Hailey Knox – are being lauded for their use of YouNow, a live-streaming service that allows the sister's 178K subscribers to engage with them in a more intimate and relaxed setting.

"Between the time we started making videos on Youtube and broadcasting on YouNow, there has been a huge change in the amount of opportunities for us," Veronica and Vanessa tell PEOPLE. "Content-wise, we haven't changed. We've always put 100% effort for every video since the beginning. But I do think that broadcasting on

every week has made us more confident people. We can talk to our viewers and they get to see and know the real us."

Despite boasting nearly 1 million YouTube subscribers, Veronica and Vanessa are quick to reflect on how their dreams of performing on-camera for people took longer than anticipated – something they are adamant in advising aspiring YouTube stars about.

"It takes a lot of hard work to make it, so you need to have a lot of self motivation," they tell PEOPLE, adding that they hope to one day collaborate with

. "There will be times where you will be very discouraged but it's important to remember that as long as you are having fun making videos or live broadcasting, then there's no reason to give up."

The Shorty Awards airs live April 11 at

Summary: The Shorty Award nominees talk about how their YouTube videos have changed since launching their channel in 2009


Delaware Gov. Jack Markell told CNBC on Monday that he has been directing residents to the state-run website because of the glitchy federal website. As of Thursday, however, only 136 people had signed up for coverage through the Delaware exchange, while 12,000 there had learned their policies were canceled, according to The Washington Post.

(Read more: Top Democrat Pelosi denies party members retreating from Obamacare)

"I think everybody admits it's going in the wrong direction," Markell said on "Squawk Box." "And so there's no question, the most important thing is to get the website fixed. But No. 2, we've actually taken a number of steps to make sure, for example, that people who can't qualify for this subsidy can go to our website."

Kalogeropoulos doesn't fault the programmers who developed HealthCare.gov but instead blamed policy decisions, such as forcing people to sign up before they could see policy rates.

"The government is trying to do a lot with HealthCare.gov—sign people up, verify their income, check their immigration status," he said. "And when you try to do all of that in one place, it necessarily gets pretty complicated."

(Read more: Frist: Here's the answer to health-care costs)

Summary: Visitors to HealthSherpa.com cannot enroll in plans, but they can compare coverage and rates based on their ZIP codes.


Churn, baby, churn. This is perhaps the hardest part of disrupting a market, because creating and shipping a disruptive product requires a different mind-set from churning or revising a product. However, if a company has "not worried and been crappy," then version 1.0 must evolve to 1.1, 1.2 and eventually 2.0. This alteration of mind-set is often a monumental task.

Stop and smell the flowers. Disruptive companies are flexible and opportunistic. They take their best shot at targeting customers and intended uses of their products, but when unintended customers use their products in unintended ways, they seize the day. Apple didn't plan for people to use Macintosh as a desktop-publishing machine. Desktop publishing, because of PostScript and Pagemaker, was a flower that blossomed and ultimately saved Apple.

Don't let the bozos grind you down. The more disruptive the product, the more current stakeholders will denigrate it. They'll say that it can't be done, shouldn't be done and will never sell. They may cite tradition and regulations as reasons, too. Consider Uber and Airbnb. Who's fighting them the most? It's not the customers who use the services. It's the status quo who is trying to preserve the status quo. Disruptive companies don't let negativity and resistance to change stop progress.

Read MoreThe big money fueling billion-dollar ideas

This is the gist of the art of disruption. May you use these principles and the inspiring work of the companies that we are profiling to change the world.

—By Guy Kawasaki, special to CNBC.com

Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva, a disruptive graphic design tool. Formerly, he was an advisor to the Motorola business unit of Google and chief evangelist of Apple.

FULL LIST: 2014 DISRUPTOR 50

Summary: Very few companies disrupt anything at all, but some, like Apple and Google, have disrupted markets time and again. Guy Kawasaki notes how.


Earlier this month, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management—effectively, the government’s human resources department—disclosed that it had fallen victim to a massive data breach that may affect roughly 4 million current and former federal employees.* The office has said that it uncovered the breach while beefing up its security posture. Apparently, that discovery was not a solo affair.

Fortune has learned that the detection of that cyber intrusion appears to have arisen during a product demonstration by network security company CyTech Services, corroborating a report that first appeared in the Wall Street Journal. The firm, a Manassas, Va.-based company founded in 2002, had apparently sent a team to pitch its flagship product, a vulnerability assessment tool called CyFIR. During the demonstration, the tool identified the zero-day, aka previously unknown, malware associated with the latest breach, a person familiar the investigation told Fortune.

[Update: OPM spokesman Sam Schumach contacted Fortune after this story published to dismiss the CyTech claim, saying: “The assertion that CyTech was somehow responsible for the discovery of the intrusion into OPM’s network during a product demonstration is inaccurate. OPM’s cybersecurity team made this discovery in April 2015 as previously disclosed, and immediately notified US-CERT and the FBI to investigate the intrusion.” See bottom for more details.]

Unnamed sources also told WSJ that they believed the intrusion had gone undetected on the office’s systems “for a year or more.”

In a statement disclosing the breach, the personnel management office hinted at how the finding came to light. “Within the last year, the OPM has undertaken an aggressive effort to update its cybersecurity posture, adding numerous tools and capabilities to its networks,” the statement read. “As a result, in April 2015, OPM detected a cyber-intrusion affecting its information technology (IT) systems and data. The intrusion predated the adoption of the tougher security controls.”

Exactly what data the attackers accessed during the breach still remains unclear, though. For instance, did the data contain sensitive information from background investigations of government workers? An OPM spokesperson declined to comment on the specifics of the intrusion, citing security reasons; however, another spokesperson, Sam Schumach, told the AP that there is “no evidence” that hackers stole such information.

[Update: After this story published, Schumach told Fortune that it is likely that a second breach exposed the background investigation stored on OPM’s systems. See bottom for details.]

The office’s meager assurance hasn’t convinced everyone. Some believe the incident represents an even larger breach than the agency has let on. A scathing letter sent recently to the director of the personnel management office has alleged, for example, that the compromise is even more extensive than previously thought.

J. David Cox, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, a union that represents more than 670,000 workers in the executive branch, took a swing at the agency in ink: “We believe that the Central Personnel Data File was the targeted database, and that the hackers are now in possession of all personnel data for every federal employee, every federal retiree, and up to one million former federal employees,” he wrote in the letter dated Thursday, which Fortune obtained.

The union’s blustery note, addressed to OPM director Katherine Archuleta, goes on to list an alarming array of data the union believes to be compromised. “We believe that hackers have every affected person’s Social Security number(s), military records and veterans’ status information, address, birth date, job and pay history, health insurance, life insurance, and pension information; age, gender, race, union status, and more,” Cox wrote.

According to the AP, which first reported on the letter, that cache of data on government workers “contains up to 780 separate pieces of information about an employee.”

“Worst,” Cox continued in the letter, “we believe that Social Security numbers were not encrypted, a cybersecurity failure that is absolutely indefensible and outrageous.”

It remains unclear to what extent the letter’s allegations are based on speculation. The letter itself states that it is “based on the sketchy information OPM has provided” and that “very little substantive information has been shared with us.”

Asked for comment on the matter of encryption, spokesperson Sam Schumach told Fortune that the agency sometimes uses the scrambling technology to protect data, though he did not reveal when or how. “OPM does utilize encryption in some instances and is currently increasing the types of methods utilized to encrypt data,” he wrote in an email. “These methods include not only data at rest, but data in transit, and data displayed through masking or redaction.”

He added: “Though data encryption is a valuable protection method, today’s adversaries are sophisticated enough that encryption alone does not guarantee protection.”

It’s true that hacked organizations often like to attribute their security failings to “sophisticated adversaries.” To fall victim to such bogeymen comes across as undoubtedly more defensible than succumbing to weak or inept opponents. That said: Senators such as Harry Reid and Susan Collins have gone on the record stating that the attack seems to have originated in China. And reports citing anonymous sources suggest that the attack may have been state-sponsored—in other words, a sophisticated adversary, indeed—although that detail is not confirmed.

While the fallout from the OPM breach continues to develop, and as more details arise, it can be all too easy to bellow accusations and criticize the seeming ineptitude—technological or otherwise—of government. Even though the agency’s investment in better defenses arrived too little, too late, one should note that the agency was taking measures to improve its network security when the compromise was found out.

For fear of blaming the mugging victim for getting mugged, as one source has put it to Fortune, let the latest data breach—which some say could be the biggest ever in government history—serve as a lesson for those considering strengthening their protections: Don’t wait.

* Update: After this story published, OPM Spokesman Sam Schumach contacted Fortune to dismiss the CyTech claim as “inaccurate.” The story has been updated to include his statement.

Additionally, as this story was publishing, the AP reported, citing unnamed sources, that the Office of Personnel Management suffered a second, separate data breach of security clearance data that has exposed the sensitive background information of as many as 2.9 million military and intelligence personnel, including members of the National Security Agency, CIA, military special operations. In addition to that the news wire reported, again citing anonymous sources, that the first hack, referred to throughout the original story above, may have affected as many as 14 million current and former federal civilian employees—way higher than the 4 million figure initially offered by the Obama administration.

Schumach also acknowledged that a second data breach likely occurred and that investigations are ongoing. Regarding the AP’s revised 14 million figure for the number of federal workers affected by the first data breach, he said: “We are in the process of assessing the scope of the information and we do not have an estimate at this time.”

Here is his statement in full, which acknowledges the additional breach:

The cyber intrusion announced last week affecting personnel records for approximately 4 million current and former federal employees was discovered through enhanced monitoring and detection systems that OPM implemented as part of an aggressive effort in recent months to strengthen our cybersecurity capabilities. Upon detecting that intrusion, OPM launched an investigation – in partnership with the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) and the FBI – to determine its full scope and impact. On June 8, as the investigation proceeded, the incident response team shared with relevant agencies that there was a high degree of confidence that OPM systems containing information related to the background investigations of current, former, and prospective Federal government employees, and those for whom a federal background investigation was conducted, may have been exfiltrated.

OPM continues to work with US-CERT and the FBI to determine the type of records that may have been compromised and the population of individuals affected. OPM takes very seriously its responsibility to protect the sensitive data we manage. Once we have conclusive information about the breach, we will announce a notification plan for individuals whose information is determined to have been compromised.

OPM remains committed to improving its security capabilities and has invested significant resources in implementing tools that have not only strengthened our security barriers to outside threats, but have also enabled us to detect and thwart our constantly evolving cyber adversaries.

Fortune will continue to update this story with more information as it comes.

Summary: Talk about an effective sales pitch.


Practically Speaking is a weekly column that addresses your most pressing business dilemmas. The advice is the opinion of long-time business owner Gene Marks. Send your questions to PracticallySpeaking@fortune.com.

My daughter is looking for work this summer and I’d like to offer her a job in my office. Is that OK?

One of the biggest benefits of owning your own business is that you can put your children to work. I have many clients who employ their kids. But there are two things to keep in mind.

First, you can get great a tax benefit. You can pay your child up to $6,300 a year and assuming she doesn’t have any other income, she likely won’t have to file a return. Not only that but you get the deduction. Just be careful that your child is at a reasonable working age (so no, you’re not going have your 4-year-old toddler answer the phones) and can perform work that others would be needed to do. I like to use 12 years old as a rule of thumb. And definitely make sure you grab that paycheck out of her hands and deposit it in a college savings account before she spends it on food or Xbox games!

Secondly, be careful of what your other employees might think. For a very small business, nepotism is the norm and in many cases needed. But as your company grows you may find others in the company who also have kids resentful if your kids are getting the opportunities that aren’t offered to them. You’re not breaking any laws per se – but you may create conflict. Everyone, be it your child or not, needs to go through the same process of interviewing and applying and decisions need to be made as independently as possible. Of course, no matter how objective you try to be everyone’s going to think your kid is going to get preference because you’re the owner. But following a process and having a policy will send a message that you’re doing your best to keep things as objective as possible.

Related: What to Do When Your Potential New Hire Discloses a Serious Illness

One of my employees is a great guy and good at his job. But he…well…smells. I’ve had a few employees complain to me. What do I tell him?

No biggie – just keep a can of Febreze near his desk and ask anyone that’s walking by to give a quick spray. Problem solved. OK, just kidding. But this issue is not a joke. I don’t care how nice a person someone is or how good a job they do, they’re still working in an environment with other nice and hard-working people. And they deserve to spend their 8 to 10 hours in safe and clean environment, too. Working next to someone with B.O. really…well….stinks.

So it’s time for a closed-door session. Personal hygiene is expected of any employee (is this in your company handbook? It should be) and it’s not fair for someone to make things unpleasant for others. So you need to compliment but also be upfront. Don’t lay it on others or say “Marjorie says you stink.” Make sure he knows this is your problem and no one else’s. Assuming his issue isn’t medical-related, tell him he’s got to clean up his act and that you’ll do your best to be upfront with him and let him know how he’s doing over the next few weeks. But also let him know that poor personal hygiene could be grounds for termination (again, it’s important to include professional hygiene in your handbook) and that’s something no one wants. Follow these recommendations and I’m sure everything will be coming up roses in no time!

Summary: A look at two tricky workplace situations.


This article contains spoilers. Click here to reveal them.

Early in the fifth season of Game of Thrones, Daenerys Targaryen, conqueror of Meereen and aspirant to the Iron Throne of Westeros, has to deal with a family problem. Her dragons–her “children”–are getting too big, and she can’t control them anymore. Two of them are locked up, for their safety or everyone else’s, beneath the pyramid city. The biggest, Drogon, has been AWOL in the countryside for weeks. Damn kids! Once they grow up and learn how to drive, there’s no controlling them!

In the story, the dragons are a metaphor for Dany’s power. As it grows greater, it becomes more difficult to control–as she’s learned in Meereen, where effectively governing the city of former slave masters has proved harder than liberating it. It’s a typical message for Game of Thrones, which has always balanced its fantasy thrills with realpolitik. An awesome champion, it argues, is not necessarily a great ruler; and you are only a leader to the extent you can prove yourself worth following. Or as the season premiere puts it: “A dragon queen without dragons is not a queen.”

But the dragons could also be a metaphor for Game of Thrones itself, which is the offspring of the incomplete A Song of Ice and Fire novel series by George R.R. Martin. In its first episodes, it was newly hatched and wobbly, dependent on its mother novels. Gradually it grew, became confident, got its own voice, experimented with going its own way.

By season 5 (premieres April 12), it’s started to outgrow its parents; several storylines are approaching or passing what Martin has written in five novels. (It’s anybody’s guess when the projected final two books come out, though the previous two took about five years each.) The adapters, David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, say they’ve consulted with Martin on his master plan, but they’re not waiting for him. As the series moves past the book on some storylines and changes others to better suit the screen, for the first time readers are as likely to be surprised by what happens as non-readers. Like it or not, this critter’s gotta fly solo now.

And it is still a magnificent beast: bold, confident and venturing off in new directions. It’s continuing to expand to new destinations on the map that springs to life in the title sequence. In Dorne, we meet the Sand Snakes–the bastard daughters of Oberyn Martell, preparing vengeance for their father’s death last season in trial-by-combat against the Lannisters’ champion The Mountain. Arya Stark (Maisie Williams) pursues her own payback plot by traveling a continent away to Braavos, apprenticing with the mystic society of the Faceless Men to learn the skills of an assassin.

But the new episodes also have old characters re-cross paths, and move to bring some long-separated characters together. One of the most fruitful new scenarios is a departure from the books, but a well-publicized one: spymaster Varys (Conleth Hill) and fugitive patricide lord Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) are on the eastern continent headed to Dany, whom Varys believes is Westeros’ savior.

Giving the silver-tongued pair their own road movie is a treat, and it returns to one of the series’ longtime themes: what makes a good ruler? An honest-but-weak monarch can mean chaos, a strong-but-cruel one terror. When Varys hopes that Dany can deliver “a land where the powerful do not prey on the powerless,” Tyrion scoffs: “That’s how they became powerful in the first place.”

“Perhaps,” Varys says. “Or perhaps we have become so used to horror that we assume there is no other way.”

At times you might have said that about Game of Thrones itself, whose fourth season seemed determined to outdo itself in shock: rapes, cannibalism, head smashing. Season 5 hasn’t exactly become pacifist, but it’s also exploring the ideas and politics behind the battles. At The Wall, a newly responsible Jon Snow (Kit Harington) is balancing the needs of the neutral Night’s Watch against the demands of Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane). In King’s Landing, the power vacuum after Joffrey and Tywin Lannister’s deaths has left Cersei (Lena Headey) competing with daughter-in-law Margaery (Natalie Dormer), while war has led to a surge in religious fundamentalism led by holy ascetic the High Sparrow (Jonathan Pryce). Even bloodthirsty Roose Bolton is advising his sadistic son Ramsay, “The best way to forge an alliance isn’t by peeling a man’s skin off,” which is practically “Give peace a chance” in Bolton-speak.

That’s a hell of a lot of story, and I’ve barely colored in the map–yet this is actually an efficiently streamlined version of the teeming, digression-filled story Martin has built after five books–especially the last two, A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons, which this season draws from. (Skip the following section if you haven’t read the books and don’t want to know about them, or if you have and don’t want to know how the new season departs from them.)

Benioff’s and Weiss’ strategy seems to be: don’t reach for a new tool when you can use one you have in hand. Where Martin introduced plot after plot, face after face, Game of Thrones uses already established characters. So Varys and Tyrion’s aforementioned Essos adventure comes in place of Tyrion’s river journey from ADWD–which means no Young Griff, the rival Targaryen claimant, at least for now. Jaime Lannister is not fighting in the Riverlands but on a mission to Dorne to retrieve Princess Myrcella, setting off various changes in that storyline (for one, the story of Arianne is assumed in part by Ellaria Sand). In the North, there’s no fake “Arya Stark” to be married off to Ramsay Bolton; meanwhile, the stories of Sansa and Littlefinger and Brienne (who no longer has Lady Stoneheart to encounter) intersect. (Even under the cloak of spoiler blurring, I won’t tell you how.)

The Iron Islands, meanwhile, have disappeared into the mist; AFFC’s Oldtown prologue is gone; and–maybe happiest of all–there’s no sign of Quentyn, sent in the books on a shaggy-dog mission from Dorne to become a dragon kebab in Meereen. (Disclaimer: I’ve seen four episodes of the season; there’s no telling what might come up later.) But there are also a few elements I’m pleasantly surprised the show has retained–including info dumps about Rheagar and Lyanna, Maester Qyburn’s weird-science research, and a nod to popular theories about Jon Snow’s parentage. Nuances will be lost, threads snipped, mythology glossed over, but that’s why we have the books (if Martin ever finishes). Benioff and Weiss are, mostly, remaking the story to work for the screen, where the lifting needs to be done by dialogue, visuals and emotional connection to people we’ve known for four seasons now.

All these tweaks make for a story that’s expanding–the new setting in Dorne is particularly breathtaking–but not quite metastasizing. We don’t know how much longer the series has (HBO has recently hinted at something longer than the bruited-about seven seasons), but even as it expands, it feels like it’s driving toward a point. And for once, readers and non-readers will be approach the story on something closer to equal footing. Readers can look forward to being genuinely surprised (pleasantly or not). Non-readers can share readers’ experience of wondering when Dany will stop moping around that freaking pyramid and get back to Westeros.

Answer: not quite yet, but in the second episode, as she stands on one of its high parapets, she has a visitor: Drogon, who lands his massive frame behind her. She reaches to caress his massive head, half in love, half in fear. Then he takes off again. Game of Thrones is flying, full tilt, toward a destination off the edge of our map of the known world. I can’t wait to see what it finds there.

Read next: Everything to Know About Game of Thrones Before Season 5 Starts

Listen to the most important stories of the day.

Summary: A power vacuum in Westeros--and the series' catching up with the source books--makes the future uncertain and exciting


French street artist JR has made the famous Louvre Pyramid in Paris disappear in an optical illusion.

The artist covered the huge glass pyramid with a trompe l'oeil installation that makes it seem as if the monument at the heart of the courtyard has disappeared.

Tourists jostled each other on Wednesday to take the historic selfie of the Louvre without the visible glass structure for the first time in the digital age.

The black and white installation depicting the east side of the Napoleon courtyard features on the front of the once-controversial pyramid designed by Chinese-American architect IM Pei in 1989.

JR says he loves "people being destabilised and trying to find the point" that scales with the background.

Summary: French artist JR has used a trompe l'oeil installation to make the Louvre Pyramid disappear in an optical illusion.


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Summary: Cheesy firecracker baked chicken taquitos are a healthier alternative to their store bought sidekicks!


If you’re sampling sweets every night—and you aren’t super disciplined during the day—then yes, dessert is that bad for you.

Of course, there are different types of desserts. Dark chocolate, nuts, fruit and mishmashes of those ingredients generally aren’t a problem. Knock yourself out. But we’re talking about the oldies and goodies here: Cake. Ice Cream. Cookies.

“Combinations of sugar, white flour, butter and trans fat are diabetes on a plate,” says Dr. Walter Willett, chair of the department of nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. Studies have linked these ingredients to obesity and increased rates of type 2 diabetes. So if you’re eating dessert most nights, you’re asking for trouble, Willett says.

Of course, when it comes to anything diet related, there’s always a gray area. And for dessert lovers, that gray area exists if you’re very active during the day and you generally eat a diet low in added sugars, says Dr. Rachel Johnson, a professor of nutrition at the University of Vermont and chair of the American Heart Association’s (AHA) nutrition committee.

It’s important to clarify what Johnson means by “added sugars.” These are the sugars that don’t exist naturally in the foods you consume. For example, most dairy products and fruits contain sugar in the form of fructose and lactose. But when you buy a fruity drink or flavored yogurt, those natural sugars are supplemented with more of the sweet stuff. A lot more, in most cases. And those “added” sugars are the ones studies have tied to elevated blood pressure, out-of-control inflammation, abnormal blood lipids and heart disease, Johnson says.

The AHA says women should eat no more than six teaspoons—or about 100-calories’ worth—of added sugars per day. For men, that jumps to nine teaspoons or 150 calories, Johnson says. Most dessert foods contain that much sugar, or a whole lot more. And unless you’re making all of your own meals from scratch, you’re probably hitting or vastly exceeding that daily sugar allotment way before you reach for your evening ice cream. “Everything from ketchup and salad dressing to soups and bread will contain added sugars,” she says.

Johnson says super-active adults can eat a little more sugar without worrying. But even if you’re an exercise fiend, sugary dessert calories are still “empty” calories—meaning they’re not doing your health any favors even if they’re not hurting you.

Ok, you get it. Desserts aren’t good for you. (Surprise!) But if you love them and look forward to them all day, go ahead and have some, says Nyree Dardarian, director of the Center for Integrated Nutrition and Performance Coordination at Drexel University. “When you put rules and restrictions on something, you’re only going to want it more,” she says, which might be why recommendations to eat dessert just once a week or on special occasions often fail.

Instead of denying yourself the object of your affection—and thereby stoking its appeal—focus on portion control and breaking bad dessert habits, Dardarian says. You may be used to slicing pie generously or inhaling four or five cookies. But you’d probably feel just as satisfied having much less. “Don’t get in the habit of always having the same dessert,” or the same portion, she says. And don’t just eat out of habit: you may find there are nights when you’re not that interested in dessert.

And make it as cumbersome on yourself as possible to grab seconds, Dardarian recommends. If you put the cookies or cake back in its package and into the cupboard or fridge before you start eating, you’re a lot less likely to go back for more.

Johnson also recommends making your own desserts. The stuff you buy at the store is typically overloaded with sweet stuff (and chemicals.) But if you bake your own treats at home, you can substitute healthier oils, remove much of the sugar and toss in healthy additions like nuts.

“There are ways to satisfy your dessert craving in healthier ways,” Johnson says, “if you’re thoughtful about it and willing to put in a little effort.”

Summary: Mixed news on the dessert front, but there's a cherry on top


We know that the amount of time we spend sitting each day wreaks havoc on our health, and in a new paper, researchers show that spending just two hours standing or moving around instead of sitting may have a real positive impact on our health.

In the new study published Thursday in the European Heart Journal, researchers had 782 men and women wear activity trackers 24 hours a day for seven days. The monitors tracked how much time the men and women spent stepping, sitting, standing, sleeping or lying down. The participants also provided blood samples and other measurements like blood pressure and weight.

With the data gathered from the trackers, the researchers used a mathematical model to estimate how the allotted time in each condition would impact the men and women’s health. Interestingly, they found that spending two extra hours a day standing instead of sitting was linked to better blood sugar levels and lower levels of fat in the blood (triglycerides). Specifically, more time spent standing was associated with a 2% lower average blood sugar levels and a 11% lower levels of triglycerides. Cholesterol levels showed improvement as well.

The findings also showed that spending an extra two hours moving instead of sitting was linked to a significant lower body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference.

The study cannot definitely prove that these tweaks to the amount of time spent sitting directly causes improvements in health markers, but the researchers note that the findings do fall in line with what’s known about the impact on the body of being active (or at least not being sedentary).

More research is still needed, but the findings support the longstanding advice that moving around is better for our health than lounging around, and suggest that any decisions to purchase a standing desk are not made in vain.

Summary: More evidence suggests getting off your seat and moving around is good for your health