The world of designer fashion is not for the faint of heart or the light of wallet. From a purse that sells for over $300,000, to torn shoes that look like they are well past ready for the dumpster – selling for almost $1500, the world is full of eccentric people willing to pay exorbitant amounts for their fashion fixes.
But there is one dirty little secret that the fashion aficionados want no-one to know about…
For months, rumors, innuendos, and allegations about collusion between the Trump campaign, the Trump administration, and the Russian government swirled around Washington, sometimes in great gushing floods, other times in lazy rivulets. Now it is all about to come crashing down like a giant waterfall.
As we celebrate our nation’s independence, let’s hope that our citizens can take pause and reflect not just upon the heroes that helped forge America, but on those vital issues that are yet to be solved.
Trump supporters have often been depicted as stupid, poor white Americans. But are they actually racist, as well?
We are in the midst of another sexual revolution, in which the new ideal woman will be a robot; lifelike dolls that feel real, communicate their “needs,” and can have robot orgasms.
Gynecologists are warning against a bizarre new trend which sees women inserting glitter-filled capsules into their vaginas, concerned that it could have potentially dangerous side effects.
Now here’s an interesting study we’d like to see: Compare women’s use of vaginal glitter with their level of education.
The picture “clearly indicates that Earhart was captured by the Japanese”, the lead investigator stated.
The White House press secretary claims he hasn’t spoken with the president about basic issues, which is either a bizarre oversight or simply implausible.
In a new report, researchers dispute a popular argument for arming everyday citizens.
“There is not even the slightest hint in the data that these laws reduce violent crime,” they write.
One of the biggest reasons that it’s so hard for facts to change people’s minds is that people have an incentive to keep believing what they already believe, especially if it’s a belief that’s deeply tied to their identity.
The mental gymnastics they do to achieve this are known in psychology as “motivated reasoning.” It’s something that’s extremely hard to get around.
The United States has never had a Senate leader as ruthless, as willing to bend, distort and break the rules, traditions and precedents of the Senate as Mitch McConnell.
This bill will take American healthcare back to what everyone in the U.S. should recognize was a completely broken system before the Affordable Care Act. It will take the country back to a system in which companies often profited not by how well they provided healthcare but by how well they discriminated against or screened out those who faced the most challenges.
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway insisted on Sunday that the Senate health care bill “would not make cuts to Medicaid,” regardless of projections that suggest the program will be cut by over $800 billion.
Recently, after a month of breathless speculation, former FBI director James Comey testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee about the events leading up to his abrupt and dubiously-justified termination by President Trump. And, according to the good people at PornHub, users in the District Columbia streamed significantly less pornographic material than they usually do at that time.
While the current administration seems unlikely to invest in any jobs programs – especially ones that primarily benefit the working poor – they would create long term benefits by having these workers successfully transition to the new retail economy.
Early in Donald Trump’s presidency, the self-declared “Greatest jobs president God ever created” rattled a rhetorical saber at companies he felt were threatening to offshore production and, in the process, lay off American workers.
But now, his rhetoric, once again, runs contrary to the truth.
“Now you have an extreme conservative government in the United States, that smells like a dictatorship,” the former Mexican president said. “This government goes against the founding fathers.”
When a sentence starts out, “I can definitively say the president is not a liar,” as was proclaimed by Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Thursday, you know things are looking grim.
Here are the key points:
With today’s announcement, the administration has effectively declared open season on workers, to benefit large employers and allow them to more freely act as direct employers but avoid responsibility for the implications of their decisions.
Once again, the lower and middle class are bashed by the president that promised to protect them.
Wow! When you have Shell Oil telling you that climate change is real, you’re either having a bad dream, an acid flashback, or the world has gone mad. But that’s exactly what happened recently when twenty-five U.S. companies signed a letter that appeared in full-page ads in the Washington, D.C. editions of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, exhorting the president not to exit the Paris Agreement.
At present, 2.5 million miles of existing natural gas pipelines exist in the United States, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.
But are they safe?
Cannabis growers list their products on the site, and can either offer them for auction, or set a specific purchase price.
Buyers, such as dispensaries and manufacturers of edible products or concentrates, scroll through all the products for sale, and complete a purchase with a click of a button.
It’s fast, it’s easy, and it’s legal.
Who would have thought that the world’s most delicious, mouth-watering, savory, scrumptious cupcakes would be sold in vending machines?
Can a budget be immoral? While people can debate cuts and expenditures, some say that the budget introduced this week by the Trump administration constitutes nothing less than a massive transfer of wealth from working families, the elderly, children, the sick and the poor to the top 1%. And this, they say, is an immoral act by evil people.
Sears’ lenders are giving the embattled retailer more time to pay off its debt.
The residents of an apartment complex in Decatur, Georgia were shocked this week when they tried to leave home – only to find they were stuck, as their stairs had been removed.
Heroin has become so pervasive in cities across America, and so profitable for the cartels that supply it that even cops admit the sporadic arrests they make have little effect. Cartels have begun lacing heroin with synthetic opioids including fentanyl, making a dose more addictive and cheaper to produce. Overdose reversal shots are helping addicts survive, often to use again, giving dealers a steady supply of repeat customers. With persistent demand and increasingly wide profit margins, 2017 is shaping up as the most profitable year ever for the U.S. heroin trade.
Kush Bottles Inc (OTCMKTS:KSHB) is one the most interesting cannabis companies in the public markets. It picked up strength on the back of the recreational legalization ballots towards the end of 2016. The company gained more than 253% between August and November. Kush just made an announcement that could help it push it further up.
A previous owner of a private jet also once owned by Elvis Presley is disputing an auction house’s claim that the king of rock ‘n’ roll designed its red velvet interior.
GWS Auctions Inc. of California is auctioning off the jet after it sat on a runway in New Mexico for 30 years.
Sinclair already has 173 local news stations. The combined operations of the two companies will create the largest-single group of local TV stations. The acquisition is subject to regulatory approval, but the Trump administration’s FCC has signaled its openness to media consolidation.
This is another victory for conservatives in the battle for the hearts and minds of average Americans – especially those vulnerable to the type of “bumper-sticker” philosophies promoted by President Trump and the GOP.
Over the past 150 years, food companies and marketers in other parts of the world have taken eating in a more visually thrilling direction. They have used dyes to alter mass-produced foods—sometimes to make them less “natural” looking (cakes with bright-blue icing), sometimes to make them more “natural” looking (pickles made greener to fit with consumers’ expectations).
Both intentions are, upon further inspection, sort of strange.
There was once a time when mid-level bands with a modest following could make a pretty decent living playing music. They’d put out a record, sell a couple hundred thousand copies and then go on tour to promote it – which would drive additional sales, even as the tour itself was lucky to break even.
For the largest acts, this formula was a bona fide moneymaking bonanza, lining the pockets of all involved, including the musicians, managers, promoters and record labels. For everyone else, it didn’t produce vast riches but nonetheless supported careers and promoted the creation of new music.
Times, however, have changed.
There’s a reason Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin keeps insisting that his boss’s tax-cut plan will fully pay for itself through faster economic growth. Politics make it hard for him to say anything else. But math is not on their side. The fact is, the tax plan just doesn’t add up.
Well-educated, high profile CEOs sometimes become synonymous with their companies.
Steve Jobs and Apple, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, and Jeff Bezos and Amazon. It’s hard to separate the man from the operation.
However, investing in a company simply based on its leadership might not be the best strategy, according to Warren Buffett.
President Donald Trump would like to move on from the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia. That’s not speculation, or imputing a motive onto Trump actions; it’s the White House’s official line.
However, the president’s enlisting “a leading law firm” to insist he has no connections to the country— is something he could easily prove if he just released his tax returns.
Since President Donald Trump took office in January, Chicago area restaurants like Birrieria Zaragoza, La Chaparrita #1, L’Patron and countless others — restaurants that are daily destinations for a diverse community — have faced concerns because of the new administration’s stance on immigration issues, including the promises of a Mexico border wall and the executive order to cut off funding to so-called sanctuary cities. Here’s what they are saying:
Unilever is making a play in the meal kit market. Unilever Ventures, the company’s venture capital and private equity arm, along with Baseline Ventures and Founders Circle Capital, led a $9.2 million Series C-2 funding round for Sun Basket, an organic meal kit delivery service.
Americans are 10 times more likely to be killed by guns than people in other developed countries, a new study finds. The United States also accounted for 90 percent of all women killed by guns among developed nations.
Late-night TV has gotten very political–and inarguably left-leaning. But last night, ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel weaponized his own, tearful story into an argument that Congress should, for a second time, back off on a push to repeal Obamacare.
Juan Carlos Enriquez was born and raised in Miami, the son of Cuban immigrants. He worked for paint giant Sherwin-Williams for two decades and then decided to go into business with his brothers. Nine years ago, they launched The Paint Spot, which now has three locations in the Miami area.
In the fall of 2013, the small business got a big job. A subcontractor on the $200 million remodeling of the Trump National Doral golf resort ordered $142,000 worth of paint from Enriquez.
The paint was delivered and used, court records show. Trump Endeavor, the company that operates the resort, paid the early installments of the bill, but after the subcontractor walked off the job, Enriquez never got a final payment of about $32,000.
Hawaiian Airline has updated its brand identity and unveiled a new aircraft livery, the first of its fleet of more than 50 aircraft that will feature the new design.
The new identity retains Hawaiian’s color palette of purple, fuchsia and coral, while Pualani, who has been featured on the tail of the aircrafts for more than four decades, remains at its core.
With a sympathetic administration in place, the food and beverage industry has wasted no time, lobbying intensely to roll back or delay a myriad of Obama-era healthy food and drink rules. Yesterday, they had their way with federal school meal stand
The U.S. steel industry, a mainstay of the economy for more than 100 years, has been shrinking. Because of foreign imports, technology, and an overall surplus of steel throughout the world, the U.S. steel industry has struggled in recent years to keep jobs and production at steady levels.
Shares in these companies may be at bargain prices right now, with great growth potential.
While most successful businessmen and entrepreneurs guard their secrets to success, Justin Jones and Greg Gamet literally give it away. The partners are two of the most highly regarded experts in the legal cannabis industry, and now make a living sharing their secrets of success.
Almost every week we hear about pipeline accidents that endanger people, property and the environment. Yet, there are readily available systems that can significantly reduce the number of pipeline accidents, by improving oversight that identifies potential problem areas.
AyaWorks is one company that provides a suite of services designed to help utility companies improve safety, increase compliance to state and federal regulations, and reduce both incidents and paperwork associated with documenting on-going field inspections. So why aren’t more utility companies using this service?
Barbie sales fell 13% in the first quarter, adding to a much worse than expected slump for Mattel, the world’s largest toy company.
It was the second consecutive quarter of falling sales for the doll, which has been a key part of the firm’s product range for almost six decades.
Fox News is in a jam this week as another former Fox News contributor claimed she too was retaliated against by Fox News after she complained about a work environment she likened to a “sex-fueled, Playboy Mansion-like cult.”
Eric Trump, the rich-kid son of our current president, has been telling people that it will be hard to make a living now that daddy is president.
While the Trump Organization’s revenue and income are expected to continue to rise during Mr. Trump’s term in office, it will likely be at a slower rate, Eric Trump said, because of efforts to separate the Trump presidency from the family businesses. “We would be doing 30 deals across the globe” were his father not the president, Eric Trump said in an interview.
Actually, Trump owes the German bank over $1 billion, if you add up the various entities. Trump currently has two loans and two mortgages with Deutsche Bank and owes it about $340m (£270m).
The bank has also extended another $950m to a venture in which Trump owns a 30% stake, the Wall Street Journal reported in January. The debts of President Donald Trump and his businesses are scattered across Wall Street banks, mutual funds and other financial institutions, broadening the tangle of conflicts of interest.
Increasing inequality means wealthy Americans can now expect to live up to 15 years longer than their poor counterparts, reports in the British medical journal the Lancet have found.
Researchers said these disparities appear to be worsened by the American health system itself, which relies on for-profit insurance companies, and is the most expensive in the world.
Their conclusion? Treat healthcare as a human right.
Things are confusing enough. First, we got a president that tells us “alternative facts,” now farmers in Iowa are being told they aren’t farmers. To be more specific, they are being told that their farm is not a farm.
As with other online retailers, the standard way of paying for items on Amazon is via credit or debit card number, that most of us have saved. But Amazon thinks it can do better. The global e-commerce leader recently announced the launch of its new Amazon Cash service, which will allow you to add cash to your Amazon account balance.
Westinghouse Electric Company, which helped drive the development of nuclear energy and the electric grid itself, filed for bankruptcy protection on Wednesday, casting a shadow over the global nuclear industry.
In an appalling move to keep low-wage workers locked in poverty, the Iowa legislature this week gave final approval to a bill that reverses local minimum wage increases already approved in several counties and bans cities and counties from setting any wage and benefit standards. It is the first time that a state has nullified local minimum wage ordinances that had already taken effect and forced jurisdictions to lower minimum wage rates that had previously been raised.
The Trump administration has ordered nine airlines to stop passengers from bringing most types of electronic devices into the cabin for U.S.-bound flights. Instead, they’ll have to check them in.
Lots of people in the healthcare field heaved a sigh of relief last week when President Trump nominated Scott Gottlieb, a physician, venture investor and former official of the Food and Drug Administration, to be the FDA’s next commissioner. It comes as no surprise that Big Pharma is very, very happy.
Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, claimed that the Environmental Protection Agency is releasing “propaganda” that is “brainwashing our kids,” during a CNN interview on Thursday.
“We want to deliver the services. We ought to make things clean,” Inhofe said. “But we ought to take all this stuff that comes out of the EPA that’s brainwashing our kids, that is propaganda, things that aren’t true, allegations.”
U.S. computer chip and processor giant Intel will acquire the Israeli smart car tech firm Mobileye in a deal valued at $15.3 billion.
Supplying such automotive giants as General Motors and Volkswagen AG, Mobileye is one of the key producers of the onboard vision systems that anchor current advanced driver assistance systems — as well as tomorrow’s autonomous vehicle technology. The acquisition will help position Intel as a major player in the development of smart and driverless car systems.
One of the very reasons the framers of the constitution wanted the president to take a salary, even if they were wealthy enough not to need it, was to avoid potential conflicts of interest.
There is at least one thing President Trump and George Washington have in common: Both the first and current presidents said they didn’t want to be paid for the job.
As the estimates continue to mount, predicting how many people will lose their insurance with the repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), it starts to become clear: The Republicans must simply hate average Americans.
Illinois just can’t catch a break. The state is home to 67 of the 1,000 biggest companies in the U.S. by revenue—fourth most among states. They include Boeing, Abbott Labs, Caterpillar and Kraft Foods. However, the net migration rate out of Illinois over the last five years is the worst in the U.S.
The state’s finances are also in shambles: in June 2016, Moody’s downgraded Illinois’ credit rating to Baa2—lowest in the country among the states—and maintained its negative outlook. Moody’s cited the state’s “continuing budget imbalance due to political gridlock.” It was the fourth downgrade since 2012.
Wall Street visitors and tourists will notice a new addition if they’re walking down Broadway in New York this week. About 20 feet across from the famous Charging Bull statue — a symbol of Wall Street’s strength and might that has loomed over the street since 1989 — a bronze statue of a girl stands facing it, hands on hip, a defiant expression carved into her face.
Donald Trump was thundering about a minority group, linking its members to murderers and what he predicted would be an epic crime wave in America. His opponents raged in response—some slamming him as a racist—but Trump dismissed them as blind, ignorant of the real world.
Don’t be fooled by Trump’s and Republican promises to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. They could repeal it, but they can’t and won’t replace it.
They’ve tried for years to come up with a replacement that keeps at least as many people covered. Their “replacement” never appears.
So why do Republicans want to repeal Obamacare and leave millions without insurance? Because it would mean a huge tax windfall for the wealthy.
President Trump told leaders of the country’s largest automakers Tuesday that he will curtail “unnecessary” environmental regulations and make it easier to build plants in the United States, changes that he expects will shore up the manufacturing jobs he repeatedly promised to voters on the campaign trail.
Scientific findings by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency staff will likely face a case-by-case review by the Trump administration before being released, a spokesman for President Donald Trump’s transition team told NPR in an interview published on Wednesday.
This past Sunday on Meet the Press, Chuck Todd spent 13 minutes trying to get Trump spokeswoman Kellyanne Conway to explain “why President Trump sent out his press secretary to essentially litigate a provable falsehood” about Trump’s inauguration. The falsehood, delivered by Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Saturday, was that Trump had attracted “the largest audience to witness an inauguration, period.” Spicer had also dismissed photos of the crowd, claiming they “were intentionally framed” to make it look small.
Trishul Vaghani, CEO at Bluestar Mortgage, Inc, writes about current practices in the mortgage lending:
I joined the mortgage industry in late 2009 during the aftermath of the financial crisis. At a time when banks were permanently closing their doors and Loan Officers were giving up their licenses, I decided to walk toward the storm, the financial storm.
President Donald Trump formally abandoned the Trans-Pacific Partnership on Monday, pulling away from Asia and scrapping his predecessor’s most significant trade deal on his first full weekday in office, administration officials said.
When the history of Donald Trump’s Administration is written, people may point to the appointment of a Koch brothers’ operative to a little-known White House position as a turning point in Trump’s evolution from unorthodox Republican candidate to doctrinaire corporate politician.
General Motors paid over $1.3 million over the weekend to buy back a bullet-shaped single seat experimental car the automaker had built and used in the early 1960s, GM confirmed on Tuesday.
The car, called CERV I, was purchased at a Barrett-Jackson auction in Scottdale on Saturday. The fact that GM had bought the car was first reported by the Web site CorvetteBlogger.com.
America and Canada dropped their first hints that they could strike a new trade deal without Mexico. And Mexico suggested that it’s not interested in any deal that puts it at a disadvantage.
President Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, emphasized Trump will seek out “bilateral” trade agreements — meaning just between two countries.
Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon’s largest and most diverse contractor, already nabs nearly 10 cents of every contract dollar and has long perfected the strategy of spreading jobs on weapons programs in key states and congressional districts.
