The League, a selective dating app for successful people, launched in San Francisco earlier this year, and a few months ago it launched in New York City.

Stanford graduate Amanda Bradford founded The League and raised $2.1 million to match up highly motivated and interesting single professionals.

On July 31, The League held a party out in Montauk, exclusively for its selective group of New York users. Actress Mischa Barton was among the party's attendees.

We tagged along to check out The League and its pool of elite users to see what all the fuss was about.

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This is Amanda Bradford. She's the founder of The League.

If you want to join The League, Bradford says, the most important trait you need is ambition.

You'll likely meet up with other ambitious people, too.

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The Dead Sea is famous for its high salt content, and because salt water is denser than fresh water, it's easier for us to stay afloat in the Dead Sea than in an average swimming pool. That's why millions of tourists flock to its waters annually for the unique experience of feeling like they're floating weightlessly. 

However, the Dead Sea is in danger of disappearing due to the lack of water coming in from its main source: the Jordan River. That, combined with the mineral mining that's taking place in the south portion of the Sea has created a detrimental situation.

Sinkholes, some the size of a basketball court, are appearing around the now receding water, threatening visitors' safety and creating a ghastly landscape. Take a look at the almost unrecognizable recent images of the Dead Sea.  

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The Dead Sea is receding by about 3 feet (1 meter) per year.

Dangerous sinkholes form when the Dead Sea's salty water recedes. From there, fresh groundwater bubbles up, dissolving layers of salt in the land, which creates large underground cavities.

Sinkholes can open up without warning, making the shores especially dangerous.

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Princeton University is one of the smartest and most historic colleges in the country. 

Princeton has produced numerous politicians — many of whom graduated from Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. The school has also produced its fair share of highly successful entrepreneurs, journalists, actors, and CEOs. 

From First Lady Michelle Obama to Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman, here are the most successful Princeton alumni of all time.

SEE ALSO: The 31 most successful Harvard Business School graduates of all time

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Michelle Obama, First Lady of the US, was the first in her family to attend college. She struggled to adjust to college life as a freshman, but quickly caught on and graduated in 1985 after writing her senior thesis on "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community."

Source: NJ.com

Malcolm Forbes, chairman and editor in chief of Forbes magazine, inherited control of the publication in 1957 after his father, its founder, passed away. While at Princeton, Forbes, class of 1941, majored in political science and was awarded the Class of 1901 Medal "as the member of the class who contributed the most to Princeton as an undergraduate."

Sources: The New York Times, Motorcycle Museum

Author F. Scott Fitzgerald has sent many protagonists to Princeton, which he called the "pleasantest country club in America." Fitzgerald himself dropped out of Princeton in 1917 to join the Army, but while in school he dedicated himself to various creative writing and journalistic pursuits rather than his coursework.

Sources: Slate, Biography.com

The US has an enormous economy, and that economy is the sum of the economies of 50 states and the District of Columbia.

We noted previously that those state economies are big enough and complex enough to compare with those of entire countries, and so we are once again taking a closer look at what makes those economies work.

We ranked the economies of these states, and DC's, on seven measures: unemployment rates, gross domestic product per capita, average weekly wages, and recent growth rates for nonfarm payroll jobs, GDP, house prices, and wages.

While we didn't factor them into the ranking, we also looked at the Fortune 1000 companies that have their headquarters in each state and which industries were disproportionately important in each state. This helped us get a little more insight into what makes each state economy tick.

For more details on methodology and sources, click here.

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51. Mississippi

Mississippi came in last in our ranking of state economies. Chicken, soybean, cotton, and rice farming are among the state's most disproportionately large employers.

Mississippi had the lowest 2014 GDP per capita of any of the states, at just $35,019, and the lowest Q4 2014 weekly wage, at $747. The rate at which both of those measures was changing were also weak: Mississippi had the second-lowest GDP growth rate, with state GDP shrinking by 1.2%. The average weekly wage grew just 2.3% between Q4 2013 and Q4 2014.

50. West Virginia

West Virginia's economy revolves around the coal industry, with underground and surface coal mining coming in as the most disproportionately important industries in the state.

West Virginia was one of just two states in which fewer people were working in June 2015 than in June 2014, with a drop of 1.2% in nonfarm payrolls over the year. The Appalachian state was also one of only three states where housing prices dropped between Q1 2014 and Q1 2015, and had the biggest drop in the state housing price index, falling 3.90%. One bright spot was that GDP grew by 5.1% in 2014, higher than the national rate of 2.2%.

49. Alabama

Alabama has several manufacturing industries, including textile mills, logging operations, and poultry hatcheries.

Alabama's 2014 per capita GDP of $41,127 was far lower than the US per capita GDP of $54,307. GDP growth was also slower than in other states, increasing just 0.7% in 2014. Alabama's housing market remains lackluster, with housing prices rising just 1.8% between Q1 2014 and Q1 2015.

Salesforce is now a $50 billion cloud-computing juggernaut, but early on it was a software upstart mostly selling to small and midsize businesses.

It wasn’t until a guy named David Rudnitsky was hired as a sales executive in 2002 that it really saw its enterprise sales grow.

In fact, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff was so impressed by Rudnitsky’s sales tactics that he dedicated a whole section about it in his own book, “Behind the Cloud.”

Rudnitsky has now moved to a company called Insidesales.com, but his legacy lives on through what Benioff calls "The Rudnitsky Sales Playbook."

Here’s a paraphrased version of it.

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In 2002, Salesforce grew big enough to go after big companies. In order to grow its enterprise sales team, Salesforce first hired a guy named Jim Steele from Ariba as its worldwide sales leader.

While recruiting Steele, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff separately reached out to David Rudnitsky, one of Steele’s star players at Ariba, without telling Steele about it.

Benioff writes in his book, "After some convincing on my part, both signed on." But Steele told us in a previous interview that he and Rudnitsky actually knew Benioff was reaching out to both of them separately. He says they secretly agreed to highly recommend each other to Benioff in order to get the job.

Melinda Gates is best known as Bill's other half. Some may even say she's his better half.

Nonetheless, the pair – whose combined net worth is $85.7 billion– have made it their life's mission to eradicate global poverty through initiatives in education, healthcare, and, most importantly, genuine human connection. 

The Gateses topped our recent list of wealthiest couples in the world, and yet they've pledged to give away 95% of their wealth through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which Melinda helmed virtually on her own for the first six years of operation.

Here's a look at the incredible force that is Melinda Gates.

SEE ALSO: The 10 wealthiest couples in the world

AND: 15 things you didn't know about billionaire Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates

Melinda Gates (neè French) grew up in Dallas, Texas with her parents — a stay-at-home mother and an aerospace engineer father — and her three siblings. The family belonged to the local Roman Catholic parish.

Source:Telegraph

The Frenches were intent on sending all four of their children to college so Melinda's father started a side business for rental properties. "We would help him run the business and keep the books," she said. "We saw money coming in and money going out."

Source:Fortune

Melinda was valedictorian and head of the drill team at her high school, Ursuline Academy of Dallas. In 2007, the Gates Foundation donated a total of $7 million to Ursuline for the construction of The French Family Science, Math, and Technology Center, a 70,000 sq. ft. LEED Gold certified laboratory and classroom building.

Source:Ursuline Dallas, Marie Claire

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In the US at schools like Purdue University, dormitory accessories such as pool tables, student lounges with 47-inch flatscreens, private bathrooms, kitchenettes, and music practice rooms can be the norm for some students.

The catch is that those dorms can cost up to $14,000 a year to live in.

In 2014, photographer and reporter Pascal Dumont documented a dozen dormitories at various schools in Moscow, Russia, for The Moscow Times.

There, he found students living with bedbugs and roaches, underneath leaky ceilings. Obshagas, the Russian word for dorms, are not any of these students' first choice for living accommodations — but due to what Dumont calls “astronomical” rent in the city, many students are left without a choice.

(Captions by Sarah Jacobs and Pascal Dumont)

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Kudakwashe Ndlova, a 25-year-old student attending Lomonosov Moscow University of Fine Chemical Technology, shares this obshaga with one other student from Russia.

Ndlovu, who attends the university on a scholarship, pays $10 a month for his room. "It's cheap. That's for sure," he told Dumont.

Ndlovu worries that water leaks from the ceiling could potentially cause an electrical fire at any moment.

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After an off-season that saw the Seahawks go all in, the Eagles blow things up, and the Patriots get into an all-out war with the NFL, football is finally back.

While the best teams from 2014 look like the favorites entering 2015, plenty has changed over the past six months.

We picked out the teams, players, and coaches who won the offseason, and others who very much did not.

WINNER: Chip Kelly (Philadelphia Eagles)

One thing to know: No one gained more power this off-season than Kelly. After winning an internal team struggle in January, he set out dismantling the roster and rebuilding it to his liking. Time will tell if Kelly's radical transformation of the Eagles' roster is a success, but it's abundantly clear that this is his team now.

LOSER: San Francisco 49ers

One thing to know: It was a rough spring for the 49ers. They lost Anthony Davis, Chris Borland, Patrick Williams, Justin Smith, Michael Crabtree, Mike Iupati, Frank Gore, and Chris Culliver to either retirement or free agency. Jim Harbaugh is also out. They're widely expected to take a huge step backward.

WINNER: Andrew Luck (Indianapolis Colts)

One thing to know: The Colts added two big offensive threats in running back Frank Gore and wide receiver Andre Johnson, and no one will benefit more than Luck. The combination of T.Y. Hilton and Johnson is scary, and adding a legitimately dangerous running back in Gore will open up the already-lethal Colts' passing game. Luck is already a dark-horse MVP candidate.

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It's not uncommon to be scared of heights.

But when people conquer those fears, the places they go and views they see can be truly breathtaking. 

Reuters curated a series of images of brave individuals who take the concept of "living on the edge" to the next level.

Whether it's for a specific job function or just for enjoyment, these images capture the feeling of being very high up. Keep scrolling to see all the photos. 

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A worker installs lights while standing on a Ferris wheel at a fair in Mumbai.

Cooks pose before a toast at an event known as "Dinner in the Sky" as they are seated around a table that is lifted by a crane in front of Cinquantenaire park in Brussels. 22 guests are seated at a table suspended from a crane at a height of 131 feet.

U.S. Air Force pararescuemen leap from a CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter during a training mission over Djibouti . The pararescuemen are from the 82nd Expeditionary Rescue Squadron out of Davis-Monthan Air Force Base, Arizona.

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All the OPEC members unhappy with lower oil prices, but not all are struggling equally.

"The 'spectrum of pain' is wide indeed," RBC Capital Markets' Global Head of Commodity Strategy Helima Croft wrote in a note to clients.

Some countries are smaller and richer, and thus weathering the storm relatively well.

Others are poorer and have more interal political instability — and thus face greater challenges.

RBC Capital Markets assessed the status of each OPEC producer, and identified which ones were doing well, and which ones were "most at risk for a meltdown in the months ahead."

Each country is given a "risk for the next year" rank, where 10 is the highest. We listed them from least at risk to most at risk.

Kuwait

Risk for next year: 2

Oil production last month: 2.83 mb/d

Oil production 2014: 2.87 mb/d

Kuwait has a small population, a "substantial" sovereign wealth fun, and more shock absorbers for managing discontent. However, since oil accounts for 94% of Kuwait's revenues, lower oil prices have hurt the OPEC nation, according RBC Capital Markets analysts.

Source: RBC Capital Markets

Qatar

Risk for next year: 2

Oil production last month: 0.67 mb/d

Oil production 2014: 0.71 mb/d

Qatar has a small population and lots of resources, which gives the OPEC nation one of the highest GDP/capita measures in the world. Plus, it has focused most of its resources on liquefied natural gas.

"Qatar's challenge will emerge later this decade," writes RBC Capital Markets' Helima Croft.

Source: RBC Capital Market

United Arab Emirates

Risk for next year: 2

Oil production last month: 2.80 mb/d

Oil production 2014: 2.77 mb/d

"Flush with cash and few citizens, UAE sits in the sweet spot," writes Croft. That being said, the past year was still tough on the Emirates, and the government announced that it would cut spending by 4.2% and scale back on fuel subsidies.

Source: RBC Capital Markets

The Dungeness Estate, a barren 468 acre landmark located on the south coast of England, has gone on the market for £1.5 million is one of the most intriguing properties for sale in Britain today. 

The estate, listed by Strutt & Parker, lies near Kent. It's the only location in the country to be officially classified as a desert by the Met Office.

The eerie landscape, which last went on the market over 50 years ago, has become a tourist attraction famous for its bleak features unlike any other part of Britain.

The 468-acre Dungeness estate sits on a peninsula near Kent in the south of England, which juts out about three miles into the English Channel. It is the only place in Britain officially classified as a desert by the Met Office.

The desert's distinctive and undisturbed landscape is mostly shingle, sand and patches of overgrown foliage, with scatterings of old fishing huts, houses and railway coaches.

Despite it being seemingly deserted at first glance, the site is teeming with wildlife. It's considered to be of international interest and conservation importance for its "plant and invertebrate communities" and birdlife.

What will the near future look like? Chances are, it will be somewhere between the techno-utopia that Silicon Valley startup founders like to talk about and all-out disaster. Unless there is a hugely disruptive global event, it will look much like the present — with the addition of subtle innovations (both good and bad) that are already in the works. 

This is the future imagined by the Near Future Laboratory, a team of designers and researchers that create design fiction — that is, fictional scenarios that elucidate possible futures for humanity. 

In the TBD Catalog, a "catalog of the near future's normal everyday," the Near Future Laboratory has put together 107 pages of design fiction in a sort of SkyMall catalog of the 2020s (SkyMall is plotting its comeback, so who knows, it might still be around).

Check out excerpts below.

To come up with its scenarios, the Near Future Laboratory thinks about the logical endpoint of scenarios that are already emerging. In this case, they might have asked, "What does a world look like where genetic testing has become commonplace?"

"People are investing tens of millions in order to change the world. It's the perfect time to introduce the idea of the near future," says Julian Bleecker, a cofounder of the Near Future Laboratory.

The near future in the TBD Catalog is a reflection of the consciousness only of its 19 creators, but still manages to capture a diverse array of trends that are already playing out.

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Sculpture has the power to leave spectators in a state of sheer amazement. But standing in the presence of a "supersize" statue can actually take your breath away. 

Taking up to 20 years to build and millions of dollars to create, these 16 enormous creations do just that. They'll stand for centuries as icons of history and culture for visitors to enjoy. From the world's largest reclining Buddha to a 105 foot tall sculpture of Mao Zedong, keep scrolling for a trip around the world in massive statues.  

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The Christ the Redeemer statue, located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, scales more than 2,000 feet above the city to offer visitors stunning views. The 100 foot tall statue’s awe-inspiring scale and design resulted in its recognition as one of the seven new wonders of the world.

Source: Daily Mail

At 380 feet tall, Myanmar’s Laykyun Sekkya Buddha, built on top of Po Kaung Hills, is the second tallest statue in the world. At its foot is the "Monywa Buddha"— the largest reclining Buddha in the world.

Source: Matador Network

This statue, perched in China's Hunan Province, depicts Chairman Mao Zedong at the age of 32. The work is said to have cost as much as $35 million to build.

Source: Reuters, Matador Network

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The Gucci sisters — daughters of the late Maurizio Gucci, the slain Gucci fashion house heir— are moving out of their Fifth Avenue abode. 

The sisters came into the penthouse after their stepmother, Patrizia Reggiani, ordered a successful hit on Maurizio. Reggiani was sentenced to 29 years in prison by an Italian court. The sisters are reportedly selling the penthouse because they spend the bulk of their time in Europe, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

On the 51st and 50th floors of the Olympic Tower, the penthouse has 14 foot high ceilings. Since 2010, the sisters have been renting it out for $60,000 a month. Daniela Rivoir of Brown Harris Stevens has the listing.

Keep scrolling for a tour of the arty, modernist penthouse asking $45 million.  

SEE ALSO: The 10 most expensive homes you can buy in New York City right now

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Welcome the duplex penthouse of 641 Fifth Ave, otherwise known as the Olympic Tower — one of the most exclusive addresses on the street.

There's no shortage of amazing views, as the duplex sits on the 50th and 51st floors.

The space is 9,500 square feet, but is comprised of a loft-like open space.

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You know which cities to avoid in order to dodge exorbitantly priced club sandwiches and expensive beer. However, some countries need to be sidestepped entirely to save money.

The World Economic Forum's Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2015 ranked 141 countries by average hotel cost, cost of living, flight ticket taxes, airport charges, and fuel prices, giving us a list of the world's most expensive countries to visit.

Here are the world's 10 most expensive countries for tourists to visit.

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10. Austria. Average spending per international tourist: $810

9. Italy. Average spending per international tourist: $920

8. Sweden. Average spending per international tourist: $987

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Having spent nearly 10 hours in Shropshire, the English town where the new game "Everybody's Gone to the Rapture" takes place, I've got nothing but positive things to say about its beauty. Shropshire is the idyllic English countryside of Geoffrey Chaucer and Charlotte Brontë.

It looks like an impressionist painting from the late 1800s.

Okay, it's not quite that pretty, but it's close!

Here's an actual shot from "Everybody's Gone to the Rapture," from one of the many country lanes you'll walk down as you peruse Shropshire.

Try and ignore the golden streaks of light — those are part of how the game tells its bizarre half sci-fi, half religious narrative. We'll talk more about that narrative in the game's review. For now, we're just here to marvel at the gorgeous images of "Everybody's Gone to the Rapture." Just look at this lush forest!

Much of the game's first hours takes place in Yaughton, a part of Shropshire that's residential. There are houses to rummage through, bars to rummage through, and ... uh ... backyards to rummage through? You'll do a lot of rummaging in "Everybody's Gone to the Rapture." That's when you're not marveling at the gorgeous world, of course.

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It's restaurant week in New York City, which means over 300 restaurants are offering three-course dining deals — $25 for lunch and $38 for dinner — through August 14. 

While an exciting prospect on the surface, I wondered how great of a deal it actually was, or if it was even a deal at all, once you crunched the numbers. 

I decided to try it out myself. 

My first stop was Barraca, a Zagat-rated Spanish restaurant in the West Village known for having on-point sangria, a good variety of tapas, and an enjoyable lineup up of paella.

Of course, my experience is limited to a single restaurant so far, and therefore isn't representative of every restaurant week offer.

I took a friend along, meaning we had $76, between the two of us, to enjoy. Here's how it went:

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We booked our restaurant only a day in advance.

I booked a table for Wednesday night at 7 p.m. through nycgo.com, which makes it very easy to make reservations at participating restaurant week spots. 

The ambiance was just as charming as its location on Greenwich Avenue — it has a lovely outdoor patio and a spacious, open interior with a rustic feel to it.

The menu was simplified, but still offered a solid variety.

We had the option of ordering off the more extensive, regular menu, but settled on the three-course, $38 restaurant week package, which included one tapa, one paella, and one postre (dessert). You also have the option of pairing wine for an additional $16 — three small glasses, one for each course — which we opted out of.

By choosing the restaurant week menu, we were missing out on meat and cheese platters, a few seasonal tapas, a couple paellas, and a few desserts (most notably, the churros).

The simplified menu did include mostly items off the regular menu. Some restaurant week menus have dishes that are not normally on the regular menu, making it difficult to compare costs.

The only item that I couldn't find on the regular menu was the "flan de café," and I confirmed with the restaurant afterwards that it was special for restaurant week.

Tapa 1: 'Tortilla de Patatas'

We started with an order of the "tortilla de patatas"— a Spanish omelette with potatoes and onions — which is normally priced at $12.

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With nearly 3 million international tourists visiting every year, the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro is one of the most popular tourist destinations in South America.

Rio de Janeiro is known the world over for its beautiful beaches, breathtaking scenery, and the vibrant and raucous Rio Carnival celebration. And the world will be watching as Rio de Janeiro hosts the 2016 Olympic Games — the first South American city to do so.

Catch a glimpse of this magnificent city and its famous landmarks in the aerial photos below.

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The city is nestled on the mountainous shores of Guanabara Bay on the Atlantic Ocean. The entrance of the bay is guarded by the iconic Sugarloaf Mountain.

Over 6 million people live in Rio, making it Brazil's second largest city. Many Cariocas live in favelas, or slums.

Boating is extremely popular in Rio, and there are numerous boat and yacht clubs dotting the coastline.

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Though it often gets ignored, a well-stocked bathroom is essential to making a bachelor pad feel like home. 

For those minimalist gents who've been living without, we've rounded up 16 accessories and essentials that every modern gentleman should have in his bathroom.

From shaving tools to a towel warmer that will straight-up change your life, this is the checklist for a next-level bathroom. 

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Soft, luxurious towels are a bathroom essential. You'll appreciate them and your guests will, too. Monogramming is optional, but it's worth the splurge.

Buy the Matouk Marcus Collection Luxury Towels for $30

When getting out of the shower, you'll want a soft place to put your freshly washed feet. A memory foam bathmat is the perfect after-shower landing zone, and they come in all shapes and sizes.

Buy the Frontgate Indulgence Memory Foam bathmat here starting at $35

A great shower head is the difference between a good morning and a great one. This head, made by Grohe, mimics the pattern of rainfall on your skin for a luxurious wake-up.

Buy the Grohe Rainshower Rustic Hand shower here for $176