IKEA Monkey

McDonald's South Korea's is serving up new Macarons and they can be delivered straight to customers' doorsteps via the company's McDelivery service.

The Macarons are made in France by Chateau Blanc and come in four flavors: Vanilla, Raspberry, Chocolate, Caramel.

They go for 1800 won a piece (~$1.45) on the delivery service. Add to the fact that you can also order cappuccinos and espressos for delivery and you have a very convenient afternoon break right there.

If you happen to be in South Korea, just know that the minimum delivery order 8000 won (~$6.43) or about five Macarons (or churros!).

Weight Watchers reported a 21 percent drop in quarterly revenue, undermining hopes that new investor Oprah Winfrey would help boost sales.

Burger King's latest breakfast attraction is the new Supreme Breakfast Sandwich, which looks to be the biggest breakfast sandwich they currently offer.

It features two fluffy eggs, two sausage patties, bacon, and two slices of American cheese on a toasted hoagie bun (the same one that finds a lot of service in their Extra Long Cheeseburger and its variants).

The price for the Supreme Breakfast Sandwich is $3.99 (may vary).

The sandwich bears more than a striking resemblance to the Enormous Omelet Sandwich they introduced back in 2005 but discontinued due to "health concerns."

Nutritional Info - Burger King Supreme Breakfast Sandwich (312g)
Calories - 880 (from Fat - 530)
Fat - 59g (Saturated Fat - 21g)
Sodium - 2170mg
Carbs - 45g (Sugar - 7g)
Protein - 41g

Please hold your applause. [ more › ]

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie endorsed Donald Trump on Friday.

McDonald's Maple Bacon Dijon Burger is one of four "Taste Crafted" burger options they're offering here in Southern California.

I picked one up for $4.99.

The Maple Bacon Dijon option includes maple bacon, grilled onions, Dijon sauce, white cheddar, and lettuce. You also get to choose either a Quarter Pounder patty, Artisan Grilled Chicken, or Buttermilk Crispy Chicken as well as either a sesame seed, potato, or artisan bun. I went with the beef patty and potato bun.

They kept it fairly simple with this burger andit worked out really well. I hadn't had a Quarter Pounder patty since McDonald's made it slightly bigger and made some tweaks as to how they grilled them but it's definitely worked out for the better here. The patty had a nice crust, a good coarsely ground texture, and was almost juicy.

The maple bacon was lightly touched with a syrup-y sweetness. It sported some crispy edges here and there to go with an enjoyable smoky flavor. The tangy Dijon sauce goes well with the sweet and smoky notes.

The onions added an extra sweetness and a slight watery crispness, while the lettuce was pretty fresh. The cheese was your basic super mild and creamy stuff but was nicely melted.

The potato bun is my favorite of the three bun choices. It hit a good balance between soft and resilient paired with a slightly rustic feel. In comparison, the sesame seed is a little too standard for the premium pricing and the artisan bun is a little too dense and has lacked a freshness the times I've tried it.

Overall, McDonald's Maple Bacon Dijon Burger made for a quality and novel bacon cheeseburger with just the right balance between its savory and sweet components.

You don’t need most of your crap. I’d usually say “probably” there, but for most people, this is a safe bet. Rather than go on a yearly crime spree, give yourself a lifestyle purge every once in a while to save yourself money and declutter.

Read more...

Extras are needed for the Fox pilot "The Exorcist," which is filming in Chicago next month, 4 Star Casting announced Wednesday on Facebook.

The casting company is looking for people to play CTA Pink Line train riders, fallen priests, altar boys, parishioners and other roles.

Filming dates and locations...

For as long as the government has kept track, the economic statistics have shown a troubling racial gap. Black people are twice as likely as white people to be out of work and looking for a job. This fact was as true in 1954 as it is today.

The most recent report puts the white unemployment rate at around 4.5 percent. The black unemployment rate? About 8.8 percent.

But the economic picture for black Americans is far worse than those statistics indicate. The unemployment rate only measures people who are both living at home and actively looking for a job.

The hitch: A lot of black men aren't living at home and can’t look for jobs — because they’re behind bars.

Though there are nearly 1.6 million Americans in state or federal prison, their absence is not accounted for in the figures that politicians and policymakers use to make decisions. As a result, we operate under a distorted picture of the nation's economic health.

There's no simple way to estimate the impact of mass incarceration on the jobs market. But here's a simple thought experiment. Imagine how the white and black unemployment rates would change if all the people in prison were added to the unemployment rolls.

According to a Wonkblog analysis of government statistics, about 1.6 percent of prime-age white men (25 to 54 years old) are institutionalized. If all those 590,000 people were recognized as unemployed, the unemployment rate for prime-age white men would increase from about 5 percent to 6.4 percent.

For prime-age black men, though, the unemployment rate would jump from 11 percent to 19 percent. That's because a far higher fraction of black men — 7.7 percent, or 580,000 people — are institutionalized. 

Now, the racial gap starts to look like a racial chasm. (When you take into account local jails, which are not included in these statistics, the situation could be even worse.)

“Imprisonment makes the disadvantaged literally invisible,” writes Harvard sociologist Bruce Western in his book, "Punishment and Inequality in America." Western was among the first scholars to argue that America has locked up so many people it needs to rethink how it measures the economy.

Over the past 40 years, the prison population has quintupled. As a consequence of  disparities in arrests and sentencing, this eruption has disproportionately affected black communities. Black men are imprisoned at six times the rate of white men. In 2003, the Bureau of Justice Statistics estimated that black men have a 1 in 3 chance of going to federal or state prison in their lifetimes. For some high-risk groups, the economic consequences have been staggering. According to Census data from 2014, there are more young black high school dropouts in prison than have jobs.

[Researchers have discovered a new and surprising racial bias in the criminal justice system] 

The economic data sweeps these people under the rug, making the situation look far too optimistic for African-Americans. Western started writing about this problem in the early 2000s with Becky Pettit, a sociologist at the University of Texas, Austin. They’ve published reports in top journals, and have each authored books on the subject.

It’s taken a long time for this blind spot to be recognized. Much of the debate about prisons has focused on disparities in the justice system, and rightly so, Western says. The problem begins there. But when a large chunk of the working-age population vanishes from public life, the repercussions spread.

One in nine black children has had a parent behind bars. One in thirteen black adults can't vote because of their criminal records. Discrimination on the job market deepens racial inequality. Not only does a criminal record make it harder to get hired, but studies find that a criminal record is more of a handicap for black men. Employers are willing to give people second chances, but less so if they're black.

“Jim Crow and slavery were caste systems. So is our current system of mass incarceration,” wrote civil rights lawyer Michelle Alexander in her 2010 book "The New Jim Crow."

These consequences entangle the broader economy. Yet, many people who study employment and the job market haven't been paying attention to the criminal justice system. That's a big mistake, according to Western.

“From my point of view," he says, "mass incarceration is so deeply connected to American poverty and economic inequality."

A look at the troubling data

To see Western’s point, consider the statistics for people at high risk of arrest — young men (aged 20-34) who never finished high school.

Let's set aside for a moment the unemployment rate, which is a blinkered measure of the economy. Only people who have recently looked for a job are considered unemployed. Instead, economists often focus on a different number, the fraction of people who have jobs. This is called the "employment-population ratio."

Overall, about 60 percent of young white dropouts and 36 percent of young black dropouts were employed in 2014, according to the Census's Current Population Survey. But there's a caveat to that number. It excludes people in prison or otherwise institutionalized.

The Census separately measures this population. According to that data, about 7.6 percent of these white men were institutionalized in 2014. (Overwhelmingly, this means jail, but it could also mean a mental hospital or a nursing home.) For black men, the fraction is so staggering, it seems like a typo — 29 percent of black male high-school dropouts between the ages of 20 and 34 were institutionalized in 2014.

When you add in all of the incarcerated, the numbers become much bleaker and the racial gaps much wider. In reality, only about 54 percent of young white male high-school dropouts had jobs in 2014. And only 25 percent of their black counterparts were employed.

 

As the above numbers indicate, there are more young black male high school dropouts behind bars than have jobs. This is a very high-risk population. But even if we zoom out, the data still are skewed.

Here are the same numbers for all prime-age men in 2014. Officially, 84 percent of white men between 25-54 were working in 2014, compared to 71 percent of black men. After including the incarcerated, the fraction of white men who have jobs hardly changes. But the black employment-population ratio drops to 66 percent.

How incarceration has changed the economy

The prison boom has made such a dent that recently, social scientists have completely reconsidered how much progress the black community has made in recent decades.

Derek Neal, an economist at The University of Chicago, and Armin Rick, an economist at Cornell, argue that mass incarceration has masked a lot of economic pain and a lot of inequality.

The official statistics are "very deceptive when the trends in the fraction incarcerated are changing,” Neal says. “You can actually measure an increasing employment rate or a falling unemployment rate simply because, over this period, we’ve put more of the people who have trouble finding jobs in prison.”

Neal and Rick explored a slightly different thought experiment. What if all these men had never been arrested? What if they all had jobs? What if they were earning wages on par with similar men with similar levels of education?

The effects are not all expected, or even necessarily positive. According to Neal and Rick’s calculations, if all these prisoners were actually working, they would drag down the median white wage by just a little, but it would drag down the median black wage by a lot, since so many black men are incarcerated.

The chart below shows the hypothetical black-white wage gap compared to the actual black-white wage gap, among men who are 11-15 years out of school. The 1960s and 1970s yielded incredible economic progress for black Americans — dividends from civil rights reform. But the trend stalled in subsequent decades. Then, the financial crisis hit, wiping out much of those past gains.

Neal and Rick find that in 2010, black men earned about 75 cents for every dollar white men out of prison made. But if all the men in prison also had jobs, there would be a lot more inequality — black men would only be earning about 65 cents on the dollar. Had all these people been on the job market instead of in prison, they would have competed with other workers for jobs, driving wages down.

“The growth of incarceration rates among black men in recent decades,” they write, “combined with the sharp drop in black employment rates during the Great Recession have left most black men in a position relative to white men that is really no better than the position they occupied only a few years after the Civil Rights Act of 1965.”

Western and Pettit argue that the wages for low-skilled black workers in the 1990s rose in part because incarceration reduced the number of people competing for work. As incarceration rates slowly start to fall, there will be pressure on the economy to absorb some of the most hard-to-employ people in society. "Somehow we're going to have to figure out how to address the really severe employment problems of low-skill men," Western says.

This will prove particularly difficult because mass incarceration's ill effects are concentrated in places already in distress. Researchers once estimated that, in some inner-city neighborhoods, up to one-fifth of the young black men are behind bars at any given moment.

In their absence, their communities start to fracture. So when they get out, they find that there are no jobs and no support networks. "The impact of incarceration on communities and the impact of communities on reentry together create a pernicious cycle of decline," professors Jeffrey Morenoff and David Harding wrote in the Annual Review of Sociology in 2014.

For now, there are still so many people behind bars that it continues to warp our sense of reality. Recently, politicians challenged Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen to recognize the vast racial inequalities in the economy. They cited the black unemployment rate — twice the white unemployment rate. But however bad those numbers seem, the truth, after accounting for incarceration, is even worse. So perhaps the next time the jobs report comes out, there could be an extra chart to recognize the 1.6 million prisoners in America. 

They don’t show up anywhere in the government’s measurements of economic activity, but their absence is dearly felt.

Kelly Clarkson, reality television’s best case scenario, returned to her old stomping grounds Thursday night for a performance so devastating that I would like to fling myself into the sea.

Read more...

Public Policy Polling, which had previously asked Republican voters if they support bombing Disney’s fictional kingdom of Agrabah (they do), is currently hitting up Floridians with the biggest question of all: Is Ted Cruz the elusive Zodiac Killer? Maybe!

Read more...

If you still haven’t upgraded to 4K, this is one of the best deals we’ve seen to date. $900 gets you a Samsung 55" 4K smart TV, which is nearly $200 less than Amazon’s current price, and Dell will toss in a $400 promo gift card to sweeten the pot.

Read more...

“Once we’re in international waters, every woman on the ship gets to make love to whoever she wants,” Sean David Morton said, with a wink.

Read more...

I know you should never meet your idols. But, for the sake of journalism, sometimes you must.

I, like nearly 2 million others, have been following Tuna—a Chihuahua-Dachshund cross-breed—on Instagram for several years. And now I'm following him in real life, down a road and into St. James's Park in London, where he's being taken for his morning walk.

Tuna and his owner, Courtney Dasher, both of whom are originally from California, have traveled to London to start the UK leg of their book tour. Tuna shot to social media stardom after Dasher set up his Instagram page in 2011, and the all-access guide to one of the most famous dogs on the planet—Tuna Melts My Heart: The Underdog with the Overbite—is just the latest Tuna memento available to fans, alongside mugs bearing his face, a calendar, and white bronze rings moulded into the shape of his head.

Tuna is not conventionally good-looking. He has a huge overbite with tiny little teeth sticking out. He has oversized ears and a long wrinkly neck, and has hair so fine that he's essentially naked. Tuna is not a perfect looking pet, and that's why he's so popular.

Dasher and Tuna

"One woman showed up to a book signing who had agoraphobia—she hadn't left her house in years. This woman got over her fear, just to meet Tuna!" says Dasher, directing Tuna into different poses for VICE photographer Chris. She knows exactly what angles Tuna looks best from, like moving him around and giving him prompts, like a pageant mom with dog treats instead of lip gloss.

However implausible it sounds that a wrinkly little dog could cause such astonishing healing miracles, Tuna really does appear to have a remarkably positive effect on people's lives. Dasher tells me numerous other stories of fans thanking Tuna for helping them deal with everything from break-ups to chemotherapy.

"After listening to these people, I realized that this is way more than just a dog with an Instagram account," she says, picking Tuna up and putting him in her doggie satchel. "This unconventional-looking dog is being used to bring joy and make people happy."

The author, in conversation with Tuna

When Dasher started Tuna's Instagram page back in 2011, the internet was already very into animals. Websites like icanhas.cheezburger.com and cuteoverload.com had existed since as early as 2007, establishing the idea that your pet—or, more specifically, your cat—had the potential to go viral for pulling a weird face or running full pelt into a wall. But these pages were essentially just catalogues of hundreds of different animals being "lol"—it was impossible to establish any kind of connection with one particular pet. And a cursory glance at a cat meme is never going to cure your agoraphobia.

It turns out that what people wanted, and what Instagram facilitated, was to be able to maintain some kind of relationship with these animals—to know the back-story and receive regular updates. Cuteoverload shut up shop in January of 2016, and icanhas.cheezburger is looking very tired, while another one of these Instagram-famous animals pops up seemingly every month.

A recent survey of 1,012 British pet owners, carried out by One4all, found that half of UK pets now have a social media account. Not all of them attract millions of dedicated fans and spawn lucrative merchandise lines, but some do. Accounts like Grumpy Cat, Marnie the Dog, and Lil Bub all have over a million followers, as well as the book deals and products that come with that kind of captive audience.

But for Dasher and many of her contemporaries, building an online pet empire was never part of the plan.

Tuna fans pose at a book signing in East London.

Dasher adopted Tuna in 2010 after she found him at a farmers market; she says he resembled "Oliver Twist, shivering in an oversized jumper." A year later, she created an Instagram account, and then in 2012, the account went viral. The Daily Mail was the first major news outlet to pick up on Tuna's popularity. "Meet Tuna, the Chihuahua-Dachshund mix who has melted the hearts of 375,000 Instagram followers," read the headline in June of 2013. Gradually, 375,000 followers snowballed into over a million, and 1 million-plus followers snowballed into a full-time job.

"There was a point where I had an interior design boutique business, as well as a 9–5 job working in a design center, along with a social life, and a dog and his Instagram," says Courtney. "I had to prioritize what was important. I felt like this was my opportunity to make a positive difference in the world, so I took a leap of faith."

The reason Dasher could take that leap of faith is because having an Insta-famous pet—and selling merchandise related to that Insta-famous pet—pays.

"I was talking to a CEO of a successful company, and this person was saying, 'Without knowing it, you've started a start-up company quicker than most, because you have a real understanding of what your brand is," says Dasher, as Tuna snoozes next to us. "When I started my account, I never had an intention to garner a large following, but I think, unbeknownst to me, I developed a brand on day one. I made a decision that I was not going to reveal who I was; I was just going to make it about Tuna."

Dasher is adamant about keeping her account as authentic as possible, free from unrelated brand endorsements—which can be difficult when the big money in social media comes through sponsored posts. She claims she refuses 95 percent of deals from major companies. "It's hard sometimes, because it's enticing when you are offered big posting deals," she admits. "But if I'm not at peace with the idea or think it's not a good fit with Tuna and the brand of Tuna, then I politely decline."

A huge part of the Tuna "brand" is raising awareness and financial support for animal rescue; a percentage of the profits from products sold in Tuna's online store go to rescue centers across the US. The proceeds from the new book, however, go directly to Dasher, which she has been criticized for; when you're projecting such a strong message of charity, buyers expect you to put your money where your mouth is.

"At the same time," says Dasher, "this has become full time, and if I didn't have a source of income, I wouldn't be able to devote as much attention to him and to the audience."

Related: Watch 'Lil Bub and & Friendz,' our documentary about Lil Bub

<span id="selection-marker-1" class="redactor-selection-marker" data-verified="redactor"></span>

There are a number of other pet accounts that have used their unexpected success to promote animal welfare causes. A pint-sized disabled cat named Lil Bub—and her owner, Mike Bridavsky—are at the helm of another pet positivity empire. I spoke to Bridavsky over the phone after he'd just returned from Lil BUB's Lil SHOP—not an online shop, a real-life brick and mortar store in Indiana, the state where Bub was originally rescued from a tool shed.

In 2014, Bridavsky announced the creation of Lil Bub's Big Fund, the first national fund for special needs pets in America. The fund works in line with the ASPCA to administrate the money Bub and her fans generate, and then distributes this money to small shelters around the US.

"Because so many people care about Bub, it's really easy for me to attach a positive message—and people will listen," said Bridavsky. "As the money we were making for the fund increased, I realized I wasn't qualified to decide which shelters should get what proportion of the money."

So far, Mike and Bub have donated nearly $200,000 to special needs pet projects.

Grumpy Cat. Photo by Gage Skidmore via

It may be easy to attach a positive message to a pet account, but it's just as easy not to attach any message at all. And why should you have to? Bodhi—or @mensweardog—is a six-year-old Shiba Inu far more concerned with aesthetics than altruism. He's become an online sensation after getting paid work as a menswear model for clothing lines such as ASOS and Coach.

But if one account were to represent the pure monetization of a moggy, it would be Grumpy Cat, the mix-breed with feline dwarfism. In 2014, Forbes reported that Grumpy Cat—real name: Tardar Sauce—had made her owner around $97 million from an array of products, including best-selling books and a film deal.

In an interview with the Daily Mail, Ben Lashes—who manages Grumpy Cat, as well as Nyan Cat and Keyboard Cat—explained what he looks for in his feline clients. "I've never been someone who's called up every mildly famous cat on the internet," he said. "I'm very picky. To be worth it, they have to already be an icon. When I first saw Grumpy Cat, she was instantly, to me, something you could never forget A certain amount of it is magic—the thing that makes the Beatles more than four guys playing in a basement. "

As well as countless other sponsorship agreements, Grumpy signed a lucrative deal with American cat food producer Friskies. When I spoke to him about it, Mike Bridavsky was clear that Lil Bub would never be a part of such an agreement. "I don't want to endorse any cat products that I wouldn't feed to my own cats," he said. "I'm not going to sign my life away by suddenly having to post something about buying Friskies food every day for a year."

Tuna before his book signing

The same way that musical artists, clothing brands, and multinational banks now all strive for "authenticity"—the most-savored cultural currency going—it seems a subset of people who take photos of their pets and put them on social media also want their followers to know they have no plans to sell out. That all their fans can expect are undiluted, un-sponsored images of their favorite online animal personalities.

As the authenticity-profitability debate rages on, in London, Tuna's book signing is underway, with the line outside Shoreditch's Ace Hotel curling out the door and around the corner.

The fans I speak to—a real mixture of people, from accountants to retired nurses—are all enthusiastic but relatively well-behaved. There's no screaming or underwear hurling. However, one man catches my attention because he is pacing up and down, trying desperately to catch a glimpse of Tuna. I soon realize the man I'm looking at is Lee Ryan, former member of the boy band Blue.

Lee Ryan with Tuna

"Me and my friends are all in this WhatsApp group where we take photos of ourselves impersonating Tuna and send them to each other," he says, as I glaze over, trying to process how bizarre my day has become. "I'd rather Tuna was in Blue than Duncan James. You can quote me on that."

And I will. Because saying you'd rather a dog was in your band than a professional singer is a pretty good sign of the power of Tuna and how the internet can now transform a pet into an international Instagram icon.

Follow Amelia on Twitter.

Bane of his family’s existence Ted Cruz isn’t very popular among his colleagues, either —this much we knew. Ted, however, still seems to be struggling with the concept. Because while attending Antonin Scalia’s funeral this past weekend, he kept insisting on sitting next to other humans. And absolutely no one wanted to sit next to Ted.

Read more...

If you've swung by your local Jack in the Box recently, you might have noticed that the smoothie machine was conspicuously missing behind the counter. That's because Jack in the Box is no longer serving the fruity frozen drinks and here's why:

I reached out to the company regarding the change and received the following response:

"Jack in the Box removed smoothies from its menu as part of the brand’s beverage strategy.  With the rollout of Coke Freestyle machines system-wide, Jack is allowing guests to choose and customize their drink from more than 100 options.  Looking holistically at its beverage offerings with Coke Freestyle in-place, the brand decided to remove smoothies from the menu."

Basically, smoothies don't really fit in with the Jack in the Box drink menu as much as (a lot) more soda options. Anecdotally, the cashier at my local Jack in the Box told me they sold pretty well and that she missed them. That being said, they haven't really pushed the smoothies at all in recent years.

Interestingly, Jack in the Box first introduced smoothies in 2008, pre-dating burger rivals McDonald's and Burger King by at least two years (McDonald's introduced smoothies in 2010 and Burger King followed suite in 2012.).

Photo via Jack in the Box.

Valentine’s Day is only one day, but bargain Valentine’s Day candy and those chalky AF Necco Sweethearts are forever. If many of us must resign to being an archetypal Dejected Single™, an IDGAF Single™, or whatever Single™ our loved ones perceive us as during the month of February, we frankly deserve better than calcified chocolate that may or may not be wax. So how about some pies curated with lines you probably heard that one time someone you were boning with feels was grinding your heart into dust? TAKING IT.

Read more...

A former meerkat expert at London Zoo was cleared Tuesday of assaulting a monkey handler in a love spat over a llama-keeper.

"He's an 'African' American. He was, you know, raised white," Carson told a Politico podcast.

Learn more about these massive dogs.

A three-year-old Egyptian boy has been sentenced to life for a crime he allegedly committed when he was 16-months-old.

Scientists have modeled a history of the planet's sea levels spanning back 3,000 years, and concluded that the rate of increase last century "was extremely likely faster than during any of the 27 previous centuries."

New research says HPV infection rates have basically dropped like a rock among young women since they started getting vaccinated. Science: It’s magic!

Read more...

 I feel like this almost never happens. Kylie Jenner, going to a public event (the Boss Women show) in a) good clothes, b) a face full of makeup that doesn’t appear to be an attempt to turn her into a 27-year old; and c) SNEAKERS. Essentially, she finally went somewhere looking like the cute 18-year old human Read More ...

If a father is not listed on a birth certificate to a newborn child, the bill says a birth certificate would not be issued for that child and any hopes of receiving financial assistance, if needed, would be dashed. [ more › ]

Southeast Asia is a great place for crab lovers, and there are worse ways to eat it than in Thai khao phat buu—fried rice with crab, made with fragrant jasmine rice that's gently seasoned with garlic and chilies, then tossed with scrambled egg, picked crabmeat, and scallions, finished with a little fish sauce, and served with cilantro and cucumbers. Read More

Sure, you can fly first class if you’re willing to fork over the cash or your travel rewards. And it may be worth every penny. Even better than paying for first class, though, is getting it for free. If this has happened to you, we want to know your secret.

Read more...