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Mazda just rolled out the stunning and innovative new Mazda3 right as Ford and GM bails on small cars

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Mazda 3

  • Mazda introduced the new 2019 Mazda3 at the 2018 LA Auto Show on Wednesday.
  • The Mazda3 will be available as both a sedan and a hatchback.
  • The Mazda3 is available with five different four-cylinder engines including a diesel and mild hybrid. 
  • The new Mazda3 goes on sales in early 2019. 

Mazda introduced the new 2019 Mazda3 at the 2018 LA Auto Show on Wednesday. Even as Ford and General Motors announced their plans to exit the passenger car market, Mazda has unveiled one of the most striking and innovate compact cars in recent memory. 

The fourth generation Mazda3, which is expected to go on sale in early 2019, will be available as both a sedan and four-door hatchback. 

It's the latest in a long line of modern compact Mazdas that date back to the 323 hatchback and sedan. (The Mazda 323 sedan sold as the Protege in the US.)

Mazda3Aesthetically, the Mazda3 represents the latest development in the Hiroshima, Japan-based automakers striking Kodo design language. The Mazda3 hatchback, in particular, is a direct descendant of the company's well-received Kai concept car that made the rounds at international auto shows last year. 

Power for the Mazda3 comes from a quintet of four-cylinder engines ranging from 1.5 liters in displacement to 2.5 liters. Mazda is pushing its fuel-saving SkyActiv technology to new levels with a long-awaited 1.8-liter diesel and a mild hybrid. 

Mazda3Mazda has not revealed the exact power output of any of the engines. 

The Mazda3 will be available with a choice of a six-speed manual and a six-speed automatic transmission. All-wheel-drive is also available.

Read more: Honda just unveiled a new all-American SUV to take on Ford, Nissan, and Chevy.

The new Mazda3 comes during a period of contraction for the compact car segment. Through October, compact car sales are down 13.8% in the US. The Mazda3 is down even more at 14.3%. On Monday, GM announced that it plans to kill of the Cruze compact in 2019.

Hopefully, the innovative and striking 2019 Mazda3 will inject some much need lift into the segment.  Official pricing is not yet available. 

Mazda3

SEE ALSO: Jeep just jumped into the pickup truck game to take on Ford, Chevy, and Toyota with the 'most capable mid-size truck ever'

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NOW WATCH: This LEGO Bugatti Chiron is drivable — here's what it can do


The remarkable stories behind 8 of the most iconic war photos ever taken

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Joseph Duo, a Liberian militia commander loyal to the government, exults after firing a rocket-propelled grenade at rebel forces at a key strategic bridge July 20, 2003 in Monrovia, Liberia. Government forces succeeded in forcing back rebel forces in fierce fighting on the edge of Monrovia's city center.

The first known photograph ever taken was by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826 or 1827, showing a view from a window of his home in France's Burgundy region.

In 1839, the first known photograph of a person was taken in Paris, showing a shoe shiner working on the Boulevard du Temple. 

But it wasn't until Mathew Brady, known as the father of photojournalism, and his employee, Andrew Gardner, began shooting pictures of dead American soldiers on Civil War battlefields that the medium transformed the way people saw war. 

Since then, photography has both glorified and underscored the atrocities of conflict and war. 

Here are eight of the most iconic war photographs of all-time in chronological order. 

SEE ALSO: These 8 iconic images tell the story of every US conflict from World War I to Afghanistan

1. The Dead of Antietam (1862)

After the bloody Civil War battle of Antietam, Andrew Gardner took 70 shots of the dead in a field.

It was the first time dead soldiers had been photographed on a battlefield.

When Gardner later put them on display in New York City, the horrors of the Civil War, which before had only been seen in paintings, finally became apparent to Americans.



2. Warsaw Ghetto Boy (1943)

Likely taken by a Nazi photog named Franz Konrad, this photo shows Nazis rounding up Jewish people in the Warsaw ghetto. 

The 9-year-old boy in the picture may have been Dr. Tsvi Nussbaum, who later became a doctor in New York, but the claim was never proven

In any event, as the Washington Post's Clay Harris wrote in 1978, the picture "wrenches the heart because it appears that the boy, like millions of Jews and others, is to die at the hands of the Nazis." 



3. Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima (1945)

This photo by Joe Rosenthal of the American flag being planted on Iwo Jima may be the Second World War's most iconic photo.

Fifty years after the picture was taken, the Associated Press wrote that it may be the world's most widely reproduced.

Half of the six soldiers depicted died — among 6,821 Americans — on the very same island they claimed: Franklin Sousley, Michael Strank, and Harlon Block.

Rosenthal received a Pulitzer Prize for the photo in 1945. 

 



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10 subtle signs that someone is planning to propose to you

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himym

  • Many people know when their partner is going to propose but others aren't so sure.
  • They may suddenly be more frugal.
  • They may also suddenly plan a trip. 
  • The only way to know for sure is to ask — or be surprised. 

When you and your partner have been together for long enough, it's natural to start wondering if a proposal is around the corner.

Chances are that you may have had a conversation or two about marriage before anyone pops the question, but it can still be exciting to try and spot the signs of an impending engagement.

Here are a few subtle clues that your partner is planning to propose.

They are suddenly more concerned with sticking to a budget.

Getting married can be expensive, and a big chunk of that expense is likely to come in the form of an engagement ring. Though spending gobs of money on a sparkly rock is definitely not a requirement for a happy marriage,many people feel that giving a beautiful engagement ring is a gesture of love.  

If your partner suddenly seems very concerned with sticking to a strict budget or finding ways to be frugal, it might mean they're saving up their pennies for the ring of your dreams.



Your passport is nowhere to be found.

Is your partner the type to plan a show topping proposal overseas? If so, you might want to check on the whereabouts of your passport.

As the Telegraph reported, more and more people areproposing on vacation or planning proposals that revolve around travel. A missing passport may mean that your beloved has temporarily swiped it in order to book plane tickets without your knowledge. Of course, be sure that your passport eventually turns up again before assuming there's a proposal in the works.



Your partner has started commenting on your friends' engagement rings.

According to The Knot's 2017 Jewelry & Engagement study,66% of grooms report picking out the perfect engagement ring without input from their potential fiancée. This means that your partner will likely try to get some clues from you regarding your style preferences. If your partner suddenly seems obsessed with talking about other people's engagement rings or your taste in jewelry, consider that a pretty heavy hint.



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BMW is showing off a new SUV to compete with the Audi Q7 and Mercedes-Benz GLS

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BMW X7

  • BMW's X7 SUV goes on sale in March 2019.
  • The SUV will start at $74,895 and will compete against Audi's Q7 SUV and Mercedes-Benz's GLS SUV.
  • An optional V8 engine will crank out 456 horsepower and serve up a 0-60mph time of 5.2 seconds, BMW said.
  • Driver-assistance features include lane-keep assist, adaptive cruise control, assisted parking, blind-spot detection, lane-departure warning, rear and frontal collision warning, pedestrian warning, and rear cross-traffic warning.

BMW rolled out it new 2019 X7 SUV on Wednesday at the Los Angeles Auto Show. The carmaker plans to put the three-row X7 on sale next March. The vehicle will start at $74,895 and compete against the likes of Audi's Q7 SUV and Mercedes-Benz's GLS SUV.

Two trim levels — xDrive40i and xDrive50i — will be available. The xDrive50i will offer a twin-turbocharged 4.4-liter V8 engine, while the xDrive40i will have a turbocharged 3.0-liter inline six-cylinder engine. For both, power will be sent to the all-wheel-drive system via an eight-speed transmission.

Read more: I drove a $97,000 Mercedes-AMG GLC 63 S Coupe to see if it can be an SUV and a sports car — here's the verdict

The inline six will make 335 horsepower with 330 pound-feet of torque, while the V8 will up that to 456 horsepower with 479 pound-feet of torque. According to BMW, the 0-60mph dash will consume a mere 5.2 seconds for the V8-equipped X7. Driver-assistance features will include lane-keeping assist, adaptive cruise control, assisted parking, blind-spot detection, lane-departure warning, rear and frontal collision warning, pedestrian warning, and rear cross-traffic warning.

The X7 will have a maximum 90.4 cubic feet of storage capacity when the third row of seats is not occupied.

The big bimmer will go up against other seven-seat luxury SUVs in the segment and occupy the flagship position in BMW's SUV fleet, above the X3 and the X5. It will be produced at the same plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina that makes the those smaller SUVs, as well as the X4 and the X6.

SEE ALSO: Audi just revealed a new electric concept car that puts Tesla's Model S to shame

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Senate votes in favor of a key resolution to end US support of Saudi Arabia in Yemen

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Bernie Sanders

  • The Senate on Wednesday advanced a resolution to end US support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.
  • The resolution, which calls on the president to remove most US troops stationed in Yemen, passed 63 to 37. 
  • Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) led the push for the resolution, alongside Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).
  • All Senate Democrats voted in favor of the resolution
  • Calls for strong action against Saudi Arabia and its leadership have grown louder since the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi last month. Wednesday's vote signals strong bipartisan pushback against the White House over its continued support of its Middle East ally. 

The Senate on Wednesday advanced a resolution to end US support for the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen.

The resolution, which calls on the president to remove most US troops in Yemen, passed 63 to 37. The resolution failed to pass earlier this year. 

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) led the push for the measure alongside Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). Sanders has long opposed the United States' role in the war in Yemen — one of the world's worst humanitarian crises— and characterized it as "unconstitutional" given that Congress had not weighed in on the matter. 

In an incredible show of unity, all Senate Democrats voted in favor of the resolution. Prominent Senate Republicans, including Bob Corker (R-Tennessee), Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), and Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) — all of whom have voiced strong opposition to Trump's handling of Saudi Arabia in the wake of Jamal Khashoggi's murder —  also voted in favor of the measure.

Following the vote, Sanders praised the decision to move toward withdrawing troops from Yemen.

"The bottom line is the United States should not be supporting a catastrophic war led by a despotic regime with a dangerous and irresponsible military policy," Sanders said in a statement. "Let us bring this catastrophic war in Yemen to an end, help bring peace to this tortured country and with the rest of the world help provide the humanitarian aid that is so desperately needed."

Murphy tweeted that Wednesday's vote sent a huge signal to the Trump administration. 

"The Saudis are our ally. But their war in Yemen has gone off the rails and their disregard for human life has become unconscionable," he wrote. "Today’s Senate vote is a signal to the Administration that they must reorient American policy toward Saudi Arabia or Congress will do it for them."

The resolution still needs another vote to be debated on the floor, and then a final vote — though the White House has indicated plans to shelve the measure when it reaches the president's desk. 

In the lead up to the vote, the Trump administration was accused of trying to "cover up" Khashoggi's murder by reportedly blocking CIA Director Gina Haspel from attending a classified Senate briefing on Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Khashoggi. Haspel has traveled to Istanbul to discuss the investigation and is said to have listened to audio of the grisly killing. A CIA spokesperson told The Washington Post that "the notion that anyone told Director Haspel not to attend today’s briefing is false."

Earlier this month, the CIA determined that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination despite consistent denials from Riyadh. Bipartisan calls for strong action against Saudi Arabia and its leadership have grown louder since the October 2 killing, and Wednesday's vote signals strong pushback against the White House over its continued support for its Middle East ally. 

SEE ALSO: Bernie Sanders slams US support for 'despotic' Saudi Arabia in Yemen and bashes Trump over Khashoggi: 'No more! Enough death. Enough killing.'

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NOW WATCH: Lindsey Graham once warned there would be 'holy hell to pay' if Trump fired Jeff Sessions

How an LA upstart is redefining the media world by helping African-American millennials 'tell their own story'

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Aaron Samuels Blavity

  • Aaron Samuels is cofounder and chief operating officer of Blavity, the LA media upstart focused on African-American millennials, and he is a man of many talents.
  • The Stanford business school grad oversees a team of 48 full-time employees, with a vision to perfect the storytelling art for a generation of people underserved by the current mass-media landscape.
  • Samuels' early years as an artist and poet helped shape that focus, and he believes that by owning your own narrative you can reshape the way you live in the world.
  • With the help of Samuels' cofounders, Blavity is emerging as a media juggernaut, a little more than four years after its founding.

"When you tell your own story, it changes the way other people see you, and it changes the way you see yourself," Aaron Samuels, cofounder and chief operating officer of Blavity, a digital-news publication geared toward African-American millennials told Business Insider.

Blavity has been a hot topic in the media world since it closed a $6.5 million Series A round with Google Ventures in July, bringing its total venture investment so far to $8.5 million. That's an almost of unheard-of amount of money for an early-stage, black-owned startup, much less a new digital publication — especially one with a young, black, female CEO, Morgan DeBaun, Samuels' cofounder.

But it is clearly doing something right. Blavity has only been in business for four years, and it already has seven million readers per month.

And much of that success is anchored in Samuels' personal mission for the company.

Come see Aaron Samuels speak at Business Insider's Ignition conference, December 3 & 4 in New York.

He believes that by creating a company — and a community — that lets black millennials "really control their own narratives" in ways that mainstream media doesn't understand, "we could change the way people see themselves."

Aaron Samuels BlavityBlavity was founded in 2014, but you could trace its roots back to Samuels' teenage years, when he discovered the power of storytelling through poetry, and later, on the Washington University campus in St. Louis, Missouri, where Samuels and his friends — DeBaun, Jonathan Jackson, and Jeff Nelson — experienced firsthand the phenomenon that would eventually define Blavity's core ethos.

Samuels calls it "black gravity," a microcosm of black people who would move toward each other in public spaces. At the campus in St. Louis, the lunch table was a central meeting place.

"The black community at Washington University was really tight. Although Washington University was primarily a white institution, black folks stuck together, we looked out for each other," Samuels told Business Insider in an interview at Blavity's downtown Los Angeles headquarters.

"That experience represented support; it represented love, and trust," Samuels said. "It was a way for us to flourish and thrive, and also represented all the different kinds of black conversations that were happening simultaneously."

They talked about everything from politics to engineering homework to where the party was going to be on the weekend.

But for Samuels, who grew up in a mixed-race, mixed-faith household in Providence, Rhode Island, with a Jewish mother and an African-American father — both of whom are clinical psychologists — finding common ground is a practiced art.

His parents taught him to identify with all corners of his cultural identity and to embrace and share it with others. And that ultimately helped him navigate a world where he often found himself in the minority.

"I could see that learning how to own and tell my story can change the way that others see me, and more importantly change the way that I see myself," Samuels said.

"I wanted to imagine what happens if we do this on a community level, if everyone who I'm friends with is also owning their own stories and their own narrative," he said.

Aaron Samuels Blavity

Living at the office, literally

His Washington University friends would eventually become his cofounders, but not right away. Immediately after they graduated, they went to work on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley.

Samuels worked as a strategy consultant at Bain & Company in New York, DeBaun became a product manager at Intuit, Nelson was an early engineer at Palantir, and Jackson was a community manager at LinkedIn.

Those roles taught them the necessary skills they would take to Blavity, but there was a downside.

With social and political unrest brewing in places like Ferguson, Missouri, Samuels said he and his friends — who were, at the time, separated by distance and their careers — shared a less edifying experience than their happy college days.

"This time, we didn't have that core black gravity linking us together. The world was exploding. This is 2014; this is coming off the heels of the government execution of Troy Davis; this is after Trayvon Martin. And that was building up to 2014 when Mike Brown was killed," Samuels said.

Ferguson protests"It was hard to be a black person in primarily white spaces when so many things were happening," he said.

On some days, Samuels recalled, he would walk into work, and it would feel like none of the political unrest he and other black millennials saw as an existential threat was happening at all.

So, he did what most black millennials did at the time.

"I was texting my friends and family, or I was going to social media to feel what needed to be felt, so that at least I knew I wasn't crazy to be like, sad, or upset, or angry, or frustrated."

Samuels wasn't alone. That's when he, DeBaun, Jackson, and Nelson landed on an idea. They could take their combined experience in digital technology and business strategy, along with the creative people they knew who were sharing stories on social media, to replicate their college-years' feeling of black gravity. And they could do that on a national level, he said.

So, in July 2014, Blavity was born. Early on, it existed as a virtual company. The team worked via Slack, Asana, and Gmail. After a year and a half of bootstrapping, they opened their first office, inside a large live-work loft in LA's arts district — but the hustle continued.

Samuels, DeBaun, and the team lived in that loft; they created separate micro-apartments inside — one for DeBaun and the other for Samuels — while the office occupied the rest of the space.

"It doesn't get any closer than living, eating, and breathing your work," Samuels quipped.

That early focus on elevating African-American millennials in a digital media landscape where they were inadequately represented proved to be the right move.

More than two years after Blavity's founding, an October 2016 Nielsen report illustrated just how effectively African-American millennials, with their multibillion-dollar buying power and "undisputed cultural influence" was driving conversations online.

Blavity team founders Aaron Samuels Morgan DeBaun Jonathan Jackson Jeff Nelson

A game of endurance

As if growing a startup with his best friends and living at the office with them weren't enough, Samuels was also attending Stanford business school and traveling.

He calls his life a game of endurance.

"It's a statement about the journeys that some entrepreneurs have to go through, that other entrepreneurs never have to go through," he said.

Things changed after Blavity raised $1.86 million of seed-round funding in April 2017 from the Washington, DC-based New Media Ventures and LA-based Macro Ventures. The company has since gone on to raise $8.5 million total.

Now the company has an office parked in a pristine high-rise in bustling downtown Los Angeles, where Samuels oversees 48 full-time employees, as well as a new office and staff in Atlanta.

Samuels is excited about expansion but doesn't want to lose sight of the bigger mission: empowering a generation of leaders.

Aaron Samuels Blavity AfroTech 2017"I’m really excited about the next phase for our company," Samuels said.

"I'm also terrified. I think that it is difficult being a black millennial in this country. That is something that has probably always been true for the entire history of this country. And I don’t think that it’s different now."

Samuels recognizes the progress black people have made in the world, but he warns against using that progress to justify that things still are not as they should be.

He hopes that Blavity can lead the way in moving the cultural conversation forward. To Samuels, that conversation should include everyone, without neglecting Blavity's foundational principles.

"I am hoping for more support from our current community to expand, to be welcoming, and to share in our collective excitement about the possibilities of what we can build together," he said.

Find Aaron Samuels on Facebook, and on Twitter and Instagram @PoetryAaron.

Hear more of Samuels' story, building a business as an artist and founder, and the future of black digital media at IGNITION 2018.

Register now »

SEE ALSO: Announcing IGNITION 2018 speakers: Don't miss Mark Cuban, Sir Martin Sorrell, Danica Patrick, Troy Carter, and more!

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NOW WATCH: A sleep expert explains what happens to your body and brain if you don't get enough sleep

Hedge fund stars may see smaller paychecks after a brutal 2018. Here's what you can expect to get paid.

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Steve Cohen

  • Senior hedge fund managers are taking home smaller paychecks in 2018.
  • Median compensation - including base and bonus - for senior analysts is expected to decline by 12%, while median pay for portfolio managers is projected to fall 15%.
  • Market volatility, particularly in October, hurt hedge funds this year.

This year was a brutal one for hedge funds— and it's hitting portfolio managers' bonuses as a result. 

With hedge funds suffering from poor performance in 2018, investment managers are likely to to take home smaller paychecks, according to a new report.

"Hedge funds had a bad year," said Adam Zoia, chief executive officer at compensation advisory firm CompIQ, which published the data. "Of course, the year is not over, but so far, it's not good." 

Median compensation - including base and bonus - for senior analysts is expected to decline by as much as 12%, to $572,000 in 2018. For portfolio managers, it is likely to fall to $967,370, down 15% year-over-year, the report said.

Junior investment professionals and back office employees will be shielded from the volatility, Zoia said. The report predicts a 1% decrease in median pay for junior analysts.

See also: Hedge funds have plunged into a 'vicious downward cycle' with the most popular stocks, and it's a sign the meltdown is just getting started

The hedge fund industry has historically been known for its eye-popping salaries, with managers such as Bridgewater Associates' Ray Dalio and Appaloosa Management's David Tepper among the world's wealthiest

But recently the industry has come under pressure from its own investors — called limited partners — for its high fees and subpar returns. 

As of November 1, hedge funds across all strategies posted an annual return of -0.8%, according to CompIQ. That compares to a return of 11.4% in 2017, which was the highest level in four years. 

The month of October, in particular, was the worst month for hedge funds since May 2010.  The group lost almost 3%, according to Hedge Fund Research

As a result of market turmoil smaller hedge funds might slash jobs by year-end, Zoia predicted. 

See also:

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Iconic hedge fund billionaire Seth Klarman explains why traditional business models are broken and outlines how companies can fix them

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Seth Klarman

  • Baupost Group CEO Seth Klarman gave a speech calling for a shift away from what he sees as toxic short-termism.
  • He believes this is the result of the theory of shareholder primacy, and he thinks other stakeholders, like employees and the community, need to be considered for the sake of long-term growth.
  • He called for companies to reconsider their actions as society's calls for change become increasingly stronger.
  • This article is part of Business Insider's ongoing series on Better Capitalism.

Seth Klarman, the renowned founder and CEO of the $30 billion hedge fund the Baupost Group, recently gave a speech on the ramifications of shareholder primacy.

"Business schools have sometimes taught that shareholder value maximization is the Holy Grail, the sole proper focus of corporate managements," he said. "So I ask, should managements be focused solely on a company's share price, which itself is ephemeral, and do everything within their power to levitate it? What longer-term good would this possibly accomplish? And does anyone really believe that shareholders are the only constituency that matters: not customers, not employees, not the community, or the country, or planet Earth?"

Klarman gave the speech at a dinner celebrating the opening of Klarman Hall at Harvard Business School on Oct. 1.

Klarman is an avowed value investor, which means his approach to managing money involves buying shares of companies he thinks are cheap relative to their peers. It's a philosophy employed by other industry heavyweights, such as Warren Buffett and Joel Greenblatt, who is the managing principal and cochief investment officer at Gotham Funds.

Read more:An unauthorized copy of Seth Klarman's investing bible that Wall Streeters pay thousands of dollars for was up for grabs on Kindle for $9.99

It makes sense, then, that he's in favor of an approach that creates long-term value. But his speech declared the notion of shareholder primacy, as it's been practiced for the last 40 years, is an impediment to the health of the economy and society at large.

"A capitalist economy should be judged not just on the aggregate economic improvement driven by its innovation, but also on the design and strength of the social safety net that cushions the ill, or disadvantaged, or those who simply fail to thrive in their particular setting, geography, industry, or trade," Klarman said.

What is the role of business in society?

The debate over the pursuit of short- versus long-term value, and how that is related to the responsibilities of public corporations, has been drawn out over many decades.

In the wake of the Great Depression, the economist John Maynard Keynes wrote in "The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" that the American stock market encouraged public companies to prioritize short-term gains — temporarily benefiting their stock price — over long-term gains, which benefit both their business and society as a whole. It frustrated Keynes and the Keynesians that followed.

But for free-market economists like Milton Friedman, who published "Capitalism and Freedom" in 1962, there was no need to differentiate between the short and long terms. For Friedman, a company's sole social responsibility was to make as much profit as possible, as long as it followed the rules. A free market would reward the best companies, which would take care of all stakeholders.

American executives and politicians embraced Friedman's ideas in the 1980s, and judicial precedents in the United States cemented the notion that public companies existed to maximize profits for their shareholders.

This debate resumed in earnest, however, during the recovery from the financial crisis of 2008, and this time, the other side has more momentum. Klarman isn't the only billionaire calling for change.

In 2013, investor Paul Tudor Jones, for example, cofounded Just Capital, which measures public companies' value to all stakeholders, not just the shareholders. It launched an exchange-traded fund in partnership with Goldman Sachs earlier this year. On the corporate side, more large companies, like food giant Danone, are seeking "B Corp" status (the "B" stands for "benefit") — this certification proves they received high marks from the company B Lab, founded in 2006, that measures a company's societal benefit.

And, notably, this past January, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink wrote in his annual letter to CEOs that, "To prosper over time, every company must not only deliver financial performance, but also show how it makes a positive contribution to society."

At the New York Times DealBook Conference in October, Fink defended himself against accusations from critics, like Wall Street Journal columnist Holman W. Jenkins Jr., that he was just trying to be en vogue or "buy indulgences" from the public. As Fink put it, the demand from customers and employees for customers with purpose has become so strong that he wrote his letter as a way to improve his clients' performance.

There's evidence this is more than just intuition. Boston Consulting Group found that companies pursuing initiatives that benefit ESG (environmental, social, governance) metrics actually boost their bottom lines. Fink said that in the near-future — as early as the next five years — all investors will measure a company's value along ESG metrics.

Where Klarman stands

While Klarman called for an improvement of capitalism in his speech, he did not consider his suggestions to be drastic.

He specifically mentioned Sen. Elizabeth Warren's Accountable Capitalism Act as something he finds too radical. Warren's proposal would require billion-dollar public companies to obtain a federal charter that binds them to creating value for stakeholders beyond shareholders, as well as have 40% of its board members elected by employees.

The way he sees it, businesses should determine how they are going to grow more responsibly before regulators decide for them.

He noted that, "when capitalism goes unchecked and unexamined, and management is seduced by a narrow and myopic perspective, the pendulum can quickly swing in directions where capitalism's benefits are discounted, and its flaws exaggerated, thereby leaving its future even more clouded and uncertain."

"While it's hard to see how this proposed regulation would solve the problems that I've raised tonight, it’s exactly the kind of proposal that business will have to contend with when complex issues go unexamined, and when character, sound values, restraint, and long-term thinking fail to gain the upper hand."

SEE ALSO: More than 2,600 companies, like Danone and Patagonia, are on board with an entrepreneur who says the way we do business runs counter to human nature and there's only one way forward

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NOW WATCH: Expanding Warren Buffett’s value investing approach to the socially responsible sector


Investigators are probing a letter that claims George Papadopoulos said he was pursuing a lucrative Russian business deal for himself and Trump after the election

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George Papadopoulos

  • Trump-Russia investigators are reportedly looking into an uncorroborated letter that claims George Papadopoulos was pursuing a business deal with Russians "which would result in large financial gains for himself" and President Donald Trump after the 2016 election.
  • The letter is being examined by both congressional and FBI investigators, and two US officials told The Atlantic that the FBI is taking the letter's claims "very seriously."
  • Papadopoulos began serving out his two-week prison sentence for lying to the FBI this week.
  • But the revelation that officials are probing the letter indicates Papadopoulos is still a significant player in ongoing investigations into whether Trump associates colluded with Moscow during the 2016 election.

FBI and congressional investigators are looking into a new and uncorroborated claim that the former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos said he was pursuing a business deal with Russians "which would result in large financial gains for himself" and President Donald Trump, The Atlantic reported.

A Democratic source on the House Intelligence Committee confirmed to INSIDER that the letter was sent to ranking member Adam Schiff's office earlier this month from someone who claims to have been close to Papadopoulos in late 2016 and early 2017. Two US officials also told The Atlantic that federal authorities are investigating the letter and taking its claims "very seriously."

Papadopoulos pleaded guilty last year to one count of lying to the FBI and began serving his two-week prison sentence on November 26. But the revelation that authorities are probing the letter shows Papadopoulos is still a significant figure of interest in ongoing investigations into whether Trump associates colluded with Moscow during the 2016 election.

Papadopoulos denies having any financial links to Russia. But in a court filing announcing his guilty plea last year, prosecutors laid out multiple attempts by Papadopoulos to set up meetings between campaign officials and Russians during the election.

Read more:George Papadopoulos tweets offer at Comey: Testify publicly and I’ll withdraw my request for immunity

george papadopoulos

Papadopoulos told the FBI that his outreach to the Russia-linked foreign nationals occurred before he joined the campaign. But his first interaction with an "overseas professor" with ties to high-level Russian officials occurred on March 14, 2016, weeks after he joined the campaign.

That professor, Joseph Mifsud, told Papadopoulos just over a month later that the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton that came in the form of "thousands of emails," according to the charging document.

Papadopoulos later told the top Australian diplomat Alexander Downer about the claim that Russia had kompromat on Clinton. That conversation, which Downer relayed to US officials, is what prompted the FBI to launch the Russia investigation.

Papadopoulos also told the FBI that he met with a Russian woman who claimed to be a relative of Russian President Vladimir Putin — Papadopoulos described her as Russian President Vladimir Putin's "niece" in one email — before he joined the campaign, but he actually met her on March 24, according to the court filing.

"He believed she had connections to Russian government officials; and he sought to use her Russian connections over a period of months in an effort to arrange a meeting between the campaign and Russian government officials," prosecutors said.

trump putin

In another instance, Papadopoulos emailed then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski in April 2016 saying he had received "a lot of calls over the past month" about how "Putin wants to host the Trump team when the time is right," according to The Washington Post. He emailed Lewandowski and another campaign adviser, Sam Clovis, on May 4 to ask again about setting up a meeting.

"There are legal issues we need to mitigate, meeting with foreign officials as a private citizen," Clovis replied.

Two months later, on July 14, 2016, Papadopoulos emailed one of the foreign contacts and indicated a meeting had "been approved from our side."

The meeting, Papadopoulos wrote, would be "for August or September in the UK (London) with me and my national chairman, and maybe one other foreign policy adviser and you, members of president putin's office and the mfa to hold a day of consultations and to meet one another."

Papadopoulos expressed remorse for lying to the FBI about his Russia connections during his sentencing hearing in September. But he has since adopted a drastically different tone by claiming in recent months that he was entrapped by the FBI and that his interactions with Mifsud were part of an elaborate set-up by Western intelligence.

According to The Atlantic, Papadopoulos' baseless claims were what prompted the unnamed author of the letter to come forward. The person reportedly said they were willing to take a polygraph test "to prove that I am being truthful" and added that they decided to send the letter after observing Papadopoulos "become increasingly hostile towards those who are investigating him and his associates."

SEE ALSO: George Papadopoulos tweets offer at Comey: Testify publicly and I’ll withdraw my request for immunity

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Just 52% of Americans are 'very comfortable' with a woman president

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Democratic Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Kamala Harris, both potential 2020 contenders.

  • Just over half of Americans are "very comfortable" with the prospect of a female commander-in-chief, according to a new report released this week by the consulting firm Kantar Public. 
  • On this question, the US came in third among G7 nations — behind the UK and Canada.
  • This comes as women, particularly in the Democratic party, are being elected to office in the US in historic numbers. 

Just over half of Americans are "very comfortable" with the prospect of a female commander in chief, according to a new report released this week by the consulting firm Kantar Public. 

According to the report, 52% would feel "very comfortable" with a woman at the head of government, and 63% would feel similarly comfortable with a woman as a CEO of a major company.

The study surveyed 10,000 people across seven developed nations — the members of the G7 — to investigate public sentiment concerning women in leadership, and they were given a score from 0 to 100 on the Reykjavik Index for Leadership. "A score of 100 means that across society, there is complete agreement that men and women are equally suited to leadership in all sectors," the report explains. Out of the G7 nations, the US ranked third with a score of 70.

Both the UK and Canada reported a higher tolerance for women in political leadership — 58% of those surveyed in the UK and 57% of those polled in Canada said they'd be "very comfortable" with a woman head of government. At the low end of the spectrum, just 26% of those in Germany and 23% of those in Japan felt the same way. 

In the US, women — particularly in the Democratic party — are running for office, and winning, in unprecedented numbers. And several female politicians, including Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, and Kirsten Gillibrand, are likely contenders for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. 

Some of these women have pointed to their gender as an attribute, rather than a barrier, in their pursuit of power. 

"It's time for women to go to Washington and fix our broken government and that includes a woman at the top," Warren told supporters in September. "So here's what I promise: after November 6, I will take a hard look at running for president." 

SEE ALSO: 'This is malpractice': Left-wing slams Chuck Schumer for agreeing to $1.6 billion for border security to avoid a government shutdown

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NOW WATCH: This top economist has a radical plan to change the way Americans vote

Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy roasted Larry Ellison by turning the Oracle founder into a cartoon-like face peeking over a wall (AMZN, ORCL)

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AWS CEO Andy Jassy

  • Amazon Web Services CEO Andy Jassy kicked off his talk with a blow at Oracle.
  • Jassy included Oracle founder and CTO Larry Ellison's face on one of his slides to show different cloud vendors' market shares in the cloud business.
  • "People are sick of it, and now they have choice," Jassy said of Oracle's databases.
  • Ellison also frequently takes opportunities to snub Amazon, especially at Oracle's most recent conference.

LAS VEGAS — There's something about executives in the cloud computing business that makes them unable to resist bashing each other. 

And within his first 10 minutes on stage at the Amazon Web Services conference on Wednesday, AWS CEO Andy Jassy was already at it. 

His target: Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellison, whose face was pictured on a giant screen, peering haplessly over the edge of pie chart's tiny red sliver and looking like a cartoon villain in some old slapstick movie.

Some people in the cloud business don't show up on the chart, Jassy said, referencing Ellison — they only "pop in."

Amazon Web Services has 51.8% of the market share, Jassy said. In comparison, Microsoft has 13.3%, Alibaba has 4.6%, and Google has 3.3%. 

"These old guard databases like Oracle and SQL servers are expensive and not customer serving," Jassy said later in his talk. "People are sick of it, and now they have choice."

Previously, Ellison had taken a shot at Amazon during Oracle's conference, saying Amazon's database was like a semi-autonomous car, saying "You get in, you start driving, you die." Oracle declined to comment on the keynote.

On that note, Jassy also announced that AWS is launching an autonomous racecar.

Read more: Amazon's cloud is now embracing an idea that it spent almost a decade trashing — and it's a big sign that Microsoft was right

Jassy also spent some time emphasizing that Amazon is way ahead of Microsoft. This year, AWS saw 46% growth. In comparison, Microsoft Azure, or "the next closest provider," as Jassy kept calling it, saw a revenue growth of 76%, but it doesn't specifically break out its revenue for cloud.

"Because it's so expensive to pay for these services in the cloud, it doesn't take long for builders to know the difference and depth in these platforms," Jassy said.

SEE ALSO: These are the 18 hottest companies in one of the most important tech trends for enterprises: 'DevOps'

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Everything we know about the mysterious group home the Sisters of Quiet Mercy on 'Riverdale'

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sisters of quiet mercy riverdale

Warning: Spoilers ahead for seasons one, two, and three of "Riverdale."

The Sisters of Quiet Mercy first appeared during the first season of "Riverdale."

Betty and Jughead learn of the "home for troubled youth" after Betty discovers her parents have been making payments to the home because they sent Polly, Betty's sister, there. 

Since that first appearance, more details and facts about the group home have been revealed, and more characters have been sent to stay at the Sisters of Quiet Mercy.

During Wednesday's episode of the CW show, Alice sends Betty to the home to try and protect her from the Gargoyle King, but the end of the episode reveals the home may not be the safest place.

Here's what we know about the group home. 

The group home has a dark past.

sister woodhouse riverdale

On season two, Kevin Keller tells Veronica Lodge and Toni Topaz that the Sisters used to be a distillery during Prohibition. They would smuggle alcohol through underground tunnels. He says the tunnels now are used by kids looking for hookups. 

The group home still continues to use corporal, or physical, punishments on the youths. During season two, Betty threatens to expose the Sisters for the "house of horrors that it really is" when she goes to the home looking for information on Mr. Svenson.

Svenson, known as Joseph Conway when he was left as an orphan at the home, later worked as a groundskeeper for them and then became a janitor at Riverdale High. He was thought to be the Black Hood, but it was revealed that he was just used by the real Black Hood, Hal Cooper, as a red herring. 

Read more: 'Riverdale' fans finally know who the real Black Hood is and the truth is bonkers

The home is also one of the places that still does secret conversion therapy. 

Polly is sent to the home to have her baby. 

polly riverdale sisters of quiet mercy

On season one, Polly's parents, Hal and Alice, send her to the home because she is pregnant with Jason Blossom's baby. Because she is cut off from her family and friends, Polly is unaware of Jason's death until Betty goes to visit her.

The sisters at the home call Alice to alert her of Polly's visitor and Alice arrives for Betty and Jughead. Polly confronts Alice in the hallway about lying and is dragged away by two men as Alice and Betty tearfully watch. Polly breaks a window and escapes from the Sisters before hiding in her family home. 

Alice later reveals to Betty that she went to the Sisters when she was pregnant in high school because both she and Hal disagreed about what to do. Alice says she gave birth to Betty's brother, Charles, there, and he was put up for adoption. 

On season two, Betty learns that Charles was never actually adopted and was kicked out of the home after turning 18. 

Cheryl Blossom is forced into the home by her mother, Penelope. 

cheryl riverdale

During season two, Penelope takes Cheryl to the home for conversion therapy. Cheryl is kept locked in a small room and is visited by Sister Woodhouse, who says she's "going to rid you of all those naughty demons." Cheryl is injected with a needle and told that the "conversion" will begin the next day.

While at the home, Cheryl is forced to do physical labor and "physical therapy" as part of the conversion.

Toni, Betty, and Kevin break into the Sisters of Quiet Mercy through the underground tunnels and help Cheryl escape. 

During the flashback episode on season three, Penelope reveals that she grew up as an orphan at the Sisters of Quiet Mercy before being taken home by the Blossom family when she was eight because she had red hair. She was groomed to be Clifford's eventual wife. 

Alice sends Betty to the home.

betty riverdale

On Wednesday's episode of the series, Alice send Betty to the Sisters to "protect" her from the Gargoyle King who attacked the family at home. 

Read more: 'Riverdale' star Casey Cott says fans are getting closer to the truth of the Gargoyle King

Alice tells her that she is going to the Farm with Polly and the twins.

"The Sisters protected me, they protected Polly," Alice says. "They'll watch over you now."

Sister Woodhouse and two men from the group home forcefully take Betty away. 

At the Sisters, Betty is taken to a painting class, but as she sits down, she notices that everyone is painting some form of the Gargoyle King. 

Read more: Everything we know about the 'gruesome' Gargoyle King on 'Riverdale'

What is his connection to the Sisters? Are the youths being forced into a game of Gryphons and Gargoyles? Fans will have to continue watching to see what influence the Gargoyle King has on the group home and how Betty will get out. 

Read all of our "Riverdale" coverage here.

"Riverdale" airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.

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Everything we know about the deadly role-playing game 'Gryphons and Gargoyles' on 'Riverdale'

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Griffins and Gargoyles

Warning: Spoilers ahead for season three of "Riverdale."

"Gryphons and Gargoyles" (G&G) is a dangerous game on "Riverdale." 

The role-playing game, similar to "Dungeons and Dragons," is behind five deaths so far — RIP Dilton, Ben, Principal Featherhead, Warden Norton, and Joaquin — and it's sure to affect more residents as the third season of the hit CW show progresses.

Betty and Jughead are working to uncover the mystery surrounding the game, and viewers are trying to do the same. 

Here's what we know so far.

How is the game affecting Riverdale?

jughead ben dilton riverdale

The first introduction to the game comes when Jughead tries to ask Ben and Dilton what they are playing at Pop's Diner during the premiere. Dilton tries to answer, but all he gets out is "Gryphons and..." before Ben tells him to shut up.

Later, when Jughead is preparing to go to Archie's trial, Dilton knocks on Jug's door in a panic.

When Jughead asks who, Dilton eventually responds with, "The Gargoyle King."

Jughead finds a paper covered in weird symbols and what looks to be a stick creature in his home. The symbols lead him to the woods where he finds Ben and Dilton unresponsive and kneeling in front of an altar with symbols carved into their backs. Dilton dies in the park due to cyanide consumption after mixing the poison with Fresh-Aid. After recovering in the hospital, Ben then leaps to his death out of the hospital window mentioning that he isn't afraid to "ascend" like Dilton was.  

Betty and Jughead learn that Ethel is also playing the game. When they confront her, she reveals that Dilton had a secret bunker in the woods. Betty and Jughead later find the bunker and discover that the poisoned chalice Ben and Dilton drank from was part of "G&G." 

Betty and Jughead go to Ethel to ask more questions, and Jughead asks what the "kingdom" means. He also inquires about the rulebook, which Ethel refers to as the "scripture."

She tells him that he "isn't worthy of the king's scripture," so he asks if she can show him. When Jughead goes to the bunker and meets Ethel, she is dressed in her Princess Etheline gown. She has him choose a character, and he picks the Hellcaster.

"Good choice," she says. "That was Ben's avatar. I was supposed to ascend with him but then he betrayed me and finished the game with Dilton instead." 

After getting through part of the game, Ethel presents Jughead with two chalices. When he incredulously asks if one of them is poisoned, she says it's "gargoyle blood." He drinks it to get the manual and is fine. But before she hands it over to him, she makes him kiss her because it's all part of the "scripture." 

Ethel then drinks from the other chalice and starts to get ill. He saves her life by getting her to the hospital. She denies being suicidal and then threatens Jughead if he spills the secrets. 

"I told him you were worthy enough to spread his gospel," she tells him. 

How do they play the game? 

the midnight club riverdale

In the bunker, Betty and Jug find coins with the Gargoyle King on them, drawings of the king, and various knick-knacks from the game. 

The game consists of a die and quests that the players must complete. Sometimes, they dress up in costumes to match their characters. Along with the game master's book, there's a small game board, characters to choose from, and quest cards used to control the game. 

On the flashback episode, it's made clear that the game master designs the quests and incorporates them into the real world. 

Read more: 'Riverdale' fans finally know what the parents' big secret is and there's a murder involved

The Gargoyle King himself is a terrifying creature who seems to be behind the rules of the game. 

Jughead has a theory.  

jughead riverdale

Someone, possibly Ethel, distributed a manual to every student's locker at Riverdale High.

"By next weekend, almost every student at Riverdale High would be playing "Gryphons and Gargoyles," and the real game was just beginning," Jughead says.  

Jughead starts to play and becomes a level three-game master and leads his players on quests. When Betty goes to tell him about their parent’s secret, he tells her that he is working to ascend and meet the Gargoyle King.

He says that their parents playing the game means that his theory is correct: "We have been playing this game for a lot longer than we know and off board."

He says the gang fights and struggles they have had to deal with are all just part of the game. He also points out an interesting fact about the game's location. 

"Eldervair, the realm of 'Gryphons and Gargoyles' is an anagram for Riverdale," he said. "The whole game is an analog for Riverdale. The game only exists in Riverdale, that's why we couldn't find it on the web. It's all connected. It's all one big narrative that's still being written and played." 

Jughead is onto something, and "G&G" isn't going away any time soon. 

Read all of our "Riverdale" coverage here.

"Riverdale" airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET on The CW.

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5 details you may have missed on the latest episode of 'Riverdale'

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Warning: Spoilers ahead for season three, episode six of "Riverdale," titled "Manhunter."

The Gargoyle King is spreading his wings on "Riverdale." 

During Wednesday's episode of the CW show, the creepy creature attacks Betty and Alice in their home, and it's revealed that he has a team of people doing his bidding. Betty is sent to the Sisters of Quiet Mercy for her protection. But when she gets there, she sees that he has influence there, as well. 

Not everything is scary in the small town. Veronica helps get Archie exonerated after finding proof that the sheriff coerced the witnesses into lying. But when Veronica is waiting for Archie to come home, he calls and says that he has to leave town.

As always, the CW show included some pop culture and comic references. We worked with Archie Comics to find five details you may have missed.

Jughead calls Betty Miss Marple.

Miss Marple is a character from Agatha Christie novels who solves crimes as an amateur detective.



The Gargoyle King scene in the Cooper house is reminiscent of "Scream."

FP climbing the ladder into Betty's room calls back to when Billy Loomis, played by FP actor Skeet Ulrich, did the same in "Scream." In one scene, she freaks out saying that Ghostface is in the house. He hugs her and says, "He's gone, he's gone," as he creepily looks over her shoulder. FP does almost the same thing with Alice when she is freaking out about the Gargoyle King being in the house. The slight similarities can be seen at the beginning of this YouTube video

The stovetop popcorn scene also calls back to "Scream." 



The song "Ballad of Paladin" plays over Archie and Jughead.

As Archie and Jughead are walking down the train tracks, the song "Ballad of Paladin" from "Have Gun — Will Travel" plays over them. Warden Norton calls Archie "the Red Paladin." 



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These are the top 10 baby names of 2018

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baby girl

  • Baby Center recently revealed their top 10 baby names for boys and girls this year. 
  • Sophia and Jackson topped the list.
  • Some names fell off the lists while others held strong. 

Baby Center recently revealed their list of the top 10 baby names of 2018, and the results are pretty in line with years passed.

When it comes to girls names, Sophia topped the list for the ninth consecutive year. In fact, earlier this year, Sophia was named as the top baby name for girls in the entire world.

The four remaining names of the top five for girls — Olivia, Emma, Ava, and Isabella — were the same as the top five in 2017.

baby girl beach

As for the boys, Jackson topped the list for the sixth year in a row. Liam, Noah, and Aiden took on spots two, three and four, respectively, for the second year in a row, while Caden and Grayson knocked Lucas down a few spots.

Layla climbed the list from 2017, kicking Zoe out of the top 10 (although, at 11, the name isn't too far off). For the boys, Oliver kicked Logan out of the top 10 and into spot 11.

Over the summer, Nameberry put together a list of the most popular baby names of 2018 thus far that was a bit different from Baby Center's current list. The only two girl names that made the top 10 for both lists were Olivia and Ava, which may be a sign that these are more popular than they seem. As for the boys, none of the top 10 names were the same.

baby boy

But it's worth noting that the process of compiling these lists are pretty different. Nameberry picked their most popular names based on the number of views each name received for the first half of 2018, looking at interest in names rather than actual babies with those names — it's more of a tracker for future trends and popularity.

Baby Center, on the other hand, compiled their 2018 list by using data from more than 742,000 parents who shared their baby's name with them in 2018. They also combined similar spellings (Sophia, Sofia for example) to get their findings. 

baby boy

Take a look at who took the top spots this year:

Girls

  1. Sophia
  2. Olivia
  3. Emma
  4. Ava
  5. Isabella
  6. Aria
  7. Riley
  8. Amelia
  9. Mia
  10. Layla

baby boy on bed

Boys

  1. Jackson
  2. Liam
  3. Noah
  4. Aiden
  5. Caden
  6. Grayson
  7. Lucas
  8. Mason
  9. Oliver
  10. Elijah

You can read the full list of top baby names for the year on BabyCenter.

Visit INSIDER's homepage for more.

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The White House is unsure about Trump's idea of a separate Space Force

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US President Donald Trump

  • The White House does not appear to be certain on how it will implement Space Force.
  • White House officials were reportedly still mulling the possibility of Space Force operating under the wings of the Air Force.
  • President Donald Trump touted the Space Force as an independent military branch in numerous statements and campaign speeches.

The White House does not appear to be certain on how it will implement Space Force, President Donald Trump's highly anticipated sixth branch of the military, and was still mulling the possibility of it operating under the wings of the Air Force, according to memos reviewed by Defense One.

As recently as October 26, the White House reportedly asked the Pentagon for its expertise in the "organizational construct to meet [the President's] intent" and asked for alternative recommendations for the Space Force's structure — despite Trump touting it as an independent military branch in numerous statements and campaign speeches.

In the memo, White House officials solicited advice on whether the US military was "best served" if the Space Force remained separate from the other naval, ground, and air branches.

But the memo threw a wrench in Trump's numerous claims about the Space Force by asking if "the new Space Force would be most effectively organized as a separate service within the Department of the Air Force," according to Defense One.Donald Trump Space Force Executive Order

"We are going to have the Air Force and we are going to have the Space Force: separate but equal," Trump said at a National Space Council meeting in June.

Defense officials have reportedly come up with several plans on how to implement a "distinct branch of the Armed Forces for Space."

These plans ranged from a space-focused corps under the Air Force's purview, to an independent Space Force that includes Air Force, Army, Navy, and intelligence community assets, according to a defense official cited in the report.

The possibility of housing a potential Space Corps under the Air Force — similar to how the Marine Corps and Navy operates — was previously proposed by Congress as part of its annual national defense policy bill. The provision in the National Defense Authorization Act was later shot down in 2017 and 2018 — a result the White House has taken into account in asking the Pentagon for suggestions, military officials told Defense One.

The memo reportedly did not explicitly mention a Space Corps.

The question of establishing an autonomous Space Force has divided many in the Defense Department and White House. While military experts generally agree that adversaries like China and Russia pose a threat to the US in space, not all are convinced and point to the Space Force or Space Corps' potential cost.

SEE ALSO: Astronaut Mark Kelly says Trump's plan to create a Space Force 'is a dumb idea'

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A California businessman wrote $1,000 checks for every student, teacher, administrator, janitor, bus driver at Paradise High School, after devastating Camp Fire

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camp fire paradise

  • California businessman Bob Wilson donated $1,000 to each student, teacher, administrator, janitor, and bus driver from Paradise High School located in Butte County.
  • The real estate developer and co-owner of the Fish Market restaurant chain, has no ties to Paradise — the town all but destroyed by the Camp Fire.
  • On Giving Tuesday, he traveled with two suitcases filled with checks totaling $1.1 million to nearby Chico to hand them out.
  • "Good intentions are just good intentions unless you act on them," Wilson told The Washington Post.

Southern California businessman Bob Wilson made the most of Giving Tuesday (the Tuesday after Thanksgiving that emphasizes giving back to charity).

The real estate developer and co-owner of the restaurant chain Fish Market traveled delivered $1,000 checks to all 980 students, and 105 teachers, administrators, bus drivers, and janitors from Paradise High School.

Paradise is the town that was all but destroyed by the Camp Fire in Butte County — the deadliest and most destructive fire in California history. Moved by a story in the Los Angeles Times about how many members of the Paradise High School football team are now homeless, Wilson decided to help, The Washington Post reported.

"I felt terrible for them," Wilson told The Post. "I couldn’t stop thinking, 'How can I help?'"

His own high school experience at Escondido High School in San Diego County also weighed on his decision.

"High school had a great impact on my life," he said. "In fact, I would say it was the first, last and only truly carefree time."

So he packed two suitcases of checks — totaling $1.1 million — and headed north. On Tuesday, at a pizza reunion at Chico High School, Wilson handed out the checks with the goal of giving students "a little freedom to do whatever they wanted to do and maybe take their minds off what happened for a short period," he told the Associated Press.

Wilson, who splits his time between San Diego and Los Angeles, also wrote a note accompanying the check which said in part, "Please know that you are not alone, as someone as far away as San Diego is rooting for you and has the firm belief that tomorrow will be better than today."

Students have been out of school since November 8, though students from Paradise Intermediate and Paradise High School they will soon resume their studies at the Chico Mall.

Though the fire was finally contained over the weekend, it left roughly 5,000 students homeless, destroyed around 11,000 homes, and left 88 dead, according to NPR. Many students from Paradise High School are scattered across the area, and Tuesday's gathering gave them a chance to come together, the Paradise Post pointed out.

"It’s been good to see everybody," a student, Kate Minderhoud, told the Paradise Post. "Everyone is just so excited to see everyone."

And the students and teachers are grateful for Wilson's generosity.

"What he’s done is awesome. This puts money into people’s hands right now, and it pumps more than a million dollars into the economy," Principal Loren Lighthall told The Post. "Over 90 percent of the homes in Paradise burned down, so our kids are super excited to get these checks. Really, it’s all they’re talking about."

Wilson also made it clear that the donation was half from his wife Marion Wilson, who is 90 and suffers from Alzheimer's disease. 

"She no longer knows me, and she doesn't know the dog, but I'm not going to say, 'Woe is me.' I can't do one thing about it," he told The Post. "But I can do something to help the kids in Paradise."

Wilson has himself been reported as an octogenarian by The Post and a nonagenarian by the Associated Press.

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The 10 most important things in the world right now

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Trump air force

Hello! Here's everything you need to know on Thursday.

1. Trump's go-to trade report card is starting to look downright deficient. According to the US Census Bureau, the goods trade deficit — the president's very reason for triggering a trade war — hit $77.2 billion in October. That's a record.

2. Investors down on Apple's glum iPhone sales should perk up over this hidden goldmine.Apple shareholders who get too caught up in the iPhone news are missing a big reason to be bullish about the tech giant's stock price, says Wedbush analyst David Ives.

3. Stormy Daniels claims her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, sued Trump without her permission.The adult-film actress whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, says Avenatti filed a defamation lawsuit against President Donald Trump without her approval.

4. Furniture giant Ikea is about to give its unhappiest US employees a pay raise.Ikea US said on Wednesday that it plans to bump up the pay of its merchandising basics employees.

5. Former Trump campaign aide and current inmate at a federal prison camp in Oxford, Wisconsin, George Papadopoulos is in trouble ... again.Investigators are probing a letter that claims Papadopoulos said he was chasing a rich Russian business deal for himself and Trump post-election.

6. The US Senate has voted in favor of ending US support for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen.A resolution, which called on the president to remove most US troops stationed in Yemen, passed by almost 2 to 1.

7. The White House doesn't really know how to play Trump's 'Space Force' idea. Space Force, you will recall, is President Donald Trump's highly anticipated sixth branch of the military.

8.The US president retweeted a divisive meme.Basically, its about Trump's usual political foes, but this one also includes an image his deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein.

9. South Carolina Prison inmates running a sextortion ring have scammed US troops out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.Aided by civilians, the inmates scammed hundreds of Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps personnel. And this is how they were caught.

10.You may have missed the most explosive comments from Facebook's grilling at Westminster.We did not.

And finally ...

One ticket, two days, more than 50 insightful speakers, and over 600 executives: Business Insider's flagship IGNITION conference headliners include Mark Cuban, Janice Min, Sir Martin Sorrell, and Barbara Corcoran. Join us for IGNITION, December 3 and 4 in New York City.

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A Syrian refugee who was trapped in an airport for 7 months finally got a ticket out

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Hassan Al Kontar

  • Hassan Al-Kontar, a 37-year-old refugee from Syria, had been living in the transit area of Kuala Lumpur International Airport for about seven months and was stuck in diplomatic limbo.
  • Al-Kontar vlogged often about the struggles of being trapped on his own with little access to the outside world.
  • But on Monday night, he was finally free.
  • Al-Kontar touched down in Vancouver, Canada, where citizens had raised money and worked for months to secure his release from Malaysia.
  • He now heads to Whistler, British Columbia, in order to begin his new life. 

Hassan Al-Kontar had been trapped in the transit area of Kuala Lumpur International Airport for about seven months, vlogging often about the struggles of being stuck on his own with little access to the outside world. 

Al-Kontar arrived at KLIA2 after years of fighting to secure a better life abroad as a Syrian citizen. He had spent time working in the UAE for over a decade, but eventually lost his work visa and was later unable to renew his passport. 

The ordeal sent him to a holding facility in Malaysia in January 2017. He tried to save money and leave Malaysia on two occasions in 2017 — once to Ecuador, another time to Cambodia — but was rejected each time and sent back to a country he did not choose to live in.

In March this year, after being blacklisted by Malaysia for overstaying his visa, he was confined to the airport's transit zone, trapped in diplomatic limbo. 

But on Monday night, that all finally turned around.

"They came to me on Sunday and said 'you're going to Canada.' I did not believe them until they showed me the ticket," Al-Kontar told CBC News after touching down in Vancouver airport. 

The 37-year-old told Business Insider that during his time in the airport, he spent his days reaching out to government agencies, volunteers, NGOs and media to get assistance in the hopes of eventually leaving the airport and finding residency in a country that accepted refugees. 

Read more: A Syrian man who has been trapped in an airport for two months explains how he survives day-to-day

He faced several obstacles as he tried to figure out a long-term solution. He claims Malaysia only offered him temporary visas without the guarantee of work-rights; in October, he was arrested and sent to a detention center in the country for two months

Still, he says he never lost hope for a better future. 

"Deep inside I had full faith, even when I was in detention," he told CBC after his emotional homecoming on Monday. Laurie Cooper — a Canadian volunteer who worked with lawyers, the B.C. Muslim Association, and others to lobby for Al-Kontar's long-awaited release — gave him the first hug during an emotional homecoming.

"I just feel so grateful that he's here and that he's safe," she told CBC. "I never doubted for a moment that we would get him here." 

Cooper, a resident of Whistler, British Columbia, raised the money required to sponsor his arrival. According to CBC, Al-Kontar will initially be living with Cooper, and has also been offered a full-time job at a Whistler hotel.

"In Canada, here you have something very special, you have an amazing group of people who believe they can make a difference, and they can," he said. 

Check out footage of his arrival here: 

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TIME Magazine cover features parents of children killed in school shootings

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TIME cover

  • On Wednesday night, CNN host Brian Stelter tweeted out what he said was Time Magazine's powerful new cover.
  • It features parents of students killed in school shootings, according to Stelter.
  • The cover reads, "The world moves on and you don't."

On Wednesday night, CNN host Brian Stelter tweeted out what he said was Time Magazine's powerful new cover.

It features parents of students killed in school shootings, according to Stelter, who wrote in his tweet, "'This web of wounded souls spans America.' They are parents who have lost a child to a school shooting, part of an 'invisible network' that is 'sustained in part by its tragically ever expanding size...'"

The cover reads, "The world moves on and you don't."

As of publication, Time Magazine itself had not yet shared an image of the cover — or the accompanying story. But the cover shared by Stelter makes a devastating statement.

This year alone, there have been 323 mass shootings, as counted by Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot or killed, not including the gunman. Among those were the deadly school shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida — which left 17 dead — and Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas — which left 10 dead.

The February 14, shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas — which overtook the Columbine massacre as the deadliest high school shooting — sparked walkouts, protests, and an anti-gun violence movement led by students, including those from Parkland.

Parents of students killed have also become advocates for gun-safety legislation, including those who lost elementary school children in the December 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that left 20 students and six adults dead.

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