The Simple Reason Why Lorna Jane Won't Stock Plus Size Women's Exercise Clothing

SHE’S the queen of activewear, and the face of Australia’s $2 billion fitness fashion movement.

there’s a good reason why she doesn’t stock a plus size range in her 200 stores across the globe. But Lorna Jane Clarkson says there’s a good reason why she doesn’t stock a plus size range in her 200 stores across the globe.

"We make the sizes that sell in our stores," Clarkson told news.com.au.

"Right now we have XS — XL and that’s because that’s what our customers want. If we were going to try a larger size we would sell them in a store that demanded larger sizes, but that hasn’t resulted in sales for us."

Lorna Jane said while there’s not a demand for plus size active wear, and until there is she won’t deliver. Picture: Anthony Weate

stores around the world bearing her name, reportedly worth an estimated $500 million, is a fitness force to be reckoned with. Clarkson, who has 200 stores around the world bearing her name, reportedly worth an estimated $500 million, is a fitness force to be reckoned with.

While some critics believe the designer and business owner should be catering for all shapes and sizes, she listens to her customers — and when they ask for larger sizes, that’s when they’ll deliver.

"Any criticism that we get are people who don’t support our brand anyway. If they did they would be walking into our store and trying on the clothes, and if they didn’t fit we would say ‘OK, we need to start making those clothes in a bigger size’.

"Our brand is totally customer focused, and we haven’t felt the demand for bigger sizes. If my customer wanted bigger sizes, I would absolutely accommodate. But we have tried it and not sold it."

Lorna Jane would stock bigger sizes if there was a demand for it.

With millions of followers on the Lorna Jane social media channel, IBISWorld analytics suggest one piece of the brand’s athletic apparel is sold every 19 seconds in Australia.

Her customer base, which she labels "the LJ women", started back in 1989 when the then dental therapist and aerobics instructor made clothing patterns out of newspaper while living in Cairns.

"I had no formal training. I just made patterns out of newspaper and sewed on my Janome," she said in an interview with The Courier Mail . "I had no formal training.. I just made patterns out of newspaper and sewed on my Janome," she said in an interview with

"Then women in my classes started asking me to make similar pieces, and overnight it turned into a fulltime job."

Gymwear queen Lorna Jane’s brand is reportedly worth $500 million.

Heading back to Brisbane from the tropical north, Clarkson and her husband Bill decided to give the market a shot by opening their first store in 1990.

"I always thought we were a really healthy nation but in fact we are not," she declared.

"We may have been in the past, but our statistics are declining. Obesity is rising, heart disease is rising and the amount of people doing formal exercise is decreasing.

"I felt this overwhelming passion to do something about it, which I’ve coped a lot of criticism for, because people don’t want to hear about it and instead they like to stick their head in the sand.

"Make health fitness and positivity part of your life, and you will see the difference over and over."

Lorna Jane Clarkson is an active spokeswoman about health and wellbeing.

, after the she was criticised for running a job ad for a combined "Receptionist/Fit Model" position, which included physical measurement requirements for potential applicants. Clarkson and her brand copped criticism in July last year , after the she was criticised for running a job ad for a combined "Receptionist/Fit Model" position, which included physical measurement requirements for potential applicants.

And several months later, she came under fire for allegedly encouraging staff members to skip lunch, live on coffee and go to the gym in order to fit the "move, nourish, believe" philosophy.

At the time, a former store manager Amy Robinson said she was bullied by senior staff regularly about her weight and forced to work in unsafe conditions during her six months with Lorna Jane in 2012. The 39-year-old made a claim for more than $500,000 from the company At the time, a former store manager Amy Robinson said she was bullied by senior staff regularly about her weight and forced to work in unsafe conditions during her six months with Lorna Jane in 2012. The 39-year-old made a claim for more than $500,000 from the company for pain and suffering sustained during her employment.

Lorna Jane broke down during her 60 Minutes interview in

In a subsequent 60 minutes interview, Clarkson said the whole year was actually a "blessing in disguise" and made her "stronger".

"Going through that was awful ... feeling so misunderstood on a public level when it’s so far away from who you are — it was emotionally draining," she said.

"I was really fragile and the public saw the worst of it, but what I’ve learned is that it’s good to be human and let people see that side of you. I definitely got stronger. I’m not unhappy that it happened — that’s how you grow and learn."

A model wearing some of Lorna Jane’s activewear.

Clarkson, who is currently in Sydney to promote Clarkson, who is currently in Sydney to promote Active Nation Day on Sunday, hopes her journey will encourage others around the world to get out and moving.

"We need a day that stops us and take note of where we are at as a nation and as individuals," she said.

Lorna Jane stretching during the Lorna Jane Active Nation Day last year. Picture: Liam Kidston.

"We are time poor ... You don’t have to go out and make these huge massive changes, just small changes every day."

Active Nation Day falls on the last Sunday of every September, and has been running for the past five years. The day is to recognise, celebrate and encourage women to mark their commitment to Active Living by taking on some exercise.

Lorna Jane on not stocking plus sizes: ‘We make the sizes that sell i...

SHES the queen of activewear, and the face of Australias 2 billion fitness fashion movement.

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How does your life change after you film a funny video for your friends and it notches up some 164 million - yes, million - views?

This is what happened to Candace Payne, a 37-year-old from Texas who one day in May bought a silly mask and live-streamed herself chatting about her purchase.

The video, filmed in a shop car park, broke the record as the most-watched Facebook Live video ever.

You may remember this because it is pretty much four minutes of complete joy as the mother of two dons the Chewbacca mask, then laughs her head off as the toy mimics the sounds of the famous Star Wars character. Here it is again, should you have missed this moment of sheer delight in 2016.

"Things are wonderful at the moment," Candace says.

Since Candace has shot to internet stardom she has appeared on a Late Late Show sketch with Star Wars director JJ Abrams, one of her heroes, released a cover of Michael Jackson's Heal the World and keeps being recognised in the street.

"People come up and ask if they can take a selfie with me," Candace says. "Most are pretty kind and many people want to say thanks for my video."

Candace says she recorded the video for her friends and family and made it publicly visible without really thinking about it.

Because it was public, people could share it and they did - over and over and over again.

"I remember seeing that I got 50,000 views within an hour - and thinking 'I don't know 50,000 people. What's going on?'"

By the time Candace went to bed - seven hours after she posted it - the video had one million views and she wanted to know what makes a video viral.

One reference said you needed five million views in 24 hours and she said: "I thought I might actually go viral."

By the time she woke up the next day, Candace had 24 million video views and 20 messages on her phone.

Her Chewbacca antics had shattered the previous Facebook Live record set by Buzzfeed's exploding watermelon - a video in which two people gradually add rubber bands to a watermelon until the inevitable happens.

Facebook had only rolled out live streaming video capability to all users a month before, in April.

"Within three days I had 78 million views and climbing. I refreshed my Facebook page and saw the number of views jump by 100,000."

Candace says she clearly remembers a moment being in the kitchen "on the floor, in tears".

She says she knew a "door had opened up" for something different in her life.

"I knew that being a stay-at-home mom was just a season.

"Once both my kids started at school and kindergarten, I was looking to go back to work again. But the right option never came up.

"And I always had dreams of doing something grand."

She also appeared on Good Morning America, where she remembers chatting off set about her new-found fame.

"Someone said to me: 'Not many people are ready for this. But you are'.

"I really took those words to my heart. It gave fire to my bones."

Candace now has some 800,000 followers on Facebook and another 50,000 on Instagram and she is looking forward to starting life as a video blogger for American network TLC.

Candace also has a small group of people looking after press inquiries and her engagements, while she delivers speeches on the theme of finding "joy in the everyday".

"We forget that joy calls us to play," says Candace. "That's what happened in the car that day. I didn't care who walked by and saw what I was doing."

Candace says she has landed the dream job for which she did not apply "which is being myself and going out there and meeting people, and sharing the joy".

Candace says she has not changed, but some things have changed in her life. Some people who are close to her think she might be too busy to see them and that space is filled with more strangers who want to meet her.

It is also difficult to teach her children to be careful with strangers, she says, when there are random people coming up and asking for a photo with their mother.

"But I haven't met someone I don't like yet. In general, I love people."

Candace has received negative messages on social media. But she says hateful things just "roll off" her back if they are from people she doesn't know.

Surely though, what we all want to know is why was the video so successful? Why did so many people love it and share it?

How did it become the top global live video of the year, beating others from major publishers covering stories such as the US election?

"I don't get it either," says Candace. "But laughter is a universal language. My video was just joyful and had nothing to do with any agenda."

'Chewbacca Mom' on winning Facebook in 2016

What happened to the woman behind the viral Chewbacca mask video?


The Batman Solo Movie Just Hired The Best Possible Director

Batman has enjoyed more success on the big screen than any other superhero, so it came as no surprise that even when he debuted in the DCEU in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice , Warner Bros wanted to give the hero another solo adventure. For over a year, we've gotten various rumors and reports about this project's supposed progress, with confirmation on its development coming only a few months ago. Now Warner Bros has finally revealed that the current Batman himself, Ben Affleck, will direct the Caped Crusader's upcoming movie.

Our own Eric Eisenberg was in Hall H at Comic-Con in San Diego when Affleck appeared alongside the other DC movies directors to briefly talk about how great it is to be be directing the latest Batman movie. He said:

It's really inspiring taking on something like this character and this story - the only thing analogous is like a great play that's been done so many times before. There's a tremendous amount of pressure and work that's already gone into it.

While it's good to finally hear that Ben Affleck is directing the Batman movie, along with starring in it and co-writing the story with Geoff Johns, it's not exactly a surprising. Over the last decade, Affleck has developed a solid reputation as a director with the award-winning movies Gone Baby Gone, The Town and Argo. He's already proven how competent he is behind the scenes, so it only makes sense that he gets to helm the story of the hero he's currently playing. No doubt he discussed with with the Warner Bros brass when he first signed on for the role several years back. Given his track record so far, maybe Affleck's Batman movie will follow in the footsteps of The Dark Knight and become an awards contender in the months after its release.

No plot details have been officially released about the new Batman movie yet, including whether it will take place before Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice or after Justice League, though my guess is the latter. Ben Affleck's Batman debuted earlier this year as a Caped Crusader who's been fighting crime for over two decades. He will return next month in Suicide Squad , and then reappear late next year in Justice League gathering together various metahumans and other powered figures to protect the Earth. Ideally the Batman movie will introduce some important players from his supporting cast, like Robin, Batgirl, Nightwing, etc. At minimum, we can also expect Jeremy Irons and J.K. Simmons to reprise Alfred Pennyworth and Commissioner James Gordon, respectively.

The Batman Solo Movie Just Officially Announced Its Director - CINEMA...

Now Warner Bros has finally revealed who will direct the upcoming Batman movie. Get the details!

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Without a doubt, this is the dumbest mistake investors keep making

This year, the S&P 500 index swooned nearly 5% in January, remained flat in February, and surged more than 6.5% for the month of March. That’s after erasing last year’s August-September 8% drop with an 8.4% October gain.

Moreover, smaller-company stocks, represented by the Russell 2000 index, were down more than 20% from their late-summer peaks in February, before storming back more than 10% since then.

Moves like this drive investors crazy, often causing them to trade their holdings in damaging ways.

Here’s how investors hurt themselves, and what they can do to stop it.

Fund-research firm Morningstar Inc. has the data to prove investors’ self-defeating behavior, in the form of a metric called "investor returns."

An investor return differs from a fund’s total return in that the total return assumes a buy-and-hold approach. The total return doesn’t reflect money moving into and out of the fund, and, therefore, judges the manager’s performance accurately.

But an investor return, sometimes called a dollar-weighted return, accounts for cash flows into and out of a fund, and evaluates how much of the fund’s return the average dollar invested in the fund has extracted. In other words, it shows how well or poorly investors trade their funds.

For example, if a fund’s investor return is less than the total return, fewer dollars participated in the fund’s upswing and more participated in the downswing.

This can happen because investors have sold a fund near its lows, leaving fewer dollars in the fund to take advantage of the upside, and bought it near its highs, pushing more dollars into the fund to inadvertently capture its downside.

Sadly, this kind of negative "return gap"—lower investor return than total return—is the norm. Morningstar’s data shows investors in diversified U.S.-stock funds (those not limited to a particular sector of the market) have missed nearly 1.8 percentage points of the funds’ annualized total returns over the past decade because of bad trading. The gap over the past 15 years is negative 1.6 percentage points, implying investors are getting worse at timing their trades.

If 1.8 or 1.6 percentage points doesn’t sound like a lot to give up, consider how much just 1 percentage point a year can cost you over a lifetime of saving. Investing $5,000 a year for 40 years and earning a 6.5% annualized return results in nearly $880,000. Investing the same amount over the same period but earning a 5.5% annualized return results in about $680,000. So in this case, losing 1 percentage point of annualized return due to bad trading would cost you 23% of your potential final sum.

© Provided by MarketWatch The big mistake investors still make

One way to prevent yourself from buying high and selling low is to set up allocations that don’t scare you when the market drops.

When the market is going up, people tend to feel confident and fool themselves into thinking they can handle any risk. Then, when the downturn arrives, they find they didn’t plan well enough for how they would feel with losses mounting in their portfolios.

Try to anticipate how a large stock-market decline will feel before it’s upon you. Behavioral-finance experts call this approach minding the "empathy gap."

A good way to mind the gap is to think about how you felt during the last big decline, in 2008-09. If you sold stocks into the downturn, you didn’t have a good equity allocation. If you have the same allocation now, you need to change it.

Minding the empathy gap well can help you set up a portfolio that makes you want to buy stocks in a downturn, not sell them. And now is an excellent time to anticipate how a downturn will feel, because, although the market has been choppy lately, we haven’t experienced a serious decline since the last one ended in early 2009.

Besides anticipating how a downturn will make you feel, try to remember how social a creature you are. There’s little doubt most of us are wired to be with each other, but this characteristic can hurt us in some ways, including as investors.

For example, psychological studies have shown that people answer easy questions incorrectly when they’ve heard people give an incorrect answer immediately before it’s their turn to answer. In other words, people seem to stop thinking when they’re around each other. Peer pressure prevails.

Other studies show that the part of our brains that registers physical pain shows heightened activity when we feel ostracized.

When it comes to investing, that means it’s painful to trim your stock exposure after a seven-year bull market when you see friends, family and neighbors invested and hear them talking about their gains. Our social interactions may make us want to be more exposed to stocks at precisely the time we should be rebalancing away from them.

Be mindful of how much you may be influenced by social pressure, and try to stick to a prearranged investment plan.

John Coumarianos, a former Morningstar analyst, is a writer in Laguna Hills, Calif. He can be reached at reports@wsj.com . John Coumarianos, a former Morningstar analyst, is a writer in Laguna Hills, Calif. He can be reached at

Volatility has taken hold of the financial markets, and it’s likely to bring out the worst in investors.


The Captain Marvel Movie Is Coming And This Oscar Winner Is In The Running For The Lead Role

Fans of this female superhero have been waiting decades to see her on the big screen. No, we aren’t talking about Wonder Woman, even though she too is finally getting her cinematic due. In this particular case, we are discussing a feisty female hero which shares only the phonetic version of the name creators Stan Lee and Gene Colan gave an alien visitor way back in 1967. Eventually, Monica Rambeau took over the title. This police lieutenant from New Orleans could manipulate and transform energy, and she eventually joined the Avengers, ultimately becoming their leader for a time. She now is represented by Carol Danvers, a being with a combination of Kree and human genes which gives her special powers.

Now, with the MCU going full tile boogie and fans eager to find out when their favorite character will be making an appearance, we are finally getting a Captain Marvel movie – that is, if the right actress can be found for the role. Both Kevin Feige and the Russo Brothers have made it clear that she will be part of the Infinity Wars, setting her up for one of the many Phase 3/Phase 4 standalone out there. This would be an amazing step for the studio since it has been roundly criticized for keeping their leading ladies on the sidelines – all except for Black Widow and Scarlett Witch, that is.

Now, Oscar winner Brie Larson (Room) is being eyed as our Major Danvers, a brilliant choice when you consider the brand’s desire to put actors, not just bodies and faces, into their important roles. Think Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man or Mark Ruffalo as Dr. Bruce Banner/Hulk as examples of how successful this practice has been. The Captain Marvel movie will be a gender-specific affair, with Guardians of the Galaxy co-writer Nicole Perlman and Inside Out co-writer Meg LeFauve working on the script. Now a director has been named, but Feige claims will know who is behind the lens by the end of the Summer. We should see the results when the movie premieres March 8, 2019.

'Blade' Actor Wesley Snipes recently made it known he would love to retake the proverbial mantle of the comic book character Blade. Would you be excited for a 'Blade' reboot or sequel starring Snipes?

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How much protein do you REALLY need? Less than you think!

Andrew Taylor has eaten only potatoes for a whole year. Well, almost.

He made his diet more nutritious by including sweet potatoes, and adding nut or soya milk to mashed potatoes. He also avoided vitamin B12 deficiency by taking supplements.

His cardiovascular health appears to have improved over the year, largely due to massive weight loss (50kg).

He has cured his anxiety and depression, sleeps better and says he is fitter and healthier than he has ever been in his adult life.

However, at the beginning of the year-long challenge, there was much debate among dietitians and nutritionists about whether he would get enough protein from his potato diet.

In the UK, healthy adults are advised to eat 0.75g of protein per kilogram of body weight each day.

However, this 'reference nutrient intake' is set at a high level to meet the needs of just about everyone in the population.

Most people need less than this, and the average requirement is about 0.6g per kilogram of body weight (that is, 60g for Andrew's current weight of about 100kg).

Andrew ate about 3.5 to 4kg of potatoes per day, and together with the soya and nut milks used to mash the potato, it looks as though he managed to meet his protein requirements.

Although combating global warming may not have been the primary reason for his challenge, Andrew has done his bit for planetary health.

Agriculture's greenhouse gas emissions are on the rise, with the largest source being methane produced by livestock.

The agricultural sector is the world's second largest emitter (after the energy sector) and the biggest thing that we can do to reduce these agricultural emissions is to eat less meat.

Becoming vegetarian or vegan would not be an acceptable or achievable option for many people, but even aiming for a plant-based diet, and limiting meat consumption, would make a substantial difference.

Scientific models have suggested that if average diets in the UK conformed to WHO healthy diet guidelines, it would reduce greenhouse emissions associated with food by 17 percent.

Further cuts in emissions could be made by adopting a 'flexitarian' eating pattern with fewer animal products and more plant foods.

This pattern is not unlike that suggested in the current Eatwell guide and the World Cancer Research Fund cancer prevention recommendations, and would have substantial health benefits as well as being good for the planet.

But one barrier to reducing meat consumption is the belief that we need it to meet protein requirements.

A low-protein, high-carbohydrate, plant-based diet contrasts with the dietary regimen currently promoted by the food and fitness industries.

The public are encouraged to believe that their own diets are in some way lacking in protein, and that they need to focus on their protein intake to make up for some sort of deficit.

This is perhaps reinforced by the way that untrained nutrition 'experts' translate protein requirements into food guidance.

For example, they might quite correctly say that a healthy young man needs about 55g of protein per day.

They then translate this into protein-containing foods, such as 100g steaks and 100g grilled chicken breasts, which each contain 30g of protein.

What this doesn't pick up on is the hidden protein in all the other foods eaten throughout the day.

For example, the following diet provides 2,500kcal of energy, enough for an average man. It also contains 136g of protein, more than twice the recommended amount.

It is not hard to meet protein requirements.

A few groups of people may need proportionately more; for example, children, older people, anyone recovering from major surgery, pregnant women and some athletes.

But even these groups would rarely need more than 1.5 to 2g of protein per kilogram of bodyweight per day.

Even without the meat and chicken, this sample diet would provide adequate protein and, since the protein is coming from a variety of sources, it would contain a good mix of amino acids.

National diet and nutrition surveys in the UK indicate that we eat more than enough protein.

If you're looking to cut down on your meat consumption, maybe you could become flexitarian or do meat-free Mondays.

You will still manage to meet your protein needs.

And if you have already made the move away from meat, there are other things you can do with your diet to reduce your environmental impact without taking the radical step of eating only potatoes.

How much protein do you REALLY need? Less than you think, a dietitian explains

The public are encouraged to believe that their own diets are in some way lacking in protein, and that they need to focus on their protein intake to make up for some sort of deficit, a dietitian warns.


Thousands of In-N-Out fans are calling on the burger chain to add this one item to its menu

Almost 20,000 people have signed a petition calling on the iconic West Coast fast-food joint In-N-Out to add a veggie burger to its menu.

The Change.org petition, started earlier in September, says that the chain is letting its fans down by failing to serve a hearty and healthy meat-free option.

"Burger chains nationwide have been getting huge returns from meat alternatives, and In-N-Out could do the same. Chipotle has vegan sofritas, White Castle has veggie sliders — even fast-food kingpin Burger King has the BK Veggie!" reads the petition.

Currently, the best vegetarians can hope for at In-N-Out is fries or a bunch of cheese and veggies between two burger buns.

As of Tuesday at 5:30 pm, the petition was about 5,000 signatures away from its goal of 25,000 supporters. However, the creators are also facing some backlash.

I think I'm more ticked off about this petition about a vegetarian menu at in n out. 🍔🍟 — jess guerrero (@fox__confessor) September 20, 2016

"As a vegetarian myself, this is a stupid petition," reads one comment on the petition. "Why, as a vegan, would you want to support a company that slaughters cows by the thousands?"

The petition for a sustainable In-N-Out that only serves vegetarian options is ridiculous hahahahahahahaha — Ryan (@ryanpineda) September 20, 2016

"This is absolutely the most incredibly stupid thing I have heard in a while, and there is a LOT of stupid going around," reads another comment. "In-N-Out, please do not change anything for these morons. If you do not want a burger, do not go to a burger stand."

While only about 3% of Americans identify as vegetarian or vegan, an increasing number of people are cutting meat from their diets — something the petition highlights. According to a 2015 study, 26% to 41% of Americans report that they cut down on the amount of meat they ate in the past year.

Almost 20,000 people have signed a petition calling for West Coast fast-food icon In-N-Out to add a veggie burger to the menu.


This high-class sushi bar has a secret weapon

In the battle among New York’s high end sushi places, the weapons of choice tend to be which can score the hardest-to-get uni, the very top of the top-of-the-line tuna.

New midtown Manhattan restaurant Suzuki is bringing something more to the game: beloved sushi chef Toshio Suzuki of the shuttered Sushi Zen. He’s coming out of retirement to open the spot with his son, Yuta. Fittingly, for someone who has been in the sushi business for 50 years, his weapon of choice is old school.

You won’t be able to book a seat via Satsuki's website or app, unlike almost every other restaurant industry in the universe. You’ll have to pick up the phone. After you’ve made a reservation, you’ll be informed, broadly, of the selection of fish that will be available that night.

If you’ve always secretly hated eel, or uni, but don’t want to confess it publicly, let them know and it won’t be served to you. Want something additional or special? Let that be known, too.

Yuta sees this service as good business: "We wanted to give guests as authentic an experience as possible, and that entails giving them the opportunity to express their likes and dislikes in private. In Japan, someone would never want to admit that they did not like a particular fish in front of one of their invited guests. This gives them the opportunity to tell us in advance."

His father has a different explanation for it: "Back in the early days of Sushi Zen, it was harder to get fish from the Tsukiji market daily. Now I have the opportunity to get the same fish they are serving in Japan. I want to let my customers know ahead of time that we have the most seasonal fish available."

Chef Suzuki, who taught the craft to Masaharu Morimoto, is the most genial sushi master you could ever meet. A meal with him behind the bar starts with a series of sakizuke, or pre-sushi dishes, such as little bowls of scallops bathed in vinegar miso and sweet sesame tofu, served in a handsome bamboo box. Suzuki also makes exceptional ankimo, or monkfish liver, infused with the delicate flavor of bamboo shoots. (He learned the preparation from the former Union Square chef, Michael Romano, who used to prepare a dish of foie gras and bamboo).

From there, look for exceptional sushi such as silky Okinawa squid, baked in sea salt and seasoned with sesame; glistening kinmedai (snapper) brushed with two different kinds of soy sauce; and lush toro, fatty bluefin plumped on top of rice. (The rice is terrific, as well; flavored with a plum vinegar, the smell of it perfumes the bar when the bar's other sushi chef, Kentaro Sawada, prepares it before service.) Chef Suzuki will be sourcing the best cuts from each fish—what he considers the top 30 percent. In the spirit of no waste, the remaining fish will be served at the kaiseki restaurant next door.

Sazuki’s 10-seat sushi bar (officially called Satsuki) is one of three restaurant-within-a-restaurant concepts in the space; there’s also that larger kaiseki restaurant and a small bar called Three Pillars, from noted mixologist Alex Ott. In space-starved Tokyo, where the saying is, 'The best sushi spots are the ones you can't find,' the places would be stacked on top of each other in a high-rise building. Here, they're below an office building, spread out over 6,500 square feet.

Suzuki's sushi bar opens on March 15, with seatings at 7:30 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. for the $250 omakase. There's also a pre-theater-styled sushi-only menu for $150 at 5:30 p.m.. Call 212-278-0047 for reservations.

The High-Class Sushi Bar Has a New Secret Weapon

Sushi master Toshio Suzuki is back in Midtown Manhattan with a surprisingly old-school innovation.


Niantic's response to a Pokémon Go player's help ticket after 35 days isn't what he expected

Niantic’s response to a Pokémon Go player’s help ticket after 35 days isn’t what he expected

With Pokemon Go, Niantic has proved that developers can make a Pokemon game accessible, relevant, and fresh, all while capitalizing on a massive financial opportunity. Well it seems that a post on Reddit has shown they’re capable of at least one more thing. Trolling.

A post on the Pokemon Go subreddit has blown to epic proportions after it seemed Niantic had done a little trolling of their own. The post was submitted by a user who waited 35 days for an email from Niantic regarding the loss of an item purchased with Pokecoins.

The user’s original message to the company read:

At 12.30pm today I purchased 25 incense worth 1250 Pokecoins. During the process it took the Pokecoins but I did not receive the 25 incense because of a server error. May I please receive the 25 incense please

So, okay. You must be thinking: well if that was me, I’d expect a prompt email from the customer service guys at Niantic explaining what a terrible mistake it was and that I’d be compensated immediately.

Well, that’s not quite how it went down. The company’s response after all that time? "r." Niantic didn’t even give the player the courtesy of a upper-case character. Check out the hilarious email below:

So, as the comments on the Reddit post have suggested, Niantic either:

A) gave up on replying very early into writing the email

B) accidentally sat on the keyboard and pressed sent

C) or, well, became a pirate for the day. rrrrrrr.

It’s essentially another way for Niantic to say "k" or "cool story bro." The meme-worthy trolling mystery continues.

The response of the OP when he received the delightful little email from Niantic was likely along the lines of something like this:

Niantic’s response to a Pokémon Go player’s help ticket after 35 days isn’t what he expected

Niantic isn't only good at making multi-million dollar videogames it seems. They also master the art of trolling.


Yep. This is probably how the end of the world begins.

When it finally happens, the end of the world will likely begin like this: with wailing sirens tearing through the night sky sending chills down your spine as you contemplate if you've lived a good and meaningful life.

Thankfully, we're not there yet, but if you live in Dallas, Texas, you got a preview of that terrifying moment on Friday night.

Beginning around 11:44 p.m., all 156 of the outdoor warning sirens meant to alert the residents of Dallas (population 1.3 million) of impending disaster bellowed across the city.

There was no immediate explanation, and the sirens didn't stop.

Many people, naturally, found the sirens unsettling and some took to Twitter to post video of the incident while the city collectively wondered what impending doom the sirens might be warning of.

Ever wonder what the end of the world feels like? #dallas #sirens

Dallas's fire dispatch and its office of emergency management pulled the plug on the sirens, after more than an hour and a half of blaring, at about 1:20 a.m.

But the sirens weren't signaling the end of the world (or end of Dallas), and they were not malfunctioning, as early reports indicated. The panic was the result of a hacking attack on the city's emergency alert system.

"It does appear at this time that it was a hack, and we do believe that this came from the Dallas area," officials from the City of Dallas Office of Emergency Management office confirmed to the media via Facebook on Saturday. "We can't talk a whole lot about the hack itself, because obviously we don’t want this to happen again."

In order to get the sirens to stop, the city had to disconnect the system, which had been triggered to activate the sirens over 60 times. The system is still down and the city is relying on other mass notification systems including reverse 911 and social media for emergencies.

Dallas is located in a part of the U.S. often referred to as "tornado alley" due to the high frequency of tornadoes, and those sirens are often used to warn residents of an impending tornado event. So while most of the jokes and concerns on social media didn’t mention much about weather, because of their traditional use, locals take those sirens very seriously.

The city hopes to have the alert system back up and running by Sunday night or Monday afternoon.

The Purge is cancelled: Hackers unleash sirens of doom on Dallas

Nope. No Purge for you. Just your friendly neighborhood hacker attack.

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When you can see "Gone Girl" in theaters

If you're someone who has to read the book before seeing the movie, now might be a good time to pick up "Gone Girl." Twentieth Century Fox announced on Tuesday that Gillian Flynn's best-selling thriller is due out in theaters Oct. 3, 2014.

Flynn signed on to do the adaptation with David Fincher ("The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo") earlier this year.

Ben Affleck stars in the film as Nick Dunne, a man who finds himself at the center of a murder investigation after his wife, Amy, suddenly goes missing in small-town Missouri. Rosamund Pike, who recently co-starred in "The World's End" is set to play Amy Dunne, Nick's charismatic but manipulative wife. Neil Patrick Harris, Tyler Perry, Patrick Fugit and "Blurred Lines" model Emily Ratajkowski are among the film's co-stars.

'Gone Girl' Movie Set For Release On Oct. 3, 2014

If you're someone who has to read the book before seeing the movie, now might be a good time to pick up "Gone Girl." Twentieth Century Fox announced on T...

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Foods that prevent death, disease, and cancer

By now we know that eating more fruits and vegetables is good for our health, but a new study suggests that eating even more produce can prevent millions of deaths each year. In the report, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, researchers from Imperial College London conducted a meta-analysis of 95 studies looking at fruit and vegetable intake. They estimated that 7.8 million premature global deaths could be avoided yearly if people ate 10 portions of fruits and vegetables a day. The researchers characterize 10 portions as 800 grams of fruits and vegetables a day. For context, one medium apple is around 182 grams.

Already eating plenty of fruits and vegetables cut people’s risk of early death from heart disease and cancer. But the researchers estimated that if people ate up to 10 portions a day, there would be a 24% lower risk of heart disease, 33% lower risk of stroke, 28% lower risk of cardiovascular disease, 13% lower risk of cancer, and a 31% lower risk of dying early when compared to not eating any fruit or vegetables.

The fruits and vegetables that were linked to lower risk of heart problems included the usual suspects like apples, citrus, and leafy veggies like spinach. Other cruciferous vegetables like broccoli and Brussels sprouts as well as peppers and green beans were linked to potentially lower cancer risk.

The researchers didn’t show why higher portions of fruits and vegetables can led to fewer deaths, but some of the basic nutrients in the produce can improve health. "Fruit and vegetables have been shown to reduce cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and to boost the health of our blood vessels and immune system," said study author Dagfinn Aune of the Imperial College London School of Public Health in a statement. "This may be due to the complex network of nutrients they hold. For instance they contain many antioxidants, which may reduce DNA damage, and lead to a reduction in cancer risk."

Eating More of This Will Make You Live Longer

A new study shows people that eat 10 helpings of fruits and vegetables lived longer


Netflix's Full House update Fuller House was a huge success, with season two already in production. But one face (or two?) was noticeably missing from season one "" Michelle Tanner (Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen).

The Olsens were asked to return, so when they turned down the opportunity, "how rude" were they being? Probably not very rude at all, according to Dave Coulier.

"I think they have a different perspective," Coulier told People. "When we get together and we reminisce, they were babies. So they don't share those same memories. I can't really speak for them but I would understand why they don't have the same sentiments that we all do."

John Stamos said he also understands that the twins are busy with their current careers in the fashion world. "Lori (Loughlin) was talking to me about the twins and said, 'They just won a CFDA award.' And I'm like, 'Yeah, that's like winning an Oscar,'" Stamos said. "I get where they're at."

According to show producer Bob Boyett, Ashley had a more specific reason for not wanting to do the show.. "Ashley said, 'I have not been in front of a camera since I was 17, and I don't feel comfortable acting.'" Boyett added that Mary-Kate wouldn't want to do it without Ashley, and the timing was wrong for both of them.

Mary-Kate and Ashley are indeed very busy. They started the fashion line The Row in 2006, and in 2007 started another collection, Elizabeth and James. In July, they opened Elizabeth and James' first brick-and-morter store in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, production of season two has already begun. Jodie Sweetin even shared this photo from a recent table read. While no premiere date has been revealed, we do know the season will introduce Uncle Joey's wife Ginger and feature a guest appearance by Alan Thicke.

Will Michelle end up making a surprise appearance? Unfortunately, that's something we cannot predict at this moment. Whatever happened to predictability?

The Olsen Twins Revealed The REAL Reason They Didn't Appear on 'Fuller House'

http://pixel.quantserve.com/pixel/p-z0zMG4nCgXzzj.gif?labels=Mary-Kate Reveals The REAL Reason Why The Olsens Were Not On 'Fuller House'


Physicists discover apparent departure from the laws of thermodynamics

A microscopic sample of barium ions, shown in teal, immersed in a cloud of calcium atoms whose temperature is 1/1,000th of a degree above absolute zero. Credit: University of California, Los Angeles According to the basic laws of thermodynamics, if you leave a warm apple pie in a winter window eventually the pie would cool down to the same temperature as the surrounding air.

For chemists and physicists, cooling samples of charged particles, also called ions, makes them easier to control and study. So they use a similar approach—called buffer gas cooling—to lower the temperature of ions by trapping them and then immersing them in clouds of cold atoms. Collisions with the atoms cool the originally hot ions by transferring energy from the ions to the atoms—much the same way a warm pie is cooled next to the cold window, said Eric Hudson, associate professor of physics at UCLA.

But new research by Hudson and his team, published in the journal Nature Communications, demonstrates that ions never truly cool to the temperature of the surrounding gas. Also, very surprisingly, they discovered that under certain conditions, two final temperatures exist, and the temperature that the ions choose depends on their starting temperature.

"This apparent departure from the familiar laws of thermodynamics is akin to our warm apple pie either cooling as expected or spontaneously bursting into flames, depending on the pie's exact temperature when it is placed in the window," said Hudson, the senior author of the study.

The UCLA researchers have, for the first time, placed fundamental limits on the use of buffer gas cooling in "ion traps." To perform their experiment, the researchers prepared a microscopic sample of laser cooled ions of the chemical element barium and immersed them in clouds of roughly 3 million laser-cooled calcium atoms. The researchers make molecules extremely cold under highly controlled conditions to reveal the quantum mechanical properties that are normally hidden.

The ions were trapped in an apparatus that levitates charged particles by using electric fields that oscillate millions of times per second, confining the ions to a region smaller than the width of a human hair. Both the atomic and ionic samples were brought to ultra-cold temperatures —just one-thousandth of a degree above absolute zero—via a technique in which the momentum of light in a laser is used to slow particle motion.

After allowing collisions between the atoms and ions to occur and the system to reach its final temperature, the physicists removed the calcium atoms and measured the temperature of the barium ions. The results, which show the existence of multiple final temperatures based on ion number and initial temperature, suggest that subtle non-equilibrium physics is at play.

The researchers trace these strange features to the heating and cooling rates which exist in the system—the peculiar temperature dependence of the interaction among multiple ions in an ion trap. Both simulation and theory support their experimental findings, and paint the buffer-gas cooling process as a fundamentally nuanced, non-equilibrium process rather than the straightforward equilibrium process it was originally understood to be.

Lead author Steven Schowalter, a graduate student researcher in Hudson's laboratory and now a staff scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said, "Our results demonstrate that you can't just throw any buffer gas into your device—no matter how cold it is—and expect it to work as an effective coolant."

Buffer gas cooling is crucial in fields ranging from forensics to the production of antimatter. Hudson's research group has discovered important nuances that revise the current understanding of the cooling process, explain the difficulties encountered in previous cooling experiments and show a new path forward for creating ultra-cold ion samples. With this framework the researchers showed how troublesome effects can be overcome and even exploited to study the mechanisms at play in molecular motors and single-atom heat engines in a precisely controlled manner.

"Of course, this work does not violate the laws of thermodynamics, but it does demonstrate there are still some interesting, potentially useful things to learn about buffer gas cooling," said John Gillaspy, a physics division program director at the National Science Foundation, which funds the research. "This is the sort of fundamental research that can really guide a wide range of more applied research efforts, helping other scientists and engineers to avoid going down dead-end paths and illuminating more fruitful directions they might take instead."

Explore further: New methods for ion cooling

More information: Steven J. Schowalter et al. Blue-sky bifurcation of ion energies and the limits of neutral-gas sympathetic cooling of trapped ions, Nature Communications (2016). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12448

Physicists discover 'apparent departure from the laws of thermodynamics'


Suicide Squad Director Answers Jared Leto Joker Is Jason Todd Rumor

Suicide Squad has become a pretty pivotal film for Warner Bros. and the DC Extended Universe, but the hype for this supervillain team-up film has been relatively strong, as its release date approaches. In addition to a big-name cast, and the inclusion of some pretty iconic DC Comics characters (from Viola Davis as Amanda Waller to Jared Leto and Margot Robbie as Joker and Harley Quinn), Suicide Squad seems to be weaving together a whole lot of DC Comics mythos in order to tell its story and introduce its respective characters.

To that end, fans have been invested a great deal of speculation in the surprise reveals and long-term ramifications for the DCEU that may come out of Suicide Squad's storyline. And one of the biggest rumors surrounding the film has been that Jared Leto's Joker could actually have a secret identity that's connected to Batman. However, as you can see above, Suicide Squad director David Ayer is shooting down that possibility, in no uncertain terms.

As you heard Ayer say: Jared Leto's Joker is not actually Jason Todd, aka the second boy to take on the mantle of Robin the Boy Wonder. In comic book lore, Jason was actually killed by Joker in the famous 1988-89 story "Death in the Family," after the fanbase of the time elected to have Jason killed off (they didn't like him much). However, Jason Todd would return to the DC Comics universe, having been resurrected in the 2005-2006 storyline, "Under the Red Hood." He remains a prominent character in the DC "Rebirth" continuity, now serving as an anti-hero focal point of the "Dark Trinity," alongside the fallen Amazon Artemis and Superman's clone, Bizarro.

After "Under the Red Hood" was adapted into a successful animated film, rumor have swirled that Ben Affleck's upcoming Batman solo film could in fact adapt the storyline into a live-action movie. Needless to say, that rumor was largely hinging on the other rumor about the identity of Leto's Joker; if Joker was Jason Todd, it would make a faithful "Under the Red Hood" Batman movie hard to pull off. At the risk of speaking out of turn: I think many DC fans would prefer a Ben Affleck-directed Batman: Under the Red Hood adaptation to a Joker reveal lifted from the Batman Beyond cartoon show of the 2000s. But that's just me.

Suicide Squad will be in theaters on August 5th. Wonder Woman will follow on June 2, 2017; Justice League on November 17, 2017; Aquaman on July 27, 2018; Shazam on April 5, 2019; Justice League 2 on June 14, 2019; Cyborg on April 3, 2020; and Green Lantern Corps on July 24, 2020. The Flash movie release date is TBD.

Suicide Squad has become a pretty pivotal film for Warner Bros. and the DC Extended Universe, but the hype for this supervillain team-up film has been relatively strong, as its release date approaches. In addition to a big-name cast, and the inclusion of some pretty iconic DC Comics characters [...]


The infographic that shows just how close the Austrian election was

Alexander Van der Bellen, a former Green party member, ran as an independent candidate and won by a minute margin – some 30,000 votes out of the 4.6 million ballots cast– against rival and leader of the far-right wing Freedom Party, Norbert Hofer.

Since the exit polls came out, the final result figures have changed slightly, but what remains the same is Van der Bellen's knife-edge victory:

Hofer stirred up controversy when he was reported to have worn a blue cornflower, which is an old Nazi symbol.

While the EU may have dodged a bullet, the fact that the results were so close indicates a definite political shift to the right, which analysts say is due to a backlash over immigration fears.

More: 21 maps and charts which will challenge perceptions of Europe

More: This interactive map traces how fences have gone up across Europe during the refugee crisis

Despite the permeation of nationalistic, right-wing sentiment in Europe, the victory over Austria's far-right candidate in its presidential elections this weekend show there is hope yet. However, the results were worryingly close. The following Statista graph, based on the exit polls as of 1000 GMT on Monday, shows just how close the race got:


The Letters On A Keyboard Aren’t Alphabetical For One Obvious Reason.

It's the same thing for many of us from Monday to Friday: We get to work, turn our computers on, take a few big swigs of coffee, and begin to type. Emails, reports, articles, memos, and more: So much of our work involves typing, and thankfully, we have efficient keyboards with which to do so. But it hasn't always been this easy: Not so long ago, keyboards were totally different, and people had to use them in much different ways.

Take a look at your keyboards now. You've probably noticed that they aren't in alphabetical order (or any kind of order that makes sense, really). Surprisingly, keyboards used to be in alphabetical order -- but it turned out that alphabetizing the keys was not the best way to increase typing efficiency. So, even before there were computers, typewriter keyboards got a major overhaul. Through trial and error, designers figured out how to create the fast-typing, intuitive keyboards that we use today. Learn more about the evolution of the keyboard below.

Here's one of the very first QWERTY keyboards. Initially, the QWERTY keyboard was put on typewriters. The model of the keyboard was introduced by a man named Christopher Latham Sholes.

Typing on a typewriter keyboard was somewhat problematic. The trouble was that too many of the keys were close together. That means that often, two or three keys would stick together on one push, especially the most used letter combinations, "s-h, t-h, e-a, e-io-u."

That's what caused designers like Sholes to rethink the positioning of the letters on a keyboard. With designs like the QWERTY layout, typing could be more effortless.

But before the QWERTY design, keyboards looked like this. It was in alphabetical order, which makes sense but somehow looks weirdly unnatural.


‘General Hospital’ Spoilers: Michael Easton Reveals Air Date Of His Return–Teases Fans With Details About His Mysterious New Character?

General Hospital (GH) spoilers tease that Michael Easton will soon grace the TV screens once again. According to Soap Opera Digest, Michael Easton began taping on Friday, February 26, with an initial airdate planned for Friday, March 18. Michael Easton revealed that the new role was a beginning and fresh start for his acting career, and feels very inspired by the new material he was given.

Not many soap opera stars are as loved by the fans as Michael Easton. When he was fired by the former head scribe, Ron Carlivati, and was written out of the storyline, the audience came unglued. They didn’t want to say goodbye to Dr. Silas Clay (Michael Easton) and demanded ABC do something about it and rehire the actor.

Easton taped his first scenes yesterday. Very exciting stuff. #GH — Frank Valentini (@valentinifrank) February 27, 2016

Michael Easton revealed in an interview with ABC Soaps In Depth that he was disappointed when he learned he would no longer be on General Hospital. Easton felt his character deserved a better exit than to be murdered by Madeline Reeves (Donna Mills) in a ploy to take control of Nina Clay’s (Michelle Stafford) assets. Easton also felt his character hadn’t run its course, and there was no reason to kill him off in that manner. Even so, Carlivati murdered Dr. Silas and Port Charles (and General Hospital fans) was left reeling after his shocking murder.

Right after his exit from the General Hospital, his fans launched an online petition calling for the ABC executives to consider bringing Michael back on the soap opera. The petition fetched an astonishing 14,000 signatures–which was enough to grab the attention of the powers that be at ABC. The creator of the petition, Laura Gentili, stated that the audience wanted Michael Easton back on the soap opera as Dr. Silas Clay. Dr. Clay was an oncologist that was a major character, and his loss was hard for the fans to accept.

Wishing #MichaelEaston a very Happy Birthday today! And a reminder #GH is all new on this holiday Monday! pic.twitter.com/4kzZw7KEGd — Nathan Varni (@nathanvarni) February 15, 2016

Right before February Sweeps began, ABC executive Nathan Varni revealed that Michael Easton would return in the coming months; however, he would not reprise the role of Dr. Clay. Varni explained that Silas Clay was dead–stabbed and murdered–and there was no feasible way to bring him back. (Come on, GH writers, when has a soap opera let a silly thing like death stop them from bringing a character back?)

Frank Valentini, executive producer of General Hospital, stated that Easton would return to the soap opera, but there was a catch. Apparently, they couldn’t bring him back as Dr. Silas Clay, so they’d create a brand new character. It was enough to appease his fans as they anticipated his return to the show.

Here's a #GHFanFeb surprise! Michael Easton is coming back to #GH! A video posted by General Hospital (@generalhospitalabc) on Feb 2, 2016 at 11:15am PST

Michael posted to his Facebook account revealing that his first day of filming was February, 26 with an air date of March 18. Easton captioned the image of the new script, "And so it begins.."

General Hospital has not released much about his character, only that it will be a new character and that Michael is inspired by the complexity of the character. There have been rumors the past couple weeks that he could be a "nice" Cassadine (do they exist?) and could show up just in time for Helena’s will reading. That appears to be false at the moment, considering that Helena’s will should be read later this week.

General Hospital fans, are you excited about Michael Easton’s return to the ABC soap opera? Who do you think Easton will portray? Don’t forget to come back later to The Inquistr for more General Hospital spoilers, news, and updates. Let us know what you think about Michael Easton return in the comments, below.

[Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Playboy]

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Professional golfers can have careers that are highly lucrative.

Their careers can last well into their 40s and 50s and there are events nearly year-round with tours all over the world. That means lots of opportunities to take home a paycheck.

Below, we take a look at the 30 highest-paid golfers of all time. The list is skewed towards recent players, but there is a mix of both current and previous generations, as well as both PGA Tour and European Tour greats.

Both PGA Tour and European Tour earnings include winnings from majors and WGC events. However, those events are only counted once in each golfer's total earnings.

16. Bubba Watson — $45.2 million (€40.1 million)

Major championships: 2 (2012 and 2014 Masters)

15. Jason Day — $45.2 million (€40.1 million)

Major championships: 1 (2015 PGA Championship)

14. Lee Westwood — $48.1 million (€42.7 million)

13. Luke Donald — $49.2 million (€43.7 million)

12. Matt Kuchar — $49.3 million (€43.8 million)

11. Henrik Stenson — $50.1 million (€44.4 million)

Major championships: 1 (2016 Open Championship)

10. Adam Scott — $57.8 million (€51.3 million)

9. Dustin Johnson — $62.8 million (€55.7 million)

8. Sergio Garcia — $65.3 million (€57.9 million)

7. Rory McIlroy — $66.1 million (€58.7 million)

Major championships: 4 (2011 U.S. Open, 2012 and 2014 PGA Championship, 2014 Open Championship)

6. Ernie Els — $66.8 million (€59.3 million)

Major championships: 4 (1994 and 1997 U.S. Open, 2002 and 2012 Open Championship)

5. Justin Rose — $68.6 million (€60.9 million)

4. Jim Furyk — $70.7 million (€61.6 million)

3. Vijay Singh — $75.9 million (€67.4 million)

Major championships: 3 (1998 and 2004 PGA Championship, 2000 Masters)

2. Phil Mickelson — $94.6 million (€83.9 million)

Major championships: 5 (2004, 2006, and 2010 Masters, 2005 PGA Championship, 2013 Open Championship)

1. Tiger Woods — $122.5 million (€108.7 million)

Professional golfers can ;have careers that...


The stress and strain of constantly being connected can sometimes take your life -- and your well-being -- off course. GPS For The Soul can help you find your way back to balance.

GPS Guides are our way of showing you what has relieved others' stress in the hopes that you will be able to identify solutions that work for you. We all have de-stressing "secret weapons" that we pull out in times of tension or anxiety, whether they be photos that relax us or make us smile, songs that bring us back to our heart, quotes or poems that create a feeling of harmony, or meditative exercises that help us find a sense of silence and calm. We encourage you to look at the GPS Guide below, visit our other GPS Guides here, and share with us your own personal tips for finding peace, balance and tranquility.

Color affects our moods in fascinating ways. Just looking at one particular shade can have an immediate calming effect -- and no other hue promotes those zen-like emotions like the color blue. This shade invites feelings of peace and relaxation instantly, and has been scientifically proven to help stave off stress. If you're feeling a little bit on the edge, take a look at the soothing blue scenes below and feel your worries wash away.

Calming Blue Scenes To Help You De-Stress

The stress and strain of constantly being connected can sometimes take your life -- and your well-being -- off course. GPS For The Soul can he...

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A sex therapist explains why you're not having fantastic sex

Why do people with fetish preferences feel stigmatised despite the success of Fifty Shades of Grey?

We now live in a society which is more open and positive about sex than ever before, but one expert says we're not as sexually free and liberated as our post-1960s society would have us believe.

In his new book, Modern Sexuality: The Truth about Sex and Relationships, Dr Michael Aaron suggests that there is still widespread stigma surrounding sexuality in the modern age. People who have unconventional sexual fantasies are forced into the shadows, and often do not reveal them even to their partners.

He adds that the dialogue around sex in society is often one layered with shame, regulation and restriction.

"I think that laws and attitudes towards sexuality are one of the clearest reflections of the level of freedom afforded in a society. That's because sexuality is so core to our identities, that censoring it also inevitably has the effect of censoring individual expression," Dr Aaron told The Independent.

The doctor, who lives in New York City, actually singles out UK laws as one of the most prominent examples of ways in which our sexuality is supposedly restricted. He hones in on the Digital Economy Bill which is currently going through the House of Lords..

The bill proposes to ban a large number of "non-conventional sexual acts" in pornography which is believed to include female ejaculation, sexual acts involving menstruation and urination, and spanking, whipping or canning which leave marks.

He says the inclusion of female ejaculation, menstruation and fisting on the ban-list is "nonsense" and says "it is no coincidence that these laws are introduced at a time when British politics is veering more hard right".

Dr Aaron also points to laws which regulate, and in some cases criminalise, sex work as examples of infringes upon sexual freedoms.

"Perhaps nowhere else is the government regulation of sex more apparent than in the area of sex work," he writes arguing that government crackdowns on any kind of sexual behaviour "prevent for the possibility for an honest and open discussion on what sex work means for its participants and how society can provide appropriate resources for those who do choose sex work".

Laws surrounding pornography and sex work are extreme examples of where sexuality is marginalised in society. However, Dr Aaron says in his therapy sessions he encounters lots of patients who feel shamed over their sexual preferences even when it is no longer considered taboo in society.

"I still have a number of clients who have difficulty coming out and are conflicted about their orientation even though same-sex marriage was approved by the US Supreme Court almost two years ago and issues around homosexuality have been brought into public awareness. Similarly, I see a number of individuals ashamed of their fetishistic interests even though Fifty Shades of Grey just came out with a sequel and the trilogy has sold over 100 million copies.

"There is a big difference between externally accepting something and truly believing it and feeling internally congruent. As a result, even though society has made tremendous progress, I believe most individuals, even the most liberated by all appearances, still carry internal remnants of sexual shame and stigma."

So how do we liberate ourselves and challenge both internal and external restrictions on our sexuality? Dr Aaron says education is key.

"Right now, a number of young adults and teenagers get all of their sex education from porn, which is like trying to learn about geopolitics by watching the latest Bond movie. In many ways, trying to protect individuals from sex only hurts them further."

He argues education will also ensure those with less mainstream sexual desires experience less shame and stigma and feel part of the conversation.

"Transparency around sex leads to a more humanistic, supportive, and nurturing society, that is accepting of individuality and unique consensual behaviours, rather one that is authoritarian, patriarchal, and punitive. I think our challenge as a society is to evolve past basic group needs that may be anachronistic and no longer necessary."

How our culture of kink-shaming is making us much less sexually liberated than we think


This is officially the biggest party school in the USA now

Founded when Wisconsin achieved statehood in 1848 and remaining the official state university up to this day, the University of Wisconsin-Madison has more going for it than just a coveted public Ivy education and being really, really old.

University of Wisconsin-Madison is now, officially, the biggest party school in the United States, according to the Princeton Review

Beating out last year’s reigning champ, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, this is the first time the University of Wisconsin-Madison has achieved this honor in a decade.

Let’s all pour one out for all of the hungover students in Madison who sacrificed their Sundays and their livers to make this dream a reality.

Many other schools achieved similar, if lesser, honors. To make it easier for you to pick out where you want to go to college, or where you want to transfer to, below is the Princeton Review’s top 20 party schools as provided by Seventeen. (Or, if your parents ask, we’re making it easier for you to pick out where you don’t want to go...)

This is officially the biggest party school the USA now

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You’ll Never Guess Which Two Celebs Are *Seriously* Twinning at the Oscars

The Oscars red carpet is fully underway, and it’s been filled with some of the most stunning award show looks we ever did see — and the event itself hasn’t even started yet! From middle parts having a major moment to neutral-hued makeup totally taking over, we can’t wait to see what the rest of the night has in store. While we’re expecting to see more epic looks, one thing we definitely didn’t expect was to see two polar opposite celebs show up totally twinning on the red carpet.

Reese Witherspoon and Tina Fey both stepped out wearing strapless, sheeny, floor-length purple dresses in identical shades and silhouettes. Say whaaaa? That’s right: The queen of timeless looks and classy frocks is matching with a beloved funny lady who might be better known for her super on-point wits than her red carpet styles.

Both dresses were solid in color and featured unique details at the waistline. Tina’s had a flattering gathering that kept her waist looking tiny, while Reese’s dress had corset-like elements that highlighted her hourglass figure. Both of these talented women looked stunning in this color and shape — we can’t wait to see what the rest of the night has in store for both of them!

We NEVER thought we'd see these two celebs dress alike.


This tiny device might be every iPhone owner’s new best friend

The iPhone’s lack of expandable storage has created an entirely new breed of services and accessories aimed specifically at iPhone users. $650-$750 is a huge amount of money to pay for a smartphone with just 16GB of storage, and that 16GB of space always seems to vanish in a matter of weeks considering how big games and video files are these days. Even users with 64GB or 128GB iPhones often end up filling their handsets with data, and then the dreaded errors like "cannot capture video" begin to appear.

Several solutions exist for this problem. You can use a service like Google Photos to back up your images and videos, or you can use a device like the Lyve Home Photo and Video Manager . Personally, I like the simplicity and efficiency of a simple iPhone-compatible flash drive, and I may have just found my new favorite one.

First, the hardware — SanDisk has completely revamped its design with the latest iXpand flash drives. Here’s what the old one looked like:

The new model features a Lightning connector on one end for your iPhone or iPad, and a standard USB 3.0 port on the other end to connect to your Windows or Mac PC. That’s basically it — this new design is about as compact as it gets, which makes carrying the device in a purse or laptop bag a no-brainer. That way anytime you need to move files off of your phone or tablet, your flash drive is ready to go. On the flip side, you also always have your photos and videos on hand to share with people, even though they’re not taking up space on your phone.

SanDisk’s new iXpand models also ship alongside an updated companion app with a sleek design and a simple interface. Navigation is easy and the app can be used to move files off of your device or to view files stored on the drive. You can even store music on the iXpand drive and use the app as a player if you want to. And finally, my favorite setting lets the app automatically transfer any new photos and videos to the drive as soon as it’s connected to the phone.

iPhone Flash Drive: SanDisk iXpand gets major update

The iPhone's lack of expandable storage has created an entirely new breed of services and accessories aimed specifically at iPhone users. $650-$750 is a huge amount of money to pay for a smartphone with just 16GB of storage, and that 16GB of space always seems to vanish in a matter of weeks conside...


'It's crazy, for sure': meet the stars of Musical.ly

Thirteen-year-old twins Max and Harvey Mills have 2.5m followers on the lip-synching app. Will global fame follow?

Paul Mills is using his phone to live-stream footage of his twin sons while they record their first music video. Max and Harvey Mills, who are 13, are lip-synching to music by Shawn Mendes, the Canadian singer who got his break on the now doomed Vine video app (two albums later, Mendes, 18, is preparing for his second world tour). "Bleedin’ till I can’t breathe, shaking, falling on to my knees." The brothers mouth the words while Raja Virdi, a young videographer who has worked with Adele and Sam Smith, moves around them with his camera.

The boys stand next to each other in the skate park under the Southbank Centre in London. They wear matching black skinny jeans, bought for them by their mother, Sara. Max, who strums his guitar, has an H&M bomber jacket, black beanie (Max always wears hats, to set the twins apart) and his prized white Nike Air Force hi-tops. "These are probably the only things that are, like, show clothes," he says of the trainers later. "I wouldn’t normally wear them outside."

By 10am on this sunny morning during the half-term holiday, Paul’s phone is already running out of battery. "Right now, there are 11,732 people watching this," he says, reading the number in one corner of the screen. "That will accumulate." Comments left by fans move up the bottom of the screen almost too fast to read. "Please follow me u are so good," says marvelnick. "Love u," says Antonia_bayramxox, who adds 28 heart emojis. I move in front of the camera and introduce myself to the invisible crowd to ask why they love Max and Harvey so much. The comments speed up. "There music!" says Jxtie. "Cuz they’re so cute and talented," another fan says. "They’re amazing in every way," say Finnandolivia. Brookea_xx turns the tables: "MAX AND HARVEY PLZ ANSWER THIS QUESTION: will u ever be in Surrey??"

Emojis from fans bubble up from the bottom of the screen in a fizz of cakes, pumpkins and cherries

Xtabbycatx stands nervously by the railings beside the Thames, watching the recording. Half an hour ago, the 12-year-old was having breakfast at a hotel a mile away. She was scrolling through Instagram, where Max and Harvey have almost 250,000 followers, when she dropped her toast. "I saw their picture and they said they were here and I just freaked out and left breakfast and dragged Dad out," says Tabitha Wilson, the girl’s real name. She and her dad, Darren, 50, are visiting London from Stafford. She was hyperventilating as they crossed Blackfriars Bridge, Darren says. But why? "I watch them all the time, and they just make me happy," his daughter explains. "They’re funny and they’re really good singers and they just make me smile, and I wanted to see them."

The digital adoration is still draining Paul’s battery.. Next to the comments, emojis from fans bubble up from the bottom of the screen in a fizz of cakes, pumpkins and cherries. Another number keeps count of these "likes". When Paul ends the broadcast after 35 minutes, fans have deposited 1.96m emojis. Almost 100,000 people have tuned in at some point, a figure that would delight most TV channels at this time of day. Paul plans to do more live-streaming later, "when America wakes up". But first he needs to charge his phone.

Max and Harvey are Britain’s biggest Musers, the name given to the users of Musical.ly, an insanely popular social music app. Launched in Shanghai in 2014, it began to take off last year and has quietly hit the phones of more than 140m users. That’s almost half the number of people who use Twitter, which took three years to build up a comparable following. At its simplest, Musical.ly is a music video maker combining features of Snapchat, Instagram and Vine. Its founder, Alex Zhu, came up with the idea after spotting teens on a train filming themselves listening to music on headphones.

In the app, Musers choose from a library of more than a million songs, select a 15-second snippet, then lip-synch to it exuberantly while filming themselves, typically in selfie mode. Increasingly, people perform comedy skits, dances or lip-synchs to film dialogue. Some, such as Max and Harvey, sing for real as well as lip-synch. They can add filters and Snapchat-style face adornments (selecting "swag" adds a gold chain and a black cap). Musical.lys, as the looping clips are known, are then shared with followers. Live.ly, launched in June, a live-streaming sister app, gives Musers the freedom to broadcast anything, for 20 minutes at a time on average.

The twins lead a tribe of 2.5m Musers in the UK, most of them aged 13 to 24. At the time of writing, their joint account has 2.48m followers (they gain about 10,000 new fans a day). They never drop off the top of the UK leaderboard, and routinely feature in the global top 10. In the US, home to half of all Musers, the biggest stars have more than 10m fans. Musical.ly, which has about 120 staff in Shanghai and Los Angeles, estimates that half of all American teenagers now have the app. Teen by teen, it is holding up a mirror to a new generation of digital natives, and changing the music industry.

Musical.ly features videos it likes on the app’s homepage; the sudden exposure means Musers can get very big, very quickly. The app’s biggest stars now have agents, merchandise and, in some cases, record deals. It’s why Max and Harvey, who signed up in March, are making a real-life music video, with their own voices – they want to take their success to the next level. Today’s shoot, and a session in a recording studio yesterday, have been arranged by Cassie Petrey, who runs Crowdsurf, a digital marketing firm in Los Angeles, and Tim Byrne, the British former creative director at Syco Entertainment, Simon Cowell’s label (Byrne now runs Fandom Management, also based in LA).

When Petrey was 12 and at school in Kentucky, she made an online Backstreet Boys fanzine. Years later, while working for record labels in Nashville, she alerted executives to a new website called Myspace, and ran pages for artists. Now 30, but "still a fangirl at heart", she looks for talent on Musical.ly. She says the app is changing the game. "Max and Harvey did a Live.ly a couple of days ago, and there were, like, 50,000 people watching it at once," she says by phone (the boys were fooling around at Alton Towers). "I’ve never seen live-streaming figures like that on any platform." Musical.ly also has a uniquely young audience, which partly explains the sense, outside the app, of a quiet rise to prominence. "I see kids commenting all the time that they can’t follow talent on other platforms, because their parents only let them use Musical.ly," Petrey says.

Max and Harvey had about 150,000 followers when Petrey spotted them. She says she knew immediately that they could be stars. Her job now is to work on their digital output beyond Musical.ly (they need no help there). They now have almost 10 social media profiles, including a YouTube channel (3.9m views and counting). Engagement is the buzzword in this world, and Musical.ly succeeds by appearing to blur the line between idols and idolisers. Popular Musers are part of the community that sustains them, and a couple of featured clips can be all it takes for anyone to make it big. Really big.

First came YouTube, where Justin Bieber put up his first video almost a decade ago, then Vine. "Now people are saying, ‘I want to be a Muser’, and we have the resources to make that happen," says Tiffany Au, 28, director of communications at Collab, a "digital talent network and entertainment studio" in LA. The firm helps about 400 digital creators, including Ariel Martin, better known as Baby Ariel. She is from South Florida, has just turned 16 and is by some distance Musical.ly’s biggest star with – let’s just check the latest figure – 15m fans. She got the app a little over a year ago, after a friend showed it to her. In those early days, Musers were uploading static lip-synchs. "I was like, how do I make this interesting," Baby Ariel says, "so I decided to use hand motions and thought, oh, this is actually pretty cool."

She has turned phone holding into an art form, and has been imitated by millions of Musers. In one recent clip, she lip-synchs to the Chainsmokers’ hit Closer (it ambitiously rhymes "back seat of your Rover" with "tattoo on your shoulder"). Turning her phone into a choreographic aid, she makes it move around her face in time with the music, like a hummingbird sizing up a flower. While she chews gum through an exaggerated smile, mouthing the words "so baby pull me closer", she uses her free hand to draw the camera in. She says her clips can take between 20 and 90 minutes to create.

Before long, Baby Ariel was getting recognised. "This girl came up to me in Old Navy and I was like, ‘No way, this is crazy. This is not a real thing’." She later left school to study online, so that she could devote more time to Musical.ly, alongside her mother Sharon. She is now a "social media influencer" with aspirations to act. She speaks to me from LA between auditions at Disney and Nickelodeon. She is also in town to join Jacob Sartorius on his US tour. Sartorius, 14, has more than 12m fans, and now records original music. Sweatshirt, his first single ("Girl, you can wear my sweatshirt, ’cause you’re the only one I hold, And I don’t want you to be cold") made the iTunes top 10 and has more than 35m YouTube views. At the Troubadour club in Santa Monica, where, in 1970, Neil Diamond introduced Elton John to America, Baby Ariel DJ’d while Jacob Sartorius of Oklahoma performed Sweatshirt to a sellout crowd.

Fans are desperate to meet star Musers – and each other. When 17-year-old Violet Summersby noticed this in comments, she arranged a meet-up in New York. A dozen or so big names mingled with about 300 fans. Fifteen free events followed in cities across the US. Now the co-founder and CEO of Muser Movement, Summersby hosted the first ticketed meet-up in LA in November. As well as encouraging engagement, she believes the app reflects a healthier relationship between young people and social media. "It doesn’t matter what you look like," she says. "If you’re funny or you’ve got something to say, you can put it out there. Social media is changing now. There was this idea that you had to look like Kim Kardashian to be famous. That’s not the case any more. You can be whoever you want to be, and that’s now acceptable. It’s not acceptable to be something that you’re not. People want to see your true self."

It’s a stirring vision, but it doesn’t immediately square with the high proportion of telegenic, zit-free teens among Musical.ly’s upper ranks, or with concerns about safety and privacy on the app. It is also clear that a significant proportion of Musers are younger than 13, the minimum age for app store downloads. There have been sporadic reports of attempted grooming via the app, and concerns about inappropriate lyrics and content; at least two UK police forces have reportedly investigated complaints by parents. But Musical.ly encourages parents to monitor use of the app, and says it removes inappropriate content within 15 minutes; it adds that concerned Musers or their parents should consider sacrificing potential fame and make their accounts private. All those I speak to, however, report seeing less nasty stuff, if any at all, on Musical.ly than elsewhere. Moreover, even if the top Musers resemble the glossy Mickey Mouse Club stars of yore, they believe that, for now at least, Musical.ly offers a freedom of expression and control that would have been alien to Britney Spears. "Musical.ly has allowed me to find who I am as a person," Baby Ariel says. "Before social media, I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted to do.. Now I do."

Where Musers find freedom and community, the music industry sees dollar signs. All the major labels make their tracks available on the app, which mobilises a bedroom battalion of promoters.. In August, the label Republic reported a 23% increase in sales of Hailee Steinfeld’s Starving after a promotion on Musical.ly. In the UK, Olly Murs of X Factor fame launched a #Challenge, another popular feature of the app, to promote a single on his new album 24 HRS. He lip-synched to Grow Up while wearing face filters, including a teddy bear’s nose. "Create your own ‘Grow Up’ lip-synch video & you could win a signed copy of 24 HRS," he wrote under his Musical.ly. Thousands of Musers have done so, adding the #GrowUpChallenge hashtag to their own clips and multiplying Murs’ audience. At the time of writing, Max and Harvey have made the most-liked clip.

The established stars courting Musers are at risk of being outshone. Baby Ariel now has almost 2m subscribers to her YouTube channel, roughly the same as Ariana Grande, Selena Gomez and Shawn Mendes, perhaps the biggest conventional singers going for the same demographic. "We had an event at Disney, and all these Disney stars were there on the red carpet, but all the fans were around Baby Ariel," says Alex Hofmann, Musical.ly’s German-born head of operations in North America. In October, Ariel made the cover of Billboard magazine. Thanks to Live.ly, the live-broadcast app, Musers are also cashing in. Those who stream footage through the app can receive special gift emojis that fans buy for cash as in-app purchases. iTunes and Musical.ly get a cut; the rest goes to the recipient, who may reward the gift with a BFF (best fan forever) award. According to the company, the top 10 Live.ly users have each made $46,000 on average over a two-week period. "People are quitting jobs to do it full-time," Hofmann says.

Back on the banks of the Thames, Max and Harvey have moved location to the London Eye. Another superfan turns up. Milly Fincher, 13, is shaking with excitement. She had been watching the skate park Live.ly at home and begged her dad, David, to bring her into London from Surbiton. During a break in filming, she meets her heroes and is speechless. They greet her like pros. "So your name’s Milly, yeah?" Max says. She nods. "Awesome. How old are you?" She tells them. "Awesome. Would you like a picture?" They pose together. Milly posts the picture to her Instagram later: "So this happened, and I’m gonna be in a newspaper with them!" she writes, adding five screaming emojis.

"It’s still crazy, for sure," Max says while considering fame on the way to Wagamama for a lunch break (they wanted Nando’s, but it’s a bit of a walk). "Six months ago, no one would have ever approached us unless they were asking for directions," he adds, while Harvey plays Pokémon Go, occasionally glancing up to check for obstacles. "Now, people are asking people for directions for where to find us."

Fame has started to change family life, even if the money hasn’t – yet. The boys’ PO box address receives about a dozen items a day, including chocolates, fan fiction and artwork.

I ask them if Paul is secretly a pushy parent. He used to be a singer himself – musicals, mainly – and met Sara while performing on a cruise ship. He gave it up to support a family that also includes two younger children, and now works for a double glazing company. Max and Harvey laugh at the question. "Help me!" Harvey mouths silently, pretending to be a hostage.

"Part of me thinks I’d love to pause this now and come back to it when they’re 18, and had a bit more of a chance to grow," Paul says.

But the boys are way ahead. I ask where they’d like to be in five years, at 18. "Well, that’s probably when we’d like to be touring globally," Max says. Paul almost chokes on his noodles.

"Yeah, then five years later, we’ll run for president," Harvey chips in.

"Yeah, then we’ll build a massive wall," his brother adds.

Where would they build it? "Erm, between me and my brother in our bedroom," he says.

Now all three Mills boys are laughing, before Virdi, the video guy, checks his watch. It’s time to go back outside and film the last shots.


Everyone had one of these in their dorm rooms right?

There are few constants in life: Death, taxes... and the perennial appeal of lava lamps. (At least among a certain segment of college students and/or bachelors.) The ultimate mood light has just turned 50. NPR agrees that very little else needs to be said about this momentous occasion, save for this mesmerizing video.

The Lava Lamp Turns 50, Has Officially Been The Dorm Accent Of Choice For Five Decades (VIDEO)

There are few constants in life: Death, taxes... and the perennial appeal of lava lamps. (At least among a certain segment of college students and/or bac...

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7 family finance tips to get you ready for 2017:

With the New Year fast approaching, many of us are thinking of goals and priorities for the coming year. Personal and family finances should be high on the list of important areas to consider. Spending just a few minutes on some key areas of your financial life can help you start 2017 on the right financial note. Here are a 7 important items to consider:

1. Make a family budget so you understand your discretionary income. Doing a budget may not sound like fun, but it is important in helping you understand your monthly cash flow and discretionary income: the amount of money you earn after taxes, the amount you spend on essential living costs, and any leftover amount, which is your discretionary income. How much of your discretionary income you spend and how much you save may be one of the most important decisions you make in your financial life. Well-known web sites like BudgetTracker.com  or mint.com make it easy to get started. As an added bonus, in doing your budget, you may identify areas where you can save and thus increase your discretionary income.

2. Review your cost of debt and keep more of your own money. If possible, find ways to reduce the cost of your debt. Consumer debt can be costly, and it isn't tax deductible. On the other hand, home-equity lines of credit are tax deductible and may be a lower-cost source of cash than credit card debt or auto loans. If you embark on this strategy, be sure to be very disciplined and not to use your home equity line like a piggy bank.

3. Automatically increase your 401(k) or other retirement plan contributions. Raising the percentage of your income that you defer into your qualified retirement plan can be very easy. Simply call your human resources office or go to your 401(k) plan provider website and increase the contribution amount into your 401(k) or other retirement plan. A small and relatively painless annual increase, perhaps when you get a raise, can mean a big difference later in life. Also, check if your employer offers a way to automatically increase to your salary deferral percentage each year.

4. Consolidate retirement accounts. Americans are changing jobs more often than they have in the past, and this can result in multiple accounts and overlapping investments. It is not uncommon for someone to have several 401(k) plan accounts at former employers. Consolidating them takes time, and people often consider it a hassle or are simply confused by the process. Calling your 401(k) plan provider can help you start the process. You can consider adding these assets to your current employer's 401(k) plan or setting up a rollover IRA. Once the number of your accounts is reduced, it may be easier to make changes, coordinate your overall asset allocation, and track performance.

5. Analyze your risk tolerance and asset allocation. A new year is a good time to evaluate your portfolio to be sure it still reflects your current thinking on the markets and that it is structured in line with your goals and objectives. Be aware of potential style drift (a shift away from your intended asset allocation, usually as a result of market movements) and if there are areas to your portfolio that can potentially be improved upon. You may be able to complete this yourself or with the help of some online software. If not, look for a qualified financial advisor who may be able to offer his or her assessment.

6. Conduct a beneficiary review on your retirement plans, annuities, and insurance policies. The beneficiaries named in these accounts take precedent over any legal document you create. Therefore, you need to review each of these.

I recently worked on settling an estate for a client. Even though I knew this person for almost 20 years, I didn't know about an old life insurance policy. Evidently, neither did anyone else. My client's ex-wife, whom he had divorced more than 20 years earlier, was still the beneficiary on this sizable policy that paid her several hundred thousand dollars. Despite their acrimonious divorce, and even though there was no intention of enriching the ex-wife, she nevertheless received the generous insurance checks within weeks of my client's death. Worse yet, those funds increased his taxable estate, so this policy actually cost his children and other beneficiaries some money in taxes. This is a dramatic example, but it's a good reminder to verify that your beneficiaries are current and your legal documents reflect your wishes.

7. Review the adequacy of your insurance, especially if you have children. While it's great and more fun to be concerned about buying the latest American Girl doll or Star Wars Lego's kit, don't forget to consider buying life insurance to protect your children's future. The good news is that term life insurance can be relatively inexpensive. Remember, for two-earner families, you may want to insure both parents' incomes, as the surviving parent may want or need to spend more time with the children and work less. Insurance companies will typically offer up to 10 to 12 times annual income in coverage.

Making sure these areas of your financial plan are in proper order can help you start off the New Year feeling confident and empowered to reach your goals. If you and your family are resolving to improve your financial fitness, these 7 tips can be a great way to start.

7 Family Finance Tips To Consider For The New Year

Personal and family finances should be high on the list of important areas to consider with the New Year fast approaching.


They were arguably Donald Trump's most striking claims to date: a series of tweets, accusing then-President Barack Obama of wire-tapping Trump Tower during the election.

The claim appeared to come as a surprise, and was not backed up by any evidence.

First Mr Obama's spokesman, then the former US intelligence chief James Clapper denied any wiretap had been ordered.

But President Trump, via his press secretary Sean Spicer, has urged Congress to investigate the "troubling" claims, alongside its current investigations into allegations of Russian hacking during the election.

What are the Congressional committees already looking at?

Both the House and Senate intelligence committees are currently looking into the possibility of Russian interference during the 2016 election, inquiries launched in January.

They have promised wide-ranging investigations, carried out on a bipartisan basis, which will not shy away from looking into potential links between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin, as well as Russian "cyber activity".

Both committees have conceded these will be time-consuming investigations, and at least one member of the House intelligence committee has expressed his annoyance at another layer being added

"Ok @PressSec, as a member of the committee onto which you've dumped this mess, I look forward to seeing your evidence," Democrat Jim Himes tweeted.

Mr Trump and his team have provided no evidence to say the phones at Trump Tower were wiretapped, and now Mr Clapper, who was then director of National Intelligence, has categorically denied such an order existed.

As intelligence director, he told NBC, he would have known about a "Fisa court order on something like this".

Could Obama have ordered the surveillance?

Mr Obama's team have outright denied any involvement, saying Mr Trump's tweets are "simply false".

A warrant, if it existed, would most likely have been ordered by the Department of Justice independently of the White House.

On Sunday, former press secretary Josh Earnest told ABC: "This may come as a surprise to the current occupant of the Oval Office, but the president of the United States does not have the authority to unilaterally order the wiretapping of an American citizen.

"If the FBI decided to use their wiretapping authority in the context of the counterintelligence or criminal investigation, it would require FBI investigators, officials at the Department of Justice going to a federal judge, and making a case, and demonstrating probable cause to use that authority to conduct the investigation. That is a fact."

The only way Mr Obama could have ordered surveillance without going through the Foreign Intelligence Court (Fisa court) is if there was no US citizens involved.

In this case, considering the target is allegedly Trump Towers - which definitely involves American citizens - this would have been hard to argue.

The Fisa court has been described by CNN as possibly "the most powerful court you have never heard of".

The secretive court approves surveillance warrants under Fisa against "agents of a foreign power", mainly to either the FBI or NSA.

In this case, the reported target of the FBI's application was two Russian banks.

Any application has to be approved by 11 sitting judges.

Rumours of an order granted under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) have been circulating for some time.

On 7 November - the day before the country went to the polls - former British MP Louise Mensch reported the order was approved in October..

According to Ms Mensch, it was issued in connection with a private server and activity between two Russia banks.

She also mentions - like Mr Trump in his tweets - that an earlier order had been turned down.

In January, the BBC's Paul Wood - writing in the wake of claims the Russian government had compromising material on Mr Trump - said he also knew of the Fisa order.

Neither Mr Trump nor his associates are mentioned in the order, Mr Wood reported.

The Guardian also mentions the order at about the same time.

None of them mention wiretapping of phones.

It is then seemingly not mentioned again until Mark Levin, a conservative radio host in the US, talked about it on Thursday, when he referred to it as a "silent coup".

His show was followed up with an article in Breitbart on Friday, which mentions wiretapping and "eavesdropping" sought by the "Obama administration". It is not clear how their claims were sourced.

None of this has ever been confirmed by anyone in authority.

President Trump's tweets were sent out in a flurry the next morning. It is unclear if he was aware of any of the previous reports - he does not appear to have tweeted about it before.

President Donald Trump wants an investigation, but has provided no evidence to back up his claims.