Though the room was full of A-listers like Carrie Underwood, Miranda Lambert and Luke Bryan, Little Big Town, with their massive hit ‘‘Girl Crush,’’ and Chris Stapleton, who has written songs for most of Nashville, owned the 2015 Country Music Association Awards.

Stapleton, who has written for Bryan, Kenny Chesney, George Strait and others, was Wednesday night’s big winner with three awards — male vocalist, new artist and album of the year for ‘‘Traveller.’’

Everyone cheered him on, from Lambert to Bryan, who won entertainer of the year.

‘‘Watching Chris Stapleton have this night is so uplifting,’’ Bryan said onstage after he won the top award for a second time.

Stapleton, who was the lead singer of the bluegrass band The SteelDrivers, was on the brink of tears when he won his third prize at the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee.

Justin Timberlake tapped into his country roots with a show-stopping performance at the Country Music Association Awards.

‘‘About two years ago, I lost my dad and I made this record thinking about a lot of music he would like. ... My mom is here tonight. I want to thank my mom,’’ said Stapleton. ‘‘I’m not going to take it lightly ...I got to thank my wife again, she always pushes me to be the best I can be ...I gotta thank all my cousins in Kentucky.’’

Stapleton’s night wasn’t just about winning awards: He also turned in a show-stopping performance with Justin Timberlake, who tapped into his Memphis, Tennessee, roots as they strummed their guitars while singing ‘‘Tennessee Whiskey,’’ which Stapleton wrote. They followed that with Timberlake’s tune, ‘‘Drink You Away.’’

The audience was in awe: Timberlake’s wife, actress Jessica Biel, watched excitedly and bopped her head while Keith Urban recorded the performance with his phone.

‘‘Justin Timberlake and Chris Stapleton, thank you very much. I’m going to go home and practice,’’ Lambert said onstage when she won female vocalist of the year

It was Lambert’s sixth consecutive win in the category.

‘‘I appreciate it. I needed a bright spot this year,’’ she said onstage.

Lambert could have been referring to her divorce to Blake Shelton, announced in July. Shelton, who performed at the live show on ABC, confirmed Wednesday just hours before the awards show that he and his fellow ‘‘Voice’’ mentor Gwen Stefani are dating. Underwood and Brad Paisley joked about the divorce at the top of the show.

‘‘And of course we can’t ignore the breakup that rocked our world,’’ Underwood said, as the camera panned to Miss Piggy and Kermit the Frog.

‘‘On a completely unrelated topic, howdy Blake?’’ Paisley replied as the camera panned to Shelton, who laughed and clapped his hands along with the audience.

‘‘Did you hear that duet that Blake did with Ashley Madison?’’ Paisley asked. Underwood replied: ‘‘That was with Ashley Monroe.’’

That was followed by a pair of duets: Eric Church and Hank Williams, Jr. performed ‘‘Are You Ready for the Country’’ and John Mellencamp and Urban worked their guitars during ‘‘Pink Houses.’’ Thomas Rhett, whose ‘‘Die A Happy Man’’ is No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot country songs chart, performed with rockers Fall Out Boy.

Sam Hunt won over the audience with his performance of ‘‘Take Your Time,’’ while Underwood sang ‘‘Smoke Break’’ and Musgraves performed ‘‘Dime Store Cowgirl’’ sporting a cowboy hat and a shiny number revealing her legs and arms. Bryan sang his slow groove ‘‘Strip It Down,’’ while Jason Aldean, Florida Georgia Line, Reba McEntire and Brooks & Dunn also performed.

Little Big Town, who also earned applause for their performance of the ballad ‘‘Girl Crush,’’ won vocal group and single of the year for the No. 1 hit. The writers of ‘‘Girl Crush’’ won song of the year.

‘‘Seventeen years ago this very month we became a band,’’ an emotional Kimberly Schlapman said onstage, standing next to band members Karen Fairchild, Jimi Westbrook and Phillip Sweet.

The foursome, along with Church, walked into the arena as the most nominated act with five. They lost music video of the year to Maddie & Tae’s ‘‘Girl in a Country Song’’ and musical event of the year to Church and Urban.

Bryan, who beat Lambert, Church, Garth Brooks and Kenny Chesney for entertainer of the year, kissed his trophy multiple times when he won the night’s final award.

‘‘Thank you Lord, thank you Jesus, thank you everyone in heaven looking out for me,’’ Bryan said. ‘‘This is the best business in the world with the best people.’’

Summary: Stapleton won three major awards, while Little Big Town also shined.


Having devoted a good chunk of their lives to building a business from scratch, some founders are reluctant to face the fact that they will eventually have to hand over the reins if their companies are to go on without them. Others may be loath to make certain hard choices, such as whether to pick a grown child or a long-time employee who is not related as their successor.

"If a business owner and his advisors do a really good job with succession planning, they may determine that the most-qualified successor is not a blood relative," said Martin Durbin, a certified public accountant and president of Gateway Financial Designs.

Read MoreFirms groom next-gen advisors

Given the complex issues involved, succession planning can be very time-consuming. In some cases, it can take a year for a business owner to draft and begin to implement a succession plan.

Small-business owners tend to be very busy people, and many figure they don't have the time to address certain long-range issues. Others balk at the notion of paying thousands of dollars in fees to financial advisors, lawyers, accountants and other professionals.

But the absence of a succession plan leaves a lot to chance. Squabbles between the heirs of a deceased owner, or between heirs and employees, can sink a business.

Summary: Many small-business owners avoid succession planning but it helps ensure long-term viability and address inheritance and management issues.


The US Capitol Complex in Washington D.C. has been sent into lockdown after shots were heard at the US Capitol Visitor Center, US media reports.

The complex was locked down "due to a potential security threat", according to a notice sent to Capitol Hill employees.

The shooter is reportedly now in custody.

There are reports the White House and Congress has also been sent into lockdown following the shots.

This is a breaking news article. More information will be added as it comes to hand.

Summary: The US Capitol Complex has been sent into lockdown after shots were heard at the US Capitol Visitors Centre, US media reports.


What we can tell you, will blow your mind. It's a 42,000 square-foot home that includes five buildings, 28 bedrooms, 36 bathrooms and one pretty amazing infinity pool with panoramic views of Los Angeles. And you probably don't ever need to worry about finding a parking spot in the home's 24-car-garage.

The designer of the house, Sue Firestone, told CNBC that the owner spared no expense.

"This bathroom alone, I don't even want to guess how many millions of dollars just this bathroom cost," said Firestone. One of the bedrooms has a one-of-a-kind carpet with its own copyright so no one else can replicate the design.

A representative of the owner tells CNBC the home is used once or twice a year, and while it is not officially for sale, the mysterious owner recently declined an offer of $150 million.

Go inside this super-secret LA megahome in CNBC's new prime time series "Secret Lives of the Super Rich" Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET.

Summary: It’s one of the most exclusive homes in America, but only CNBC's cameras granted access to tour this luxury manse.


Just because Google+ and Wave were massive flops, that doesn’t mean Google is giving up on trying to launch a social communications app.

The Internet giant debuted a new app on Monday dubbed Spaces, which allows groups of people share and comment on content around any topic.

Google’s previous attempts at creating a rival social network to compete with Twitter or Facebook have been unsuccessful so far. The company shut down its social network Orkut in 2014, and social and work communications tool Wave was also shuttered in 2010—only a year after its launch. Google+ was the search giant’s next big bet on social, but unfortunately Google+ didn’t take off either.

Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.

With Spaces, Google is trying its hand at social conversations specifically for groups. Within the app, users can find and share articles, videos, and images without leaving the app as Google Search, YouTube, and Chrome are built into the app itself. Basically, you don’t have to leave the app to find a link or video to share because search tools for YouTube and Google’s general search engine are baked into the app. Users can also search their own Spaces (or conversations) by keyword to find past conversations.

Google said that you can invite friends to participate in conversations by messaging them or via email. Users could also initiate conversations with groups through Google’s chat and video messaging app, Hangouts.

For more on Google, watch:

It also appears the app is designed to be used broadly—not just for work communications. Google has suggested some examples of how users could use Spaces for everyday life events, ranging from planning a trip to just sharing an news article with friends.

Spaces, available for Android and iOS, is coming soon, but it is not yet in the Google Play store or Apple App Store yet.

Summary: It's not just for workplace communications, either.


Courtesy of the VF Corporation

Lee National Denim Day started in 1996 when Lee Jeans invited companies to have their employees participate in a fundraiser where they could wear jeans to work one day and donate $5 apiece to a breast cancer fund. The first year, nearly 3,000 companies participated. The campaign has spread from the workplace to the streets: Anyone can now take part in Denim Day, which is usually held the first Friday of October. Since its inception, the day has raised nearly $80 million for the battle against breast cancer.

Comments are turned off for this post.

Summary: Companies are putting their charitable money where their mouth is--in some very entertaining ways.


Do you think presidential candidates know what it sounds like to be on the other side of them? I am not sure. Do I even know what my voice sounds like? Do you?

Self-awareness is a competitive advantage. The problem with presidential elections is that every candidate is hamstrung by a bevy of handlers who analyze every word, nod, action, and response. Thus, candidates can come across as very disingenuous and even scripted. Maybe that is why Donald Trump has been such a big hit–he apparently tells it like it is.

And yet, in the end, the American voter is going to vote for an individual who displays two very important ideals: intent and vision. The success of how each candidate reveals these will directly affect their success or demise.

Consider this. If you have a boss who is against you, but is acting as if they are for you, can you read between the lines? Usually. In the same way, if this boss was for you, could you feel it? Would you know they were supporting you? Most likely yes, right?

In my history of working with leaders around the globe, I have found very few leaders who are against others, and very few who are for others. Most leaders are simply for themselves, focused on their preservation and success.

That is intent – or rather the response to intent, the feeling that someone is either for you, against you, or for themselves.

And so, we ask the first question: Who are the presidential candidates for? Is Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump for us, against us, or for themselves? How about Bernie Sanders, or Marco Rubio, or Ted Cruz?

When you listen and observe each candidate, what words are they using and how does it feel to be on the other side of that person?

Intent is the true power test. You can just sense it. Now, don’t get me wrong, every candidate wants to win and some candidates are natural politicians. Yet, it is possible to get a sense of the real motive when spending time with leaders or observing them.

The presidential candidate who proves to the American public that they are for the American public will increase their chances of winning exponentially.

Some candidates have a hard time connecting because of their personality type. Introverts have a much more difficult time connecting with the public, and America is an extremely extroverted culture. (Could that be why some of the earlier candidates have had less staying power?) Proper intent, however, can be felt; the more authentic the person, the more success each person tends to have on the campaign trail.

The second ideal is the ability to communicate a compelling vision of where they want to go. This has been hard for Jeb Bush as many people see him as part of the past instead of the future, which led to his backing out of the race. The same is true for Hillary Clinton. So far in this presidential campaign, the outsider has benefitted much more than the insider.

My prediction is that the winner of the 2016 presidential election will be the person who conveys the clearest and most compelling vision to the American people.

One insight into this reality comes from Clotaire Rapaille, the author of the The Culture Code, a book about understanding people’s motivations in particular cultures. He writes that the code word for America is ‘dream,’ and the code word for the American president is ‘Moses.’ The candidate who is the most Moses-like and who most conveys a vision to take the American people to the promised land wins.

That’s an intriguing fact, that the most compelling visionary candidate has one over the other candidates. There is no better example than President Obama. He was the most Moses-like candidate in our recent history, as his “Yes We Can” campaign compelled hundreds of thousands to vote for him across party lines.

A major issue in this election is the cynicism from past politicians from both sides who have used words to motivate, opening the door to outsiders to have a stronger position than ever in the past few elections. And yet, words must match actions in this election cycle. Intent must connect with vision. That is why the words are even more bold – to make an impact where the normal political words won’t.

Intent and vision are the keys to this year’s election success. The most authentic, Moses-like character will win. Those who feel like a politician and preserve themselves with a relentless inward focus will lose the very things they are afraid of losing.

Consider your review of each candidate based on their intent – are they for you, against you, or for themselves? Judge also on their vision for the future. Is their vision compelling, just a power play, or politics as usual? It is the candidates’ job to put themselves forward to be judged worthy. It is our job, as the voters, to vote on their intent and vision.

Jeremie Kubicek is the co-author of 5 Voices: How to Communicate Effectively with Everyone You Lead (Wiley 2016), by Jeremie Kubicek and Steve Cockram, about knowing what it sounds like to be on the other side of you.

Summary: It's all about intent and vision.


Verizon Communications offers wireless phone service nationwide, but its FiOS home Internet and cable TV service is mostly limited to the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions of the country.

That could change in the next few years as the telco upgrades its wireless networks to the next-generation technology known as 5G, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam said on Tuesday.

About half the total cost of installing FiOS now is spent putting wires and equipment in a new customer’s home, he explained. But once the extreme high speeds of 5G wireless are online, those wired connections wouldn’t be necessary anymore.

In tests at a Verizon facility, 5G has reached two-gigabyte per second speeds—about 50 times the rate of fast 4G wireless connections today. Instead of tuning wires into a home, Verizon could just give the customer an inexpensive wireless router to connect to the 5G network with enough capacity to receive Internet and TV service.

Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s technology newsletter.

When asked if FiOS like services could be offered nationwide with 5G, McAdam was enthusiastic. “I don’t know why there would be any limitation on where we would take it,” he replied, speaking at the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference in Boston. “There’s no reason you need to be limited.”

Lawmakers and regulators have been trying to encourage traditional telephone and cable providers to compete more for the past few decades, but with limited success. Verizon’s FiOS provides direct competition to cable within the company’s limited, original service area. Yet Verizon has mostly scaled back expansion plans and sold off customers in three states last year.

Then last month, Verizon agreed to bring FiOS service to the city of Boston. The slow, six-year roll out will rely on 5G wireless, particularly for video services, however.

Verizon vz has expanded into owning some of the video content its customers watch, buying Intel’s intc On Cue product and then spending $4.4 billion for AOL. It is also on the running to buy Yahoo yhoo .

McAdam declined to discuss the latest with the Yahoo bid, but he did try to tamp down speculation that Verizon might go after even bigger producers, like a major Hollywood studio or cable network group.

“We’re not doing that, I don’t think we need to do that,” he responded when asked about a major content acquisition. Noting the telecom carrier prefers to partner with traditional content producers like Hearst and Dreamworks, McAdam admitted, “It’s not exactly our strong suit.”

McAdam also repeated what Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said last week about the impact of the walk out by some 40,000 workers. Replacement workers have not completed as many installations of Verizon’s FiOS service in the second quarter as the now-striking regular workers did in the first quarter, McAdam said.

“We have pushed off installations,” McAdam said. “We’re doing a lot of installations but we’re not doing the same volume that we had before. So we won’t be driving similar numbers in second quarter that we would in first from an installation perspective.”

Summary: New wireless tech could cut costs and let FiOS go nationwide.


A cacophony of squeaks, clicks and whistles erupts from the frigid waters of Cunningham Inlet in the Canadian Arctic. Though reminiscent of squeaky bath toys, these squeakers are very much alive. Swimming at the surface are hundreds of icy-white beluga whale mothers, their small grey calves hugging their sides.

Nicknamed "canaries of the sea" by early whalers, belugas' squeaks and squawks are critical to their survival. It's their main form of communication, as they live in a habitat that is nearly pitch-black for half of every year. "They are navigating under ice, in dark waters, so they are completely reliant on sound," says Valeria Vergara of the Vancouver Aquarium in British Columbia.

Their communication system is startlingly complex, and scientists like Vergara are beginning to unravel how it works. They can now eavesdrop on the belugas, revealing clues to what they are saying. But looming over all this is the threat posed by noisy humans, with our ships and the banging air guns we use to search for oil and gas. The question now is, will the belugas still be able to talk to each other when their homes are drowned in man-made sound?

Among whales, belugas are one of the most vocal. A group of belugas makes a noise a bit like a crowd of children shouting in the distance.

If you get close enough to hear individual calls, you will realise that they make a variety of strange sounds. Beluga calls variously resemble a cork being prized from a bottle or a creaking door, along with sounds described as clicks, squeaks, chirps, bleats, moans, groans, and whistles. In 2012, scientists reported that a captive beluga had learned to make what sounded like garbled human speech, presumably in an attempt to mimic its human neighbours.

Belugas can wiggle their melon

It's not just about communication: belugas also used sound for navigation. "Sound to them is like eyes to us," says Vergara. Like other toothed whales and many bats, they use echolocation: they make a rapid string of clicks that bounce back from the environment, and interpret the echoes to identify objects such as food.

Belugas make all these sounds despite having no vocal cords. Instead they "speak" through nasal sacs near their blowhole. In essence, they talk through their noses.

They can also carefully direct their sounds, using a fatty deposit called a melon located between a beluga's blowhole and snout, on its "forehead". Unusually, belugas can wiggle their melon – yes, really – and this may help them fire sounds in specific directions.

To find out how beluga communication works, Vergara spent five weeks in the summer of 2014 in a leaky yurt perched on the edge of a cliff next to Cunningham Inlet. About 2000 beluga mothers and calves spend their summers there each year. Vergara found that they form kindergarten groups, with 10 to 15 young calves playing and socialising under the care of a few watchful adults. They all talk non-stop.

The youngsters must learn from their elders

It is not just the mothers that take care of the calves. They get lots of help from "allomothers"; a community of sisters, cousins, aunts, and grandmothers. Many of these females start producing milk when another female's new baby is born, even if they themselves have no nursing infant. So baby belugas have a veritable buffet of milk at their disposal.

Vergara's work suggests that baby belugas may learn to call in the same way human babies do. "Baby belugas are not born knowing this beluga repertoire of sounds, just as we're not born knowing how to speak," says Vergara. The youngsters must learn from their elders.

What's more, it seems they learn in a similar way to human babies.

Vergara started by focusing on captive animals at the Vancouver Aquarium before testing her findings in the wild. Her research revealed that belugas make barely audible sounds within an hour of being born. The babies start making simple whistles within a few weeks.

It takes babies one to two years to develop perfect renditions of the contact calls

But as well as whistling, Vergara discovered that mothers and babies also use another kind of call, from soon after birth. It sounds a bit like running a finger rapidly along a plastic comb, and Vergara thinks it is a way of keeping in contact. In effect, mothers are saying "hello, I'm here, where are you?" and their babies are replying, "I'm here, I'm here" or "Mommy, come over".

Baby beluga vocal repertoire starts out simple and becomes more complex and varied over time. It takes babies one to two years to develop perfect renditions of the contact calls, Vergara has discovered.

In this, young belugas are similar to human babies, who babble and make rudimentary attempts at word segments before being able to fully form words, and then sentences.

"Cunningham Inlet is one of the most pristine beluga watching areas in the world," says Vergara. As a result its belugas appear to be holding their own. But elsewhere numbers are dwindling.

Scientists now suspect that noise is one of the factors contributing to their decline

Away to the south in Cook Inlet, Alaska, belugas head in from the Pacific to feast on salmon that swim up its rivers during the summer. A survey in the 1970s estimated there were about 1300 belugas in Cook Inlet. By 1994, there were 650. "Our most recent abundance estimate was 312 animals," says Rod Hobbs of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Scientists now suspect that noise is one of the factors contributing to their decline. Cook Inlet is a busy harbour for Alaska's largest city, Anchorage, so the waters ring to the high-intensity pile-driving noises of port expansion, shipping traffic, and seismic surveys for oil and gas exploration – not to mention an airport, plus army and naval bases. For animals that navigate and communicate using sound, Cook Inlet is a noisy place.

Of course, the ocean has never been quiet. Belugas have always had to contend with noise like cracking ice, underwater earthquakes, and storms, but they've had thousands of years to adapt to these natural sounds. "The reason this [new human-caused] noise is so much of a problem today is that the animal has not had time to adapt to it," says Robert Michaud of the Group for Research and Education on Marine Mammals.

When marine mammals are exposed at close range to a loud sound, such as navy sonar, they can be rendered temporarily deaf, just like humans who have been to a rock concert. "After you leave you don't hear as well for a little while," says Aran Mooney of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, who identified the effect in dolphins in 2009.

When the problem is one of constant noise, belugas act just like humans at a cocktail party. If you're in a room with lots of people talking, you can change the pitch of your voice or speak up so that people can hear you. Belugas do the same. In the St. Lawrence River in Québec, belugas responded to boat noise by temporarily "speaking" louder.

Researchers scooped out floating whale poop with the aid of sniffer dogs

But there are limits. Once a certain noise threshold is crossed, whales can't compete, and their sounds are drowned out, a phenomenon called masking. In the St. Lawrence, noise is thought to be one of the contributing factors as to why this population, considered endangered, is in decline.

There is some evidence that noise stresses whales. In the immediate aftermath of 11 September 2001, there was reduced shipping traffic in Canada's Bay of Fundy. An opportunistic study of right whales revealed a short-term but detectable drop in oceanic noise levels, which coincided with a measurable reduction in the whales' stress levels. To show this, researchers scooped out floating whale poop with the aid of sniffer dogs, and measured levels of stress hormones within.

The belugas' plight is increasingly urgent. As Earth's climate warms up, thanks to humanity's greenhouse gas emissions, the Arctic ice is melting and passages are opening up. "There's going to be more shipping, more resource exploration and more human usage of the Arctic," says Mooney. All those activities bring more noise, "so we want to know how sensitive or potentially sensitive belugas may be." He is now giving them hearing tests to find out what they can and can't hear.

As we learn more about beluga calls and hearing, we can figure out exactly how they are threatened. If human activities make high-pitched noises, it might interfere with echolocation and disrupt the whales' ability to feed and navigate. However, if we make lower-frequency noises, Hobbs says, "it's going to affect their ability to communicate as a group or over long distances."

Many beluga populations are restricted to specific areas

Baby belugas may be at particularly high risk. Their calls are very low-energy, narrow-band sounds, says Vergara, "which means that they could be more easily masked by noise." So mothers and calves could become separated in noisy environments.

Vergara's research site at Cunningham Inlet is one of the few beluga habitats not affected by man-made noise. That means Vergara is eavesdropping on "normal" mother-calf communication, which should help her colleagues understand what is happening to belugas in noisier places.

With that information to hand, she hopes to figure out what we might do to minimise the effects of our din. But according to Mooney, the solution might be quite simple. Many beluga populations are restricted to specific areas, he says. "So maybe we need to make those areas noise-free zones."

Otherwise, our noise might eventually drown out the squeaks of the belugas.

Summary: Beluga whales talk to each other constantly by whistling, chirping and bleating. But man-made noise threatens to drown them out


This piece originally appeared on The Hustle.

There’s a rumor that Paul Graham, the founder of the world’s most successful incubator, once invested in someone because he looked like Mark Zuckerberg. But being young isn’t a prerequisite for starting a successful company.

Don’t believe me? Here are 10 entrepreneurs who had accomplished nothing by 30-years-old.

Note: This post is all men, so make sure to check out Part 2 of this post for 10 wildly successful female entrepreneurs.

Jack Dorsey, Twitter twtr : 30-years-old

As much as he’d like you to believe he’s a sophisticated entrepreneur, Jack Dorsey was a punk skater well into his mid-20s.

Jack DorseyPhotograph by Justin Tallis — AFP/Getty Images

Dorsey’s first company (started while he was at NYU) was a cab dispatching program.

When this fizzled out, Dorsey approached Ev Williams, who was running Odeo, a podcast company. He pitched him the idea of an instant messaging service.

Williams loved the concept and teamed up with Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Noah Glass to pursue it full time. Dorsey was appointed CEO. He was 30-years-old at the time.

Tim Westergren started Pandora when he was 35. But he couldn’t pay salaries for two years.

Pandora co-founder Tim Westergren in February 2015.Photograph by Linda Davidson — The Washington Post/Getty Images

Before starting Pandora, Westergren was a failed musician, part-time composer, nanny and hippy.

Although he started Pandora (his first entrepreneurial endeavor) at 35, Pandora didn’t become an online radio channel until Westergren was 37.

Pandora started as a hardware company that allowed stores to play music. Pandora even went bankrupt in their first two years and Westergren somehow convinced 50 employees to work without pay—for two years.

Here’s the speech he gave employees each week that convinced them to stay. After hearing this words, I’d have stayed too.

Jan Koum, WhatsApp fb : 33-years-old

Before creating WhatsApp, Jan Koum applied to work at Facebook. They rejected him.

Jan Koum, founder of WhatsApp, practicing with his trainer Ed Carpio.Photograph by Robyn Twomey for Fortune; Grid Photo: Courtesy of Whatsapp

Koum incorporated WhatsApp on his 33rd birthday. He’s a San Jose State college dropout.

After leaving school, he landed a gig at Yahoo where he met Brian Acton, his cofounder. After nine years at Yahoo, Koum applied to work at Facebook and was famously rejected, which I find pretty hilarious.

Jack Ma, Alibaba baba : 35-years-old

Jack Ma’s never written a line of code, and the first time he used a computer was in his 30s.

Billionaire Jack Ma, chairman of Alibaba Group, speaks at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in the Philippines.Photograph by SeongJoon Cho — Bloomberg via Getty Images

Now he’s worth $22.5 billion, but until his 30s he thought himself a failure. In a Charlie Rose interview, Ma revealed he failed his college entrance exam three times. After that, he applied to over 30 different jobs, including KFC, and again, he was rejected.

So, at the age of 31, Ma started his first internet company called “China Yellow Pages.” The company made around $800,000 in the three years it was in business.

At 35, he founded Alibaba. Like Amazon, Alibaba didn’t make any profit in its first three years, but we know how the story ended.

Interestingly, Jack Ma has never written a line of code. Perhaps he should be a speaker at Hustle Con?

After starting his first company at 33, Ben Horowitz was often on the brink of bankruptcy.

Ben HorowitzPhotograph by Travis P Ball — Getty Images for SXSW

After graduating from UCLA in 1988 and hopping from job to job for seven years, 29-year-old Ben Horowitz joined Netscape as their first product manager.

After Netscape was acquired in 1999, Horowitz and Marc Andreessen (Netscape’s founder) teamed up to to start LoudCloud. Horowitz was 33-years-old.

In Horowitz’s book, The Hard Things About Hard Things, he talks about the many near death experiences that LoudCloud faced, such as being two weeks away from defaulting on payroll. Thankfully for Horowitz, Loudcloud was acquired for $1.6 billion in cash when he was 41. Beautiful.

Sam Walton, WalMart wmt : 44-years-old

Before Sam Walton founded WalMart, he owned a small discount store with his father-in-law.

A photograph of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton speaking to employees is displayed at the Wal-Mart museum in Bentonville, Arkansas.Gilles Mingasson Getty Images

In 1945, before starting WalMart, Sam Walton took out a $20,000 loan (about $250,000 adjusted to today) from his father-in-law and purchased a franchised Ben Franklin variety store. Three years later, Walton bought another Ben Franklin store, 220 miles away. But even though Walton was managing two stores, he still struggled to pay his employees.

In 1945, when Walton was 44-years-old, and had years of business experience, he opened the first WalMart.

Peter Thiel, PayPal ebay : 30-years-old

One of the world’s most successful tech investors almost went to law school.

Peter ThielPhotograph by Adam Jeffery — CNBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

I never thought I’d say this sentence, but I’m thankful Peter Thiel followed Tucker Max’s advice.

Before he was the founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel was just another lawyer who hated his life. After graduating Stanford Law in 1992, Thiel landed a gig at a Manhattan law firm, a place that, in his words, “from the outside everyone wanted to get into,” but, “on the inside … everybody wanted to leave.”

After seven months Thiel left, and joined Credit Suisse as a derivatives trader. Three years later Thiel founded Paypal. He was 31-years-old. Four years later, eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion, making his stake in the company worth roughly $50 million.

Reed Hastings, Pure Software: 30-years-old

Reed Hastings was in the Peace Corp in his 20s.

Reed Hastings, CEO and co-founder of online video store Netflix, in 2014.Bernd von Jutrczenka — picture-alliance/dpa/AP

Most people don’t realize this, but Reed Hastings was actually a successful entrepreneur before he started Netflix. In 1991, when he was 31-years-old, Hastings started Pure Software, a debugging tool for software engineers. Hastings, a trained engineer, helped the company double their revenue each year. In 1997, when Hastings was 37, Rational Software acquired Pure Software for $750 million, giving Hastings the means to start Netflix nflx .

In between college and starting Pure Software, Hasting was in the Peace Corps. He taught English in Swaziland. Whatta guy.

Henry Ford, Ford Motor Company f : 40-years-old

Before starting Ford at the age of 40, Henry Ford’s perfectionism led to failure as he missed deadlines on making his prototypes.

Henry Ford With His Model T.Getty Images

Although he created one of the biggest self-made fortunes in mankind history ($199 billion), Henry Ford bankrupted his first two companies before starting Ford. Ford, like Steve Jobs, was a perfectionist who cared deeply about every minor detail of his automobiles. Because of that he continually missed deadlines and failed to complete his first prototypes.

After years of failure, Ford’s investors convinced him to hire James Couzen. Couzen convinced Ford to sell an “imperfect” car and to have mechanics throughout the country that were trained to fix broken automobiles.

How Pandora’s Founder Convinced 50 Early Employees to Work 2 Years Without Pay

The History of Warren Buffet’s Weath: Here’s How Rich He Was at Your Age

28-year-old Mark Cuban shared a three-bedroom apartment with five people. His bedroom was in the closet.

Mark CubanPhotograph by Tony Rivetti — ABC via Getty Images

At 24, Cuban graduated from Indiana University and moved to Dallas to work as a bartender. His first gig out of school was selling computers for $18,000 a year. But he was fired for disobeying his boss. At 25-years-old he started MicroSolutions, a software consultancy company. After seven years, Cuban sold MicroSolutions, netting him $6 million… enough to start Broadcast.com, which he sold for $5.7 billion.

Summary: Proof that you don't have to be a prodigy to succeed.


Ensnared in a “low-growth trap”, the world economy will meander along at its slowest pace since the financial crisis for a second year in a row in 2016, the OECD forecast on Wednesday, urging governments to boost spending.

With businesses wary of investing and consumers cautious about spending, the global economy will grow only 3.0 percent this year, the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimated.

That would be no better than last year (already the worst since 2009), although growth would pick up modestly to 3.3 percent next year, the OECD forecast in its biannual Economic Outlook.

Growth at those levels deprives youths of job opportunities and means old people will not get the healthcare and pension benefits they expect, OECD Chief Economist Catherine Mann told Reuters.

“We are breaking promises to young people and old people. Therefore policymakers have to act to break us out of the low growth trap,” Mann said in an interview.

With OECD countries growing on average at half their estimated potential, it would take 70 years to double living standards, twice the rate of two decades ago.

Mann warned against counting on central banks alone to lead the return to higher growth rates, saying there are now more risks than benefits in their exceptionally loose monetary policies.

Therefore, governments should not hesitate to plough money into growth-boosting initiatives like education and infrastructure, financing higher spending thanks to rock-bottom interest rates in many countries.

“The low interest rate environment created by the central banks opens up fiscal space to governments and we are saying that you should use it,” Mann said.

Though the OECD did not lower its global growth forecast from the last time it updated its estimates in February, it said the U.S. outlook had dimmed.

It cut U.S. growth for this year to 1.8 percent from its previous forecast of 2.0 percent, with weak foreign demand and a dearth of investment in the oil and mining sector being mainly to blame.

The OECD reiterated a warning that Britain would suffer a sharp slowdown in growth if voters opted in a referendum this month to leave the European Union.

In light of the political uncertainty surrounding the vote, OECD cut its forecast for 2016 British growth to 1.7 percent from 2.1 percent previously, assuming voters opted to stay in the E.U. But a vote to leave could shear half a percentage point off British growth annually in the following years, the OECD estimated.

‘Brexit’ aside, the outlook for the euro area had improved, with the OECD raising its growth estimate to 1.6 percent this year from 1.4 percent in February on an improved outlook for the French and German economies. Both turned in better-than-expected figures for the first quarter, although analysts warn that the rest of the year is likely to be tougher.

Summary: Think-tank says ultra-low rates now have more risks than benefits


Martha Stewart, who used her image of domestic perfection to build a multimillion-dollar company, was found guilty by a Manhattan jury yesterday of lying about the reasons she sold shares of a biotechnology company more than two years ago.

Ms. Stewart, 62, is the latest and most prominent executive to be convicted since a wave of corporate scandals unfolded with the collapse of Enron.

Ms. Stewart, the founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, who had proclaimed her innocence from the start in public statements and through a carefully orchestrated image campaign, showed little emotion as the verdict in her trial on federal criminal charges was read aloud about 3 p.m.

''Guilty,'' intoned the judge, Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum. Three times she would repeat the word in connection with each of the charges against Ms. Stewart, and four times again for Ms. Stewart's co-defendant, Peter E. Bacanovic, a former Merrill Lynch stockbroker who was cleared on just one charge.

A gasp went up from the crammed spectators' section as the judge spoke. Ms. Stewart's daughter Alexis, who has watched from a front-row seat since the trial began six weeks ago, slumped and began to weep. One of Ms. Stewart's lawyers, John Cuti, wiped tears from his eyes. The jury of eight women and four men sat stone-faced as each said that he or she agreed with the verdict.

Ms. Stewart, who had seemed jubilant only a week earlier when the judge threw out a securities fraud charge against her, issued a statement in which she said she was ''obviously distressed'' by the results, adding that she planned to appeal. She is scheduled to be sentenced June 17, and unless her case is overturned on appeal, she faces a punishment of up to 16 months in prison, lawyers who have dealt with the sentencing guidelines said.

The outcome raised questions about the strategy of the defense team. Ms. Stewart's lawyers spent less than 20 minutes questioning her only defense witness. [News analysis, Page C1.]

The verdict comes at a time when many former executives have pleaded guilty or have found themselves facing trial, from companies that have come to represent the excess of the 1990's stock market boom: WorldCom, Adelphia, Tyco, HealthSouth, Enron.

While those suspected crimes resulted in some of the largest bankruptcies and investor losses in history, it was Ms. Stewart's trial in a downtown Manhattan courtroom, focused on a stock sale that netted her about $45,000, that grabbed much of the spotlight.

The verdict is also a tremendous blow to the fortunes of Ms. Stewart, who rose from humble working-class roots in Nutley, N.J., to create a catering company that came to embody her clean-cut, vaguely patrician style. She would turn that into a conglomerate of publishing, television and merchandising businesses, all of them bearing her name and, usually, her photograph as well. She took her company public in 1999, as the Internet excitement peaked, and overnight became a billionaire, at least on paper.

All that seems jeopardized with yesterday's verdict, at least as far as Ms. Stewart's signature control is concerned. She will almost certainly be required to step down as an officer and director of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, although she could continue to hold the majority of the voting shares, as she does now.

Trading in her company's stock, which has plunged and rebounded several times since the investigation into her ImClone trade began, was halted as news of the verdict spread, but when it resumed a few minutes later the share price fell more than 22 percent. In a conference call on Thursday, executives from Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia said they had arranged contingency plans in case Ms. Stewart was convicted.

The outcome was a spectacular victory for prosecutors from the United States attorney's office, who had wrung a guilty plea in late 2002 from Samuel D. Waksal, the founder of ImClone and a friend of Ms. Stewart, on an assortment of charges, including securities fraud.

By the accounts of two jurors, the jury got along well and worked fairly quickly. Ms. Stewart's charges were the first they agreed on, while Mr. Bacanovic's came last, according to one juror, Chappell Hartridge. Mr. Bacanovic was cleared of a charge of false documents, after jurors concluded they could not tell when a notation on a list of Ms. Stewart's stockholdings was made.

Their quick decision also calls into question the bare-bones defense strategy of Ms. Stewart's lawyer, Robert G. Morvillo, who called only one witness and questioned him for just 20 minutes.

According to Mr. Hartridge, the decision was especially influenced by the testimony of Ms. Stewart's assistant, Ann E. Armstrong, who cried on the stand but also told the court that she had taken a particular telephone message about ImClone from Mr. Bacanovic on Dec. 27, 2001, one that did not match what Mr. Bacanovic told investigators he left. The same message, ''Peter Bacanovic thinks ImClone is going to start trading downward,'' was later partly erased by Ms. Stewart after a telephone conversation with her lawyer, Ms. Armstrong said.

Ms. Stewart and Mr. Bacanovic had maintained since scrutiny of her trade first began, in early 2002 for the two of them, that they had an existing agreement to sell her ImClone shares if the price fell below $60 a share. There was no automatic sell order entered into Merrill Lynch computers, and no record of any other kind of formal agreement.

In an interview with investigators from the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr. Bacanovic said he had tried hard to persuade Ms. Stewart to sell the stock, and she reluctantly agreed on the $60 price. Of course, she never thought it would, he said in the interview, which was tape-recorded and played for the jury at several points during the trial.

Summary: Martha Stewart is found guilty by Manhattan jury of lying about reasons she sold 3,928 shares of ImClone Systems over two years ago; Peter E Bacanovic, her former Merrill Lynch stockbroker, is also convicted; Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum sets sentencing hearing for June 17; Stewart says she plans to appeal; outcome raises questions about strategy of defense team; Stewart's lawyer Robert G Morvillo called only one witness and questioned him for just 20 minutes; photos (M)


aren't afraid to go there.

– documenting the struggles and triumphs of the trans women of color who work at San Francisco's world-famous cabaret restaurant AsiaSF – is coming back with a bang for season 2. Get ready to follow Bionka, Nya, L.A., Xristina and Bambiana as they maneuver through their love lives, find success and are presented with a major opportunity by an influential neighbor.

Here are five things you need to know about two of

's finest, Nya and Bionka.

"I knew I was trans at 6, but when I started transitioning it wasn't until 16 or 17 when I started dibbling and dabbling in dressing up," Bionka tells PEOPLE, adding she went into being trans wearing baggy clothes because she was "depressed" and "that was all my father would give to me because he had really good relationships with the people from Cross Colours."

Nya, on the other hand, transitioned with pop culture: "I was wearing girls clothing in kindergarten and then I kind of went back and forth," she says. "I went back to boys clothes because all the girls were wearing boys clothes – like TLC, MC Lyte, Aaliyah – so I was like,

"Caitlyn definitely has opened the door to show what happens when someone from upper class America decides to transition, but I've seen a change happening in general," says Bionka of the progress in the trans world since Jenner

. "Just from being on Facebook and what not, the type of guys that hit me up now are these 18-, 19-, 21-year-old guys who know I'm trans and don't care, and then you're battling these 30-, 40-, 50-year-old guys that ask if I've had bottom surgery yet and don't know if they could go there."

She continues, "Just seeing how accepted you are from youth in general goes to show, and also shows how people who are older are set in their ways."

On June 25 and 26, the women of AsiaSF will be taking the San Francisco streets by storm as the celebrity Grand Marshals for SF's Pride parade and festival. "We have five BMW convertibles and then we will be at the VIP party at City Hall," says Nya.

"Both Xristina and I were homeless and living in a shelter at one point," Bionka says about moving from Los Angeles without a dime in her pocket. "I owe a lot to my trans sisters and people I surrounded myself with because at the time [I was transitioning], I was homeless and I was overcoming drug addiction."

She continues, "I was around all these older trans women who were telling me it's okay to be who you are, so being around them I felt comfortable transitioning."

Bionka, who is also trained in modern dance, recently recorded her debut single, "Lift Mah Shirt."

"This is a newfound talent," she says. "I know nothing about music, so going in the studio was crazy. I have two songs down."

After being named Miss Gay United States 2016 in May, she hopes to working in film and on Broadway, and she would someday love to be a professional stylist.

premieres Wednesday at 11:30 p.m. ET on Fuse.

Summary: Transcendent season 2 returns to Fuse on June 8


Women who consume excessive amounts of vitamin A during the early months of pregnancy can cause serious birth defects in their unborn children, a large new study has shown.

The babies of women who consumed more than 10,000 international units of vitamin A daily -- nearly four times the recommended amount -- from supplements or food or both were more likely to be born with malformations of the head, heart, brain and spinal cord.

The amounts that place babies at risk are currently found in a single pill in some vitamin preparations and can be readily obtained if more than one vitamin supplement is taken daily. In fact, one of the researchers said he and a colleague recently bought single-nutrient supplements containing 25,000 international units of vitamin A.

Although high doses of vitamin A are known to cause birth defects in laboratory animals and the vitamin's chemical relatives have damaged human infants, the new study is the first to quantify the risk of prenatal vitamin A in a large population and to establish what doses might be harmful. The study showed that 1 baby in 57 born to women taking doses of vitamin A above 10,000 international units daily was damaged as a result.

The higher the doses consumed, the greater the risk, the researchers found. Babies born to women who consumed more than 10,000 international units of the vitamin daily were 2.4 times as likely to be born with such defects as babies exposed to 5,000 international units or less. But babies exposed to 20,000 international units during the first three months of gestation were about four times as likely to be born with defects that included cleft lip, cleft palate, hydrocephalus and major heart malformations.

The study was conducted by Dr. Kenneth J. Rothman, an epidemiologist, and his colleagues at Boston University School of Medicine among 22,748 pregnant women in the Boston area who were identified between October 1984 and June 1987 and questioned in detail about what they ate and what supplements they took. The overwhelming majority of the women studied, 98.6 percent, consumed less than the amount of vitamin A identified as potentially hazardous.

Vitamin A, when taken during pregnancy, is helpful in cell differentiation and is an essential nutrient in a baby's development. But Dr. Rothman said in an interview that national surveys had indicated that 2 percent to 5 percent of women of childbearing age consumed more than 10,000 international units daily.

The findings, which are to be published on Nov. 23 in The New England Journal of Medicine, were released yesterday because of their public health importance. The researchers urged women to avoid taking supplements that exceed 4,000 to 8,000 international units daily, the amount now commonly found in prenatal multivitamins. They made a similar recommendation for women who may become pregnant.

Because vitamin A is stored in the body for long periods, women who take large amounts even during the months before becoming pregnant could place their babies at risk of malformations, the researchers suggested.

In addition to supplements, vitamin A is found in most animal foods, and in especially large amounts in liver. A three-ounce serving of cooked beef liver, for example, may contain more than 30,000 international units of it. Even if women took no supplements, those who frequently consumed liver could exceed safe levels of vitamin A, the researchers said. Other foods containing vitamin A include dairy products, eggs, meats, poultry, fish and fortified foods like certain breakfast cereals.

The researchers pointed out that beta-carotene, which the body can convert into vitamin A, is not associated with an increased risk of birth defects. Dr. Rothman said that women need not be concerned about eating too many vegetables and fruits that are rich in beta-carotene or about taking supplements that contain beta-carotene. The body converts beta-carotene into vitamin A in amounts that do not exceed safe levels.

The Council for Responsible Nutrition, an association of nutritional supplement producers, said that in 1987 it recommended that supplements supply no more than 10,000 international units of vitamin A when sold as a single nutrient and no more than 8,000 international units in prenatal multivitamins. The council also advised that products be labeled to warn women who may become pregnant not to exceed 10,000 international units daily of supplemental vitamin A.

The Boston researchers and the industry council pointed out that since the 1987 recommendation, most multivitamin producers reduced the amounts of vitamin A in each tablet or capsule and that many companies now substituted beta-carotene for vitamin A in some or all of their products.


I stayed up late last night to watch Carolina’s heartbreak buzzer-shot defeat by Villanova, so filing only a brief update this morning.

But I’d call your attention to the impending bankruptcy of SunEdison, the latest case study in how the smartest money can turn out, in the end, to be pretty stupid. Early last year, SunEdison was flying high, attracting the biggest names in investing: Dan Loeb, Leon Cooperman, Steve Mandel, Larry Robbins, Steve Cohen, Ken Griffin, George Soros, and almost anyone else who matters. Its debt-fueled acquisition binge led CNBC’s Jim Cramer to call it the “Valeant of solar” – and he meant that as a compliment.

But as went Valeant – another darling of the smart money – so went SunEdison. Its stock has now fallen 98% from its peak, and it faces some two dozen lawsuits from groups that say it owes them money, and an investigation from the SEC for overstating its cash position.

It will take a while to sort out what went wrong, but FORTUNE columnist Joshua Brown speculates it was partly the sheer complexity of the company that led masters of the universe astray. Like Valeant, SunEdison’s structure was impossible to comprehend, and mere mortals concluded the clever investors backing it must understand it better than everyone else.

Turns out they didn’t. Some humility is in order.

Summary: After the buzzer-shot...


Fashion disaster Kim Kardashian went to great lengths to make sure she didn't disappoint fans, haters and runway layman alike at this year's Met Gala, which she has almost singlehandedly discredited in years past.

Kardashian, along with her husband, Kanye West, and their daughter, North, were spotted all over the Big Apple this weekend gearing up for Anna Wintour's famously over-the-top fete at the Met, starting with a late-night fitting at a glamourous downtown hotel.

“Kim flew in for secret midnight fittings at a luxurious penthouse at the SoHo Grand at midnight on Saturday,” said a source who saw Kardashian's handlers lugging Givenchy shopping bags in and out of the hotel.

MET GALA 2016: HERE ARE OUR SUPERLATIVES FOR THE CELEBRITY PROM

It was in 2013 that Kardashian arrived at the Met Ball wearing her infamous Givenchy “couch dress” — a curve-hugging showstopper that instantly became one of history’s greatest fashion fails.

We're told that Kardashian and the crew returned to the SoHo Grand on Sunday for a second midnight fitting to put the final touches on this year's gown.

“It's too much of a spectacle for them to come and go during the day,” said our insider.

Also in attendance was Kanye West's longtime buddy Riccardo Tisci, making sure the “Stronger” singer's hemlines and inseams were perfect for Monday night's party. Even 2-year-old North West did her best to look like a princess this week.

“North West was in Long Island City looking for princess costumes,” says a source on the Island who saw the toddler leaving a Toys R Us on Sunday with “with several huge bags,” along with her “nanny or assistant or whatever kind of entourage celebrity toddlers have.”

Though Kim and Kanye keep an apartment in SoHo, our spies saw them stop in there only for a quick photo shoot over the weekend. The family and their lackeys opted instead to stay at the Waldorf Astoria hotel, we’re told. A source there explained that “Kim likes room service — she's a hotel girl.”

We’re also told that “jaws dropped” at the high-end inn when Kim and Kanye checked into the suite where Paris and Nicky Hilton were raised.

Summary: Fashion disaster Kim Kardashian West went to great lengths to make sure she stole the show at Anna Wintour's grand Gala.


In the DIY corner of the internet, buying, selling and trading breast milk is a booming online business—and that’s a dangerous thing, according to a new editorial in The BMJ.

A multidisciplinary team of researchers decided to investigate the practice whereby new mothers buy breast milk from strangers online and feed it to their infants. It’s a practice the researchers conclude is growing—and fastest in the U.S. Some women unable to breastfeed see it as a healthier alternative to formula, and online breast milk is often cheaper than the kind you find at a regulated milk bank, where the milk is screened, collected, pasteurized and stored according to strict protocol, the authors say.

MORE: I Bullied Myself Into Breastfeeding

But the online market for breast milk is almost entirely unregulated and it can put young children at risk. There are no requirements to test sellers for diseases that may transmit by drinking breast milk, like HIV and hepatitis B and C, the piece says. In one 2013 study, a different group of researchers discovered that 21% of milk samples bought online tested positive for cytomegalovirus, a type of herpes virus that spreads through secretions and can have a long-term impact on the immune system.

The health concerns extend beyond hidden viruses, the researchers point out. Another study found that of 101 breast milk samples bought online, 92 of them had detectable bacterial growth—partly because they weren’t pasteurized, and partly because a quarter of them shipped so poorly that they arrived unfrozen or damaged. And breast milk, like most other liquids for which people pay a premium, seems to be a magnet for fraud. Cow’s milk, water and even soy milk are sometimes added as adulterants to dilute breast milk and increase its volume, says editorial co-author Sarah Steele, lecturer at the Global Health, Policy and Innovation Unit at Queen Mary University London.

MORE: 2,500 Tons of the Food We Eat Is Fake

“As our research has revealed, 75% of mothers go online when they have an issue with infant feeding,” Steele says. “They resort to the internet to find out the information, usually because they’re embarrassed, or because they feel like they’re failing their infant, or because they’re exhausted.” But even though mothers are readily discovering this alternative feeding source, doctors aren’t talking about it, Steele says.

Infants aren’t the only ones drinking breast milk. Some bodybuilding websites tout it as a “natural superfood” for adults or a drink for “post-workout recovery,” Steele says—but the same risks for virus transmission apply.

In the piece, Steele and her co-authors call for more regulation of the industry. “Even healthcare professionals aren’t entirely aware of just how dangerous it is and just how many samples are contaminated,” she says. Despite these risks, “It’s not a small industry,” Steele says. According to her data, one milk-selling website, OnlyTheBreast.com, had 27,000 members last year and gains 700-800 each month.

Summary: Experts are urging women to avoid this dangerous market


' ex-wife insists she didn't torpedo the country legend's career, despite Randy's accusations in a recent lawsuit. She claims he did that all on his own.

As TMZ first reported, Travis filed a countersuit last month against

-- his ex-wife and manager of 30 years -- claiming she was

following their personal and professional split. Elizabeth had originally sued him for breach of contract.

Now in court papers filed this week in Tennessee, Elizabeth denies both saying anything bad about Randy and trying to torpedo his career. She also claims it was his "intentional interfering" with her work that led to "undermining the effectiveness of his career in the entertainment industry."

Elizabeth wants his suit tossed out and a judge to award her damages based on lost earnings.

The judge has yet to rule.

Summary: Randy Travis' ex-wife insists she didn't torpedo the country legend's career, despite Randy's accusations in a recent lawsuit. She claims he did that all…


United Airlines will update 19 of its 74 Boeing 777 airplanes with a new high-density seating plan that will squeeze in 10-abreast seats in economy from the current 9-across seating arrangement.

United UAL plans to implement the change to nine of its Boeing 777 planes currently used for domestic flights primarily to and from Hawaii, while the other 10 will be shifted from current long-haul international routes, reported USA Today. The seating arrangement in coach will now follow a 3-4-3 configuration versus the current 2-5-2 layout.

The move echoes a larger industry shift toward high-density coach cabins. Boeing BA said that about half of all 777 orders delivered last year had the 10-across seating arrangement in economy class, up from about 30% in 2008. Airlines that currently use the 10-across economy seating on a portion of their 777 planes include American Airlines AAL , Emirates, All Nippon Airways, Air New Zealand, KLM, and Air France.

United plans to update select jets starting this May and will have all 19 planes completed by May 2017, reported USA Today. The move will increase capacity to 364 seats, a 20-seat increase over current 777 seating arrangements used on domestic flights from Hawaii. United’s international flights will continue to operate with their current layout for a total 269 seats.

With the seating change, United plans to upgrade economy class seats with in-seat power outlets, two mobile device holders, and in-cabin Wi-Fi. Business class seats will be upgraded to flatbed seats from current recliners.

Summary: With updated planes


The undersigned having been requested by the Commissioners of Health of the City of New-York, to publish such information as may be of use to the people at large, in view of the anticipated approach of an epidemic of cholera, would most earnestly call the attention of the public to the following statemeat of facts, and beg their careful consideration of the suggestions and advice:

Whatever differences of opinion may exist in regard to the cause and mode of propagation of the cholera, all now agree in their observations in this acknowledged fact, that its greatest ravages and most fearful mortality is among the filthy, the vicious and the destitute, and in fact it is almost confined to the imprudent, the intemperate and those who injure themselves by taking improper medicines.

Cleanliness, therefore, is of the first importance -- both of your persons and of your houses -- particularly your yards, sinks, privies and cesspools, where fresh chloride of lime should be daily sprinkled, and the adjoining walls and fences surrounding them repeatedly whitewashed.

Be careful that there is no stagnant water either in your cellars or yards, and if your basements are damp use fires in them frequently, to burn up the foul air and cause a more perfect ventilation.

Remove all garbage at least once a day, and twice if possible, and permit nothing to remain on the premises to undergo decomposition.

Keep your houses well ventilated.

Be temperate in all things, both in eating and drinking. Be temperate in exercise, in labor, both physical and mental. Keep good hours. Take proper food, in reasonable quantities, at proper times. Plainly cooked meats, with boiled rice, bread, and thoroughly cooked potatoes, should form the ordinary base of diet.

Abstain from all unripe fruits, and stale or partially decayed vegetables. But above all, avoid excess in intoxicating drinks of every kind.

Wear flannel next the skin, and at all times maintain the natural temperature of the body by a sufficient amount of clothing. Avoid all exposure to sudden changes of temperature, and if accidentally exposed to a storm, remove your wet boots and clothing as soon as possible.

The cholera is not the necessarily fatal disease which it is commonly believed to be, but is a disease that is both preventable and curable. It Is always preceded by symptoms of languor and debility, with diarrhea, and in this stage is almost always curable; but if neglected at this period, and the diarrhea permitted to continue until collapse comes on, it is then almost always fatal.

At the very commencement of the disease go to bed, and stay there until you are well, with warm flannel around the body, warm bricks or bottles of hot water to the feet, if necessary, and if there is a tendency to vomit, apply a mustard plaster over the stomach. If you have not got a bed, lie down on the floor and keep yourself warm; but by all means retain the horizontal position all the time -- not even getting up to attend to the evacuations, but use a bed-pan or other convenience for that purpose; and immediately send for some qualified physician for advice. But, above all things, abstain from taking any of the advertised nostrums that will flood the city, and swallow no medicine unless prescribed by a competent physician.

The Commissioners of Health are doing all in their power for the purification of the city and the protection of the people; but it must be evident to all that they cannot do everything, and would therefore respectfully call upon their fellow-citizens to cooperate with them in every possible way in their power.

Sources of filth and impurity may exist without the knowledge of the public authorities, and every citizen should feel the necessity of keeping a watchful supervision over his own premises; and when individual efforts are inadequate for their removal, they should call upon the board for aid and assistance.

Fear and despondency are the great sources of danger in all epidemics, but more especially in cholera than any other.

While, therefore, we would urge upon all our citizens the use of every prudential and precautionary measure, let them preserve a calm and composed state of mind, a cheerful heart, and dispel all fear -- and by a confiding trust in an all-wise and merciful Providence, we can reasonably hope to escape this scourge, if we implicitly obey His laws.

Summary: The undersigned having been requested by the Commissioners of Health of the City of NewYork, to publish such information as may be of use to the people at large, in view of the anticipated approach of an epidemic of cholera, would most earnestly call the attention of the public to the following statemeat of facts, and beg their careful consideration of the suggestions and advice:


During the primary season, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump boasted of self-funding his campaign.

But, he accepted some individual contributions too.

Now, heading into what is expected to be a tough general election with presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, Trump appears to be getting serious about raising campaign cash. Since securing the nomination, Trump has begun encouraging donations, attending several organized fundraisers, and on Thursday, he held a meeting with donors in New York.

Here’s a look at some of the key members of Trump’s campaign finance apparatus:

While it is not the first time Mnuchin will work alongside Trump, the GOP candidate’s national finance chairman is tasked with bringing his “expertise” in finance to operate an “extremely successful” joint fundraising entity with the Republican National Committee.

Mnuchin, the former chairman and CEO of Dune Capital Management LP, a private investment firm, has a history of donating to both Republican and Democratic candidates. He donated repeatedly to Hillary Clinton for her Senate run and first presidential campaign -- and also holds business ties to some of Clinton’s mega donors.

Johnson, the owner of the New York Jets, may be headed to the playoffs of the election –- as he joins the Trump train. The now-vice chairman of The Trump Victory Committee was previously the finance chairman for Jeb Bush and Trump once chastised him for it.

“Woody Johnson, owner of the NYJets, is @JebBush’s finance chairman. If Woody would’ve been w/me, he would’ve been in the playoffs, at least!” Trump tweeted back in January.

But Johnson and Trump have since patched things up.

“I think they confuse his persona with the kind of person he actually is,” Johnson said. “You have to see him through his kids, in a way, and his wife.”

Washburne, a Dallas investor and newly-appointed vice chairman of The Trump Victory Committee fundraising partnership between the RNC and the Trump campaign, is running Trump’s finance committee.

The former RNC finance chairman, who stepped down last year to lead New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s finance team, recently laid out an ambitious fundraising goal.

“It’ll be $1 billion plus,” Washburne said in an interview with the Dallas Morning News, adding, “there’s only one team to be on at this point.”

Barrack, a real estate investor, announced his support of Trump in February and, ahead of the California primaries, held the first fundraiser for Trump at his home in the Golden State.

Barrack threw his financial backing to Rebuilding America Now, the new Donald Trump super PAC, which in an interview with CNN, Barrack said had raised $32 million.

The Rebuilding America Now PAC also spent $1.1 million in national airtime in targeted states starting June 8 with its first ad attacking the Clintons.

Hendricks, a Wisconsin businesswoman who was a top financial contributor for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, has been chosen to join Washburne and four others as vice chairs of The Trump Victory Committee.

The billionaire co-founder and chairman of ABC Supply contributed $5 million to Unintimidated PAC, a super PAC created to support Walker’s failed presidential campaign.

Sheldon Adelson is a member of America’s mega-rich. The owner of the casino company, Las Vegas Sands, Forbes estimates his net worth at $26.9 billion.

A source within the Trump campaign confirmed to ABC News that Adelson, who endorsed Trump last month, will contribute a substantial amount of money to Trump's campaign. The New York Times reported that Adelson is willing to fish out $100 million or more to Trump.

In the 2012 election, he single-handedly funded Republican candidate Newt Gingrich's campaign, and once Gingrich dropped out, gave millions to GOP nominee Mitt Romney.

ABC’s Shushannah Walshe, John Santucci and Meghan Keneally contributed to this report.

Summary: During the primary season, presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump boasted of self-funding his campaign.But, he accepted some individual contributions too.Now, heading into what is expected to be a tough general election with presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, Trump appears to...


Mia Hamm has been a role model for girls since she established herself as one of the greatest female athletes of all time. Hamm held the record for most international goals scored by a soccer player — male or female — until 2013, when fellow American Abby Wambach broke her record. She won FIFA world player of the year twice.

Since her retirement from soccer, Hamm has been active in other pursuits: participating in an ESPN documentary about the 1999 American soccer team that won the Women’s World Cup, heading up the Mia Hamm Foundation and raising her twin daughters.

But now she’s teaming up with LeapFrog to promote the LeapBand, a fitness tracker for kids that lets them play games while staying active. Last weekend, Hamm and LeapFrog met with 400 kids and families in Santa Monica, Calif., to promote family activities. The group set three Guinness World Records for most people making sand angels (292), most people hopping on one leg (321) and most people performing a swim dance (318).

TIME caught up with Hamm to talk about controversy surrounding the upcoming Women’s World Cup, what it was like to race against Michael Jordan for a Gatorade commercial and how to get more kids to be active.

There’s been a lot of renewed interest in America in soccer after the World Cup this summer. Do you think people are going to be as invested in this upcoming Women’s World Cup as they were in the Men’s ?

I think so. I think with this World Cup what made a huge difference is that people have access that they didn’t have 10 years ago or 20 years ago. I could go home right now and find four channels that have something about soccer going on, and I definitely could not have done when I was playing. I believe Fox Sports 1 has all the coverage [of the Women’s World Cup], and they are taking it very seriously in terms of the reach that they want to obtain. In the end that’s how you get to the masses is with that type of coverage.

With regards to the U.S. team and the tournament, it’s going to be the best soccer that’s been played to this date. The game’s naturally evolving and getting better.

Some of the women’s players in the U.S. and elsewhere have expressed concerns about playing on turf for the next world cup. What are your thoughts on the turf vs. grass debate?

I would much rather play on grass. I’ve played on turf, and it is a different game. I completely understand why certain venues have turf because of the amount of play, the wear and tear, the weather. But I would love for this tournament — it’s the best of the best in the world, it’s senior players, it’s not a youth world cup — for FIFA to remain consistent, and right now that means playing the game on grass, on a natural surface.

My favorite commercial growing up was the Gatorade commercial that you did with Michael Jordan — the “Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better” commercial — and several female athletes I’ve interviewed since have cited it as an inspiration as well. You were one of the first women to send the message, “I can compete with the boys.” Were you aware that you were a female role model at the time?

Definitely. I took every opportunity as a responsibility to not only help our sport grow but also to support female athletics. I felt it was important. And it was also a way for me to say thank you to all the people that invested in me and who, whether I knew them or not, made changes to compete at this level — whether it was playing in college and the birth of Title IX and making sure that not only did I have access to being able to play in college but I had access to an education.

What was so wonderful was during the taping of that, I wanted to be better than he was at whatever we were doing. It was actually very intense. There was a natural competition. And I love the fact that he was accepting and open to that. We had a blast making it.

You’ve done a lot to encourage young girls in athletics. Why has that been an important cause for you?

I just know how it empowered me. I was a really young, shy kid who was also from a military family, so we moved every 2-3 years. And sports was an easy way to make a connection when we moved to a new base, a new town to people with similar interests. And I think it really helped give me confidence not only with that move but with feeling that I could contribute.

We’re finally starting to see more attention paid to women’s sports. Do you think we will ever reach point where there’s as much encouragement for young girls to play sports as young boys and as much interest in women’s sports as men’s?

I hope so. You just look at women in high-powered positions in top 500 companies and a lot of them will attribute their time in organized sports as something that really made a difference and had an impact in their lives. And I see the confidence it has built in my daughters when they work really hard at something, let’s say it’s soccer. They’re working really hard on passing or shooting or a certain move, and then all of the sudden it just clicks, and you just see this big smile come on their face.

And to see that confidence grow in a young girl is so important because I think boys are naturally encouraged to do those things, and the opportunities to do it for our daughters is so important.

I know that your 1999 World Cup win had a huge impact on my generation in terms of the number of girls it inspired to play soccer. But soccer’s continued to grow in popularity in the U.S. for boys and girls. Why do you think that is?

I think kids who grew up playing and it was part of their everyday lives are now parents. I would probably say if we hadn’t lived in Italy when I was 2 or 3, my dad would have been like, “What is this game? What are these kids playing?” because he didn’t grow up around it. We’re parents now, we understand the game, and our kids are playing.

I also know when I was younger, it was a relatively inexpensive sport to play. You didn’t need a lot of equipment. I was one of six kids in a military family, so it was perfect. Times have changed with club soccer and all the traveling and high-level coaching, but it’s still a sport you can play on a field used for many different sports — football, lacrosse or even the outfield of a baseball field, which is what my daughters do here in California when they play in their little AYSO league.

Obviously you and your husband [former baseball player Nomar Garciaparra] are athletic people. Have you passed those genes to your kids? What do you guys do to stay active?

We want them participating in some type of activity. And they’re motivated to be with their friends. Whether it’s dance or playing soccer or softball. At home, we want it to be fun. We’re not standing over our kids saying ‘give me ten pushups!’ Two days ago, my daughter wanted to play two square, so we put that in the space between our family room and kitchen. And we did that for 20 minutes, just laughing and I think she was talking a little trash at one point. So just having fun with them.

Why did you team up with LeapFrog?

Seventy-five percent of kids aren’t gettingthe 60 minutes a day of physical activity, whether it’s due to cutbacks in their school’s physical education programs, and you know childhood obesity rates are skyrocketing. We just really want to help families and kids understand that physical activity is not necessarily about work. LeapBand is not a calorie tracker or counter. It’s little bursts of activities like jumping in place and popping like popcorn. I know for my kids, they’re always laughing while doing it.

Have you tried any fitness trackers?

Yeah, the Nike FuelBand, I’ve used that. I was more curious: how many steps do I take in a day? I kind of had an idea of my calorie burn when I was playing, but I have no idea right now. I do a camp with a couple of my teammates, and we’ll go out and motivate each other, see what we can do.

Summary: The world's most famous soccer player on fitness trackers, Michael Jordan and the Women's World Cup controversy


A young girl bakes her Barbie doll in the oven. A San Francisco bar invites patrons to have at the dolls with knives. A New York artist drives nails into Barbie, calling it sculpture.

What’s going on here? How did Barbie, history’s most popular doll, celebrating her 50th year as a beloved plaything for girls worldwide, become an object that females of all ages cut, burn, bend, spindle and mutilate? And what does it all mean?

Let’s start with girls. Barbie is, after all, supposed to be a toy. In 2005, researchers at England’s University of Bath, conducting a study of how children play, were surprised at what girls do to their Barbies.

“The types of mutilation are varied and creative, and range from removing the hair to decapitation, burning, breaking and even microwaving,” writes Dr. Agnes Nairn. “The girls we spoke to see Barbie torture as a legitimate play activity, and see the torture as a ‘cool’ activity in contrast to other forms of play with the doll.”

The study’s conclusion–that the abuse means that Barbie is a “hate figure” among 7- to 11-year-old girls–sparked debate all over the world.

Some felt that Barbie was merely getting her due as a poor role model; others argued that battering a Barbie is no different than, say, battering a red wagon–only with a cultural touchstone like Barbie, we notice.

The study’s conclusions “smack of academic overanalysis,” Anastasia de Waal wrote in The Guardian, “of grown-ups getting too excited about the symbolism of child’s play. … Testing the versatility and robustness of one’s toys is neither new nor sinister.”

While the study emphasized the hostility suggested by hacking something apart, the girls actually told researchers they didn’t despise Barbie so much as feel they had outgrown her.

“The most readily expressed reason for rejecting Barbie was that she was babyish and girls saw her as representing their younger childhood out of which they felt they had now grown,” said Nairn.

When you turn to adults, however, the contempt behind the violence is undeniable. Barbie is not just the most popular doll of all time, she is also a large-busted, slim-waisted, impossibly proportioned ideal that has long inspired odium among feminists.

“Women my age know whom to blame for our own self-loathing, eating disorders and distorted body image: Barbie,” Chicago Tribune columnist Amy Dickenson wrote.

One of the more memorable Barbie mutilations happened in 1993 at Christmas time. Dozens of girls whose parents purchased “Teen Talk” Barbies were surprised to hear their new dolls growl phrases such as “dead men tell no lies” and “vengeance is mine.” Meanwhile, boys pressed the buttons of their new “Talking Duke” G.I. Joe and heard him coo, “Let’s plan our dream wedding.”

A group of Manhattan parents, dubbing itself the “Barbie Liberation Organization,” had purchased a number of the dolls–they claimed 300–and “surgically” switched their voice box devices, giving Barbie her bellicose outlook and Joe his sudden interest in shopping.

The prank echoes the sense of humor often seen in Barbie mangling. Montana artist Dawn Duane Evans’ “I Hate Barbie” calendar photos aren’t so much malicious as mocking, with Barbies splashing in cans of paint and labeled a “Pop Tart,” peeking, smoldering from toasters.

Of course, most women are not angry artists. When you talk to adult women who abused their Barbies, their motives were inevitably benign.

Ginny Voedisch, who works for the Art Institute of Chicago, did put her Barbie in an oven, but not out of spite–she thought the heat would turn her early 1960s bouffant hairdo into a then-hip late 1960s afro (it didn’t). Marj Halperin, a media consultant, stuck straight pins into her Barbie’s head, true, but she was attaching sequin earrings.

“Oooh! I loved Barbie and would never ever have mutilated her!” said Amy Latreille, a customer service manager. “However, cutting her hair, reversing her arms and even changing their heads was totally okay.” (Several women said that swapping heads on the identically bodied dolls was far easier for a girl to do than changing their elaborate outfits.)

Even those who said they disliked Barbie were acting more from indifference than hostility.

Sharon Allen, a mechanic, melted her Barbie and seemed surprised at the idea she wouldn’t. “It seemed the obvious thing to do,” she said. “Barbies were just so boring. I never really liked them. You couldn’t really do anything with them–except, of course, melt them.”

Altering your Barbie could also be a way of bringing her with you on your latest life change. When Kirsten Curley, now a senior corporate manager, went through her rebellious high school fashion phase, her “last surviving Barbie came along.”

“She got a Mohawk hair-do, black lipstick, torn clothes and a safety pin through her ear,” said Curley.

The way the adult world can impose meaning on Barbie mutilation is demonstrated by Susan Ginsberg’s (now a Chicago mother of two herself) alarm at finding a Ziploc bag of hair in her daughter’s drawers.

“I was mortified,” she said. “Is one of my kids partaking in witchcraft? Then I checked the Barbie drawer–they all had bobs.”

Click here for full coverage–Special Report: Barbie Turns 50

Comments are turned off for this post.

Summary: Why do girls mutilate their Barbie dolls?


Land owners who refuse to allow mobile masts on their land face compulsory purchase orders at market rates, under new laws due to be announced in the Queen’s Speech.

The changes are designed by the Government to encourage investment in network improvements, amid concern that the uncertain cost of building new masts is holding back coverage.

Under the new rules, mobile operators and independent mast owners such as Arqiva and Wireless Infrastructure Group, will be able to apply to the courts to force land owners to sell space for a mast at the same price any other buyer would pay.

The industry has complained that in situations where there are few suitable sites for infrastructure in an area it can be held to “ransom” by the landowner and charged multiples of the market rent. In such circumstances operators and mast companies sometimes elect not to build, leaving coverage blackspots that the Government is seeking to eliminate.

While the legislation mostly targets rural areas, it could also apply in cities.

Whitehall sources said the new powers would put the mobile industry on more level terms with water and power companies, who have long been able to make compulsory purchases to provide essential services.

It is hoped by senior industry figures that the powers will be used rarely and act as a backstop to encourage landlords to enter commercial negotiations on reasonable terms. Problems are already quite rare, one mobile source said.

The new legislation, part of a new digital economy bill, is likely to prove controversial but comes after the Prime Minister said politicians had been wrong to stand in the way of mobile mast building.

Ed Vaizey, the communications minister, said: “What was once seen as a luxury is now a basic need, and people expect to have access to fast broadband at home, irrespective of where they live, and use their mobile devices anywhere they go.”

The new power could also aid plans to expand BT's EE network so it is capable of replacing the emergency services radio system, a contract the Government claims will save taxpayers £1m per day.

The digital economy bill is also expected to make it harder for telecoms companies to sue Ofcom.

The tougher legal hurdles could help the regulator set the terms of forthcoming sales of mobile spectrum to help Three and O2 with less fear of a legal challenge from BT and Vodafone. Three’s owner CK Hutchison said its low allocation was a key motivation behind its failed attempt to buy O2, which Ofcom opposed and was blocked.

The regulator has since said it will aim to support competition in the market via auctions of mobile airwaves.


Olympic gymnast John Orozco is determined to make 2016 his best year yet.

A medal-less performance at the 2012 London Olympics and months of grueling rehab for a torn Achilles heel haven't deterred the 23-year-old from chasing gold in Rio – he's working harder than ever in preparation for the Games this summer. But the extra hours Orozco puts in at the gym aren't just for himself. He trains to honor his mother, who died suddenly in 2015.

"It's a new me," Orozco tells PEOPLE. "I've changed as an athlete and as a person and I hope it shows through my gymnastics, that's what I'm looking forward to at these next Olympic Games â¦ My mom will definitely be watching over me in Rio, cheering me on."

After a pause, he adds, "I have a different demeanor. I'm a little more positive, easier on myself. It takes the stress away and that allows me to do my job."

Orozco grew up in the Bronx in New York City and from a young age his mother, Damaris, recognized the potential for greatness in her son. Damaris would drive him to a training facility an hour away in Chappaqua, New York, for the kind of coaching necessary to become an Olympian – and she often did it twice a day.

On trips to meets, the mother and son would sleep in their car – as the family often didn't have enough money to stay in hotels. The devoted mother also stood up for her son as he endured bullying from friends and schoolmates in their neighborhood.

Orozco says his mother was his number one fan and fully believed in his goal to one day compete in the Olympics. And to win gold.

Today marks one year since I lost my Mom,my friend,my biggest fan, and my hero. I know you're always watching over me, but I wish I could have just one more hug, one more laugh, one more dance,one more conversation, or just have you by my side. The very last thing I said to you was that I was proud of you and I really meant it. I miss you so much sometimes it's unbearable, but you taught me how to be strong and fight through the pain no matter what and to never ever give up till the very end. I'd give anything to ask you for five bucks so I can go to the corner store to buy a roses, chocolates, and cut out a piece of red/pink construction paper to write you a poem like we use to when I was little. Happy Valentines Day ma. I love you, Siempre. R.I.P.

A photo posted by John Orozco (@johnorozcousa) on Feb 14, 2016 at 10:26am PST

After a disappointing performance for the frontrunner at the 2012 Olympics – the U.S. men finished fifth in team finals and the favored Orozco failed to medal – he decided to put the past behind him.

"I don't think about 2012 at all," he says. "Everything that happened in 2012 happened. I'm so grateful for the experience, and now it's on to bigger and better things."

And then the unthinkable happened. Orozco's rock, his motivation and "best friend" died suddenly in February 2015.

"I knew [competing] would be hard without my mom. I thought to myself, 'You have to be strong like she was,' " says Orozco. "I picked myself up ... I thought 'I can get through this and be okay.' "

"I know what I need to do. I took some time to be sad and cry and say, 'Why me,' and after those few weeks I think it was necessary to acknowledge that life isn't fair," says Orozco. "I believe that you have to pick yourself up however you can and tell yourself these are the cards I was dealt with and I have to make the best of my situation."

Overcoming nearly insurmountable grief, Orozco decided to continue his gymnastics career in honor of his late mother.

"When I have my moments of weakness, I remember her and her strength and that helps me get through times when I feel weak or when I can't handle anything," he says. "I have a rosary that I always travel with ... it helps me feel a little closer to her because she had it blessed by the priest at my church in the Bronx. I bring it everywhere because it makes me feel safe and closer to her.

"Whenever I feel like I need some faith I pray with it and ask her for advice ... I'll bring it with me to Rio."

Orozco starts every morning rehabbing the right Achilles heel he tore in June 2015 ("I competed seven months after getting injured, which is like

the time it usually takes," he says) at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. From 9:00 a.m. until noon he works on events and half routines. When morning practice is done, he puts on compression pants to take the swelling out of his legs.

For lunch he has a chicken burger, turkey breast and plain lettuce ("I know I need veggies!") or if he's short on time, he heads to Chipotle and orders a burrito with brown rice and double chicken.

Afternoon practice starts at 3:30 p.m. and lasts until 6 p.m. Orozco and his teammates take ice baths afterwards.

"I'm training smarter," he says. "I go into the gym and focus and have a plan and train with quality over quantity."

When he gets back to his dorm-style room at the training center he sits at his computer and pulls up GarageBand.

"I love to make music... sometimes I'll start off creating R&B and then all of a sudden it goes into an electronic EDM sound. I also sing on my own tracks," says Orozco, who is featured in Gym Class Heroes' video for "The Fighter."

The elite athlete explains that music – amidst all of the pressure he faces during gymnastics training – is a way for him to relax.

"Maybe one day I'll go to Broadway!" he jokes. "But for now, Rio is all I see."

Summary: "My mom will definitely be watching over me in Rio, cheering me on,â John Orozco tells PEOPLE of his late mother


Companies that make packaged foods and other consumer goods led a broad rise in U.S. stocks late Thursday afternoon, extending a rally into a third day. Investors also continued to drive U.S. bond prices higher, a sign that some traders remain cautious about the possible ramifications of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.

KEEPING SCORE: The Dow Jones industrial average gained 208 points, or 1.2 percent, to 17,903 at 3:31 p.m. Eastern Time. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index was up 24 points, or 1.2 percent, to 2,095. The Nasdaq composite added 54 points, or 1.1 percent, to 4,833.

THE QUOTE: A simultaneous rise in prices for stocks and U.S. bonds is unusual and suggests nervous investors overseas are seeking the relative safety of bonds even as other traders look to ride the U.S. stock market rally further, said David Schiegoleit, managing director of investments for the private client reserve at U.S. Bank.

‘‘You have more capital chasing assets here in the U.S., which can lead to an increase in prices in both (stocks and bonds),’’ Schiegoleit said.

NETWORKING: Cable channel Starz climbed 6 percent after agreeing to be acquired by Lions Gate Entertainment, which owns the ‘‘Orange Is The New Black’’ Netflix series and the ‘‘Hunger Games’’ movies. Starz jumped $1.70 to $29.95. Lions Gate shed 77 cents, or 3.7 percent, to $20.16.

CHOCOLATE FIX: Hershey surged 18 percent following a published report that snack company Mondelez has made an overture to acquire the candy maker. Hershey added $17.59 to $114.77. Mondelez gained $2.56, or 6 percent, to $45.53.

FOOD MAKERS: Several packaged food and beverage companies moved higher. Hormel Foods led the gainers in the S&P 500 index, climbing $1.26, or 3.6 percent, to $36.58. PepsiCo rose $2.80, or 2.7 percent, to $105.93.

GOOGLE EFFECT: Care.com shares vaulted 38.1 percent after Google Capital invested $46 million in the online family care management service. Care.com added $3.23 to $11.70.

PASS THE PASTA: Darden Restaurants fell 3.9 percent after the parent company of Olive Garden forecast a profit for its fiscal 2017 that fell short of Wall Street expectations. The company also reported total sales for its fiscal fourth quarter that fell short of expectations. The stock shed $2.58 to $63.38.

STRESS OUT: Deutsche Bank slid 2.6 percent after the Federal Reserve rejected its plans to return capital to shareholders through dividend increases and share buybacks. The stock fell 34 cents to $12.33.

WICKERED OUT: Pier 1 Imports slumped 6.5 percent after the home decor retailer reported disappointing quarterly results. The stock lost 36 cents to $5.09.

JOB MARKET: The Labor Department said applications for unemployment benefits rose last week, but the level of claims remains low enough to suggest that most workers enjoy job security. Unemployment claims have remained below 300,000 for 69 straight weeks, the longest such streak since 1973.

BRITAIN: Worries over Britain’s historic vote last week to leave the European Union have been easing. Stocks and the British pound plunged in the days after the vote last Thursday. Britain’s stock market has recouped its losses, though that is largely thanks to the pound’s drop, which helps the big companies’ overseas earnings. Other indexes of companies more focused on the British economy are still down sharply.

EUROPEAN MARKETS: Britain’s FTSE 100 rose 2.3 percent, while Germany’s DAX added 0.7 percent. France’s CAC 40 rose 1 percent.

ASIA’S DAY: Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 edged up 0.1 percent, while South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.7 percent. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 1.8 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 1.5.

ENERGY: Benchmark U.S. crude fell $1.55, or 3.1 percent, to close at $48.33 a barrel in New York. Brent crude, used to price international oils, slid 93 cents, or 1.8 percent, to close at $49.68 a barrel in London. Wholesale gasoline fell 2 cents to $1.50 a gallon, while heating oil shed 5 cents to $1.48 a gallon. Natural gas rose 6 cents to $2.92 per 1,000 cubic feet.

METALS: In metals trading, gold lost $6.30 to $1,320.60 an ounce, silver gained 22 cents to $18.62 an ounce and copper added 1 cent to $2.20 a pound.

CURRENCIES: The yen, seen as a safe haven, strengthened sharply after the British referendum, but has become less volatile since then. The dollar was trading at 103.19 yen, up from 102.56 yen on Wednesday. The pound slipped to $1.3277 from $1.3431, still down sharply from the pre-vote level of $1.50. The euro fell to $1.1087 from $1.1106.

BONDS: Bond prices rose. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note fell to 1.48 percent from 1.52 late Wednesday.

Summary: Investors also continued to drive US bond prices higher, a sign that some traders remain cautious about the recent Brexit vote.


Literary agent to the celebrity set David Vigliano is selling his agency to the Ron Burkle-backed Y Entertainment Group, which already owns Artist Group International, Media Ink has learned.

Vigliano will head up the literary arm, which will be renamed AGI Vigliano Literary LLC.

Asked why he decided to sell, the 55-year-old agent said, “It gives us broader reach. More and more of our clients are interested in TV and it gives us a bigger pool of potential contacts.” Terms were not disclosed.

Artist Group International counts musicians Billy Joel, Metallica, Rod Stewart, Linkin Park and Mötley Crüe, among others, in its portfolio.

The AGI Lifestyle unit reps Marie Claire Creative Director Nina Garcia, Cosmopolitan Editor-in-Chief Joanna Coles and fashion icon Heidi Klum, among others.

Vigliano started his career as a director of packaging at Warner Books, but by 1986 he figured he’d be better off handling deals for celebrities than chasing them down for a publisher.

“He has tremendous contacts in the West Coast entertainment world among lawyers and managers who think their clients should do a book,” said one publishing executive. “His interest was always in big-picture deal-making and less in tending to the nitty-gritty details of publishing,” said the source.

While Vigliano has done his share of one-off celebrity books, including current best-seller “Rocks,” by Aerosmith lead guitarist Joe Perry, he said he also has a long stable of repeat writers.

Summary: Literary agent to the celebrity set David Vigliano is selling his agency to the Ron Burkle-backed Y Entertainment Group, which already owns Artist Group International, Media Ink has learned. Viglia…