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18 Instagram rock stars you should be following right now
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This couple met on an app that wasn't meant for dating — but now they're married
Michele Severson hated the idea of dating apps. Although she had been single for several years, she had no interest in turning to her smartphone to spark her love life.
She was, however, hooked on a trivia app called QuizUp. Launched in late 2013, the app lets users compete against other real people around the world in over 450 trivia categories, including uber-specific topics like "Herbs and Spices,""Beyonce," or "Dinosaurs."
As users compete in different trivia quizzes, the app keeps track of individual stats so it can crown users as the Best in City, State, or Country in each category.
Michele had been playing QuizUp for about six months when she first "met" Jon.
The two got randomly paired up in a round of "Big Bang Theory" trivia (a show they both love).
Jon, who was much higher ranked, whipped her on game one. Through the app's messaging feature, Michele shot off a quick note: "It's hard to beat someone on that level!"
He couldn't resist a message of his own: "Well, it's hard to beat somebody with such pretty eyes."
From there, the two continued chatting.
Although Michele says that she would almost always send a quick "good game"-type message to her competitors, this was one of the first times that the conversation turned into something more substantial.
She and Jon realized that they had a lot more in common besides a penchant for Big Bang Theory and that they only lived a few states away. They kept chatting within the app, but, after two days, decided to exchange phone numbers.That first conversation, they talked on the phone for nearly 12 hours straight, staying up all night, unable to tear themselves away.
"It was magical," Michele says. "Everything just clicked."
Although QuizUp is by no means meant to inspire romances, CEO of Plain Vanilla Games, which makes the app, told Business Insider that he heard many stories about people forming friendships with other "experts" they play against. After all, QuizUp connects people who are passionate about specific topics, and shared passion is a good ingredient for love.
"If you go into discussions happening on the chatboard for the psychics category, for example, you’re going to see thousands of people talking about different theories of psychics," Fridriksson once told Business Insider. "People are practically writing essays on their mobile phones."
Jon and Michele continued talking and decided to meet up in Vegas in November, five weeks later. The match felt even better in real life than over the phone or in the app. They got married on New Years Eve. Michele says QuizUp sent them a giant card and a trivia book as a congratulations on their special day.
"It feels like a fairy tale," she says. The company told her that she and Jon were the first couple to ever find true love through its app. Even today, the two will lay in bed together playing QuizUp, Michele says.
Although the Severson's relationship started in 2014, QuizUp hit peak popularity in late 2013, becoming the fastest growing iPhone game in history and raising $22 million. Since then, however, a new trivia game has dominated the spotlight. Trivia Crack broke the record for the longest streak at the top of the app store in January. It has 20 million daily active users and 100 million registered users. QuizUp has 31 million registered users and 13 million games played per day.
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Lance Armstrong invoked Steve Jobs when asked if he'd ever be reunited with Livestrong
When asked if he'd consider "reuniting" with Livestrong, the cancer foundation he founded and was fired from, fallen icon Lance Armstrong referred to Steve Jobs' leaving and returning to Apple.
Armstrong was speaking to the BBC's Dan Roan, who interviewed the disgraced former Tour de France champion at his bike shop in Austin, Texas, for an interview that aired this week.
"I spent a long time trying to build up an organisation to help a lot of people,"Armstrong told the BBC, referring to Livestrong. "And I can't lie: It hurts that that has been put away, or almost forgotten, and almost, in some parts of the world, discounted as if it was a sham or PR. It wasn't. That was very real. It meant a lot to me. And the deepest cut was Livestrong saying, 'you need to step away.'"
Livestrong suffered a 34% slump in donations in 2013 after Armstrong admitted doping, Bloomberg reported in September.
Roan then asked, "How much did that hurt?"
"It doesn't get worse than that," Armstrong said, "but we are where we are."
Roan said, "There's no chance of reuniting with them — that's gone forever?"
"Forever is a big word," Armstrong replied. "I'm not going anywhere.
"Listen, if you asked Steve Jobs somewhere between leaving Apple and going back — somewhere right in those NeXT days — he would have said, 'I don't ever care to go back. I'm going to go build the next great thing.' But ultimately he goes back, and the rest is history."
NeXT was the company Jobs founded in 1985 after he was forced out of Apple, which he also founded. NeXT was eventually bought by Apple, in 1996, when Jobs rejoined the company.
"I want to get back to a place where I can help people and effect change," Armstrong said. "If [Livestrong is] there, great, and hopefully so. But if it has to be elsewhere, then I'll find that place.
"The numbers are there, the dollar value is there, the amount of people who were absolutely, directly served is there — more than 3 million people. And it's been disturbing to me to see the change in the organization, to see the drop-off in the organization."
After Jobs died from cancer, on Oct. 5, 2011, Armstrong wrote a post for ESPN in which he called Jobs "forever a world icon." Armstrong, a cancer survivor, said of Jobs:
We had some common bonds. We had the disease. We both never met our birth father. Neither of us had a college degree. We both like to bike a little. And yet we never talked about any of that.
After the US Anti-Doping Agency, or USADA, stripped Armstrong of his seven Tour de France titles, in October 2012, and after he confessed to Oprah Winfrey to having used banned substances, in January 2013, the Lance Armstrong Foundation changed its name to just Livestrong.
In its "Reasoned Decision," USADA said that evidence against Armstrong showed beyond any doubt that his US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team, with Armstrong as its leader, "ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen."
Also in the BBC interview, Roan asked Armstrong, "When it comes to the doping, would you do it again?"
"If you take me back to 1995, when it was completely and totally pervasive, I'd probably do it again,"Armstrong said.
Armstrong's net worth, according to The New York Times, was estimated at $125 million in 2012. In August he said he still believed he won those seven Tours.
Jobs famously called the computer the bicycle of the mind.
You can watch the full BBC interview here >>
SEE ALSO: This Guy Started Some Of The Biggest Tech Companies, But What He Really Cares About Is Cycling
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13 apartments you can get for the median rent in Silicon Valley
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Kiwi teen Lydia Ko becomes youngest world number one
Orlando (AFP) - New Zealand teen star Lydia Ko became the youngest world number one in golf history despite squandering the lead and sharing second Saturday at the season-opening LPGA Coates Championship.
The South Korean-born prodigy took the top spot at 17 years, nine months and seven days to eclipse the age marks of US star Tiger Woods, who was 21 when he ascended to world number one for the first time in 1997, and South Korean Shin Ji-Yai, who was the youngest prior women's world number one at age 22 in 2010.
A double-bogey at the par-4 17th cost Ko the lead and South Korean Choi Na-Yeon won on 16-under 272 with Ko, South Korean Jang Ha-Na and American Jessica Korda sharing second on 273.
But it was still good enough for Ko to overtake South Korean Park In-Bee for the top ranking after Park shared 13th on 284.
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Record-breaking balloonists splashdown off Mexico
Los Angeles (AFP) - Two balloonists completed a world record-breaking trans-Pacific flight on Saturday after splashing down safely off the coast of Mexico, organizers of the epic voyage said.
Troy Bradley and Leonid Tiukhtyaev made a controlled descent four miles off the coast of Baja California near La Poza Grande after a change in winds made a landing at sea a "more prudent" option than landing onshore.
"Mexican authorities are cooperating fully and the Coast Guard is enroute to the balloon. We anticipate they will tow the capsule to shore," a statement from the Two Eagles team said.
The statement emphasized that the watery landing would not impact the validity of the balloonists record-breaking feat.
"A water landing is acceptable under the international rules governing the establishment of world records," the statement said, noting that two recognized around-the-world records also ended at sea.
The voyage, which began in Japan, had already surpassed the previous records for the longest distance covered in a gas-filled balloon, 5,260 miles (8,467 kilometer) and the previous duration record of 137 hours, five minutes and 50 seconds.
Bradley and Tiukhtyaev's odyssey was eventually timed at 160 hours and 37 minutes at a distance of 6,646 miles (10,696 km), according to the Two Eagles team.
Filled with 350,000 cubic feet (10,000 cubic meters) of helium, and capable of staying aloft for 10 days, Two Eagles departed Saturday from Saga, southern Japan, and sailed over Tokyo at night before heading out across the wide Pacific.
Bradley, 50, an American, and Tiukhtyaev, 58, from Russia, had planned to land in the vicinity of the Canada-US border, but set course for Baja California instead to avoid a ridge of high pressure off the US west coast.
The duo were the first to attempt a trans-Pacific balloon crossing since 1981.
The previous record for the longest distance ever traveled in a balloon was set in 1981 by Double Eagle V, the first gas-filled balloon to cross the Pacific Ocean from Nagashima, Japan to northwestern California.
The duration record was established three years earlier when Double Eagle II became the first balloon to traverse the Atlantic, from the northeastern US state of Maine to a farmer's field outside Paris.
Two Eagles was named in honor of those two craft.
The unpressurized, 220 pound (100 kilogram) Kevlar and carbon-fiber capsule which carried Bradley and Tiukhtyaev is described by the expedition as smaller than a king-sized bed, with freeze-dried food sharing space with state-of-the-art electronics.
The pilots had controlled altitude using some 10,000 pounds of sand hung outside the capsule as balance, allowing the two men to vary altitude between 12,000 and 30,000 feet.
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A new startup is helping companies borrow Wall Street talent
When Vikram Ashok quit his private-equity job at Paris-based Quilvest in late 2011, he had no plans to start freelance consulting. Ready for a change, he'd moved to Florida to golf.
But consulting found Ashok when a former portfolio company reached out for help with a short-term budgeting project. It went well, and he started freelancing regularly — which helped finance his golf pursuits for a year, and kept his professional skills sharp.
Then, inspired by his own experiences, Ashok and his lifelong friend Ashwin Krishnan, who also worked in PE, founded SpareHire, an online marketplace for freelance finance and consulting work.
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How to stop people from being able to see that you read their Facebook message (FB)
We all probably have a friend or two with an iPhone who chooses to leave their "read receipts" on so you can tell when they've read a text. A lot of people think read receipts are the worst, which is why it's great that Apple allows you to turn them off.
Facebook, however, does not. When you read someone's Facebook message, they'll always know — they can see the time or just the date you read the message, depending on when they look back at it themselves.
Quite frankly, sometimes you just want to be able to let someone assume that you missed their note. But that "seen" check mark makes it impossible to fake:
Turns out, there is a way to disable Facebook read receipts, though not technically through Facebook.
You can't avoid read receipts on mobile, but there are a few ways to essentially turn them off on a desktop. We spotted these examples on LifeHacker, which posted a longer piece on how to turn off read receipts for different apps.
Unseen is a free Facebook app that will let you secretly read messages without the sender knowing:
Facebook Unseen is a Google Chrome extension with great reviews that lets you manually mark each message as either read or unread.
Read more examples of how to prevent people from seeing you read your messages on LifeHacker.
SEE ALSO: It Looks Like Twitter's CFO Just Accidentally Tweeted A Private Message About Acquiring A Company
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Here are all the movie trailers you'll see during the Super Bowl
The commercials are one of the best parts of the Super Bowl; however, we're excited for the premiere of a few new movie trailers.
Five studios will show televised spots for upcoming spring and summer movies.
This year, a 30-second ad costs an estimated $4.4 million - $4.5 million.
Most of the trailers have already debuted online including a spot for "Ted 2" and "Terminator: Genisys." The biggest trailer to be on the lookout for is one for "Jurassic World."
Sorry, Batfans. Despite rumors of a "Batman V Superman" Super Bowl teaser, it doesn't look like Warner Bros. bought any ad space during the big game. The studio hasn't for several years.
Here are all the trailers you can expect to see.
Disney
"Tomorrowland"
Release date: May 22, 2015
Disney premiered a Super Bowl teaser for its upcoming sci-fi flick starring Britt Robertson (above), George Clooney, and Hugh Laurie. Similar to "Pirates of the Caribbean," the film is based off of a theme park attraction at Walt Disney World. Brad Bird will direct.
Unconfirmed: Marvel just released a new 30-second TV ad for "The Avengers: Age of Ultron" that we could see get some replay Sunday evening.
20th Century Fox
"Kingsman: The Secret Service"
Release date: Feb. 13, 2015
Colin Firth plays a spy agent who trains a new recuit to go up against a group of villains led by Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson). The film's based off a comic book series called "The Secret Service" and is directed by Matthew Vaughn ("X-Men: First Class,""Kick-Ass").
Expected, but unconfirmed:"Fantastic Four." Fox debuted the first teaser trailer for the film earlier this week. We'd be surprised if we don't see a shorter version of the teaser Sunday.
Lionsgate
"The Divergent Series: Insurgent"
Release date: March 20, 2015
MTV debuted the "Divergent" sequel trailer that will air during the Super Bowl pregame show. Shailene Woodley returns as Tris Prior continuing her journey to take down power-hungry leader Jeanine (Kate Winslet) in a futuristic Chicago.
Paramount Pictures
"Terminator Genisys"
Release date: July 1, 2015
Paramount and Skydance previewed its new "Terminator" ad spot earlier in the week. The fifth film in the franchise will bring back Arnold Schwarzenegger as the Terminator while uniting him with new stars Emilia Clarke ("Game of Thrones") and Matt Smith ("Doctor Who").
More than 10 years after the first movie, this time, Spongebob and his friends will somehow be mingling among the living on land.
Universal
"Fast & Furious 7" aka "Furious 7"
Release date: April 3, 2015
Universal has been releasing behind-the-scenes footage (coined seven seconds of seven) from the upcoming film ahead of its new Super Bowl spot.
"Minions"
Release date: July 10, 2015
"Seventh Son"
Release date: Feb. 6, 2015
The fantasy film starring Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore was pushed back a few times from 2013. After Legendary Pictures moved from Warner Bros. to Universal, the movie finally received another release date. It's uncertain how the movie will perform since it has been in production for so long.
"Ted 2"
Release date: June 26, 2015
Universal revealed the first trailer for the sequel where the vocal teddy is on a mission to become a dad. Mark Wahlberg returns and is joined by Amanda Seyfried. The cut down version during the Super Bowl reportedly will feature a cameo from the Patriots' Tom Brady.
SEE ALSO: All the commercials airing during the Super Bowl
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Inside Hunt & Fish Club, Wall Street’s new favorite steakhouse
Two streets and one block over from Times Square, a new steakhouse has Wall Street buzzing.
Hunt & Fish Club — the $5 million brainchild of founders restaurateur Eytan Sugarman, financier Nelson Braff, and hedge fund maven Anthony Scaramucci — has taken over the city with its dramatic interior and classy, throw-back vibe.
“When these guys were designing it, I wanted to see Leonardo DiCaprio. You know that light, light pink suit he’s wearing in ‘The Great Gatsby’?” Scaramucci told The New York Post in the paper’s recent feature on the restaurant. “I wanted him standing at the bar in that custom suit saying, ‘OK, this is the right spot for this guy.’”
Already, the new spot has attracted a fair amount of celebrities and big wigs. According to The Post, Carl Icahn, Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia, and music mogul Timbaland have all stopped by.
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Psychologists say doing these 7 activities make people happier
Happiness is good for you.
Psychology research shows that happy people make more money, perform better at work, live longer, and have better marriages than everyone else.
But the causes of happiness are elusive — philosophers have been trying to figure it out for thousands of years.
Over the past few decades psychological science has found a few consistent trends in what makes people happy. As the Gym Lion blog reports, happiness is less a matter of what you have than the things you do.
Here are a few of the top happiness-inducing behaviors:
Committing to goals
Like chocolate and peanut butter, goals and happiness are mutually reinforcing. The process is simple enough: Happy people have lots of energy, and that energy can be put toward pursuing their latest quest.
Psychologists say that the more we see a goal as a part of ourselves, the more it's self-concordant — meaning we'll bring more energy toward tackling it. University of Zurich psychologist Bettina Wiese says that "empirical research has repeatedly shown that striving toward self-concordant goals strengthens the link between goal progress and well-being."
Finding meaning in your work
In 1997, Yale organizational psychologist Amy Wrzesniewski and her colleagues published an oft-cited paper about how people relate to their work. There were three ways of thinking about your work:
• A job: "Focus on financial rewards and necessity rather than pleasure or fulfillment; not a major positive part of life"
• A career: "Focus on advancement"
• A calling: "Focus on enjoyment of fulfilling, socially useful work"
Their finding: The people who found meaning in their work were happiest.
Spending time with people you care about
While it may sound like a Hallmark card, the research confirms that spending time with the people you love (or can at least tolerate) will make you happier. Interestingly, being at the "center" of a social network is a good predictor of well-being.
Cultivating a long-term relationship
The New York Times recently reported that "being married makes people happier and more satisfied with their lives than those who remain single — particularly during the most stressful periods, like midlife crises."
The reason? Two people are more resilient than one.
Eating the fresh stuff
A 2013 study titled "Many apples a day keep the blues away" found that eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables had a positive correlation with happiness.
Specifically, the young people who ate seven to eight servings of fruits or vegetables reported higher happiness levels than their less-nourished peers.
Getting in exercise
A 8,000-person Dutch study of people between 16 and 65 years old made some very strong claims about the virtues of exercise. "Exercisers were more satisfied with their life and happier than non-exercisers at all ages," the authors concluded. If you're trying to work out more but can't quite find the time, legendary psychologist Walter Mischel recommends "if-then" planning.
Buying experiences
According to Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, if money doesn't buy happiness, then you're not spending it right. Chief among his spending principles is the insight that you should buy experiences instead of things.
In a survey of over 1,000 Americans, 57% of respondents said that they derived greater happiness from an experiential purchase, like a trip, concert, or other life event, over a material purchase, like a car, appliance, or other object. We like experiences more because we get to anticipate and remember them, the research says, and we appreciate them longer.
"After devoting days to selecting the perfect hardwood floor to install in a new condo, homebuyers find their once beloved Brazilian cherry floors quickly become nothing more than the unnoticed ground beneath their feet," Gilbert and his colleagues say. "In contrast, their memory of seeing a baby cheetah at dawn on an African safari continues to provide delight."
SEE ALSO: Psychologists Say You Need These 3 Compatibilities To Have A Successful Marriage
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20 actors who dramatically changed their looks for movies
Bradley Cooper recently bulked up to 225 pounds to play US Navy SEAL Chris Kyle in "American Sniper."
His daily regimen included two intense workouts and eating more than 5,000 calories per day.
He's not the only actor to undergo extreme measures to gain and lose weight for a role. Plenty of stars have endured grueling diets and workouts to be in tip-top shape for their roles as superheroes, ballerinas, boxers, and more.
Keertana Sastry and Jennifer Michalski contributed to this story.
Bradley Cooper gained 40 pounds for "American Sniper."
The Oscar-nominated actor told Men's Health he worked with a trainer twice a day to help him gain the weight in 10 weeks:
In the first workout, beginning at 5 a.m., they focused on structural exercises like deadlifts and squats to build a foundation solid enough to hold the extra mass. The second workout, late in the afternoon, was more focused on traditional muscle-building exercises. Cooper needed both types of training to convincingly portray Chris Kyle.
Jake Gyllenhaal looked gaunt after losing 30 pounds for his role in "Nightcrawler."
Gyllenhaal really went all-out to get into the mind of a deranged, career-hungry freelance journalist.
The actor told Variety he didn't take on any special diet. Instead, he just stopped eating:
I would try to eat as few calories as possible. I knew if I was hungry that I was in the right spot. Physically, it showed itself, but chemically and mentally, I think it was even a more fascinating journey. It became a struggle for me.
Gyllenhaal added that he would often go on 15-mile runs from his home to the film's set.
In addition, his co-star Riz Ahmed claimed the star would chew flavored gum to trick his mind into believing he was eating a meal.
Chris Pratt lost 60 pounds in six months for "Guardians of the Galaxy."
Pratt said he ditched beer to take on the role of Peter Quill in Marvel's hit. He also divulged his workout routine with a personal trainer and nutritionist to Men's Fitness.
It consisted of running, swimming, boxing, kickboxing, a triathlon, and consuming 4,000 calories a day.
"I actually lost weight by eating more food, but eating the right food, eating healthy foods, and so when I was done with the movie my body hadn't been in starvation mode," Pratt told People magazine.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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Here's something you don't see every day
This is odd.
In the IMF's latest World Economic Outlook for 2015, the US is the only one of the G7 and BRIC economies that had its IMF growth outlook revised up for this year.
Torsten Sløk at Deutsche Bank passed along the following chart on Tuesday morning, and added:
In the just-released IMF World Economic Outlook the 2015 forecast for the US has been raised by 0.5 to 3.6%. I used to work at the IMF WEO division and I don't recall having seen before a forecast where the US was revised up significantly and everyone else was revised down, see chart below. I think the market and the IMF are underestimating the positive impact the solid recovery in the US will have on the rest of the world, in particular Europe, where lower oil prices and the depreciation of the euro could add several percentage points to GDP.
SEE ALSO: India Is About To Bump China As The World's Most Exciting Emerging-Market Growth Story
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Pro-democracy protesters to return to Hong Kong streets
Hong Kong (AFP) - Thousands of pro-democracy protesters will rally on Hong Kong's streets Sunday for the first time since mass demonstrations shut down parts of the city for more than two months.
The afternoon march through central Hong Kong is expected to draw 50,000 people with police warning that attempts to reoccupy key roads cleared of a sea of tented protest camps in December "are likely".
However no protest group has announced it intends to relaunch the occupation.
It is set to gauge the public's appetite for the continued fight for free leadership elections, with authorities having made no concessions to activists' demands and tensions still high in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.
"The rally continues to call out to people to join the democracy movement," organiser Daisy Chan told AFP.
Officials in December cleared the final protest camps which brought roads to a standstill with rallies that drew around 100,000 at their peak and saw violent clashes with police.
The demonstrations started in late September and lasted for more than two months, after years of disagreements over how the city's leader should be chosen in the future.
Chinese authorities have promised Hong Kong people the right to vote for the chief executive in 2017, but ruled that nominees for the top spot will have to be vetted by a pro-Beijing committee, a proposal which has been heavily criticised by activists.
Chan said the rally would show that the Occupy movement, as the protests were known, was a political awakening for Hong Kong people.
"In the past years, these citizens were less political than they are right now. The Occupy movement woke people up."
- 'Tired of politics' -
"This march demonstrates to the citizens that the pro-democracy momentum is not dead and that it will continue," political analyst Sonny Lo told AFP.
But Lo also believes residents are exhausted from protests over political reform, pressuring pro-democracy activists to be more restrained going forward.
"At this moment the members of the public are tired of politics. The democrats have to strategise very carefully," Lo, head of the social sciences department at the Hong Kong Institute of Education said, adding that most Hong Kong people were "politically pragmatic".
Police have requested march organisers to provide 100 marshals, which the group has said is "unreasonable".
Chan said they were not planning to re-occupy the streets on Sunday, but the police are nervous.
"It is believed that those supporting the illegal occupation are likely to seize the opportunity to reoccupy roads which have been now re-opened to traffic," a statement said ahead of the march.
The original founders of the Occupy movement including Benny Tai, along with teenage activist Joshua Wong and other student leaders will attend the rally.
Hong Kong's government is urging the public to support the Beijing-approved plan.
The proposed electoral reform package needs the approval of two-thirds of the city's legislature in order to be passed. A vote is expected to take place in the summer.
Protests in Hong Kong pre-date Occupy, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets to protest over issues including an unpopular security bill or at the annual commemorations marking China's Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Last July, more than half a million people demonstrated a month before Beijing ruled on the city's political reform.
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Furious Genoa claim refs protecting higher interests
Milan (AFP) - Serie A side Genoa have accused referees of protecting the interests of the league's biggest sides after a 1-1 draw with Fiorentina that again shone the spotlight on the officials of Italy's top flight.
Days after Napoli moved up to third place with a 2-1 win over Genoa thanks to two controversial goals by Argentinian striker Gonzalo Higuain, Genoa club president Enrico Preziosi lashed out.
Speaking to Sky Sport after the game, he called for a stop to the decisions which, he suggested, promotes an established league order to the detriment of smaller clubs like Genoa.
"These refereeing errors count, because there are interests and league standings to respect," Preziosi told Sky Sport following 10-man Genoa's 1-1 draw at home to Fiorentina.
"In football it's not always the team that plays the best football that wins, but the subject of refereeing errors can't just be swept aside.
"When these decisions happen to Genoa, they're played down. But because we end up drawing or losing games we should be winning, team morale goes out the window.
"There are games we should have won recently that we didn't because of refereeing errors."
Genoa, along with city rivals Sampdoria, were one of the form teams in the run-up to the Christmas break, but have yet to win in 2015.
Indeed, hardline fans of the Ligurian coast club, as well as the club's directors, did not enter the stadium until 10 minutes after kick-off in protest at recent refereeing decisions that went against them.
Genoa broke the deadlock on 14 minutes when Stefano Sturaro's shot hit the inside of the far post and came off the back of goalkeeper Ciprian Tatarusanu's head.
The conspiracy theorists' were given food for thought shortly after the half-hour when referee Nicola Rizzoli was forced out after pulling up with a suspected calf strain.
He was replaced by Marco Di Bello and took over goal-line duties instead.
Fiorentina levelled 10 minutes after the restart when Gonzalo Rodriguez flicked a corner past Mattia Perin at the back post, although Fiorentina striker Khouma Babacar looked offside.
Genoa's chances of snatching their first win of the year were compromised when Nicolas Burdisso was shown a second yellow card for a foul on Matias Fernandez, which many pundits later claimed was harsh.
Genoa striker Diego Perotti later complained: "These decisions are always against us. Today we conceded a goal that was offside and a red card that shouldn't have been given."
Normally calm and composed, Genoa coach Giampiero Gasperini lost his cool after the game, telling Mediaset: "We had a great game and really deserved the three points.
"It's really a shame about the refereeing decisions, like the goal that was offside. We're putting in some great performances... but enough is enough, all this is stopping us from being much higher up in the table."
Early this season Italian referee Gianluca Rocchi hit back at claims he favoured Juventus in a controversial 3-2 win over Serie A rivals Roma, but admitted he could have handled the bad-tempered match differently.
"When I referee a Juventus game, I treat them as I would any other team," Rocchi said on the television show Il Processo del Lunedi.
"My aim is always to officiate in the fairest manner possible."
However Rocchi's officiating is the first of many refereeing performances to have come under scrutiny in Serie A this season, increasing calls for the introduction of technology.
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Daughter of singer Whitney Houston found unconscious in bath
Los Angeles (AFP) - The daughter of late singer Whitney Houston was pulled unconscious from her bathtub Saturday at her Georgia home, in an eerie echo of her mother's tragic death three years ago.
Bobbi Kristina Brown, 21, was found by her husband and a friend at her home in Roswell, roughly 22 miles (35 kilometers) north of Atlanta, Roswell Police Department spokeswoman Lisa Holland said.
"She is still alive and breathing and other than that I do not know her condition at this time," Holland told a news conference. "Investigators are on the scene at the hospital and the house."
The TMZ.com entertainment news website said Brown's husband Nick Gordon and a friend had performed CPR at the scene after making the discovery.
Emergency services were called to assist before Brown was whisked to North Fulton Hospital for treatment.
TMZ reported that sources close to the family said Bobbi Kristina had been placed in a medically induced coma to address swelling on the brain.
Soul diva Whitney Houston died in February 2012. She was found in a bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles on the eve of the music industry's annual Grammy Awards show.
Coroners concluded she died by accidental drowning, with cocaine use and heart disease as contributing factors.
Various bottles were found in the singer's hotel room -- in all some 12 medications prescribed by five different doctors, including anxiety treatment Xanax and the potent corticosteroid Prednisone, the report said.
The singer of hits such as "I Will Always Love You" sold more than 170 million records during a nearly three-decade career, but also fought a long battle against substance abuse.
The singer left all of her assets to Bobbi Kristina -- born from her troubled marriage to singer Bobby Brown -- while excluding her ex-husband.
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MORGAN STANLEY: These Are The 9 Best Stocks In America Right Now
Morgan Stanley is out with its latest "Best Ideas" list for North America.
Apple, which reported monster quarterly earnings on Tuesday with 74.4 million iPhones sold in the fourth quarter, is one of the nine on this list.
The analysts identified stocks that required out-of-consensus analysis, offered a favorable risk-reward profile, and displayed a clear path to growth.
Amazon
Ticker: AMZN
2015 EPS: $3.52
2015 Price to Earnings: 88.2
Price Target: $420
Comment:"Near term, the recent earnings reset and related pullback in investments – along with low institutional ownership – provide an attractive set-up with AMZN at 52-week lows,” wrote Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty.
Apple
Ticker: AAPL
2015 EPS: $7.89
2015 Price to Earnings: 14.2
Price Target: $126
Comment:"Apple shares do not price in upcoming hardware, software, and services innovations, in our view," wrote Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty. "We expect iPhone share gains and growth re-acceleration driven by larger-screen iPhones based on our AlphaWise surveys and supply chain checks."
Canadian Pacific Railway
Ticker: CP
2015 EPS: $11.15
2015 Price to Earnings: 20.3
Price Target: C$278
Comment:"As cost cutting comes to an end, low costs / high service can accelerate rev. growth toward 10%," Morgan Stanley's William Greene wrote. "There are plenty of examples of low-cost, high-service transportation providers that consistently outgrow peers, and we believe CP will be another."
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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Justin Timberlake, Jessica Biel confirm they are expecting
New York (AFP) - American singer and actor Justin Timberlake took to Instagram on his 34th birthday to announce that he and his wife, actress Jessica Biel, are expecting their first child.
"Thank you EVERYONE for the Bday wishes! This year, I'm getting the GREATEST GIFT EVER. CAN'T WAIT. #BoyOrGirl #YouNeverKnow #WeDontEvenKnow #WeAreTakingBets," Timberlake wrote on his Instagram account below a photograph of him kissing Biel's pregnant belly.
Timberlake made his start as a child television star before joining 'NSync.
He more recently has become one of the music industry's most popular solo singers and has starred in movies including the Facebook-themed drama "The Social Network."
Timberlake in 2012 married Biel, 32, who has found success both on television and in film.
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America's homeless capital LA counts its down-and-outs
Los Angeles (AFP) - Notebook in hand, Ana Alvarez walked along the streets of Skid Row, the downtown Los Angeles district that's sometimes called the homeless capital of America.
Scores of tents and makeshift shelters had been erected for the night, all along the sidewalks.
"We don't get close to them. We try not to disturb them, because a lot of them are already asleep," Alvarez said.
She was helping with the homeless count that takes place every two years across the entire county.
After dark, volunteers like her scour the vast region and tally up the number of people sleeping rough.
"It's important to know how many people live here, to assess the resources we need," said Latoya Hawthorne, a census participant who works in a homeless women's refuge.
At the last count in 2013, Los Angeles had some 39,500 homeless people. If you include those camping or staying with someone, the figure jumps to 60,000.
According to current estimates, some 3,000 people sleep on Skid Row's urine- and garbage-strewn streets, their shelters made of cardboard, fabric or plastic and squeezed right next to each other.
"We counted 24 homeless individuals; we luckily didn't see any children or people under 18," said Harry Batt, one of thousands of volunteers helping with the count.
"It is very depressing," he added, noting that a lot of the homeless are mentally ill.
- Veterans a priority -
A few blocks away, US Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert McDonald walked briskly, adding a mark on his notebook every time he sees a homeless person or a tent.
His presence was a demonstration of the Obama administration's desire to tackle the problem of military vets who have fallen into extreme poverty.
Of some 630,000 homeless people in the United States, nearly 50,000 are former military personnel, according to official figures.
Doran Mateik, a nurse who works regularly on Skid Row, led McDonald and his team, a map in hand.
"I've been coming here for seven years, I try to get to know them, to see how I can help them. Some of them have become my friends," she said.
"I give them my address so they can receive some mail, or I try to assist them with the red tape."
At the end of road, McDonald stopped before a tall, thin black man with glasses who stood next to a shopping cart filled with possessions.
"You're a vet? So am I! how old are you? Sixty-three? I'm 61! Do you get the help you need?" the politician asked, as cameras rolled and journalists watched.
The man refused to give his name, but said he was in good health. A woman from McDonald's entourage handed him a business card detailing psychological services for former soldiers.
"I'm not a suicide risk," he said, politely. The woman invited him to see her at the Department of Veterans' Affairs.
"We want to help," she said.
The government says that since 2010 the number of homeless vets has fallen by 33 percent. Most are 50 years or older and served in Vietnam or the first Gulf War, but not in the post-September 11, 2001 campaigns.
While McDonald finished up in the section they were allocated, a homeless man seated on the ground in front of his tent asked: "Why do they come at night? why don't they come during the day? They scare me."
Alvarez explained that the census, the results of which will be published in April, takes place at night because during the day people move about a lot, partly because they are not allowed to linger in one place.
"It's a good thing they are counting them. The problem is that they get this info and do (nothing) about it," said a former homeless man who goes by the name "General Dogon" and has become a campaigner.
"I don't see people getting off the street... all I see is more police."
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People are slamming Budweiser's super defensive ad that mocks craft beer
The rising popularity of craft beer is hurting Budweiser's business, and the company took a stab at its competition in a Super Bowl ad.
The company says Budweiser isn't brewed to be "fussed over" and suggests it is a superior product to craft brews.
Finally, it pokes fun at "Pumpkin Peach Ale."
Budweiser's jab at craft brews attracted criticism on social media.
LOL at @Budweiser's hate on craft beer commercial. Someone's feeling their loss of market share. #AdBowl#SuperBowl
— Erin (@herheartland) February 2, 2015
There's no fancy ad gonna make Budweiser taste good.
— Michele Catalano (@inthefade) February 2, 2015
Budweiser also has a web ad with a similar sentiment. That ad shows a man selecting craft beer over Budweiser, disappointing a Clydesdale horse. The man is eventually bullied into buying some Budweiser.
Budweiser is quickly losing its status as the most iconic beer brand in America.
A recent company study found that 44% of drinkers aged 21 to 27 have never tried the brand, reports Tripp Mickle at The Wall Street Journal.
Budweiser is the third-most-popular beer brand in America, behind Bud Light and Coors Light. It has recently also been challenged by craft beer, which is hugely popular with the millennial set.
At the brand's peak in 1988, it was selling 50 million barrels of beer a year. That number has declined to 16 million barrels.
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