Selena Gomez is having a very emotional birthday weekend.

The "Hands to Myself" singer, who turned 24 on Friday, celebrated the occasion by kicking off the international leg of her Revival tour in Jakarta, Indonesia.

WATCH: Taylor Swift Wishes Selena Gomez a Happy Birthday Following Kimye Drama

While talking to the crowd, Gomez got a little teary-eyed just moments before she performed "Kill 'Em With Kindness."

"The next song, before I go home, is a song that's so important to me," she said onstage, wiping away tears. "Because I get really frustrated, I get stupid sometimes, I say things that I don't mean. Or that come out wrong just because I care so badly."

"But the thing is, at the end of the day, no war in anger was ever won," she continued. "I do know that deep down in my heart that I have to believe that we can love each other and always be kind no matter what it takes in us. I believe that we can do that, no matter what."

Following her show on Saturday, she took to Instagram to post a cryptic message to her fans. "Not being negative about anything I've done," she explained in the caption. "I'm grateful for every single moment I get here -- Indonesia you were LOUD and clearly inspiring. Love you so much."

NEWS: Selena Gomez Talks Being the Most Followed User on Instagram, Calls Her Photos 'Boring'

The accompanying picture was a screenshot of a message she wrote up using her iPhone's notes app:

"Tonight I felt extremely unauthentic, unconnected to both my myself and my music. I've never really felt like my materials, wardrobe or a video could define me. I act on a moment and fear something that hasn't happened. I'm stagnant, I stay still and don't just sit with myself first and ask, 'Is this where I am, whole heartedly?' I've always told the truth. I'm always true to my word, I've shown who I am but I need to rethink some areas of my life creatively and personally. Had to get that out."

All of this comes a week after Gomez received backlash for defending her close friend, Taylor Swift. As previously reported, Kim Kardashian leaked a phone conversation between the pop star and Kanye West over his controversial "Famous" lyrics via Snapchat. Within minutes of hearing Swift approve West's "For all of my Southside n***as that know me best, I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex" line, which she previously denied doing, fans hopped on Twitter and the hashtag "#KimExposedTaylorParty" began trending.

PHOTOS: Selena Gomez through the years

Selena Gomez through the years

Actress Selena Gomez arrives at the 2015 American Music Awards at Microsoft Theater on November 22, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Allen Berezovsky/Getty Images for Fashion Media)

PARK CITY, UT - JANUARY 29: Selena Gomez attends 'The Fundamentals Of Caring' Portraits during the 2016 Sundance Film Festival at Acura Studio on January 29, 2016 in Park City, Utah. (Photo by George Pimentel/Getty Images for Sundance Film Festival)

LOS ANGELES, CA - AUGUST 30: Selena Gomez arrives at the 2015 MTV Video Music Awards at Microsoft Theater on August 30, 2015 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic)

NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 22: Selena Gomez arrives to Hotel Chantelle on June 22, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by James Devaney/GC Images)

NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 22: Selena Gomez seen on the streets of Times Square on June 22, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by James Devaney/GC Images)

NEW YORK, NY - JUNE 22: Selena Gomez seen on the streets of Manhattan on June 22, 2015 in New York City. (Photo by James Devaney/GC Images)

PALM SPRINGS, CA - MAY 06: Actress/singer Selena Gomez attends the Louis Vuitton Cruise 2016 Resort Collection shown at a private residence on May 6, 2015 in Palm Springs, California. (Photo by Donato Sardella/Getty Images for Louis Vuitton)

CANCUN, MEXICO - JUNE 14: Actress Selena Gomez attends the 'Hotel Transylvania 2' photo call during Summer Of Sony Pictures Entertainment 2015 at The Ritz-Carlton Cancun on June 14, 2015 in Cancun, Mexico. #SummerOfSonyPictures (Photo by Victor Chavez/Getty Images for Sony Pictures Entertainment)

Selena Gomez seen at the Louis Vuitton Cruise Show at the Parker Hotel on Wednesday, May 6, 2015, in Palm Springs, Calif. (Photo by Rich Fury/Invision/AP)

Selena Gomez arrives at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute benefit gala celebrating "China: Through the Looking Glass" on Monday, May 4, 2015, in New York. (Photo by Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)

Actress and co-host of We Day Illinois Selena Gomez during the We Day Illinois 2015 at Allstate Arena on Thursday, April 30, 2015 in Chicago. (Photo by Barry Brecheisen/Invision/AP)

LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 23: Singer Selena Gomez attends the 2014 American Music Awards at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on November 23, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 23: Recording artist/actress Selena Gomez performs onstage at the 2014 American Music Awards at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on November 23, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - JANUARY 11: Singer/Actress Selena Gomez attends the 2015 InStyle And Warner Bros. 72nd Annual Golden Globe Awards Post-Party at The Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 11, 2015 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Rachel Murray/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 23: Singer Selena Gomez attends the 2014 American Music Awards at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on November 23, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 08: Actress Selena Gomez attends the 3rd Annual Unlikely Heroes Awards Dinner and Gala at Sofitel Hotel on November 8, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by David Buchan/Getty Images)

Singer Selena Gomez arrives for the 2014 LACMA Art + Film Gala honoring film director Quentin Tarantino and artist Barbara Kruger in Los Angeles on November 1, 2014. AFP PHOTO / Valerie Macon (Photo credit should read VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images)

Singer Selena Gomez arrives for the 2014 LACMA Art + Film Gala honoring film director Quentin Tarantino and artist Barbara Kruger in Los Angeles on November 1, 2014. AFP PHOTO / Valerie Macon (Photo credit should read VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 07: Actress Selena Gomez attends the Screening Of Samuel Goldwyn Films' 'Rudderless' at the Vista Theatre on October 7, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 07: Actresses Felicity Huffman (L) and Selena Gomez attend the Screening Of Samuel Goldwyn Films' 'Rudderless' at the Vista Theatre on October 7, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images)

US actress and singer Selena Gomez attends the Carine Roitfeld Party in Paris, on September 30, 2014. AFP PHOTO / THOMAS SAMSON (Photo credit should read THOMAS SAMSON/AFP/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 23: (L-R) Singers Lorde, Selena Gomez and Taylor Swift attend the 2014 American Music Awards at Nokia Theatre L.A. Live on November 23, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jeff Kravitz/AMA2014/FilmMagic)

LOS ANGELES, CA - NOVEMBER 08: Actress/singer Selena Gomez arrives at the 3rd Annual Unlikely Heroes Awards Dinner and Gala at the Sofitel Hotel on November 8, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jeffrey Mayer/WireImage)

VANCOUVER, BC - OCTOBER 22: Selena Gomez, actress, multi-platinum recording artist and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador welcomes audience during 'We Day Vancouver' at Rogers Arena on October 22, 2014 in Vancouver, Canada. (Photo by Andrew Chin/FilmMagic)

PARIS, FRANCE - OCTOBER 01: Actress Selena Gomez attends the Louis Vuitton show as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Spring/Summer 2015 on October 1, 2014 in Paris, France. (Photo by Rindoff/Le Segretain/French Select/Getty Images)

PARIS, FRANCE - SEPTEMBER 30: Selena Gomez attends the CR Fashion Book Issue No.5 Launch Party Hosted by Carine Roitfeld and Stephen Gan at The Peninsula Paris on September 30, 2014 in Paris, France. (Photo by Kristy Sparow/WireImage)

NEW YORK, NY - SEPTEMBER 03: Selena Gomez attends the Selena Gomez Adidas NEO Label Show during Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Spring 2015 at The Waterfront on September 3, 2014 in New York City. (Photo by Mike Pont/FilmMagic)

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CA - AUGUST 23: Actress Selena Gomez arrives at the Variety And Women In Film Annual Pre-Emmy Celebration at Gracias Madre on August 23, 2014 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage)

LOS ANGELES, CA - AUGUST 10: Selena Gomez arrives at the FOX's 2014 Teen Choice Awards at The Shrine Auditorium on August 10, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

HOLLYWOOD, CA - JULY 29: Actress Selena Gomez arrives at the Los Angeles Premiere 'Behaving Badly' at ArcLight Hollywood on July 29, 2014 in Hollywood, California. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic)

ATLANTA, GA - OCTOBER 26: Selena Gomez performs at the Phillips Arena on October 26, 2013 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Marcus Ingram/FilmMagic)

ATLANTA, GA - OCTOBER 26: Selena Gomez performs at the Phillips Arena on October 26, 2013 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Chris McKay/WireImage)

VENICE, ITALY - SEPTEMBER 05: Actress Selena Gomez attends the 'Spring Breakers' Photocall during the 69th Venice Film Festival at the Palazzo del Casino on September 5, 2012 in Venice, Italy. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

LOS ANGELES, CA - FEBRUARY 08: Actress Selena Gomez arrives at the premiere of Paramount Pictures' 'Justin Bieber: Never Say Never' held at Nokia Theater L.A. Live on February 8, 2011 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

RADIO DISNEY - Selena Gomez joined Radio Disney in studio to kick off its 15th Birthday celebration with a fun-filled Take Over with Ernie D, which included an acoustic performance of her new single 'Who Says.' (Photo by Rick Rowell/Disney Channel via Getty Images)SELENA GOMEZ

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - JANUARY 16: Actress Selena Gomez arrives at the 2011 InStyle/Warner Brothers Golden Globes Party at The Beverly Hilton hotel on January 16, 2011 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic)

WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE - 'Zeke Finds Out' - After Zeke attempts a magic trick and fails, Alex uses her powers to make him think he is a real magician. But the gesture backfires when Zeke really believes he is a wizard, in a new episode of 'Wizards of Waverly Place,' premiering FRIDAY, APRIL 8 (8:00-8:30 p.m., ET/PT) on Disney Channel. (Photo by Eric McCandless/Disney Channel via Getty Images)SELENA GOMEZ, JAKE T. AUSTIN

Actress Selena Gomez arrives at the People's Choice Awards in Los Angeles, California on January 5, 2011. AFP PHOTO/VALERIE MACON (Photo credit should read VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images)

Actress Selena Gomez poses at the People's Choice Awards in Los Angeles, California on January 5, 2011. AFP PHOTO/VALERIE MACON (Photo credit should read VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images)

WESTWOOD, CA- DECEMBER 12: Selena Gomez arrives at the 2010 Hollywood Style Awards at the Billy Wilder Theater at the Hammer Museum on December 12, 2010 in Westwood, California. (Photo by Gregg DeGuire/FilmMagic)

LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 13: Selena Gomez is seen on December 13, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jean Baptiste Lacroix/WireImage)

WIZARDS OF WAVERLY PLACE - 'Alex Charms a Boy' - Alex finds her new boyfriend Mason, a transfer student from England, perfect in every way except for his artistic vision. She casts a spell on Mason, so that she becomes the inspiration for all the art he creates in their school art class, in 'Wizards of Waverly Place,' premiering FRIDAY, JANUARY 15 (8:00-8:30 p.m., ET/PT) on Disney Channel. (Photo by Jaimie Trueblood/Disney Channel via Getty Images) SELENA GOMEZ

Actress Selena Gomez arrives at the 6th Annual Hollywood Style Awards at Armand Hammer Museum on October 11, 2009 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jon Kopaloff/FilmMagic)

ANAHEIM, CA - AUGUST 14: Actress Selena Gomez arrives at the premiere of 'High School Musical 2' at the Downtown Disney District at Disneyland Resort on August 14, 2007 in Anaheim, California. (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

BEVERLY HILLS, CA - JULY 26: Actress Selena Gomez arrives at the ABC Summer Press Tour Party at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on July 26, 2007 in Beverly Hills, California. (Photo by Jesse Grant/WireImage)

LOS ANGELES, CA - JUNE 10: Actress Selena Gomez attends the '18th Annual A Time for Heroes Celebrity Carnival' to benefit the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation at the Wadsworth Theater Veteran Administration Lawn on June 10, 2007 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Chad Buchanan/Getty Images)

Selena Gomez (Photo by Steve Granitz/WireImage)

LOS ANGELES - JUNE 2: Actress Selena Gomez arrives at the Sony Pictures Premiere of 'Surfs Up' on June 2, 2007 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/ Getty Images)

Selena Gomez (Photo by Gregg DeGuire/WireImage)

Gomez weighed in, writing, "There are more important things to talk about. Why can't people use their voice for something that f**king matters?"

"Truth is last thing we need right now is hate, in any form," she added. "This industry is so disappointing yet the most influential smh."

WATCH: Selena Gomez Shares Her Thoughts on the Taylor Swift-Kimye Drama

Her tweets resulted in the creation of another trending topic that night -- "#SelenaGomezIsOverParty."

While Gomez didn't specifically address what her comments onstage or over Instagram were referring to, it's hard to imagine that harsh hashtag didn't have something to do with her emotional demeanor. To hear more on the West-Swift feud, watch the video below.

Summary: Following her show on Saturday, she took to Instagram to post an emotional message to her fans.


T-Mobile US Inc. outpaced rivals again in the second quarter, clocking strong subscriber gains, as revenue climbed 13%.

The No. 3 U.S. wireless carrier added 646,000 mainstream phone connections—the most-lucrative type of wireless subscriber—in the three months ended June 30, far more than any of its competitors. The carrier also upgraded its forecast for full-year customer acquisition.

Long the underdog in a market...

Summary: T-Mobile US Inc. outpaced rivals again in the second quarter, clocking strong subscriber gains, as revenue climbed 13%. Still, profit fell 38% on higher interest expenses and taxes, as well as lower interest income.


Warning: Spoilers for both the book and movie version of Me Before You ahead.

Some members of the disabled community and their advocates are protesting how upcoming romantic film Me Before You portrays a disabled character.

The movie, which author Jojo Moyes adapted from her 2012 bestselling novel of the same name, tells the story of a paralyzed man (Sam Clafin of Hunger Games fame) who falls in love with his caretaker (Game of Thrones‘ Emilia Clarke). Some have taken issue with the film’s ending, which shows Clafin’s character deciding to end his own life with Dignitas, a Swiss assisted suicide organization.

Some disabled people and advocates for the community are using social media to push back against the film, using the hashtag#MeBeforeAbleism to object to the portrayal of a person choosing to die instead of living with a disability.

Stop perpetuating the idea that disabled people only exist to make you feel better about your life by comparison. #MeBeforeAbleism

— Crutches&Spice (@Imani_Barbarin) May 25, 2016

#MeBeforeAbleism because dating me shouldn't be considered an act of bravery. I'm fabulous, thank you very much.

— Nash (@RodzNash) May 26, 2016

Hey, everyone involved in @mebeforeyou: I'm a disabled woman and I #LiveBoldly by embracing my life as it is and accepting myself as I am.

— Emily Ladau (@emily_ladau) May 23, 2016

In a 2013 interview with Woman Around Town referenced by E! News, Moyes previously said she wasn’t trying to take a side in the debate over assisted suicide. “I think the one thing I do believe is that we shouldn’t judge someone else if we haven’t stood in their shoes,” she said.

Summary: The film starring Emilia Clarke and Sam Claflin portrays a man paralyzed by an accident


David Cameron, chillaxing with his wife Samantha in Cornwall, presumably thought he was safe from a shower of excrement – at least until PMQs begins again in September. But the unlucky PM chose the wrong moment to bodyboard with his wife Samantha, as the surf was riven with diluted sewage.

South West Water confirmed to the Times that sewage was pumped into the sea on Sunday morning and on Wednesday afternoon off Polzeath beach, where the Camerons have holidayed every year since 2010. The couple were photographed bodyboarding for about an hour on Monday and Tuesday.

Campaign group Surfers Against Sewage issues alerts to warn people against entering the water because of the risk of infection. Untreated sewage is pumped into the sea as an emergency measure when heavy rain might cause the water to back into people’s homes.

David Smith, campaign manager for SAS, told the paper: “If the Camerons were swimming within the time frames of a spillage they might well be at risk. There could be anything from a small health risk such as skin, eye, ear, or throat infections to much more serious conditions such as E.coli or hepatitis, which can be present within raw sewage.”

In pictures of the pair, a drenched Cameron appears to have his mouth firmly closed. But Smith said the average surfer ingests 200ml of seawater for every surf, even if they mean to avoid it. “If surfers are using polluted waters the chance of them becoming ill raises significantly,” he said.

Cameron is no stranger to holiday health hiccups. Earlier this month, the PM was treated for an ear infection called otitis – known as swimmer’s ear – which he picked up surfing in Portugal. Last year, in Lanzarote, he was stung by a jellyfish.

Summary: South West Water confirms sewage was pumped into sea off Polzeath beach in Cornwall, where PM and his wife have holidayed every year since 2010


Bob Gunton is a character actor with 125 credits to his name, including several seasons of "24" and "Desperate Housewives" and a host of movie roles in films such as the Oscar-winning "Argo." Vaguely familiar faces like his are common in the Los Angeles area where he lives, and nobody pays much attention. Many of his roles have been forgotten.

But every day, the 68-year-old actor says, he hears the whispers—from cabdrivers, waiters, the new bag boy at his neighborhood supermarket: "That's the warden in 'Shawshank.' "

He also still gets residual payments—not huge, but steady, close to six figures by the film's 10th anniversary in 2004. Since then, he has continued to get "a very substantial income" long past the age when residuals usually dry up.

"I suspect my daughter, years from now, will still be getting checks," he said.

"Shawshank" was an underwhelming box-office performer when it hit theaters 20 years ago this September, but then it began to redeem itself, finding an audience on home video and later becoming a fixture on cable TV.

The film has taken a near-mystical hold on viewers that shows no sign of abating. Steven Spielberg once told the film's writer-director Frank Darabont that he had made "a chewing-gum movie—if you step on it, it sticks to your shoe," says Mr. Darabont, who went on to create "The Walking Dead" for AMC.

The movie's enduring popularity manifests itself in ways big and small. "Shawshank" for years has been rated by users of imdb.com as the best movie of all time (the first two "Godfather" films are second and third). On a Facebook page dedicated to the film, fans show off tattoos of quotes, sites and the rock hammer Andy, played by Tim Robbins, used to tunnel out of prison. Type "370,000" into a Google search and the site auto-completes it with "in 1966." Andy escapes in 1966 with $370,000 of the warden's ill-gotten gains. The small Ohio city where it was filmed is a tourist attraction.

In the days when videocassettes mattered, "Shawshank" was the top rental of 1995. On television, as cable grew, it has consistently been among the most-aired movies.

In a shifting Hollywood landscape, film libraries increasingly are the lifeblood of studios. "Shawshank's" enduring appeal on television has made it more important than ever—a reliable annuity to help smooth the inevitable bumps in a hit-or-miss box-office business. When studios sell a package of films—many of them stinkers—a "Shawshank" acts as a much-needed locomotive to drag the others behind it.

"It's an incredible moneymaking asset that continues to resonate with viewers," said Jeff Baker, executive vice president and general manager of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment theatrical catalog.

Warner Bros. wouldn't say how much money it has gleaned from "Shawshank," one of 6,000 feature films in a library that last year helped generate $1.5 billion in licensing fees from television, plus an additional $2.2 billion from home video and electronic delivery, according to SEC filings. But it's on the shortlist of films including "The Wizard of Oz," "A Christmas Story" and "Caddyshack" that drive much of the library's value, current and former Warner Bros. executives say.

"Shawshank" was adapted from a novella, "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption" by Stephen King, who sold the rights to then-unknown director Frank Darabont in the late 1980s for $5,000. When he wrote the script several years later, it circulated quickly through Hollywood.

Martin Shafer, a co-founder of Castle Rock Entertainment, was at an airport when he got a call from a colleague. "She said, 'You've got to read this script right away. This story pays off like a slot machine,'" Mr. Shafer recalls.

Castle Rock, which took its name from one of Mr. King's fictional settings, was interested and executives there reached a deal with Mr. Darabont. But when studio co-founder Rob Reiner read the script, he broached the idea of directing it himself. He'd already directed films based on Mr. King's work, "Stand By Me" and "Misery," and he'd just made "A Few Good Men" with Tom Cruise and was looking to team up with the actor on a new project. So Castle Rock offered Mr. Darabont a "pay-and-play" deal under which he would get a few million dollars and a guarantee to direct another movie, if he agreed to turn "Shawshank" over to Mr. Reiner. "We were making [Mr. Darabont] a multimillionaire," Mr. Shafer said.

Mr. Darabont said he took a night to think about it. "But it was never an option," he said. "Most of it boils down to, 'Why are we here?' That was a passion I was very determined to pursue and not just sell to the highest bidder."

Mr. Darabont cast Mr. Robbins as Andy Dufresne, a banker who is wrongly sent to prison for the murder of his wife and her lover, and Morgan Freeman as Red, an omniscient lifer who befriends Andy on the inside. In the book, he is a redheaded Irishman.

Mr. King recalls: "I said, 'Frank, at that time there were like 16 black men in the state of Maine, and you still want this guy to be black?'"

Mr. Darabont chose the Ohio State Reformatory in Mansfield to serve as the fictional "Shawshank" prison, so the cast gathered there in the summer of 1993 to start filming. The prison, which had been closed a few years earlier due to inhumane conditions, was "one of the creepiest places I've ever been in," said William Sadler, who played the dimwitted inmate Heywood.

Despite the grim surroundings, the actors sensed they were part of something big. During rehearsal, "We were joking around and looking at each other in joyful wonder that we all ended up in this movie," said Mr. Gunton, who played the sadistic Warden Norton.

Then it came out and nobody seemed to notice. Though the film received mostly positive reviews (some complained it was too long and corny), it brought in just $18 million at the box office. "Shawshank's" participants cite a variety of reasons for the film's early struggles, including a confusing title with religious connotations, no female roles and competition from the year's two megahits, "Forrest Gump" ($330 million in domestic box-office) and "Pulp Fiction" ($108 million).

"Shawshank" only began to get moviegoers' attention after the Oscars, where it received seven nominations (but won no awards) and promptly was rereleased in theaters. The second run grossed an additional $10 million and primed it for its debut on home video, which at the time was still a robust revenue source.

If Andy Dufresne was the movie's on-screen hero, off screen it was Ted Turner, whose Turner Broadcasting System had acquired Castle Rock in 1993. His TNT channel took the cable-broadcast rights to the film in 1997 and made "Shawshank" an anchor of its "New Classics" campaign.

Over the next few years, TNT and other Turner channels ensured that "Shawshank" never again would suffer from a lack of exposure. "Mr. Turner, bless his heart, chose to show the movie every five minutes," Mr. Darabont said.

"Shawshank" was becoming that priceless entertainment property—a repeater. Viewers watched it again and again. Those who initially may have been turned off by the idea of a prison drama born out of a wrongful conviction were drawn in by likable characters who inhabit a world where the true horrors of prison are left largely to the imagination. The movie's wholly satisfying conclusion—a universal fantasy—gives people hope.

"It took a while," said Mr. King. "It was like that song, 'On the Dark Side' [by John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown band, 1983]. "All at once, after a period of time, it became a big thing. So it wasn't like a Harry Potter thing that goes to the theater and—boom. In that sense, I think it was like 'Casablanca.' It's one of those movies that we think of when we think of that iconic American movie experience."

Mr. Sadler, like his co-star Mr. Gunton, says he can't go a day without someone mentioning the film. And yet when it comes on? "I get stuck on it like everybody else," he said.

In Mansfield in north-central Ohio, tourism officials five years ago established a tour to capitalize on what had become the area's biggest draw. The prison, courthouse and oak tree where Andy leaves money for Red are among 14 stops on the Shawshank Trail, which one weekend last summer drew about 6,000 people.

"Shawshank's" last 20 years offer a guided tour through the myriad and evolving revenue streams of the entertainment business. After grossing $28 million at the box office in North America and another $30 million overseas, it went on to the video rental market and by the end had made about $80 million in sales, Warner Bros' Mr. Baker said. Television licensing fees to date likely have surpassed U.S. box-office receipts, according to a person familiar with the studio's finances.

As a general rule, studios pocket about half of box-office revenue (less than that overseas), two-thirds of home entertainment sales, and almost all of TV licensing revenue. Based on those margins, "Shawshank" has brought in more than $100 million.

"Shawshank is the quintessential catalog movie," said Tom McGrath, a veteran studio executive who spent more than a decade at Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures.

As viewers watch movies in new ways—streaming on Netflix and other services on different devices—top-tier library films get new customers. Long term, that's good news for studios in a world where DVDs are disappearing. In the short term, studios are still treading carefully into new technologies, in part because there is "some debate over how to know what some of this stuff is worth, digitally," according to Rich Greenfield, a BTIG analyst. "Shawshank" isn't available to stream on Netflix, like other valuable properties.

On cable, "Shawshank" is at an age when the licensing value of many films diminishes, but its strength hasn't wavered. "Shawshank" and other films are now being licensed for shorter periods to a bigger and hungrier universe of distributors. "Shawshank" has aired on 15 basic cable networks since 1997, including six in the most recent season, according to Warner Bros. Last year, it filled 151 hours of airtime on basic cable, tied with "Scarface" and behind only "Mrs. Doubtfire," according to research firm IHS. "Shawshank," despite its virtually all-male cast, was the most-watched movie on Oprah Winfrey's OWN network in the latest season and in the top 15% of movies among adults 18-49 on Spike, Up, Sundance and Lifetime.

The movie's profits to date may sound small in a world where some films gross $100 million in a single weekend. But such figures only begin to show a movie like "Shawshank"'s long-term importance for a studio's financial picture. That's why there are six big studios: Smaller ventures that lack a reservoir of films have trouble surviving flops.

"Libraries are the basic profit engines," said Edward Jay Epstein, author of "The Hollywood Economist: The Hidden Financial Reality Behind the Movies." "When you license a movie from your library, the money goes directly to your bottom line," he says.

Films like "Shawshank" pad their studios' bottom lines in less-direct ways, too. Studios generally license movies in packages, sometimes bundling one or a small number of hits with dozens of lesser films. So-called "package leaders" such as "Shawshank" can give studios leverage in negotiations with licensees, and prop up the weaker films in the catalog.

"You say [to a cable executive], 'I can give you 'Shawshank' and their eyes light up," a former distribution executive at Warner Bros. said. "You don't market it. You don't spend any money pushing it."

Mr. King never cashed the $5,000 check Mr. Darabont sent him for the right to turn his story into a movie. Years after "Shawshank" came out, the author got the check framed and mailed it back to the director with a note inscribed: "In case you ever need bail money. Love, Steve."

Write to Russell Adams at russell.adams@wsj.com

Summary: Twenty years after an unremarkable opening, 'The Shawshank Redemption' still holds a powerful grip on viewers. How one of Hollywood's great second acts keeps making money.


Jeremy Corbyn has triggered a fresh debate in the Labour party with comments in an interview in which he appeared to suggest reinstating clause IV of the party’s constitution.

His spokesman subsequently denied the Labour leadership frontrunner wanted a return to “the old clause IV” and that he did not want “a big ‘moment’ such as that”. Why has it been such a totemic issue for the party and why was it such a big moment for the modern Labour party when Tony Blair ditched clause IV in an attempt to increase appeal among middle-class voters?

This article historically refers to part of the 1918 text of the UK Labour party’s written constitution, which had set out the aims and values of the party. For the first time, the party officially stated its socialist element in an official document.

The original version of clause IV of Labour’s constitution – drafted in November 1917 by Sidney Webb, the co-founder of the London School of Economics and early member of the Fabian Society – was adopted by the party in 1918.

To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.

This clause was seen by by supporters as a straightforward commitment to nationalisation or the “common ownership”, yet became a point of controversy later in 20th-century Britain.

Related: Jeremy Corbyn denies he would bring back Labour's nationalising clause IV

The commitment to organise and maintain a political Labour party in parliament and in the country, as well as promoting the “political, social and economic emancipation of the people” were among other clauses in the text.

The reason why clause IV was historically noteworthy was because it was seen as the party’s commitment to socialism. Press at the time wrote of how significant the new constitution of the post-war political party was. In an article in the Manchester Guardian, it was said this was the first time a party had declared it’s “definitely socialistic” principles.

Yet the belief in this core principle began to be challenged within the party. After losing the 1959 general election, and in the era of the cold war, Hugh Gaitskell, the then Labour leader, thought public opposition to nationalisation had led to the party’s poor performance. He proposed to amend clause IV.

The left fought back, however, and defeated moves for change: symbolically, in fact, it was agreed that the clause was to be included on party membership cards.

Factors such as the economic crisis of the 70s, defeats suffered by the trade union movement, and the decline in influence of the British Communist party, led to a strengthening in the position of Labour party members who were opposed to Marxist ideology.

This time-honoured commitment to mass nationalisation was overhauled 20 years ago when Tony Blair, then Labour leader, won a controversial vote to amend clause IV.

The vote, held at the Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, where the original clause had been adopted in 1918, marked a momentous victory for Blair and the New Labour project.

Winning this vote among members was seen to be a green light for the Labour leader to modernise the party, making it more attractive to “middle England” ahead of the 1997 general election.

Let no one say radical politics is dead. Today a new Labour party is being born.

For those on the leftwing of the party, however, the vote only confirmed how willing Labour was to abandon its socialist past to get elected. At the time, the Defend Clause IV campaign said: “There is little in Blair’s proposed new clause to which Liberal Democrats or even many Tories could not subscribe.”

In the amended, and current, values the constitution of the Labour party states that it is a democratic socialist party that believes “power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few”.

Its text crucially now states that the party is committed to a “dynamic economy”, with the new clause IV stating that:

Labour will work in pursuit of these aims, with trade unions, co-operative societies and other affiliated organisations and also with voluntary organisations, consumer groups and other representative bodies.

This therefore signalled the shift in Labour’s values. In its 1996 manifesto New Labour, New Life For Britain, the party set out its “third way” or centrist approach to policies.

It was repackaged as newly reformed party, which had adopted a red rose as its logo in 1986, that had altered clause IV and now endorsed market economics. Many political commentators see this ideological shift as key to Labour’s successive electoral victories from 1997 to 2010.

Although the abolition of clause IV had seemed to signify a pragmatic realisation that mass nationalisation had to be consigned to the annals of British history, this was not shared by some on Labour’s left.

Corbyn suggested in an interview with the Independent on Sunday, that he could consider bringing back the original clause IV as part of a commitment to take some “necessary things” into public ownership. Asked if he wanted to restore the clause to the party’s constitution, he said:

I think we should talk about what the objectives of the party are, whether that’s restoring the clause IV as it was originally written or it’s a different one, but I think we shouldn’t shy away from public participation, public investment in industry and public control of the railways.

I’m interested in the idea that we have a more inclusive, clearer set of objectives. I would want us to have a set of objectives which does include public ownership of some necessary things such as rail.

But a spokesman later clarified his position, maintaining that Corbyn was not saying he wanted a return to “the old clause IV” and that he did not want “a big ‘moment’ such as that”.

“His leadership would be the opposite of top-down changes,” the spokesperson said. “He says we need some forms of public ownership in some cases, such as rail, on which matter Labour needs to reflect more closely the views of the majority of the public.”

Summary: Jeremy Corbyn has reignited debate over ‘common ownership’ clause that was a key element of party’s socialist identity until Tony Blair removed it


Editor’s Note: Earlier this week, the New York Times published an article detailing a sexual harassment suit filed against Bridgewater Associates, which runs the world’s largest hedge fund. The suit was eventually pulled, but government authorities are looking into the claims anyway. In early 2009, Fortune profiled Bridgewater, which was getting noticed for its ability to do well even during the financial crisis, and its founder Ray Dalio. Below is one of the first stories to get an inside look at Bridgewater’s odd culture, and Dalio’s list of principles.

IS THE CURRENT DOWNTURN merely a severe slump, or are we facing a second coming of the Great Depression? That’s the question everyone is asking these days. But Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates and manager of what is now the world‘s biggest hedge fund, has been preparing to answer it for eight years. In 2001 he had his investment team build a “depression gauge” into the firm’s computer system, line by line in the code, to adjust the portfolio’s strategy and risk profile if the economy ever entered a massive deleveraging period—the kind of multiyear process that ricocheted through the world economy in the 1930s and that has eviscerated markets periodically through the ages. On Sept. 30 of last year, just a couple of weeks after the failure of Lehman Brothers, Dalio logged into his system and saw that the computer had flipped the switch. Bridgewater’s black box is now operating on high alert.

Yet even as he is preparing his clients to hunker down for something different and more challenging than a typical recession, Dalio still expects his fund to thrive. Because his approach doesn’t depend on the direction of any particular market, he explains matter-of-factly, there is no reason that he shouldn’t continue to find as many good investment opportunities as he always has. Considering what he sees coming, that’s a pretty bold statement.

In normal times we might be writing about Ray Dalio, 59, simply because he’s one of the world‘s most successful investors. Since starting Bridgewater Associates out of an extra bedroom in his Upper East Side Manhattan apartment in 1975, Dalio (pronounced Dally-o) has built the firm into a powerhouse managing some $80 billion. With a personal fortune estimated at more than $4 billion, he ranks as one of the wealthiest residents even in money-soaked Greenwich, Conn. More impressively, for the past 18 years his flagship hedge fund, Pure Alpha, which now holds more than $38 billion, has averaged an annual return of 15% before fees—gliding through the Asian flu of the 1990s, the dotcom implosion, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the current worldwide financial crisis without ever suffering an annual loss greater than 2%. Last year, when 70% of hedge funds lost money and the average fund fell 18%, Pure Alpha generated a gross return of 14%.

But these are not normal times. And what makes Dalio compelling is not just his track record but the way he goes about making money, and the rigorous analysis he applies to understanding markets, organizations, the economy, and life.

Does Dalio think of himself as one of the world‘s great investors? “No,” he says, shaking his head, visibly agitated. “First of all, I don’t know what the definition is of ‘one of the great investors.’ It’s a totally irrelevant question. I have the fear of messing up. And that fear drives me to ask, ‘Well, could this thing happen? Could that thing happen? If it happened in Japan, how do I know it won’t happen to me?'”

Wise Men: Bob Prince, left, and Grego Jensen help Dalio develop Bridgewater’s strategies.Photograph by Ben Baker

Dalio describes himself as a “hyperrealist,” in the sense that he is driven to understand the processes that govern the way the world really works, without bringing subjective value judgments into the equation. “I think the thing that makes him different is an intolerance for the inadequate answer,” says Bob Prince, 50, Bridgewater’s co-chief investment officer, who’s been with the firm since 1986. “He’ll just keep peeling back layer after layer to get at the essential truth.” In every activity in his life—from managing his firm to stalking a wart hog on a bow-hunting trip—Dalio believes in applying a carefully thought-out process to get the results he wants. That’s especially true in making investment decisions. “I’m very big on having clarified principles,” he says. “I don’t believe in being reactive. You can’t do that in the markets effectively. I can’t. I need perspective. I need a game plan.” To develop one, he stress-tests strategies through computer simulation across time and around the world to make sure that they’re “timeless and universal.” It’s all about cautious—and highly educated—wagering on probabilities.

During the long boom, many hedge fund managers earned billions on big leveraged bets that stocks would rise; later, a handful made fortunes by anticipating the bust. That not Dalio’s style. (In fact, he hates being called a hedge fund manager.) For one thing, he doesn’t magnify his bets with a lot of borrowed money—his leverage ratio is about 4 to 1, far less than other investors have used. Like fellow quant-minded managers D.E. Shaw or Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies, Dalio translates his insights into algorithms and then has a powerful computer system scour dozens of markets around the world looking for mispriced assets and other opportunities. Rather than focusing only on stocks and searching for Peter Lynch’s proverbial “10-bagger,” Dalio and his computers concentrate heavily on the currency and fixed-income markets, grinding out consistent singles, doubles, and occasional triples. That approach, as we’ve seen, can be very rewarding.

BRIDGEWATER’S MAIN OFFICE IS an unobtrusive, three-story stone and glass building that sits on 22 acres of heavily wooded land in Westport, Conn., some 20 miles up the coast from Greenwich. The firm has added space in three other buildings around the area as the explosive growth in its assets under management—averaging more than 40% annually for the past 10 years—has necessitated a similar investment in new employees and technological capacity. Since 2000 its headcount has grown from just under 100 to about 800, with more than 100 people in its client services division alone.

Unlike a typical hedge fund, Bridgewater does not manage money for wealthy individuals. Rather, it works only with large institutions like pension funds and sovereign wealth funds. Right now the firm has 270 clients, about half in the U.S. and half overseas. Like a standard hedge fund, it charges a management fee of 2% of assets and 20% of profits.

But its relationship with its investors consists of much more than taking a cut of their money. Bridgewater’s army of analysts provides clients with a stream of research. “I love their daily economic report,” says Loews Corp. CEO Jim Tisch. “For me it’s a must-read.” And the analysts are always on call to perform custom jobs or offer a portfolio critique—even of allocations to other hedge funds. “I view them more as a partner than a vendor,” says John Lane, the director of Eastman Kodak’s $7.5 billion pension portfolio, which has had money with the firm since the late 1980s. “We don’t make a major change here in strategy without calling Bridgewater to get their view.”

The money-management industry has been battered by scandal and failures lately, but Lane has complete confidence in Bridgewater. “Of all the investment firms we work with,” he says, “they’re the most trusted.” Asked head-on about the trust issue, Dalio points out that outside custodians hold customers’ money and that his institutional clients aggressively audit Bridgewater’s operations.

Dalio, a sturdy six-footer who favors open-collar cotton shirts and corduroys when he’s not meeting with clients, works out of an unostentatious office brimming with photos of his wife and four children and has a view of the Saugatuck River, which flows through the property. The rustic feel of his surroundings pleases him. A member of the board of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, he’s an avid fisherman and bow hunter who has gone after everything from Cape buffaloes to wild boars. He says that his attraction to outdoor activities—he also enjoys snowboarding—is primarily a manifestation of his appreciation for the beauty and sophistication of nature. By comparison, he says, “anything that man sees or does is overly simplistic.”

To maintain his mental energy and creativity, Dalio meditates about five times a week for 20 minutes, a practice he says he adopted when “the Beatles started doing it in 1968.” He is also a rabid music fan with omnivorous tastes. He keeps a box at the opera in New York City, makes an annual trek to New Orleans for Jazzfest, regularly goes salsa dancing with his wife, and has a passion for the blues.

Like many billionaire money managers, Dalio has his own charitable foundation. For the past three years, he’s funded newspaper and radio ads supporting a campaign called “Let’s Redefine Christmas,” which challenged people to give donations to charities as gifts instead of indulging in the holiday ritual of conspicuous consumption.

Although Dalio says he is not a particularly big reader, these days his desk is piled high with some 20-odd books on economic debacles, such as Essays on the Great Depression by Ben Bernanke and The Great Crash of 1929 by John Kenneth Galbraith. Inside each are Post-it notes and hand-scribbled thoughts in the margins. He also keeps close at hand a binder he’s put together with detailed, 100-page timelines of the four major deleveraging episodes of the past century—the hyperinflation of the Weimar Republic in the 1920s, the worldwide crash during the Great Depression in the 1930s, the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, and Japan’s lost decade of the 1990s. He says the timelines provide “a virtual experience of what it would be like to trade through each scenario.”

Out of those four historical examples, Dalio says that our current situation most closely resembles the Great Depression because of the global breadth of the problems. But he doesn’t like to use the term “depression.” He thinks it’s too scary, evoking as it does images of hobos and Hoovervilles, and distracts people from focusing on the mechanics of what is going on. He prefers to use a term he coined: “D-process.”

Most people, says Dalio, think that a depression is simply a really, really bad recession. But in reality, the two are distinct, naturally occurring events. A recession is a contraction in real GDP brought on by a central bank tightening monetary policy, usually to control inflation, and ends when the central bank eases. But a D-process occurs when an economy has an unsustainably high debt burden and monetary policy ceases to be effective, usually because interest rates are close to zero, and the central bank has no way to stimulate the economy. To compensate, the value of debt must be written down (risking deflation) or the central bank must print money (a trigger of inflation), or some combination of both.

In recent years the level of debt as a percentage of GDP in the U.S. has skyrocketed past previous highs last seen in the early 1930s. And the Federal Reserve’s benchmark rate is now hovering just above zero. To Dalio, therefore, it’s clear that a D-process is under way. “It seems very likely that stocks will get materially cheaper,” he says. “We have to go through an important debt restructuring process, and a lot of assets are going to be for sale, huge numbers of assets. And there’s going to be a shortage of buyers.”

“I have the fear of messing up,” says Dalio. “And that fear drives me to ask, ‘Well, could this thing happen? Could that thing happen? If it happened in Japan, how do I know it won’t happen to me?'”

“The thing that makes him different is an intolerance for the inadequate answer,” says Bob Prince, who’s been with the firm since 1986. “He’ll just keep peeling back layer after layer to get at the essential truth.”

Discussing Bridgewater’s culture of transparency and intellectual conflict, one former employee says, “It’s either a cult with mind control or the happiest place on earth, depending on whether you buy into it.”

Even investors in most hedge funds won’t be immune. According to research by Bridgewater, the hedge fund industry in aggregate is 75% correlated to the S&P 500, an issue on which Dalio has been sounding an alarm for a couple of years now. “Too many people have a systematic bias toward positive economic growth,” he says. “I think that what we’re going to probably have is an economy that’s going to get worse, with most people positioned for it to be better.” By the end of the D-process, he expects that the reverse may well be the case.

DALIO GREW UP IN SUBURBAN Long Island, N.Y., the only child of a jazz musician and a homemaker. Unlike his father, who played clarinet, piccolo, flute, and sax, Dalio never had the patience to learn an instrument. As a boy in the early 1960s, he caddied at a nearby golf course. The stock market was booming at the time and, at age 12, Dalio heard enough hot tips that he decided he wanted to get in on the action, so he went to see his father’s broker. When his first purchase, Northeast Airlines, took off, he was hooked.

After attending Long Island University, he got an MBA at Harvard, spent a year as the director of commodities trading at brokerage Dominick & Dominick, and ended up working under Sandy Weill at CBWL Hayden Stone, where his job was to help businesses hedge their market risks using futures. After a year he struck out on his own as a consultant, helping companies hedge interest rate and currency risk. On the side, he invested his own money and began to accumulate trading “decision rules”—at first jotted down on notebooks, later stored on computers—that could be back-tested to see whether they worked in different eras and markets. In the mid-1980s, he parlayed his reputation for quality research into a chance to manage $5 million of fixed-income money for the World Bank, and produced spectacular returns. He launched his hedge fund portfolio in 1990 with money from Loews Corp. and Kodak.

It’s no accident that Bridgewater’s flagship fund is called Pure Alpha. The name reflects Dalio’s commitment to an approach to investing—”portable alpha,” or the separation of so-called alpha and beta—that was innovative when he started but is commonplace today in the wonkier corridors of Wall Street. “Ray Dalio recognized that the traditional model of portfolio construction was too constrained,” says Angelo Calvello, a former executive at State Street Global Advisers and Man Investments and the author of a number of publications on portable alpha. “He really changed the way that people thought about investing and allocating risk.”

In investing terms, beta is the passive return that a portfolio might get from the ups and downs of a benchmark such as the S&P 500 stock index. Alpha is the measure of a manager’s return, with the same risk, in excess of the beta. For his own fund, Dalio devised an “alpha overlay” approach that allowed him to allocate a certain amount of capital to replicate an investor’s chosen benchmark and then roam free among other asset classes looking for the best possible “alpha streams,” or return opportunities. It was the perfect way to employ the trading formulas he had been accumulating over the years.

Then, Dalio says without irony, he discovered the holy grail of investing, “by which I mean that if you find this thing you will be rich and successful in investing.” This grail is not, unfortunately, a talisman that a regular person might stumble on, but a formula: 15 or more uncorrelated return streams, either betas or alphas. According to Dalio, such a portfolio reduces risk by 80%. The tricky part, of course, is finding a large number of reliable, uncorrelated, moneymaking sources of alpha in the first place. (If it were easy, everyone would do it). And it requires venturing far beyond the bounds of equities. Today, Bridgewater’s computers scan the world for opportunities in roughly 100 different categories, ranging from directional bets on the price of industrial metals to relative bets on pairs of emerging market countries’ interest rates. Having the fund so widely diversified reduces the risk of a major blowup—and it limits the impact that Pure Alpha can have on any one market.

Bridgewater’s confidence in the Pure Alpha system is so great that a couple of years ago Dalio did something rare on Wall Street—turn away money. By the end of 2005, Dalio and his team felt that they were reaching the limits of their investment capacity. They decided it was time to stop taking new accounts and focus exclusively on their best strategy. Much of the money they were managing was segregated into portfolios for, say, global bond exposure using a more traditional approach, rather than Pure Alpha. So they gave their clients the opportunity to either transfer their money to Pure Alpha or withdraw it, if the portable alpha approach didn’t fit their institutional mandate.

In the end Bridgewater did lose a few clients but created room to add more money from its existing ones. These days, in addition to the $38.6 billion in the Pure Alpha fund, Bridgewater has $17.9 billion in a portfolio called All-Weather, which Dalio originally created for his family trust. All-Weather is a “passive” fund designed to provide a long-term return comparable to that of a 60/40 mix of stocks and bonds, but with less risk (last year it was down 20%). For investors willing to take more risk, there is also a Pure Alpha II fund that makes the exact same bets as the flagship but with half again as much volatility.

A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, DALIO surveyed his rapidly growing firm and decided that he needed to codify his value system so that there would be a model for working and managing the Bridgewater way. So he sat down to write an outline of his principles. The result is an extraordinary 62-page document that every employee is required to study. (Sample tidbit: “At Bridgewater people have to value getting at the truth so badly that they are willing to humiliate themselves to get it.”)

“If you took five organizational psychologists, locked them in a room, and told them to create the perfect blueprint for a corporate culture, this is about what they would come up with,” says Bob Eichinger, a retired consultant who has spent five decades working with companies on how to manage talent and now works part-time for Bridgewater. “He’s trying to design a culture in which people with talent have the freedom to perform.”

The result of that design feels pretty radical compared with the typical corporate environment. In keeping with his identity as a hyperrealist, Dalio is committed to total transparency. So, for instance, every meeting is taped and kept on file. Blunt and frequent feedback is required, including “drill-down” sessions that probe into why employees failed at tasks. Managers aren’t allowed to evaluate an employee’s performance unless he or she is present. Because Dalio believes mistakes are valuable learning tools, every time something goes wrong employees are required to file a memo in the so-called Issues Log. And because Dalio is passionate about the meritocracy of ideas, subordinates are encouraged to argue with their superiors—and the superiors are required to encourage it. “We hate egos,” he says.

If young employees—and loads of recent Ivy League grads with 99th-percentile SAT scores roam the halls—need a reminder of the potential opportunity afforded by that meritocracy, they need look no further than Greg Jensen, 34, the head of research and the third voice, along with Dalio and Prince, in the firm’s weekly investment strategy meetings. Jensen started at Bridgewater as an intern directly out of Dartmouth and rose quickly through the ranks. “I love that your contribution here gets evaluated on a logical, principled basis rather than through the prism of a power base,” he says.

Not surprisingly, the intense culture is not for everybody. “It’s either a cult with mind control or the happiest place on earth, depending on whether you buy into it,” says one former employee. Even some happy current employees say that there was an initial adjustment period and admitted that aggressively candid feedback wasn’t always fun. But several spoke of how empowering such an open approach can be, and a few even offered testimonials for how embracing a policy of radical clarity had improved their personal lives.

More to the point, perhaps, is the fact that Dalio’s system gives him the results he’s looking for. He says he is perfectly comfortable having his assertions challenged at all times. In fact, he craves it. “I draw my conclusions,” he says, “and I say, ‘Please shoot holes in this. Tell me where I’m wrong.’ People tend to think that my success, or whatever you want to call it, has been because I’m a really good decision-maker. I think it is actually because I’m less confident in making decisions. So in other words, I never know anything really. Everything is a probability.”

And that’s what keeps him alert to ever-changing conditions. “If I had to make lots of long-term bets, my track record would be much worse than it is,” he says. “The beauty of my position is that I have the ability to change my mind tomorrow.”

This piece originally appeared in the March 30, 2009 issue of Fortune.

Summary: One of the first profiles of its odd culture, which has now landed the hedge fund in hot water.


WNBA superstar Elena Delle Donne -- the reigning MVP of the league -- has come out publicly for the first time ... revealing in a piece for Vogue magazine she's engaged to a woman.

E.D.D. had never addressed her sexuality in public before ... but in the Vogue piece acknowledges her fiancee Amanda Clifton ... with whom she lives.

It should be noted that Delle Donne and Clifton haven't been shy about being seen together ... regularly posing for pics on social media.

Delle Donne is currently in Rio to dominate the rest of the basketball world with Team USA and we only have one thing to say to her ...

(watch out for Zika) CONGRATS!

Summary: WNBA superstar Elena Delle Donne has come out publicly for the first time, revealing in a piece for Vogue magazine she's engaged to a woman.


Before you go, we thought you'd like these...

The week before E3 gives way two things: leaked details of new games to be announced at the show and official statements based on those leaks. We've got plenty of rumors and speculation to sift through today as two big sequels are all but confirmed to appear at E3 2016 next week. There's a lot more of these leaked stories to come, you can be sure of that. There have been so many already it's hard to count, honestly.

The first leak that broke was Ubisoft's follow-up to their massive hit Watch Dogs. Watch Dogs 2 was supposed to get a full reveal later this week, but the internet spoiled that surprise by leaking all sorts of details about the game, including that it will not not take place in Chicago like the first game, but instead in San Francisco. It also features a new protagonist, a black hacker named Marcus and its release date is now later than anticipated, April 2017. Ubisoft made the trailer available after the news broke, you can watch it above.

The other big leak today and the more surprising of the two, is a sequel to the Dead Rising series. Dead Rising 4 now has a logo, promotional art, and in-game screenshots, which for publisher Capcom will be tough to deny. The last time we saw a Dead Rising game was at E3 a few years ago, on the Microsoft's stage.

All in all, there's quite a bit of excitement surrounding E3's big kickoff, so expect even more coverage very soon!

Summary: Two of the bigger sequels that were going to be announced as surprises at E3 2016, Watch Dogs 2 and Dead Rising 4, got leaked today.


Two hundred pages into Living to Tell the Tale, I felt sure this book would be my favourite of the year. The narrative was bewitching me for all the reasons Márquez-lovers know. The extraordinary landscapes and townscapes, touched with a surrealist brush; the eye for strange, compelling details, such as clumps of anemones holding up a steam boat; the thin line, so apt for the fragility of childhood memories, between what may have been true and what may have been imagined.

Taken to the ocean for the first time, the child Gabriel looked out on "a vast extension of green water belching foam, where an entire world of drowned chickens lay floating". Round the compound of the United Fruit Company in Aracataca, his grandparents' town, "the metal fences were black with charred swallows"; inside the enclosure, women in broad-brimmed hats pruned roses with scissors of gold. In the magical inland town of Sucre, where his parents lived for a brief time in their hopelessly peripatetic lives, the church bells rang the rating of the film showing at the cinema. And when Márquez arrives as a student in Bogotá, high in the Andes, still carrying under his arm his coastal hammock tied with grass, he discovers that "rain had been falling since the beginning of the sixteenth century".

Colombia's greatest writer was born in 1927, the oldest of 11 children. His father, a dreamer, opened pharmacies in a succession of dusty towns; they did indifferently. Márquez, a precocious child, was his family's great hope. He won admission to the best schools and colleges largely (or so he tells it) by reciting from memory the poetry of Spain's Golden Age. His parents expected him to matriculate in law; he wanted only to be a writer, and broke their hearts. By the end of this volume, the first of three, he leaves Colombia to live and write abroad.

All through the book, the real and the maybe-real rub shoulders with each other. As in the author's novels and short stories, whose scenes and people are prefigured on almost every page, the world of ghosts is never far away. They walk the streets and the bedrooms, holding pewter pots, their hair braided with red ribbons, as vivid and haunting as any of the flesh-and-blood characters we meet. And this, after a time, begins to have a strange effect. It is hard to care about the people in this book other than Márquez's father, his mother and his aunts. These, in all their poverty and dignity, are beautifully described. The other players, from brothers and sisters to drinking companions to fellow journalists on newspapers all over Colombia, pass in a blur. The physical descriptions, though sharp, somehow don't catch; the character outlines seem routine and wilfully smudged by friendship. As the author grows up, moving from childhood to the business of making a career, the book – though its casual beauties and horrors still catch in the throat – becomes increasingly hard going.

Aficionados of Márquez know that his "serious" writing, as in News of a Kidnapping, can be oddly dull. As a journalist, he quickly dropped thoughts of covering crime or politics to write features and whimsical columns. But this had been his calling almost since the beginning. The small child already had a reputation "for having intrauterine memories and premonitory dreams". At the age of four he was adding fantastic details to his stories, to make the adults notice him. A little later, sickly with tonsillitis and black bile, his favourite reading was The Thousand and One Nights. It struck him then that if a man had written that genies live imprisoned in bottles, or that carpets could waft their passengers through the air, then what he had written was true. The trick was to build "a structure that was credible and fantastic at the same time but had no cracks". This dream world pervades the memoir, sometimes to the point of confusion.

Among the most striking aspects of Márquez's early life is the role assigned to women. They move in a separate, medieval world, sewing in the Hall of the Begonias or chaperoned carefully to church. Even when Márquez is a young man, they seem to hold no romantic interest for him; he prefers the skinny girls of the brothels, or the willing wives whose husbands are away at sea. One of his great defects, he admits, is "ignorance of the human heart". At the very end of the memoir, in a typical touch, he glimpses his future love in a distant doorway as he leaves Cartagena for Europe: "wearing a green dress with golden lace in that year's style, her hair cut like swallows' wings, and with the intense stillness of someone waiting for a person who will not arrive". We will have to wait for volume two to learn more.

Márquez's political life, too, is unformed here. The later champion of Sandinista Nicaragua and Communist Cuba only occasionally notices the political convulsions of his country: the murder of Gaitán, a Liberal leader, in 1948, the rioting of 1958 in Bogotá, or the Right-wing crackdown that followed. His most overtly political act is to buy a watch from a member of the Communist party. More than once in this memoir Márquez is asked who he is, and replies that he does not know yet. It is hard to judge whether this is artifice or not.

He pictures himself as a constant traveller, carrying nothing but a change of clothes and a calfskin briefcase, looted during the Bogotá riots, in which he keeps the current work-in-progress. He is always the new boy, surprising people with his writing and his intelligence. Yet he claims to be frightened of everything: of interviews, of writing, of flying, of typesetters' errors, sometimes of life in general.

By whoring, begging and chain-smoking, he forces himself through it somehow, observing its strangeness as few others can. Each object he sees arouses in him "an irresistible longing to write so I would not die".

Perhaps this character, too, is a fantasy brightened and sharpened by his pen. Or perhaps it is not for nothing that the jacket photograph – the only one in the book – shows him as a wide-eyed and terrified child.

Summary: Ann Wroe reviews Living to Tell the Tale by Gabriel García Márquez


Donald Trump lashed out at the media on Tuesday while announcing that a high-profile fundraiser he held earlier this year raised $5.6 million for veterans.

“I have never received such bad publicity for doing such a good job,” Trump said during a press conference at Trump Tower.

In January, a dispute with Fox News prompted Trump to skip a Republican debate and instead hold a the fundraiser for veterans’ in Iowa. But months later, the total amount raised and what organizations received the funds was still unclear.

I have raised/given a tremendous amount of money to our great VETERANS, and have got nothing but bad publicity for doing so. Watch!

Trump said he donated $1 million to the cause in addition to receiving donations from wealthy allies and the public. After the event, Trump frequently touted the fundraiser, but his campaign refused to disclose more information about who got the money and his campaign manager told the Washington Post the rally raised $4.5 million.

Trump said the “the press should be ashamed of themselves” and that his charitable donations to veterans were no one else’s business.

During the contentious exchange with media, Trump called one reporter “a sleaze” and said a male reporter was “a real beauty.”

And it wasn’t just reporters who found themselves in the crosshairs of Trump’s verbal attacks. After touting how quickly the Republican Party had come together following the heated primary, Trump went after conservatives who had criticized him.

“If I have a Republican who is not on my side, why should I be particularly nice to that person?” he asked.

Trump continued to knock Mitt Romney, who has been a leader in the effort to undermine his candidacy.

“I’m not a fan of Mitt Romney. Romney lost an election that he should have won,” Trump said.

He added that Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol, who is actively trying to recruit a third party candidate, is “a loser.”

Trump reiterated that he will hit back against those in his own party who jab at him. And that included New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, who was on the receiving end of a Trump tirade after not attending a rally he held in her state.

“She was not nice and I was fine, just a little bit of a jab,” Trump said. “And you think I’m going to change? I’m not changing.”

This article originally appeared on NBCNews.com.

The presidential campaign: Donald Trump


SKOPJE, Macedonia — A freakishly violent rainstorm that Macedonia’s top weather official called a “water bomb” ravaged Skopje during the weekend, collapsing streets, inundating vehicles and drowning trapped motorists and homeowners, most of them caught by surprise.

At least 21 people were killed and 77 injured in what officials described on Sunday as the worst flooding disaster in a half-century to hit Skopje, the Macedonian capital and a city of more than a half-million people in the central part of the Balkan Peninsula.

Officials said the death toll could rise because many people were still missing after the storm, which hit with shocking ferocity on Saturday night.

The police, army units and firefighters rescued more than 1,000 people from the raging water that flooded streets, buildings, houses, clinics and schools. Traffic in much of the city was paralyzed.

The Gazi Baba area, in the eastern part of Skopje, was particularly hard hit, with hundreds of homes losing power.

Underpasses throughout the city became instant lakes, completely submerging vehicles.

The National Hydrometeorological Service said it had issued a warning about an impending storm earlier on Saturday, but the intensity of the storm was a shock.

“The clouds seem to have stopped immediately and dropped the water on this very small part of Skopje, in what can be described only as a water bomb,” Oliver Romevski, the director of the service, said Sunday. “We are all shaken from this phenomenon and from what it has caused.”

Koce Trajanovski, Skopje’s mayor, who announced financial aid for the families of the dead, said many victims had been caught off guard because the rain started so rapidly on Saturday evening.

“Most of the casualties were people returning home from work or travel,” he said.

Mr. Romevski said the storm had dumped nearly four inches of rain on the Gazi Baba area, while other parts of Skopje received far less.

Heavy rain was also reported in the western Macedonia city of Tetovo.

Volunteers established a center in central Skopje on Sunday to accept donations for victims, who needed food, drinking water and hygiene supplies. The government was expected to declare a state of emergency later.

But many local residents accused the municipal authorities of an utter lack of preparedness.

Mayor Trajanovski rejected the criticism, saying that the storm was a natural catastrophe and that no system could handle such volumes of rainfall in such a short period.

Nikola Todorov, the minister of health, said the last such flooding that Skopje residents could recall was in 1962, when more than 5,000 houses were flooded.

Showers and thunderstorms were forecast to hit Skopje again on Sunday evening, and many feared they would exacerbate the crisis.

“We don’t expect showers with the same intensity as those from yesterday,” the National Hydrometeorological Service said in a statement.

“But we already have quite saturated soil,” it said, and in such situations, “even smaller rainfalls can cause problems.”

A version of this article appears in print on August 8, 2016, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: A ‘Water Bomb’ of a Storm Kills 21 in Macedonia. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe

Summary: At least 77 people were injured in a rainstorm that surprised even Macedonia’s top weather authorities with its ferocity.


It’s been more than three-and-a-half months since President Obama signed the new Social Security rules into law. More than enough time for the Social Security Administration to offer clear guidance to consumers, as well as its own employees, about the impact of these reforms will have on millions of Americans.

Yet so far, Social Security has offered nothing. Yes, the agency recently sent out two “emergency messages” to its staffers about two key elements of the new law—one about so-called deemed filings and the second about suspending benefits. (More about those issues in a moment.) But these messages simply prove my point. Just try and read them. The jargon-filled language is tough sledding, even for Social Security experts.

If you’re looking for accessible consumer information about the new rules, good luck with that. The list of help topics on the Social Security website has no references to the new laws. The FAQ for most popular topics is silent. A search for anything related to the new law, which is called the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015, yielded zero hits.

The lack of information is all the more egregious when you consider how these Social Security changes were made—suddenly, with no public discussion. No doubt the haste of those changes presented a challenge to the agency’s rule makers. But the lack of guidance leaves more questions than answers for consumers and the agency’s own claim representatives. This puts older Americans at risk of being given wrong information by Social Security staffers.

To provide clarity now, here’s a quick explanation of the two messages the agency has issued. The first involves deeming, which refers to a situation where a person is eligible for more than one benefit—usually their own retirement benefit and a spousal benefit based on their partner’s earnings record.

When a person is deemed, they must claim all benefits to which they are entitled. But this doesn’t mean they actually get multiple benefits. Instead, they receive an amount that is roughly equal to the largest of their deemed benefits. Many people aren’t aware of this formula when they file for benefits, and it can leave them with a lower lifetime benefit.

Under the old rules, deeming applied to people from the time they were first eligible to file (usually age 62) until their full retirement age, or FRA (66 right now). The new rules effectively extend deeming up until age 70 for anyone who was younger than 62 at the beginning of 2016. Older claimants are grandfathered under the new law and will not be deemed when they reach their FRA.

The second emergency message addresses the new limits on filing and suspending retirement benefits. Prior to the new rules, if you filed for your own benefit at FRA or later, and then suspended it, your spouse could file for a spousal benefit. Meanwhile, your benefit would continue to grow until age 70 through delayed retirement credits, which can increase your payout by as much as 32%.

The New Costs of Suspending

Under the new law, only people who reach FRA before April 29, 2016, will be able to file and suspend. And their spouses will only be able to file a restricted application for just their spousal benefits at FRA if they turned 62 by the beginning of this year. For everyone else, this file-and-suspend strategy will be disallowed.

While simply suspending your benefit is still allowed under the new rules, the ability to earn delayed credits may come at a steep price. As of April 30, a person who suspends his or her benefit at FRA may not receive any other benefits (such as a spousal benefit) to which they are entitled. And, during suspension, no one else can claim a benefit based on that person’s earnings record except for a former spouse.

These are very significant, complex and confusing changes about which Social Security has still not said anything to the public. I am a huge supporter of Social Security. It plays a vital and essential role in the lives of tens of millions of retirees. But these changes, and the egregious way their introduction is being managed, are just bad governance.

Philip Moeller is an expert on retirement, aging, and health. He is co-author of The New York Times bestseller, “Get What’s Yours: The Secrets to Maxing Out Your Social Security,” and is working on a companion book about Medicare. Reach him at moeller.philip@gmail.com or @PhilMoeller on Twitter.

Summary: And the agency isn't helping


Hundreds of civilians have been killed in both Syrian government and rebel attacks across the wartorn country in recent days, according to local activist groups.

More than 180 civilians have been killed across Syria since Friday, including 22 children and 23 women, the Local Coordination Committees, a grassroots network of activists, said on Sunday. Â

Scores killed across Syria in Russian backed air strikes

At least 90 people were killed on Friday, while a further 83 civilian deaths were recorded by Saturday night. MostÂ of them occurred in the Aleppo province.Â

"Even with the deadly standards of this war, these death tolls are staggering,"Â Al Jazeera's Reza Sayah, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkish side of the Syria-Turkey border, said.Â

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which records daily developments in Syria, also released figures on Sunday detailing the killing of at least 327 civilians, including 76 children and 41 women,Â in Aleppo over the past 15 days.Â

More than 100 of the 327 were reportedly killed in bombing by government warplanes, while 126 were killed in attacks by opposition fighters on government-held areas in Aleppo.

In the suburbs of the city, another 94 were killed by Syrian regime bombardments, according to the SOHR.

Zouhir al-Shimale, a local journalist in Aleppo, said the attacks have not stopped since the rebels opened the strategically important Ramosa route a week ago. Â

"The shelling on the city has intensified. The regime has been attacking the city's main roads that people have been using to get around eastern Aleppo," Shimale told Al Jazeera on Sunday.

"Yesterday, the regime usedÂ cluster bombs, which they have been using extensively recently, to attack a bus station in al-Firdous neighbourhood, whereby more than 50 civilians,Â including women and children, were attempting to leave the city. Most of them were killed."Â

Once Syria's largest city, Aleppo has been divided between regime forces in the western part of the city and rebel groups in the east, for four years.

Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad imposed a weeks-long siege on the rebel-held eastern half of the city last month, until opposition forces announced they had broken the siege a week ago.Â

READ MORE: Syrian opposition says rebels break siege

"It was one week ago today, when rebel forces broke through the government siege of Aleppo. These rising death tolls could be an indication of the government fighting back and retaliating," Al Jazeera's Sayah said.Â

Elsewhere, opposition activists in the rebel-held town of Daraya on the suburbs of Damascus accused the Syrian government of dropping barrel bombs containing napalm - an incendiary weapon made up of both fuel and a gel substance.

Syriaâs war: Daraya rebels accuse government of napalm attack

According to opposition activists, "government forces and helicopters have dropped about 12 [barrel bombs] today and another 24 yesterday", killing one person and injuring others, Sayah said on Sunday.

The use of napalm against civilian targets, and in areas densely populated with civilians, has beenÂ prohibited by theÂ United Nations. The chemical is very flammable and difficult to remove from the skin.Â

"Both sides have used chemical weapons, according to rights groups," said Sayah.Â

"Unfortunately no one has been held accountable - which probably has to do with the difficulty of getting access to these areas."

READ MORE: Syria's civil war - suspected chemical attack in AleppoÂ

Approximately 8,000 Syrian civilians are living in Daraya, which has been under siege by government forces since 2012.Â

The Syrian conflict, which began with peaceful protests in March 2011 against Assad, has spiralled into a multi-sided civil war.

According to UN estimates,Â more than 280,000 people have been killed in the conflict so far.Â

Source:Â Al Jazeera and agencies

Summary: Hundreds of civilians, including women and children, killed in government and rebel attacks across Syria, activists say.


Economic jitters have been dominating Brexit-related coverage and comment over the past week, with European newspapers predicting trouble ahead for the City of London and the economies of both Germany and Britain.

German paper Sueddeutsche Zeitung highlights a study by the German Institute for Economic Research, according to which Germany will be hardest hit of all European economies by Brexit.

The study says this is the result of the German economy's relative openness and dependency on trade, and predicts that the country's GDP could shrink by 0.4% as a result of the "Brexit shock".

In Poland's Rzecspospolita, Hubert Koziel believes Bank of England governor Mark Carney faces a daunting task in dealing with the economic fallout from Brexit.

"The head of the central bank must intervene when the politicians fail", it says, adding that while Mr Carney is "well-prepared" for the job, he faces the "toughest test of his career".

In Austria, Der Standard's Andreas Sator is unconvinced by the Bank of England's attempt to shore up Britain's post-Brexit economy by dropping interest rates from 0.5% to 0.25%.

He argues that the bank is unlikely to "achieve more than a placebo effect", but it is merely making a symbolic move in the hope "no-one will find out that the homeopathic pills don't work".

An article in France's Le Monde warns the City of London - which was on the whole strongly against Brexit - against consoling itself with its hopes on keeping its EU financial services passport.

The only way this could happen, London correspondent Eric Albert argues, is for Britain to accept the deal Norway has - contributing to the EU budget, acceptance of freedom of movement and the near-automatic adoption of EU directives - and adds that it is almost impossible for Theresa May to stomach this politically.

"London will inevitably lose some ground" to rival EU financial centres, he concludes.

In Spain's El Pais, Xavier Vidal-Folch bemoans the fact that negotiations resulting from the "xenophobic operation" of Brexit may result in EU migrants in Britain - and vice versa - being used as the "bargaining chips of a bad-tempered nationalism".

"Freedom is indivisible and European freedom consists of four specific freedoms - [the free movement] of goods, services, capital and people," he argues. "Only an extremist puts the rights of goods before that of their fellow citizens."

Valerio Castronovo, of the Italian paper Il Sole 24 Ore, ponders what the European Union must do to avoid Britain's referendum result from starting a "domino effect" of populism and nationalism, and believes closer integration is the key.

"The only possible way to put the EU back on track is within the context of a strong confederation, no longer weakened by national exceptions and weighed down by a bloated and invasive bureaucratic apparatus," he says.

But Hendrik Kafsack, the EU correspondent of German paper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, says the priority should be to cut the "kraken" of the European Commission down to size.

"For people on both sides of the English Channel, the European Union remains a monster of regulation," he says, and expresses exasperation at reported comments by European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker that his officials never find that something can be better dealt with on a national level.

The answer, Kafsack argues, is to implement one of the concessions David Cameron won as a condition for staying in the European Union: giving national parliaments the right to block the commission's initiatives.

BBC Monitoring reports and analyses news from TV, radio, web and print media around the world. You can follow BBC Monitoring on Twitter and Facebook.

Summary: Economic jitters dominate Brexit-related coverage this week.


NOVATO, Calif.— THROUGHOUT the Hamilton housing development in this city 29 miles north of San Francisco are reminders that this new community was built on the bones of a former Air Force base.

A flight-control tower peers over the backyard fence on one street, while a row of immense aircraft hangars, aligned in military precision, stand on the other side of a quiet, two-lane road from a row of wood-and-stucco houses. Several handsome Mission-style buildings of concrete and tile, including a chapel, an old fire station, an officer's club and a commissary, remain where they were built in the 1930's and 1940's.

Hamilton Field is now simply Hamilton, a planned 950-home residential community that has been under construction since 1997 and completed its first phase of 500 homes in December. Hamilton is unusual among closed military bases for being redeveloped largely as a residential neighborhood. Many bases are isolated, lacking in natural beauty and heavily contaminated, none of which is conducive to home building.

Marin County appeals to home buyers both for its convenient access to San Francisco and its semirural setting of rolling hills, which contrasts sharply with the density and tumult of the big city. Marin is also a militantly slow-growth community and the difficulty of home building there has created scarcity and rising housing values.

Marin County, in fact, was the most expensive housing market in the country for much of the 1990's, prior to the ascent of Silicon Valley. The median price of an existing house in Marin County in 2000 was $530,000, while the median price in Hamilton was $396,000, according to Bay Area Real Estate Systems Inc.

The Hamilton housing development, which has 480 acres, was redeveloped as a housing subdivision by the New Hamilton Partnership, made up of the Martin Group of San Francisco, the Pacific Union Company of San Francisco and Goldman Sachs. The partnership has sold lots to several builders, including Shea Homes of Livermore, Calif.; the O'Brien Group of San Mateo, Calif.; Taylor Woodrow of London; Hamilton Park L.L.C. of San Francisco; and Greystone Homes, a unit of the Lennar Corporation of Miami.

Originally, the first group of homes offered for sale at Hamilton in 1998 were priced from $260,000 to $700,000; those prices now range from $400,000 to more than $1 million.

The availability of new homes in Marin County was a selling point for Diane and Brian McKone, who paid $510,000 in 1998 for a 3,000-square-foot house with four bedrooms and two bathrooms. The builder was the O'Brien Group.

''It's very difficult to buy a home in Marin County,'' Mrs. McKone said. ''Every home we were seeing was a major fixer-upper that had to be torn down, and we did not have it in us to do that.''

MRS. McKone, 37, a homemaker, and her husband, Brian, 40, a medical consultant, and their two sons moved from San Francisco into Hamilton in mid-1999 in search of a more ''kid friendly'' environment.

The early history of the 2,200-acre Air Force base formerly known as Hamilton Field involved a game of musical chairs among different branches of the military. The Army acquired the bucolic site in 1929 and built many of the concrete structures that survive until now. Several years later, the Navy took control of part of the base.

At its height, in World War II, 20,000 servicemen lived at the Hamilton, which was known as one of the most desirable Army Air Corps bases because of the mild weather and well-built housing.

In 1948, Hamilton became a base for the newly formed United States Air Force, which it remained until it closed in 1976. Shortly after the base was closed, both the Army and Navy returned to control parts it.

Despite the nominal military presence at Hamilton, much of the base was empty and growing increasingly dilapidated. Eager to redevelop the base, the Novato City Council approved a proposal in 1988 from two local developers to build 3,550 homes and four million square feet of commercial space on the Army property.

Approval of the ambitious project jolted Novato, a city of 49,000 where only a few hundred homes are built annually. Novato voters rejected the plan in a 1989 referendum, and the original developers subsequently sold their development rights to the principals of the New Hamilton Partnership.

During this time, Hamilton's future became an inflamed political issue, and Novato was spending $1 million a year on Hamilton-related matters, either defending a series of lawsuits or holding elections on reuse proposals, according to Roderick J. Wood, the city manager.

Meanwhile, much of Hamilton fell into further disrepair while local residents argued about the base's future. By the early 1990's, ''Hamilton was a derelict property,'' Mr. Wood said. ''If it were a private property, the city would have taken a public nuisance action against it.''

In the early 1990's, the new owners contacted several of the community groups that had opposed the earlier plan to try to create consensus on a politically acceptable development proposal. ''We reached out to all the community groups and the mantra was to balance economic reality with environmental issues,'' said Peter Palmisano, a partner in the new development partnership.


08/29/2016 AT 12:15 PM EDT

thoroughly enjoyed being a guest at

The fan favorite on season 20 of

stopped by PEOPLE Now and dished on Herjavec's not-so over the top nuptials to Johnson.

"It was incredible. I'll tell ya ... You'd almost expect a little crazy – Robert is worth a lot of money," he joked. "He loves Kym to death, so you kind of expected it to be a little over the top, but it wasn't."

partner in July in front of family and friends in Los Angeles.

"It was beautiful," Galloway continued. "There was like 240 guests ... The emotions that you saw between the two of them and it was great."

Though Galloway insisted that it was over the top, he admitted that the 53-year-old groom did

, 39, with a special guest –

"Okay, so that was [over the top]," he laughed, "but than that."

Summary: Robert Herjavec and Kym Johnson tied the knot in July


The Dow Jones industrial average is closing at a record high, led by big gains in a few of its 30 components including Goldman Sachs and IBM, beating the all-time high it set in August.

Broader market measures were closing mixed Thursday as several sectors struggled, including consumer goods companies, utilities and phone companies.

Bond prices continued to fall, sending yields higher. Bond investors expect that Trump’s plans to increase spending on infrastructure while also lowering taxes will lead to stronger economic growth and possibly inflation, both of which are bad for bonds.

The Dow rose 218 points, or 1.2 percent, to 18,807.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index edged up 4 points, or 0.2 percent, to 2,167. The Nasdaq composite dropped 42 points, or 0.8 percent, to 5,208.

Summary: The Dow closed at a record high, led by big gains in a few of its 30 components including Goldman Sachs and IBM.