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The 25 Best Skiers On Wall Street

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Sean Cummiskey

It's the holidays, and now that folks have some downtime they'll want to hit the slopes at ski resorts all around the world.

We've tracked some of the top ski racers who are now working on Wall Street. 

We've found folks who competed in the Olympics and others who were World Cup medalists. We found many skiers who were captains of their college teams. 

We've also found some younger skiers who are heading to Wall Street when they're finished with school.

These skiers have swapped running gates for putting together financial models and analyst reports. They can still hit the slopes on the weekends, though.  One of the skiers on our list happens to own a ski area, too. 

If you know of other skiers who should be included, feel free to send an email to jlaroche@businessinsider.com. Please include a photo and a brief bio of ski highlights. 

RBC Capital Markets director Ed Podivinsky won the bronze medal in Lillehammer in 1994.

Finance Job: Ed Podivinsky is a director in the institutional equity division of RBC Capital Markets.

Ski Highlights: He represented Canada in three Olympic games.  He won the bronze medal medal at the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer.



Bank of America senior vice president Stephany Thompson was ranked in the top 10 of the Women's World Pro Tour.

Finance Job: She's a senior vice president at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. 

Education: University of New Mexico

Ski Highlights: Thompson was a member of the Junior National Team and the Senior National Team. She received a full athletic scholarship to ski for the University of New Mexico where she was the team's "Most Valuable Player." She skied on the Women's World Pro Tour where she was ranked in the top 10. She was later the women's head ski coach at the University of Minnesota with an undefeated regular season. She was also a Masters National Champion with an undefeated regular season. 



Stifel Nicolaus managing director Otto Tschudi

Finance Job: He's a managing director at Stifel Nicolaus

Education: University of Denver 

Ski Highlights: He's a legendary Norweigan alpine skier. He skied professionally from 1963 until 1980. He has skied in the 1968 and 1972 Winter Olympics. 



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The 15 Best-Reviewed Movies Of 2014

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Boyhood Sundance

"Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Interstellar" may have been among the highest-grossing movies of the year, but what were the best movies of the year?

We've pulled together the best-critiqued movies of the year, according to review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. 

15. "Snowpiercer" (Radius-TWC): 95%

Stars: Tilda Swinton, Chris Evans, and Jamie Bell
Box Office: $86.8 million worldwide
165 reviews

Did you know Captain America (Chris Evans) was in another popular movie this year?

This year's sci-fi cult favorite can be easily described as "The Hunger Games" on a train, minus the kid killing and archery. Instead, it follows Curtis (Evans) leading a passenger revolt between social classes upon a train to nowhere carrying the last survivors on Earth after a failed global-warming initiative kills off most life on the planet.



14. "X-Men: Days of Future Past" (Fox): 92%

Stars: Hugh Jackman, Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, Ian McKellen
Box Office: $746 million worldwide
237 reviews

Director Bryan Singer ("The Usual Suspects") returned to unite his original X-Men trilogy stars (Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, and Hugh Jackman) with the new younger crop (Jennifer Lawrence, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender), and it made for the year's best-rated superhero film. 

Sure, the film may have had one of the most confusing titles of the year, but it was one of the best X-Men movies yet. It even wiped away the existence of 2006's critically-panned "X-Men: The Last Stand" to the pleasure of many fanboys. Don't forget the addition of fan-favorite mutant Quicksilver (Evan Peters).



13. "The Missing Picture" (Strand): 99%

Narration by Randal Douc, Jean-Baptiste Phou
Box Office: $52,164 worldwide
74 reviews

The documentary follows a man as he looks for a picture taken between 1975 and 1979 by the Khmer Rouge when they ruled over Cambodia. He believes the picture will prove mass murder and searches vainly in archives, old papers, and country villages for the lost object. 

The film won the top prize at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for Best Foreign Film at this past year's Oscars.



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The 24 Most Impressive People Of 2014

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narendra modi

For some, 2014 was a good year; for others, it was a great year. It was the year of the big-screen iPhone, the fight against Ebola, powerful political protests, and revolutionary breakthroughs in health and technology.

We named the 24 most impressive people of the year starting with the overall winner, India's new prime minister, Narendra Modi.

From finance and tech to politics and entertainment, these are the people who amazed us the most this year.

MOST IMPRESSIVE: Narendra Modi is poised to reignite India's economy.

Prime Minister Modi is turning over a new leaf for India. The country's stock index is at record highs.

Since he entered office in May, Modi has reworked the government's budget, made bank accounts more accessible to everyone, made advances in reforming labor laws, transformed the government into a more transparent and open place, and formed positive relationships with China, Japan, and the US.

He's a political figure who's putting people's faith back in India, and he's utterly beloved by the people of India. He won the May 2014 election by a landslide, and since then he's kept people's faith in him through his initiatives both home and abroad. 

Modi is undoubtedly India's newest and biggest rockstar. 



Bill Ackman is soaring during a rough patch on Wall Street.

It was a tough year for most hedge-fund managers, but Ackman still ended up on top, most notably making $2.2 billion when Actavis bought pharmaceutical company Allergan in November.

Additionally, the net returns for Pershing Square, Ackman's hedge fund, are over 30% for the yearAckman is famous for a big short of Herbalife, a multilevel marketing company that sells weight-loss shakes. But he's had most success with his stakes in Allergan and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.



Mary Barra took the helm of GM and helped it get through a major crisis relatively unscathed.

In January, Barra became the first female CEO in General Motors' history— and in the auto industry in general. And despite starting her tenure in the midst of a 30-million-car recall for defective ignition switches in Chevy Cobalts — GM's largest recall in history — Barra kept her poise throughout the ordeal.

She plans to use the incident as a launchpad to transform the company's rigid culture. She's leading by example, taking responsibility for GM's actions, and holding employees accountable for their work.

She earned Warren Buffett's stamp of approval.



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NBA MVP POWER RANKINGS: Where The Top Players Stand After 8 Weeks

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LeBron James Cavaliers Training Camp

With LeBron James struggling to adjust with his new teammates and Kevin Durant missing so many games, this season's MVP race is the most wide open in years.

Using Player Efficiency Rating (PER, avg=15.00), Win Shares, and Wins Above Replacement (WAR), as well as team performance, we ranked the top players who can make a case for the MVP award so far.

After eight weeks, James Harden, Stephen Curry, and Anthony Davis are the favorites. But there are eight other players who can still crash the party.

1. Anthony Davis, New Orleans Pelicans

Team Record (rank in conference): 14-13 (8)

PER (rank): 33.50 (1)

Win Shares (rank): 5.6 (1)

Wins Above Replacement (rank): 4.51 (6)

One thing to know: Anthony Davis may be the best player in the NBA right now. He is third in scoring (24.7 ppg), top in blocks (2.92 bpg), 11th in rebounds (10.2 rpg) and leads the NBA in several advanced metrics including PER and Win Shares. But his team is a borderline playoff team, and despite all his dominance on defense, the Pelicans are giving up 102.4 points per game, more than 22 teams in the NBA.



2. Stephen Curry, Golden State Warriors

Team Record (rank in conference): 22-3 (1)

PER (rank): 26.92 (5)

Win Shares (rank): 4.9 (4)

Wins Above Replacement (rank): 5.76 (1)

One thing to know: Stephen Curry is averaging 23.5 points per game (6th in the NBA) despite playing just 33.7 minutes per game. Among the top 15 scorers in the NBA, only Dwyane Wade players fewer minutes per game (32.7).



3. James Harden, Houston Rockets

Team Record (rank in conference): 20-7 (1)

PER (rank): 25.04 (9)

Win Shares (rank): 5.1 (3)

Wins Above Replacement (rank): 5.07 (3)

One thing to know: James Harden is leading the NBA with a career-high 27.0 points per game. He is also averaging a career-high 6.2 rebounds and 7.0 assists per game. But most importantly, Harden is suddenly a good defender, averaging 2.0 steals per game. In the history of the NBA, only Michael Jordan and LeBron James have averaged 26 points, 6 rebounds, 6 assists, and 2 steals per game over an entire season.



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The Biggest Career Crashes Of 2014

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Cosby, Pascal, A Rod

The New Year represents a fresh start. And some of us may need it more than others.

Here are 28 high-profile people (and teams) whose careers or reputations took a big hit in 2014. Many are likely to bounce back — while others may never recover. 

Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice

The Baltimore Ravens running back was charged with assaulting his then-fiancé Janay Palmer in February, but the news didn't initially gain traction in the media. 

That changed in September, when the NFL announced it would suspend Rice for a measly two games, prompting critics to point out that the league seemed to take marijuana use and college recruiting violations more seriously than domestic violence.

The story got even bigger when TMZ released the full security camera video of Rice punching Palmer, who by then had become his wife, in an elevator at Revel Casino in Atlantic Casino. Afterward, the camera showed him dragging her out of the elevator. 

The Baltimore Ravens cut Rice from the team, and the NFL suspended him indefinitely. Although though Rice won the appeal of his indefinite suspension in November, it is unlikely that an NFL team will add him to its roster any time soon.



Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel

In November, Hagel resigned as US Secretary of Defense under pressure from President Obama. As it turns out, Hagel "just wasn't up to the job," a senior defense official concisely summarized.

Although Hagel was reportedly chosen for the position in order to reorganize the armed forces and cut defense spending, he ended up needing to focus on other projects, including combating the rise of ISIS and the spread of Ebola.



'7th Heaven' actor Stephen Collins

This October a recording from a confidential marriage therapy session in 2012 was made public in which the "7th Heaven" actor admitted to molesting underage girls.

In December, 67-year-old Collins released a statement to People magazine in which he admits to inappropriate sexual contact with three female minors. In that statement he said: "Forty years ago, I did something terribly wrong that I deeply regret. I have been working to atone for it ever since."



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The 22 Most Expensive Homes Sold This Year


How Vladimir Putin Went From The Soviet Slums To The World's Stage

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boris yeltsin putin

Vladimir Putin may be the wild card in world affairs right now, but he didn't gain that influence overnight.

The Russian President's ascension to power is filled with spies, armed conflicts, oligarchs, oil and (of course) judo.

So here's how a onetime "nobody" climbed up the ranks to become the "World's Most Powerful Person."

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin is the only child of a decorated war veteran and factory worker in the slums of Leningrad. He grew up in a Soviet Union styled communal apartment with two other families — as was typical at the time.

Source: Encyclopedia, TIME



As a teen Putin worked at his school's radio station, where he reportedly played music by the Beatles and other Western rock bands.

The photographer Platon — who took Putin's infamous Time Magazine cover in 2007 — said that Paul is Putin's favorite Beatle, and "Yesterday" is his favorite song.

However, "by [Putin's] own account, his favorite songs are Soviet standards, not Western rock. He has been deeply conservative his whole life," Karen Dawisha wrote in her new book, "Putin's Kleptocracy." 

Source: Encyclopedia



Early on in life, Putin got into judo. He was his university's judo champion in 1974.

Former deputy finance minister and first deputy chairman of the Central Bank Sergey Alaksashenko believes that Putin's love of judo says something about his foreign policy.

"Unlike chess, a judo fighter should not wait for the opponent's move. His strategy is to wait until he gets a chance to execute a single quick move — and then take a step back. Successful judo fighters must anticipate their opponents' actions, make a decisive, preemptive move and try to disable them," he wrote in the Moscow Times.

Source: Encyclopedia



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How A $4 Trillion Tech Market Was Radically Changed In 2014

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IBM Mask

Businesses worldwide spent about $3.8 trillion on technology in 2014, according to market research firm Gartner.

And 2014 was a radical year of change for this market.

Companies stopped buying and installing all of that equipment themselves. They started renting more of it, hosted elsewhere, and paying as they use it. This is known as cloud computing.

Not only did businesses change the way they buy tech, they are also buying new types of tech including more mobile devices and "big data" apps that analyze and predict business trends.

Microsoft named its third-ever CEO, long-time exec Satya Nadella, from Microsoft's cloud business.

Look back: Why Microsoft Picked Longtime Insider Satya Nadella To Be Its CEO Instead Of Looking For New Blood



Even as Steve Ballmer became Microsoft's largest stockholder, he resigned from Microsoft's board and left tech altogether. He bought the L.A. Clippers basketball team.

Look back: Ballmer Buys The LA Clippers For $2 Billion



Oracle CEO Larry Ellison also gave up the CEO role to become CTO and Executive Chairman.

Looking back: LARRY ELLISON STEPPING DOWN AS ORACLE CEO



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The Most Jaw-Dropping Science Pictures Of 2014

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Moreno

Science shows us the new discoveries that change the world along with the amazing natural phenomena that have amazed humanity for thousands of years.

In 2014 we've seen auroras transform the sky, massive snow storms, rivers that look like they're full of blood, and tiny beautiful creatures.

When Nebraska firefighters put out a blaze on Jan. 3, the water they sprayed froze against this building.

Source: Here's An Incredible Picture Of Sun Shining Through The Windows Of A Building After It Caught Fire



This nature shot from London's Richmond Park, titled “Stag Deer Bellowing,” by Prashant Meswani, was an honorable mention in National Geographic's 2014 photo contest.

Source: Here Are The Winners Of The 2014 National Geographic Photo Contest



Photographer Jimmy Nelson published a book called "Before They Pass Away" showing the vanishing tribes of the world. Here are three Kazakh men using eagles to hunt.

Source: 12 Epic Photos Of The World's Disappearing Tribes 



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The 'Shark Tank' Investors Share Their New Year's Resolutions

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shark tank river illustration

ABC's hit show "Shark Tank" has made its six investors some of the most recognizable businesspeople in North America.

As 2015 approaches, offering the chance to start fresh and tackle new projects, we asked the Sharks about their goals for the New Year.

Mark Cuban plans on playing more basketball.

The owner of the Dallas Mavericks says he wants to "get back on the court playing pickup three times a week."



Barbara Corcoran wants to make time for friends.

"I'm going to make sure I see one friend every week," she says. "See them — not text, not email. I've turned them into friendships of texting. My closest friends — and I only have like five close friends in my life — I don't see them nearly like I used to. So I'm going to pre-schedule one date with one friend every week."



Daymond John plans on hitting the slopes.

"New Year's Day is when I like to reset my 10 goals. Let me think of a fun one..." he says. "I'd like to start to snowboard more. I'd like to try to start to do the half pipe."



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The 50 Most Unforgettable Photos Of 2014

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KievProtestsCOVER

This was a tumultuous year. From revolution and war in Ukraine, Syria, and Israel to social unrest across the US and the Ebola outbreak in Africa, 2014 was anything but quiet. 

And, as the old adage goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words."

We compiled the most unforgettable images from the past 12 months, captured by photographers from around the world.

Beginning in November 2013, Ukrainians protested the government's decision to distance itself economically from Europe in a movement that became known as EuroMaidan. The protests exploded into violence and burning tires in January after anti-protest laws went into effect. Here, protesters took cover from water sprayed by a fire engine on Jan. 23.



The anti-protest laws banned "face concealments." Protesters, like this one, deliberately disobeyed the law by wearing gas masks.

 



The Tower of David in Caracas, Venezuela, is the tallest slum in the world. In February, Reuters photographer Jorge Silva went there to capture what life was actually like for those living there. Here, men rested after salvaging metal on the 30th floor.



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Here Are The 25 New Shows Coming To TV In 2015

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better call saul goodmanIt's winter, which means that it's time for midseason premieres.

Starting next year, we'll see the launch of a whole new crop of series, ranging from multiple crime shows to an experimental mini-series.

You'll see a bunch of familiar faces, including those of Felicity Huffman, Ryan Phillipe, Rainn Wilson, and Amanda Peet.

We'll even have the arrival of the heavily anticipated "Better Call Saul," a prequel to AMC's hit "Breaking Bad."

"Galavant" (ABC)

Stars: Joshua Sasse ("Frankenstein's Army"), Timothy Omundson ("Psych")

Premiere date: Sunday, Jan. 4, at 8 p.m. 

What it's about: ABC will test out a musical fairy-tale comedy following a knight's journey as he tries to rescue his true love from an evil king. The score is by "Beauty & The Beast" composer Alan Menken, and the lyrics are by Glenn Slater ("Tangled").

Watch the trailer here.



"Agent Carter" (ABC)

Stars: Hayley Atwell ("Captain America: The Winter Soldier") James D'Arcy ("Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World"), Chad Michael Murray ("One Tree Hill")

Premiere date: Tuesday, Jan. 6, at 9 p.m.

What it's about: Peggy Carter (Atwell) must lead a double life as an admin and as a secret agent. If the character sounds familiar, it's because Carter is from Marvel's "Captain America" series. The show is also connected to its lead-in, "Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."

Watch the trailer here.



"Empire" (FOX)

Stars: Taraji P. Henson ("Hustle and Flow"), Terrence Howard ("Hustle and Flow"), Gabourey Sidibe ("Precious: Based on The Novel Push by Sapphire")

Premiere date: Wednesday, Jan. 7, at 9 p.m.

What it's about: This musical family drama follows what happens when a hip-hop record company's charismatic CEO (Howard) learns he has ALS. It will also be set to a hip-hop soundtrack.

Watch the trailer here.



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14 Meaningless Phrases That Will Make You Sound Like A Stock-Market Wizard

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cnbc

If you follow stock-market punditry obsessively like we do, you'll quickly notice something.

A handful of analysts speak English. But the vast majority don't.

Rather, they speak a language unique to the investment business.

This language consists of market phrases that sound intelligent but don't mean anything.

The phrases don't sound like they don't mean anything, of course. On the contrary, they sound like they mean a lot. In fact, they make the speaker sound as wise as Warren Buffett (who, to his great credit, never speaks this way). 

Most of these phrases have another key benefit, which is useful in the investment business: They never commit the speaker to any specific recommendation or prediction. In other words, no matter what happens, the analyst can always be "right" and never be "wrong"— because they didn't actually say anything.

So if you want to sound smart about investing without really saying anything, read on.

"The easy money has been made."

When to use it: Any time a market or stock has already gone up a lot.

Why it's smart-sounding: It implies wise, prudent caution. It implies that you bought or recommended the stock a long time ago, before the easy money was made (and are therefore smart). It suggests that there might be further upside, but that there might be future downside, because the stock is "due for a correction" (another smart-sounding meaningless phrase that you can use all the time). It does not commit you to any specific recommendation or prediction. It protects you from all possible outcomes: If the stock drops, you can say, "As I said ... " If the stock goes up, you can say "As I said ... "

Why it's meaningless: It's a statement about the obvious. It's a description of what has happened, not what will happen. It requires no special insight or power of analysis. It tells you nothing that you don't already know. Also, it's not true: The money that has been made was likely in no way "easy." Buying stocks that are rising steadily is a lot "easier" than buying stocks that the market has left for dead (because everyone thinks you're stupid to buy stocks that no one else wants to buy.)



"I'm cautiously optimistic."

A classic. Can be used in almost all circumstances and market conditions.

When to use it: Pretty much anytime.

Why it's smart-sounding: It implies wise, prudent caution, but also a sunny outlook, which most people like. (Nobody likes a bear, especially in a bull market.) It sounds more reasonable than saying, for example, "The stock is a screaming buy and will go straight up from here." It protects the speaker against all possible outcomes. If the market drops, the speaker can say, "As you know, I was cautious ... " If the market goes up, the speaker can say, "As you know, I was optimistic ... "

Why it's meaningless: It's too general to mean anything. It can accurately describe any market outcome in history, merely by adjusting the unspecified time frame. (If you were "cautiously optimistic" in 1929, you were "cautious," which was good, and you were also optimistic, which was also good. Eventually, the market recovered!)



"It's a stockpicker's market."

Another classic. Sounds smart but is completely meaningless.

When to use it: Especially useful in bear markets or flat markets, but can be used anytime.

Why it's smart-sounding: It suggests that the current market environment is different from other market environments and therefore requires special skill to navigate. It implies that the speaker has this skill. It suggests that, if you're talented enough to be a "stockpicker," you can coin money right now — while everyone else drifts sideways or loses their shirts. 

Why it's meaningless: If you pick stocks for a living (or for your personal account), all markets are "stockpickers' markets." In all markets, traders are trying to buy winners and sell dogs, and in all markets only half of these traders succeed. (It's a different half each time, of course — and most of the "winnings" of the winners are wiped out by transaction costs and taxes, but that's a different story). It is no easier (or harder) to win the stockpicking game in a flat or bear market than in a bull market, and if you try, you'll almost certainly do worse than if you had just bought an index fund.



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The 50 Coolest New Businesses In America

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PhotoMoto

New businesses open around the country every day — but not all are created equal. 

This year we've brought you San Francisco, New York (and Brooklyn), the Twin Cities, Boston, DC, and Denver, but we've searched high and low in all corners of the country for the most innovative new businesses that opened within the last five years or so.

There's a gym that generates electricity, a brewery that only brews sour beer, and a museum filled entirely of Instagram photos. 

Did we forget somewhere great? Let us know in the comments.

Melia Robinson contributed to this story.

A Gathering of Stitches

54 Cove St., Portland, Maine

What it is: A community space for textile crafting.

Why it's cool: A Gathering of Stitches is a place for those who love working with fabric, yarn, and thread to gather and share resources, tools, and ideas. The open space houses communal equipment for textile work, including quilting machines, screen printing gear, and cutting tables. Visitors can also sign up for workshops to learn new skills — they offer classes in everything from dying fabric to making clothes.



Arctic Fire Clothing

Online, based in Anchorage, Alaska

What it is: Heated shorts that keep you warm while working out in the snow.

Why it's cool: After years of suffering through cold winter training, Arctic Fire founder Jeanette Duenow had tried everything to keep her rear end warm — including sewing extra layers into her leggings or stuffing hand warmers down her pants. Eventually, she came up with the concept of heated shorts, the perfect base layer for any athlete who trains in extreme temperatures.



Bard Coffee

185 Middle St., Portland, Maine

What it is: A small-batch coffee shop where every cup comes with a story.

Why it's cool: Not only will you enjoy a healthy selection of small-batch single-origin brews at Bard, but the baristas are more than happy to share each batch's backstory, as well as their vast knowledge of brewing styles. Bard also hosts monthly latte pouring competitions, with proceeds from each event benefiting a local charity. This shop isn't just for coffee drinkers, but also for those who truly love the geeky ins and outs of coffee preparation.



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MAP: The Largest Migrant Population In Each Borough Of London

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London is a melting pot.

According to the 2011 Census, one in three people (37%) in London were born outside the UK. So where is everyone coming from and where are they are moving to in the capital?

The map below displays the largest migrant populations by country of birth in each of London's 32 boroughs. The darker the shade of the flag, the larger percentage of people from that country were born abroad.

You can see that the outskirts of the city have a smaller foreign-born population compared with inner-London:

London Flag Map

The chart down here presents the data. Every borough appears with a number, which helps you to find it on the map:

Table Boroughs

The data was made available by the London Data Store, the official provider of free data from the Greater London Authority.

Join the conversation about this story »

The 20 Best TV Moments of 2014

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daenarys game of thrones emilia clarke

Here's to an absurdly bountiful year for TV.

2014 had it all — bloody dramas, wasted comedies, bad detectives, stoner broads, sex doctors, purple weddings, transgender dads, clone wars, spies and politicians and jailbirds. Plus the occasional demented aerobics dancer.

20. "Orphan Black": The Finale

The clones band together to fight the power and dance. Tatiana Maslany dazzled all season, one actress playing an army of rebel clone girls on the run from the sinister Dyad Institute that created them.

There's never any breathing room in Orphan Black — the camera is always screaming "Don't open that door" or "Watch out for traffic" or "For the love of God, stay away from the garbage disposal."But Orphan Black thrives on that frantic pace, as the clone-club sisters turn that post-adolescent "What the hell am I doing here?" paranoia into one long ridiculous punk sci-fi caper.

Watch the making of the video here.



19. "Key & Peele": "Aerobics Meltdown"

A lost VHS tape from the 1987 Jazz Fit Championships, starring a couple of spandex-rocking aerobic dancers named Flash and Lightning.

There's also a director holding up cue cards. ("Just got some bad news. Keep dancing.") Oh, it's not pretty inside the cut-throat world of competitive jazzercising. 

Key & Peele had so many killer moments this season, mostly playing on their favorite theme, the grim side of masculinity — the massage, the "slap ass!" relapse, that unspeakably depressing visit to the mattress store. ("Who got that good D?" Sweet mother of Christ.) But there's something particularly creepy about that "Aerobics Meltdown" sketch. Maybe it's the spandex.

Watch the clip here.



18. "Girls": Go With the Flo

The highlight of a mixed season — Marnie and Jessa might as well be named Fast and Forward by now. But the "Flo" episode is one of Girls' best, as Hannah tries to give her dying Grandma Flo (June Squibb) the sort of sentimental deathbed scene only a twit as maudlin as Hannah could imagine.

No, Flo isn't buying it, and neither is Hannah's ever-delightful salt lick of a mom. (But Adam is, because he's an even bigger twit than Hannah.) It's a pleasure watching these tough old bags argue in the hospital and recoil from the collegiate simp they spawned.

See also: 
Rolling Stone’s 50 Best Songs of 2014



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