SEE ALSO: 13 of the scariest crimes to ever hit the world of retail

READ MORE: 15 times the heirs to massive fortunes disappeared under mysterious or disturbing circumstances

SEE ALSO: 11 times kidnappers targeted millionaires and high-profile executives around the globe

Four young Burger Chef employees vanished while closing up the restaurant for the night in 1978, and their murders remain unsolved

On the night of November 17, 1978, four young employees at the Burger Chef in Speedway, Indiana, began to prepare for closing time.

Around midnight, a coworker stopped by to help the night crew clean up. He found the place empty, the restaurant's back door still open. The employee called the police, and a search for the missing workers was set in motion.

That search ended tragically two days later and 20 miles away, when hikers stumbled upon the bodies of all four employees in the woods, the Indianapolis Star reported.

Assistant manager Jayne Friedt, 20, had been stabbed to death. Ruth Ellen Shelton, 17, and Daniel Davis, 16, had been shot execution-style with a .38 caliber gun. 16-year-old Mark Flemmonds, the youngest victim, had been bludgeoned to death.

Indianapolis Monthly reported that police allowed the restaurant to reopen the day after the crews' disappearance, despite initial worries that the group had been kidnapped. Crucial evidence may have been wiped away when Burger Chef employees cleaned up the restaurant.

The murders remain unsolved. In 2018, the local Fox affiliate reported that the community gathered to plant a quartet of red oak trees, one for each victim.

Police request that tipsters call 317-899-8510 or reach out through the Crime Stoppers of Central Indiana at 317-232-8477.

A parolee is said to have killed a Domino's driver as part of a murderous plot against Colorado's top prison official

Nathan Leon, 27, didn't know he was driving into a trap when he set off to deliver a Domino's order on March 17, 2013. A man had called in an order to a Sapp Brothers service center in a remote stretch of Denver, the Denver Post reported. Leon, a married father of three who also held down a job at IBM, just happened to be the driver dispatched to deliver the food.

Police say that Leon was lured into a violent and convoluted revenge plot set in motion by a 28-year-old named Evan Ebel. The parolee had been released from prison halfway through his eight-year sentence thanks to a clerical error, according to ABC.

Leon never made it back to the Domino's restaurant. The Denver Post reported that his car was found abandoned a mile away from the Sapp Brothers location. The missing driver's phone was subsequently discovered in a ditch in Golden, Colorado.

Police say that Ebel abducted Leon from the delivery location, transporting him away from the scene in the trunk of his car. The Denver Post reported that, at some point, Ebel forced his victim to record an incoherent statement condemning the Colorado prison system. According to police, Ebel subsequently shot and killed Leon, leaving his body to be discovered in Golden that evening.

The bloodshed continued two days later, when Ebel arrived at the Monument, Colorado, home of Colorado Department of Corrections chief Tom Clements. When Clements answered the door, Ebel fatally shot him and fled the state, the Denver Post reported. 

Ebel was shot and killed two days later, after a car chase and fire fight with law enforcement officers in Texas. CBS reported that a Domino's delivery shirt and visor were discovered in Ebel's car. Police say they believe Ebel killed Leon in order to obtain his uniform as a disguise, as part of a plot to ambush Clements.

Law enforcement has since investigated the possibility that the murders of Leon and Clements were part of a wider conspiracy orchestrated by the hierarchy of the 211 Crew, a white-supremacist prison gang that originated in Colorado, the Denver Post reported.

A newlywed Denny's manager was shot dead despite reportedly complying with robbers' demands

Cyrus Salehi, the Denny's employee working the graveyard shift at a Los Angeles area restaurant on February 3, 1996, had just achieved a number of goals.

The 38-year-old had recently acquired partial ownership of the Reseda location, The Los Angeles Times reported. Salehi had also married his girlfriend of two years only 11 months prior.

But in the pre-dawn hours of that winter morning, Salehi's life would be cut short over a few hundred dollars.

Police say that Ruben Lopez, then 20, entered the diner brandishing a gun, The Los Angeles Times reported. Salehi reportedly complied with his demands, handing over around $400 from the cash register. Lopez is said to have still fatally shot the Denny's manager in the chest.

The Los Angeles Times reported that both Lopez and his getaway driver Samuel Martinez, then 19, were convicted of Salehi's murder and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

Police are still baffled by the unsolved murder of a Pizza Hut driver, whose death didn't appear to be motivated by robbery

It started out as a regular Saturday night shift at the Wichita Pizza Hut where Hasan Rahman, 26, worked as a delivery driver. On the evening of November 25, 2017, the Bangladeshi immigrant drove off to make two deliveries, the Wichita Eagle reported.

But when Rahman failed to return to the restaurant, things took a sinister turn. Pizza Hut coworkers set out into the town to look for their missing colleague, but to no avail. The following day, this confusion morphed into grief when the Wichita State University engineering student's body was discovered in the trunk of his car.

Rahman's murder remains unsolved today, although Wichita Police had indicated that they do not believe the killing to have been the result of a simple robbery. 

The Wichita Eagle reported that investigators believe that Rahman's murder was unrelated to his last series of deliveries, saying that it may have been connected to a double homicide that occurred around the time of his disappearance. Not too far from where Rahman's car was found, Huong Pham, 62, and her son Cody Ha, 23, were shot to death in their home on the night of November 25.

Pizza Hut offered up a $10,000 reward for tipsters with information about Rahman's murder, International Business Times reported. Anyone with information can contact Wichita police at 316-268-4407 or Crime Stoppers at 316-267-211.

A serial killer preyed on the employees of fast-food chains like Captain D's, McDonald's, and Baskin-Robbins

On February 15, 1997, dishwasher and convicted robber Paul Dennis Reid Jr. reportedly hurled a plate at a fellow employee in the kitchen of a Nashville-area Shoney's. The restaurant's manager promptly fired the 39-year-old aspiring country singer.

The following day, investigators said, Reid embarked on a killing spree that targeted fast-food joints and left at least seven people dead.

He started close to home, making his way into a Captain D's before the restaurant opened up for the day. Shoney's owned the seafood restaurant chain at the time, and that particular location was near Reid's former place of work.

Once inside the Captain D's, Reid was said to have robbed the restaurant and shot manager Steve Hampton, 25, and employee Sarah Jackson, 16, at point-blank range in the refrigerator, according to Nashville Public Radio.

About a month later, on March 23, 1997, Reid is said to have ambushed four McDonald's employees wrapping up a shift in the chain's Hermitage, Tennessee, location, according to the Tennessee Supreme Court's briefing on the murders.

After manager Ronald Santiago, 27, opened up the restaurant's safe, Reid shot him, 17-year-old Andrea Brown, and 23-year-old Robert Sewell execution-style, the briefing said. Reid also brutally stabbed a fourth victim after his gun malfunctioned. That employee survived the attack.

The final murders connected to Reid began in a Baskin-Robbins in Clarksville, Tennessee, on April 23, 1997. According to the Tennessee Supreme Court's summary of the case, Reid abducted two employees, 21-year-old Angela Holmes and 16-year-old Michelle Mace, from the ice cream parlor and later murdered them both in Dunbar Cave State Park.

Strangely enough, the person who ultimately brought an end to the killings was Reid's former manager at Shoney's.

The Tennessean reported that on June 25, 1997, the manager opened the door to find the dishwasher he'd fired four months earlier standing there. Reid demanded his job at Shoney's back. Then, he reportedly pulled out a gun and attempted to kidnap his ex-boss.

Reid was sentenced to death seven times over, sparking a controversy over his mental competence. The so-called "Fast Food Killer" was never executed for his crimes; he died of natural causes in 2013.

A Domino's driver headed out to deliver pizzas on the Fourth of July in 1982 and was never seen again

The caller asked for three large Domino's pizzas. And he had another, more unusual request: that the order be delivered by the female employee who drove the "orange Volkswagen." The man claimed that she'd delivered his pizzas in the past, according to a 2007 report from the the Statesman Journal.

But that employee wasn't on duty on the night of July 4, 1982, at the Domino's in Salem, Oregon. So 18-year-old Sherry Eyerly went instead, driving off into the summer night around 9:40 p.m.

The address that she was given didn't exist. According to a 1982 report from The Statesman Journal, witnesses discovered her delivery car in an isolated spot near the Willamette River, where a group of children had just been setting off fireworks. The engine was still running and the headlights were on. A stepped-on stack of pizzas and a cap believed to be a part of Eyerly's uniform were found discarded nearby.

But in 2007, 25 years after the disappearance, police obtained a guilty plea in Eyerly's case. According to Marion County's cold case squad, serial killer William Scott Smith confessed to kidnapping and killing Eyerly. Oregon Live reported that Smith had previously been sentenced to life for the 1984 kidnapping and killing of 21-year-old Circle K clerk Rebecca Ann Darling and 18-year-old Willamette University student Katherine Iona Redmond. Smith would also later confess to the 1981 murder of 22-year-old Terri Monroe.

Ashland Tidings reported that Smith confessed to targeting a different Domino's employee — the woman who owned a Volkswagen — with the phony order. According to the Statesman Journal, Smith had an an accomplice named Roger Noseff, who died in February 2003. Smith told police he strangled Eyerly and dumped her body into the Little Pudding River.

According to the Statesman Journal, as part of his plea deal, Smith was sentenced to an additional life sentence for the murder of Eyerly in 2007. 

A serial strangler reportedly targeted his Taco Bell coworkers during his murder spree

Sylvia Sumpter knew something was wrong when she discovered her 20-year-old daughter Shawna Hawk wasn't at work on February 19, 1993.

In "Henry Louis Wallace: A Calamity Waiting to Happen," Joseph Geringer wrote that Hawk was regarded as a dependable part-time employee at her local Taco Bell in Charlotte, North Carolina. She filled in at the fast-food restaurant to pay her way through Piedmont Central Community College.

When she failed to appear for dinner on that February evening, Sumpter called into her daughter's employer, assuming Hawk had been asked to tackle a last-minute shift. But none of her Taco Bell coworkers knew where she was.

None of her coworkers, that is, except for one: the man who was later convicted of murdering Hawk and 10 other women, Hawk's one-time Taco Bell manager and friend Henry Louis Wallace. As Sumpter called loved ones for help, she didn't realize that her daughter lay dead in the home's downstairs bathroom. She was the then-28-year-old convicted killer's third known victim, Geringer wrote. 

Wallace, dubbed in the press as "the Taco Bell Strangler," would go on to prey upon at least eight more women before his arrest in 1994. His victims included a number of women he befriended while working in the fast-food industry, including Taco Bell employee Audrey Spain and frequent restaurant patron Michelle Stinson, Geringer writes. Wallace also got to know victims Caroline Love and Betty Baucom through a girlfriend who worked at a local Bojangles, the Charlotte News & Observer reported.

The murder spree ignited backlash against the Charlotte Police Department, with a case study from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte noting that the department was "accused of being less diligent about investigating the murders because the victims were African American and generally lived and worked in working class areas of the city."

After his 1994 arrest, Wallace was convicted and received nine death sentences, according to the Los Angeles Times. He remains on death row to this day.

Sumpter went on to found the Mothers of Murdered Offsping to honor her daughter. The advocacy group seeks to "support families through the cycle of grief and devastation" that comes in the wake of a loved one's murder.

Five Wendy's employees died after being shot execution-style during a robbery in Queens

Around midnight, the manager's voice came on over the intercom at the Wendy's on Main Street in Flushing, Queens. All employees on duty were required to attend a meeting in the restaurant's back office, held just before closing on the night of May 24, 2000, the New York Times reported.

The crew — Ramon Nazario, 44, Ali Ibadat, 40, Anita Smith, 23, and Jeremy Mele, 19, along with two other workers — complied with the order. But as they filed into 27-year-old manager Jean Auguste's office, they found that he wasn't alone.

Also there were Craig Godineaux, 30, and John Taylor, 36, according to police. Taylor was a former restaurant employee who left his job "under suspicion" of theft, the Associated Press reported. Now he was back, armed with a pistol, to rob the restaurant, according to the Queens Chronicle.

The robbers proceeded to bind and gag the seven Wendy's employees with duct tape, the New York Post reported. The victims were forced into the restaurant's refrigerator, where Taylor and Godineaux shot each of them execution-style, according to a taped confession.

Auguste, Nazario, Ibadat, Smith, and Mele were killed. The two other workers survived. One of those badly injured employees, who the New York Times reported had just begun working at the Wendy's two weeks before the massacre, managed to free themselves, pull the other survivor out of the fridge, and call the police.

Taylor and Godineaux's haul from the robbery was $2,400, according to the New York Times. In the subsequent trial, the two were found guilty of murder. Taylor was sentenced to death and Godineaux, who has mental disabilities, was sentenced to life in prison. Taylor's sentence was commuted to life in prison back in 2007, according to the New York Times.

Months after the massacre, family and friends of the victims gathered together at the Queens Botanical Gardens to plant a cherry tree in honor of their loved ones, the New York Post reported.

A man murdered two former coworkers during an early morning robbery at Chili's

William Wood was no stranger at the Chili's in Dewitt, New York. 

But in the early morning of September 15, 2018, he didn't enter the restaurant to report for a shift. Wood had returned to rob his former employer, police said.

Once inside, police say, Wood held four of his one-time colleagues at gunpoint, ordering them to lie on the floor, according to Syracuse.com. Then he forced manager and father of two Stephen Gudknecht, 37, to hand over $875 from a safe, according to Syracuse.com.

Police say Wood then shot Gudknecht and Chili's employee Kristopher Hicks, 29, in the head. Wood is also said to have aimed his gun at a female employee, but ended up fleeing after the weapon jammed. A male employee was also able to escape the restaurant, as well.

The female employee called 911 and held Gudknecht's hands as he lay dying, Syracuse.com reported. Paramedics transported Hicks to a local hospital, where he died.

Wood pled guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Spectrum News reported in September 2018 that four additional people were arrested in connection with the case, with charges ranging from driving Wood's getaway car to buying his weapon.

As of April 2019, the United States Justice Department is pursuing the death penalty against Wood, Syracuse.com reported.

A man gunned down 21 people in a California McDonald's after reportedly telling his wife he was going "hunting for humans"

James Huberty opened fire in a crowded San Ysidro, California, McDonald's on July 18, 1984, killing 21 employees and diners. At the time, it was the "worst single-day mass murder by a lone gunman" in the history of the US, according to the Associated Press.

A 1984 article from the Washington Post reported, citing police sources, that the gunman told his wife that he was "going hunting humans" before he left the house to commit the mass murder.

Like many mass shooters, Huberty had a history of violence. The Washington Post reported that the 41-year-old beat his wife. According to Macleans, he also shot the family dog in the head after the German Shepherd scratched his landlord's car.

In the years running up to the 1984 mass murder, Huberty obsessively collected guns and ammunition, spewed paranoia about the US government and the Cold War, and expressed a strong interest in survivalism. The Associated Press reported that he was fired from his job as a security guard a week before the shooting.

Huberty's attack lasted for just over an hour and twenty minutes, ending when a police sniper shot and killed the gunman.

In the wake of the shooting, the McDonald's was torn down and converted into a memorial for the victims.

An ex-Domino's manager reportedly led a murderous rampage against his former employer in 1985

On the night of December 9, 1985, Mitchell Sims, 25, and Ruby Padgett, 20, robbed a Domino's in Glendale, California.

The restaurant was empty aside from two employees, but the pizzeria's manager warned the couple that their robbery would soon be interrupted. Domino's driver John Harrigan, 21, was out delivering a pizza to a nearby motel room. He was due back soon.

Smiling, Sims pulled off his sweater. He was wearing Harrigan's name badge and Domino's-issued t-shirt, according to a case summary filed with the US Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

The pizzeria employees in Glendale didn't realize that they were in the midst of a violent multi-state crime spree targeting Domino's employees. Sims himself had previously worked at a Domino's in West Columbia, South Carolina, even rising to a managerial role. But a squabble over a bonus prompted him to quit the business, according to the Post and Courier.

In November 1985, Sims took on a delivery gig at the Domino's in nearby Hanahan. In the early morning of December 4, Domino's assistant manager Gary Melke, 24, staggered into the lobby of the Hanahan Police Department.

He told police that he and his coworker Chris Zerr, also 24, had been attacked and shot by their new coworker, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Police were dispatched to the Domino's, where they found Zerr dead. Melke died in a local hospital later that night. Along with his girlfriend Padgett, Sims fled South Carolina for California.

But during the Glendale hold-up, an off-duty Domino's worker and his wife happened to visit the restaurant, the Los Angeles Times reported. The pizzeria manager pretended not to know them, raising suspicion. The worker and his wife called the police, who arrived to find the two employees alive, but in danger of strangling. Sims and Padgett had left them tied to nooses in the restaurant's frozen-food locker, according to a case summary filed with the US Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit.

Law enforcement then raided the motel room that Harrigan had been called to, where they found the driver's body in an overflowing bathtub. Sims and Padgett had bound and gagged Harrigan, then submerged him in the water until he either drowned or asphyxiated.

Sims is now on death row, while Padgett is serving life without parole.

A stolen currency bag led to a tragic early morning discovery in a Taco Bell walk-in freezer

On the morning of January 26, 1991, police in Irving, Texas, were dispatched to check on the six Taco Bell restaurants in the area.

At 5 a.m. that day, UPI reported, officers pulling over two teens had made a disturbing find: a Taco Bell take-out bag brimming with $1,390. That morning, law enforcement found one particular restaurant dark and locked. According to UPI, police slipped in through the drive-thru window, only to make a horrible discovery in the back of the restaurant.

The bodies of Theresa Fraga, 16; Frank Fraga, 23; Michael Phelan, 28; and Son Trang Nguyen, 35, had been hidden in the freezer. They had been shot to death. The Fragas were cousins, and Theresa Fraga was the mother of a young child. She was also pregnant at the time of her death. 

The Associated Press reported that Taco Bell employee Jerome Green, then 17, and Jessy Carlos San Miguel, then 19, were the two young men pulled over that morning. The pair was subsequently charged with the murders. At the time, San Miguel was out on bail for a series of burglaries.

According to the Clark County Prosecutor, San Miguel and Green forced their way into the restaurant when an employee went out to throw trash into the dumpster. Phelan, the assistant manager, was forced to hand over the money. 

At some point, Nguyen pulled up outside in his car to pick up his friends, the Fragas. He was reportedly accosted outside and forced into the restaurant's freezer. 

The Clark County Prosecutor holds that San Miguel and Green first left with the money, only for San Miguel to return to the freezer, ask the hostages to "give him a good reason" to not kill them all, and proceed to shoot the four execution-style.

According to UPI, San Miguel was executed via lethal injection in 2000. Green became eligible for parole in 2004. The Texas Tribune's inmate directory estimates that Green's release date won't be until 2043, when he is 70.

Three Pizza Hut workers were bludgeoned and shot to death in a robbery

The Pizza Hut in Mount Pleasant, Texas, closed around 11 p.m. on May 10, 1982. After that, something horrible happened inside.

UPI reported that the relatives of employee Shirley Thompson, 24, became concerned when she never arrived back home from her shift. They notified law enforcement after finding the pizzeria unlocked and the cash register emptied.

When police arrived, they discovered Thompson, assistant manager George Landrum, and employee Howard McClaflin, 25, murdered in the back of the restaurant.

According to The Oklahoman, Thompson had been stabbed and beaten with a hammer, Landrum had been shot and beaten with a hammer, and McClaflin had been shot in the head.

The Dallas Morning News reported that investigators closed in on then 28-year-old Calvin Padgett, his 15-year-old brother Max Daughtry, their 13-year-old cousin, and another 12-year-old cousin. Daughtry was tried as an adult and sentenced to 30 years in prison.

After confessing, Padgett asserted his innocence to the Dallas Morning News in 1986, saying that he was attempting to protect Daughtry. In January 1987, however, Padgett once again confessed to killing Landrum and Thompson with Daughtry and their two cousins. Padgett was sentenced to life.

In 1991, firefighters responding to a blaze at an Austin yogurt shop were horrified to discover the bodies of four young girls

On the night of December 6, 1991, firefighters responded to a fire at the I Can't Believe It's Yogurt! shop in Austin, Texas.

The bodies of four young girls lay in the back of the store. Police identified them as 17-year-old employees Jennifer Harbison and Eliza Thomas, 13-year-old Amy Ayers, and Harbison's 15-year-old sister Sarah. They had been bound, gagged, and shot in the head.

The girls had been set to have a sleepover after closing up the yogurt shop.

Four men — Robert Springsteen, 24, Michael Scott, 25, Maurice Pierce, 24, and Forrest Wellborn, 23 — were arrested in connection to the murders. Springsteen and Scott confessed to the crime, but allegations about forced confessions swirled around the case, the Austin Chronicle reported.

Authorities dropped the charges against Wellborn and Pierce, while Scott and Springsteen both stood trial and were convicted.

In 2009, both men were freed after their convictions were overturned due to lack of evidence in the case, the New York Times reported. The only DNA evidence found at the crime scene belonged to an unknown male.

Beverly Lowry's book "Who Killed These Girls?"— an encyclopedic account of the case — explains that between the fire and firefighters' efforts to put out the blaze, crucial evidence was likely destroyed.

In her book, Lowry poses one theory that the culprits may have been the two as-of-now-unidentified men who witnesses placed in the store just prior to closing time.

But the murder of the four teenage girls remains unsolved to this day.

Tipsters with information on the murders can call in at 512-472-TIPS or 800-893-TIPS.

An unemployed man with a history of misogynistic threats shot and killed 23 people after driving his truck through the window of a Luby's Cafeteria

The front window of the Luby's Cafeteria shattered against the force of the Ford Ranger pickup. But the terror wasn't over for diners and employees at the restaurant, on October 16, 1991.

The driver, unemployed former merchant mariner George Hennard, stepped out of the truck and began firing a pistol.

Hennard began stalking around the store gunning down victims in the restaurant, even dragging cowering customers out from underneath tables, according to Reporting Texas.

Witnesses said that the gunman seemed to favor shooting women over men. Hennard had a history of making misogynistic threats, often calling women "vipers" and stalking neighbors, the New York Times reported. Misogyny has been widely reported to be a potential indicator of a person's capacity for mass murder.

The murderous rampage continued for 12 minutes, according to the New York Times. Hennard was shot several times by responding police, and committed suicide when he was running low on bullets.

At the time, the Luby's massacre was the worst mass shooting by a single gunman in the history of United States, according to USA Today.

A McDonald's employee is said to have plotted to rob his employer, with fatal consequences

On the night of May 7, 1992, McDonald's employee Derek Wood slipped into the basement of the franchise in Sydney River, Nova Scotia. According to the book "Murder at McDonald's," Wood had been plotting to rob the restaurant's safe with a group of friends for some time. 

The 18-year-old used his knapsack to prop the basement door open ever so slightly. After the restaurant closed, Wood, Freeman MacNeil, 23, and Darren Muise, 18, crept in through the ajar door.

The three are then said to have fatally beaten, shot, and stabbed McDonald's manager Donna Warren, 22, and employee Neil Burroughs, 29. Another employee, Arlene MacNeil, 20 (no relation), was also brutally attacked.

According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, the murderers only managed to net $2,017 from the robbery. As they were leaving, overnight employee Jimmy Fagan, 27, arrived. The robbers are said to have fatally shot him before fleeing. 

According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, Wood, Freeman MacNeil, and Muise were quickly arrested, brought to trial, and convicted. Wood was sentenced to life without chance of parole for 25 years in connection with the murders of Warren and Burroughs and the attempted killing of Arlene MacNeil. His request for parole was denied.

Muise pled guilty to the murder of Burroughs and granted a life sentence with no parole for 20 years. According to CBC, he was released from prison in 2012.

Freeman MacNeil was also given a life sentence with no parole for 25 years in connection with the murders of Burroughs and Fagan. The Chronicle Herald reported that MacNeil has since been granted un-escorted releases from prison.

Arlene MacNeil survived the attack, which left her paralyzed and suffering from permanent brain damage, according to the Cape Breton Post. She died in 2018 at the age of 46.

The owners and employees of a Brown's Chicken restaurant were gunned down in the eatery's walk-in fridge in 1993

One of the robbers had chewed on a piece of chicken while holding up the Brown's Chicken & Pasta in Palatine, Illinois, on January 8, 1993. They then proceeded to force the seven people working in the eatery into a walk-in cooler and freezer at gunpoint, police said.

Hours later, that's where police found the bodies of restaurant owners 50-year-old Richard and 49-year-old Lynn Ehlenfeldt, and workers Guadalupe Maldonado, 46, Michael Castro, 16, Rico Solis, 17, Thomas Mennes, 32, and Marcus Nellse, 31, shot to death. There were no survivors, and the robbers made off with less than $2,000, the Inquirer reported.

But a forensic investigator processing the mass killing found and preserved the chicken bones, saving a clue that would help crack the case years later, according to CBS.

In March 2002, the case was still unsolved. Then a woman told police that her ex-boyfriend had bragged about the killings, the Daily Herald reported. She also implicated former Brown's employee Juan Luna, whose DNA matched the saliva found on the chicken bones and a latent print on a napkin. 

At his subsequent 2007 trial, Luna was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. James Degorski was also convicted and sentenced to life in prison two years later. The building that once housed the restaurant was torn down in 2001, according to the New York Times.

The Twin Cities Pioneer Press reported that Luna's defense asserted that the DNA evidence was unreliable. A 2013 ruling in the Illinois Appellate Court said that Luna's counsel argued that the latent prints were improperly matched and that the amount of DNA recovered from the chicken was so small that  "obtaining a profile from such low amounts of DNA is not generally accepted within the relevant scientific community."

The court ruled to affirm Luna's conviction, however. Both men remain imprisoned.

• Every week, Parrot Analytics provides Business Insider with a list of the nine most in-demand original TV shows on streaming services in the US.
• This week includes Disney Plus' "The Mandalorian" and Netflix's "The Dragon Prince."
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Disney Plus' "The Mandalorian" continues to dominate streaming television, thanks in no small part to the popularity of Baby Yoda.

SEE ALSO: Why Baby Yoda merch wasn't ready when 'The Mandalorian' debuted, and how 'Star Wars' history shows it might not be terrible for Disney

9. "Castle Rock" (Hulu)

Average demand expressions: 26,800,169

Description: "Misery has arrived. Lizzy Caplan plays a young Annie Wilkes from Stephen King's MISERY. In season two of this psychological-horror series set in the Stephen King multiverse, Castle Rock combines the mythological scale and intimate character storytelling of King's best-loved works, weaving an epic saga of darkness and light, played out on a few square miles of Maine woodland. The fictional Maine town of Castle Rock has figured prominently in King's literary career: Cujo, The Dark Half, IT and Needful Things, as well as novella The Body and numerous short stories such as Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption, are either set there or contain references to Castle Rock."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score (Season 2): 88%

What critics said:"A lot of horror anthologies hinge on concept instead of character or performance, but I'm happy to see 'Castle Rock' bucking that trend."— RogerEbert.com (season 2)

Season 2 premiered on Hulu October 23.

8. "Good Omens" (Amazon Prime Video)

Average demand expressions: 26,938,850

Description: "Aziraphale and Crowley, of Heaven and Hell respectively, have grown rather fond of the Earth. So it's terrible news that it's about to end. The armies of Good and Evil are amassing. The Four Horsemen are ready to ride. Everything is going according to the Divine Plan … except that someone seems to have misplaced the Antichrist. Can our heroes find him and stop Armageddon before it's too late?"

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 83%

What critics said:"A cursory overview of the plot would suggest that the two decide to work together to defend humanity from divine caprice  — but the performances make it clear that what each entity is truly fighting for is one another, and the bond they've forged."— NPR

Season 1 premiered on Prime Video May 31.

7. "The Dragon Prince" (Netflix)

Average demand expressions: 28,930,641

Description:"An extraordinary discovery inspires two human princes and an elven assassin to team up on an epic quest to bring peace to their warring lands."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score: 100%

What critics said:"A fascinating inversion of classic fantasy tropes centering on children in humble circumstances who learn they're secretly of noble blood and have some great destiny."— Polygon (season 3)

Season 3 premiered on Netflix November 22.

6. "The Handmaid's Tale" (Hulu)

Average demand expressions: 29,188,253 

Description: "A woman forced into sexual servitude struggles to survive in a terrifying, totalitarian society."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score (Season 3): 82%

What critics said:"The Handmaid's Tale probably should have been a miniseries. But since it's hard to imagine Hulu canceling its flagship original anytime soon, I wish creator Bruce Miller would consider making changes in the seasons to come."— Time (Season 3)

Season 3 premiered June 5 on Hulu.

5. "Lucifer" (Netflix)

Average demand expressions: 31,701,122

Description: "Bored with being the Lord of Hell, the devil relocates to Los Angeles, where he opens a nightclub and forms a connection with a homicide detective."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score (Season 4): 100%

What critics said:"From the show's cinematography, to the special effects, to the love and care these characters already receive in the writer's room and from the actors' performances, everything got an upgrade."— BamSmackPow  (season 4)

Season 4 premiered on Netflix May 8.

4. "The Crown" (Netflix)

Average demand expressions: 43,291,060

Description: "This drama follows the political rivalries and romance of Queen Elizabeth II's reign and the events that shaped the second half of the 20th century."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score (Season 3): 89%

What critics said:"The Crown season three doubles down on the series' practice of treating the tiniest diplomatic faux pas as something bearing the immediate potential to threaten the Empire to its veddy core."— NPR (Season 3)

Season 3 premiered November 17 on Netflix.

3. "Stranger Things" (Netflix)

Average demand expressions: 74,896,711

Description: "When a young boy vanishes, a small town uncovers a mystery involving secret experiments."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score (Season 3): 90%

What critics said:"Combining the best of the first season with comedy and color, Stranger Things 3 is a warm, summer hit."— CNet (Season 3)

Season 3 premiered July 4 on Netflix.

2. "Titans" (DC Universe)

Average demand expressions: 88,415,064

Description: "'Titans' follows young heroes from across the DC Universe as they come of age and find belonging in a gritty take on the classic Teen Titans franchise. Dick Grayson and Rachel Roth, a special young girl possessed by a strange darkness, get embroiled in a conspiracy that could bring Hell on Earth. Joining them along the way are the hot-headed Starfire and lovable Beast Boy. Together they become a surrogate family and team of heroes."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score (Season 2): 84%

What critics said:"This hard-hitting drama provided much of the talented cast with some juicy material, while also allowing the show to continue to go from strength-to-strength."— WhatCulture (Season 2)

Season 2 premiered on DC Universe September 6.

1. "The Mandalorian" (Disney Plus)

Average demand expressions: 129,680,348

Description: "After the fall of the Empire, a lone gunfighter makes his way through the lawless galaxy."

Rotten Tomatoes critic score (Season 1): 95%

What critics said:"This is a visually stunning, consistently entertaining space-spaghetti-Western serial."— Chicago Sun-Times(Season 1)

Season 1 premiered on Disney Plus on November 12.

Data for this week's list was compiled from November 27 to December 3 by Parrot Analytics.

• American Airlines recently announced a new partnership with the James Beard Foundation, which will bring meals designed by James Beard-affiliate chefs to first and business class lounges and flights.
• It's part of a marketing push by American, which enjoys significantly higher profit margins on premium seats than on coach, especially with business travelers.
• We recently had a chance to try some of the dishes designed by the first chef: Sarah Grueneberg of Monteverde Restaurant & Pastificio in Chicago. Here are some of the new dishes that you can expect if you get to fly in the airline's Flagship first or business class.
• Sign up for Business Insider's transportation newsletter, Shifting Gears, to get more stories like this in your inbox.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

SEE ALSO: Filet mignon and artichoke ravioli: American Airlines' lead marketing exec reveals how its investments in gourmet dining are helping the company attract business travelers

The new dishes are joining the existing options on American's Flagship menus — the menu in its Flagship Lounges, for international first and business class customers, its Flagship First Dining room, and on board the flights.

The Flagship Lounge is already a premier stop for American Airlines premium passengers and Oneworld elites.

With a fresh buffet...

Self-serve drinks...

... And plenty of seats, it's a great place to enjoy a bite to eat, a drink, or just a comfy seat with decent Wi-Fi. Everything here is complimentary.

Although top-tier elites can access the Flagship Lounge, the Flagship First Dining room is even more exclusive. Only passengers traveling in first class in a three-cabin international or trans-continental flight are invited in.

Most of the new dishes will be in the Flagship Dining room, or on board in first and business class. A few will be in the Flagship Lounge, too.

I tasted a few samples of what Chef Grueneberg is bringing to the Flagship Dining and on-board menus.

The artichoke ravioli was served with a blistered cherry tomato sauce and "pesto" made with green olives and pistachio. Chef Grueneberg said that this type of pasta dish was easy to heat in a plane oven.

Next we tried the spinach and ricotta rotolo rolled pasta with pomodoro, traditional basil pesto, and pine nuts. Grueneberg described enjoying the conflicting taste from having two different sauces, which both cut through the ricotta. It was fantastic.

Next came the Tuscan kale salad, with beets, apples, goat cheese, spiced sesame, sunflower, and pumpkin seeds, and a tahini-inspired dressing. This particular dish will also be made available in the Flagship Lounge.

Then I tried grilled artichokes with black truffle, in a fontina fonduta sauce. A dish that somehow manages to be both light and hearty.

Next, we tried the mushroom bolognese, a delicious spin on a traditional bolognese sauce.

Finally, there was the dark chocolate budino, an absurdly delicious chocolate pudding with mandarin olive oil, candied citrus, a chocolate crunch, and fresh whipped cream.

Grueneberg described her approach to the dishes as channeling "the classic Italian approach to cooking by focusing on simplicity, great flavors and quality ingredients that we believe will resonate deeply with guests."

As you may have noticed, most of Chef Gruenberg's creations are vegetarian. The dishes will appear on menus alongside the regular on-board and in-lounge offerings, like chicken fricassee ...

... steak ...

... A shrimp and sausage dish ...

... And more.

Chef Grueneberg's dishes are already available in the Flagship First Dining room sand Flagship First Lounges, and will be featured on board in Flagship first and business class starting on December 11.

Menus in the lounge will change quarterly, while on-board menus are changed up every month. American says it will continue working with its internal chefs, Grueneberg, and the James Beard Foundation on the dishes.

• Urban mobility is fast becoming a major challenge for many large cities.
• Traffic jams, air pollution, and faulty infrastructures can make navigating cities a real struggle.
• By 2050, around 68% of the world's population will live in urban areas, placing even more strain on cities' transport systems.
• Consulting firm Oliver Wyman has ranked the top 15 cities based on the overall quality of their public transport systems.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Urban mobility is fast becoming a major challenge for many large cities. Streamlining traffic and finding solutions to population growth isn't a straightforward task.

Over 55% of the world's population lives in urban areas — and this figure is expected to increase to 68% by 2050, according to United Nations (UN) projections.

The report also says the planet will also be home to 43 megacities with over 10 million inhabitants by 2030 —  with traffic jams, air pollution, and faulty infrastructure to navigate, trying to get about quickly in a giant metropolis could easily become a nightmare if transport isn't maintained and modernized.

A study by consulting firm Oliver Wyman joined forces with the Berkeley University of California to rank various cities' public transport systems, using points out of one hundred.

Some factors used to classify cities included the quality of the cities' infrastructures, their users' experiences, and the safety regulations in force.

Business Insider also added data about the average amount of time spent on public transport each day and the average distance of a single commute, using statistics from Moovitapp.

These are the 15 most advanced cities where urban mobility is concerned, according to Oliver Wyman.

SEE ALSO: An Uber boss insists its flying taxis will be fully functional by 2023

15. Paris — 53.7

On average, commuters spend 64 minutes commuting on public transport in Paris.

14. Los Angeles — 56.5

In Los Angeles, people spend 86 minutes on average taking public transport.

13. Barcelona — 56.7

Those commuting in Barcelona have a commute of roughly 50 minutes if they choose to take public transport.

12. San Francisco — 58

Commuters spend an average of 77 minutes on public transport every day in San Francisco.

11. Hong Kong — 58.2

On average, commuters spend 73 minutes a day commuting on public transport in Hong Kong.

10. Berlin — 58.3

On average, Berlin's commuters spend 62 minutes commuting on public transport.

9. Seoul — 58.9

According to Mic, residents of Seoul take the bus an average of 0.44 times a day.

8. Beijing — 59.7

According to China's Travel Guide, Beijing is the biggest rail hub in the country.

7. Helsinki — 61.1

According to Discovering Finland, getting to Russia by train from Helsinki is very straightforward, as there are three departures from the city every day.

6. Tokyo — 61.6

The city is covered by a dense network of train, subway, and bus routes, operated by roughly a dozen different companies, according to Japan Guide.

5. New York — 61.9

On average, New York's commuters spend 87 minutes on public transport.

4. Shanghai — 62.4

According to Shanghai Highlights, there are over 50,000 taxis in Shanghai.

3. London — 62.7

On average, commuters spend an average of 84 minutes commuting on public transport in London every day.

2. Amsterdam — 65.4

According to iAmsterdam, visitors can hire a second-hand bike for around $55 to $193 from spots all around the city.

1. Singapore — 70.8

On average, Singapore's commuters spend 84 minutes commuting on public transport each day.

• From squads stacked with one-and-dones and surprising Cinderellas to undefeated teams and seasons defined by buzzer-beaters, the 2010s were filled with college basketball teams sports lovers will never forget.
• On the women's side of the court, the UConn Huskies enjoyed multiple perfect seasons and won four consecutive national championships, while the Notre Dame Fighting Irish completed a fairytale season thanks to back-to-back NCAA tournament buzzer-beaters.
• On the men's side, the Kentucky Wildcats and Duke Blue Devils boasted teams loaded with future NBA talent while teams like the UMBC Retrievers, Loyola Chicago Ramblers, and Florida Gulf Coast Eagles enjoyed Cinderella stories straight out of fantasies.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more.

2014-15 Kentucky Wildcats

John Calipari assembled what was, at the time, considered one of the most stacked college basketball squads in the history of the game for the Kentucky Wildcats in 2014. The Harrison twins ran the backcourt while future NBA stars like Willie Cauley-Stein, Karl Anthony Towns, Trey Lyles, and Devin Booker lit up scoreboards and dominated opponents throughout the season. The Wildcats were ranked first in the AP Poll for the entire year and entered the NCAA tournament with a perfect 34-0 record. Still, the heavy favorites to survive March Madness hit a roadblock against Frank Kaminsky and the Wisconsin Badgers in the Final Four, and the Duke Blue Devils went on to cut down the nets.

2018-19 Duke Blue Devils

Considering head coach Mike Krzyzewski locked down the first, second, and third prospects in the 2018 recruiting class, the Duke Blue Devils didn't enter the season with overwhelming hype. That quickly changed after Zion Williamson, R.J. Barrett, and Cam Reddish torched the No. 2 Kentucky Wildcats in the Champions Classic to deal head coach John Calipari the worst loss of his career. From that point on, Duke — and specifically Williamson — was the talk of college basketball. The Blue Devils suffered a disappointing upset in the Elite 8 of the NCAA tournament, but their three star freshmen made waves when they were all selected in the top 10 of the 2019 NBA Draft.

2016-17 South Carolina Gamecocks

Geno Auriemma and the UConn Huskies had dominated the world of college basketball to an unprecedented degree, winning four consecutive national championships heading into the 2016-17 season. And even though UConn was primed to enjoy yet another perfect season, Dawn Staley and the South Carolina Gamecocks were not-so-quietly enjoying a special year in their own right. Led by A'ja Wilson, the Gamecocks finished the regular season with just four losses and wins against seven different top-25 teams. They went on to beat No. 20 Kentucky and No. 6 Mississippi State to win the SEC championship and then cruised through the opening rounds of the NCAA tournament. After the Mississippi State Bulldogs knocked out the UConn juggernaut to advance to the championship, South Carolina dealt them a double-digit loss to win its first national championship in program history.

2012-13 FGCU Eagles

Like any Cinderella sleeper, the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles came out of nowhere to shock the field during the 2013 NCAA tournament. Known as "Dunk City" for its colossal dunks, 15th-seeded FGCU took down a second-seeded Georgetown Hoyas squad that featured Otto Porter Jr. by a 10-point margin before beating the seventh-seeded San Diego State Aztecs in another double-digit decision. The Eagles' luck ran dry during the second weekend as they lost to the No. 14 Florida Gators — a third seed that year — by 12 in the Sweet 16. To this day, that Florida Gulf Coast squad is the lowest-ranked team to ever compete in the second weekend of the NCAA tournament.

2010-11 UConn Huskies

The Connecticut Huskies began the season as the No. 4 team in the AP Top 25 Poll but continually dropped throughout the year thanks to losses against a handful of top-25 teams. After losing six of its final 10 games of the season — three of which came against unranked opponents — the Huskies earned the ninth seed in the Big East tournament and missed out on a bye game. Led by future NBA star Kemba Walker, UConn won five games in five days, taking down four straight ranked opponents at Madison Square Garden to win the Big East tournament. The Huskies carried that momentum into the NCAA tournament, toppling four more top-25 teams in six consecutive wins to take home their third national championship in 12 years.

2015-16 Villanova Wildcats

The 2015-16 Villanova Wildcats were among the top teams in the nation from the start. They began the year ranked third in the AP top-25 poll and remained in the top 10 for the majority of the season. Regular-season losses to Buddy Hield and the No. 7 Oklahoma Sooners, No. 8 Virginia Cavaliers, No. 16 Providence Friars, and No. 5 Xavier Musketeers set Villanova up with the top seed in the Big East tournament. Still, a loss to the unranked Seton Hall Pirates bumped the Wildcats back to a two seed in the NCAA tournament. Josh Hart paced the Villanova offense and led Jay Wright's team to five wins — all but one of which by double-digit margins — to face the one seed North Carolina Tar Heels for the national championship. The game famously ended with a wild sequence; North Carolina guard Marcus Paige drained a mindboggling, off-balance three with 4.7 seconds left to tie the game before Ryan Arcidiacono dribbled up the court and dumped the ball off to Kris Jenkins at the top of the key. Jenkins rose up and sank the three over Isaiah Hicks at the buzzer for the title. 

2015-16 UConn Huskies

Led by established college basketball icon Breanna Stewart during her senior season, the UConn Huskies completed their second perfect season in three years and won their fourth consecutive national championship. Not since John Wooden's UCLA Bruins had a team reigned over college basketball in such dominant fashion, a feat that was entirely unprecedented in the women's game. Stewart became the only college basketball player besides Ralph Sampson to be the consensus National Player of the Year three times and the first to win Most Outstanding Player in four consecutive NCAA tournaments.

2017-18 UMBC Retrievers

With a mediocre 21-10 record during the regular season, K.J. Maura and the UMBC Retrievers hadn't enjoyed a particularly impressive stretch throughout 2017-18. But things clicked in a major way for the Retrievers in the postseason; they torched their first two opponents in the American East tournament before downing the top-seeded Vermont Catamounts on a last-second three-pointer to punch their ticket to the NCAA tournament. A 16 seed, UMBC was matched up against a No. 1 overall seed Virginia Cavaliers squad that entered March Madness with just two losses all season. The Retrievers shocked the world by becoming the first 16 seed to take down a No. 1 seed in the tournament, and they did so by a whopping 20 points. Even though UMBC lost to the Kansas State Wildcats in the next round, the Retrievers inked their legacy in the college basketball history books with the most stunning and high-profile upset ever recorded in the sport.

2018-19 Virginia Cavaliers

Just one year removed from the worst upset in NCAA tournament history, the Virginia Cavaliers completed the ultimate comeback story. Juniors Kyle Guy and Ty Jerome and sophomore De'Andre Hunter led a seasoned and determined Virginia squad to an impressive two-loss regular season in a stacked ACC. The Cavaliers then exacted their revenge in the NCAA tournament, steamrolling the competition en route to their first national championship in program history.

2009-10 Butler Bulldogs

Before his days of lighting it up in the NBA, Gordon Hayward was known as a baby-faced David who nearly toppled Mike Krzyzewski's Goliaths during the 2010 NCAA tournament. Despite a rocky start to the season with four losses in nonconference play, the Butler Bulldogs cruised through Horizon League play without a loss and won their conference tournament to earn an eight seed in March Madness. Butler enjoyed a classic Cinderella story, surprising the field and taking down three AP top-25 teams en route to the national championship game. The Bulldogs played up to the No. 3 Duke Blue Devils' level in Indianapolis and it came down to the wire. With less than a second remaining in the contest, Hayward memorably chucked up a half-court prayer for the win that clunked off of the rim and ended Butler's hopes of completing the ultimate underdog story. 

2017-18 Notre Dame Fighting Irish

The year legendary head coach Muffet McGraw was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame became a dream season for her Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Despite losing multiple key players to season-ending injuries — including a slew of ACL tears — Notre Dame cruised through the regular season with just two losses before losing to the Louisville Cardinals in the ACC tournament. Still, the Fighting Irish secured a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and won each of their first four contests by double digits. However, they faced a roadblock against Geno Auriemma's UConn Huskies in a Final Four game that went to overtime and came down to the wire. With just one second remaining, Notre Dame sharpshooter Arike Ogunbowale sank a long-range step-back to send her team to the title game, but her heroics didn't stop there. She hit an off-balance three at the buzzer to beat the Mississippi State Bulldogs and bring the Irish their second national championship.

2017-18 Loyola Chicago Ramblers

The Loyola Chicago Ramblers program enjoyed a standout season in 2017-18 well before they reached the NCAA tournament. The Ramblers stunned the No. 5 Florida Gators in December to notch their first win against a top 25 team since February 2009 and first against a top 5 opponent in more than two decades. They won the Missouri Valley conference tournament handily to secure an NCAA tournament bid and certainly made the most of the opportunity. An 11 seed, Loyola Chicago took down three ranked opponents in four games during its dream run to the Final Four. Though they lost to the Michigan Wolverines, the Ramblers' tenacity — combined with their top supporter, then 98-year-old nun Sister Jean — won over the hearts of fans across America and cemented their legacy in college basketball lore.

2011-12 Kentucky Wildcats

In 2011, John Calipari assembled a juggernaut with one-and-dones well before the one-and-done era had entered the mainstream. The Kentucky Wildcats head coach lured four five-star recruits to Lexington. Led by future NBA superstar Anthony Davis, the Wildcats dropped just one game during the regular season — a one-point loss to the Indiana Hoosiers — before falling to the Vanderbilt Commodores in the SEC tournament championship. Still, top-ranked Kentucky secured a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament and won its first four games by double digits before taking down No. 17 Louisville and No. 6 Kansas en route to a national title. Davis and three of his teammates were selected in the first round of that year's NBA Draft, while two more Wildcats were selected in the second round.

Now check out the most memorable players of the past 10 years:

The 17 most memorable college basketball players of the decade

• Week 14 of the NFL season is here, and with it, the fantasy playoffs.
• For those that didn't qualify for the postseason in their leagues, daily games like DraftKings and FanDuel are a great way to fill the fantasy void in your life.
• In daily fantasy, the difference between winning and losing the day comes down to finding the best value plays at every position.
• This week, we like Tom Brady, Patrick Laird, and more to outplay their prices in DraftKings and FanDuel.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Daily fantasy sports are all about finding value.

Last week was a great one for our DraftKings value picks, with Carson Wentz finishing the week as a top-five quarterback and wide receiver Alshon Jeffery the fifth-highest scoring player in all of fantasy.

This week, we're back at it again, diving deep into the DraftKings player pool to find players that might be undervalued and can help you fill out your lineup when you feel the need to overspend at other positions.

Take a look below for our best value picks for your Week 14 DraftKings lineups.

QB: Tom Brady, $6,100

Tom Brady hasn't been great this year, but coming off of a loss and facing a Chiefs team that have historically had high-scoring duels with the Patriots, it feels like a great spot to back the New England quarterback.

RB: James White, $5,500

James White finished last week as the highest-scoring player in fantasy, with eight receptions, 177 total yards, and two touchdowns.

While picking a Patriots running back is a game of roulette week after week, head coach Bill Belichick is one to ride the hot hand, and right now, that's White.

RB: Patrick Laird, $4,100

The Dolphins are the worst rushing team in football, managing just 62.8 yards per game through three-quarters of the season. Still, Patrick Laird is set to get a starter's share of the action on Sunday for Miami, and he's available for the paltry price of $4,100.

WR: James Washington, $6,000

James Washington was first just a boom-or-bust fantasy player in my eyes, but he's been amazingly consistent of late, with at least 90 yards receiving and a touchdown in three of his past four games. Facing a Cardinals passing defense that is the worst in the NFL, he's set for a monster game on Sunday.

WR: Zach Pascal, $5,500

With T.Y. Hilton out due to injury, Zach Pascal is one of the most dynamic weapons left in the Colts receiving corps. Last week he got a season-high 10 targets from Jacoby Brissett, and this week he's facing a Buccaneers defense that has given up more passing yards than any team besides the Cardinals.

WR: A.J. Brown, $5,300

A.J. Brown is more of a high-risk, high-reward pick for fantasy players this week, but if you think the Titans are gearing up for a shootout in Oakland, he only needs one big play for you to be thankful he's in your lineup.

TE: Jack Doyle, $4,600

With fellow Colts tight end Eric Ebron out for the year, Jack Doyle is a great play for daily fantasy players this week. Doyle got 11 targets last week and finished with six receptions, 79 yards, and a score.

DEF: Tampa Bay Buccaneers, $2,300

While we've hyped a few Colts players in this column, touting the passing yards the Buccaneers defense has allowed this season, in daily fantasy, they're still a solid play at their cheap price point.

The Buccaneers defense has averaged nearly 20 points per game over the past two weeks, with 11 sacks, three picks, and two touchdowns over that span.

Now check out our best bets for Week 14 of the NFL season...

NFL WEEK 14: Our official predictions for who wins this weekend

• Some holiday movies are beloved by critics but others have been ripped to shreds.
• Classics like "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (1967) and "Meet Me in St. Louis" (1944) have a perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes. 
• Other holiday-centric movies like "All I Want for Christmas" (1991) and "Christmas Eve" (2015) fill the bottom of the barrel with a 0% critical rating. 
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Every year during the holiday season, friends and family gather around the television to watch holiday classics.

And although some films continue to top critics' lists as holiday favorites, other movies may be better left unwatched.

Here are the 15 of the best and 15 of the worst holiday movies of all time, according to critics. 

Note: All scores were current on the date of publication and are subject to change.

Critics said "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (1967) has remained a classic for a reason.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%

Summary: Based on the children's book by Dr. Seuss, "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" tells the story of a cold-hearted Grinch (voiced by Boris Karloff) who grows to love Christmas and the local Whos from Whoville that live beneath his twisty mountain. 

Critics said the wonderfully animated film never failed to melt hearts, no matter how many times it was viewed. 

As IndieWire critic Jamie Righetti wrote: "The story might be familiar, but watching The Grinch tiptoe around to 'You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch' always brings a surge of fuzzy nostalgia every Christmas season that never seems to get old."

"Meet Me in St. Louis" (1944) was called warm and delightful.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%

Summary: The musical family film "Meet Me in St. Louis" centers around four sisters (Judy Garland, Lucille Bremer, Joan Carroll, and Margaret O' Brien) throughout the four seasons leading up to the World's Fair of 1904. 

Film critics adored the holiday musical for its strong female performances and irresistible charm.  

Classic Film and Television critic Michael E. Grost wrote that the musical "mixes feminism with joyous color, music and composition."

Critics described "Holiday Inn" (1942) as merry and magnetic.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%

Summary: In the musical drama "Holiday Inn," performing partners Jim (Bing Crosby) and Lila (Virginia Dale) find themselves entangled in a love affair with Ted (Fred Astaire) and Linda (Marjorie Reynolds) as they run a hotel that doubles as a performance venue. 

Critics celebrated "Holiday Inn" for its festive charm and magnetic performances. 

"Loaded with a wealth of songs, it's meaty, not too kaleidoscopic and yet closely knit for a compact 100 minutes of tiptop film-musical entertainment," wrote the Variety in their staff review for the film. 

"Remember the Night" (1940) was hailed as a stylistic tale of redemption.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%

Summary: In the romance drama "Remember the Night," Lee Leander (Barbara Stanwyck) is caught stealing a diamond bracelet on Christmas Eve and is left to sit the holidays out in jail until her attorney (Fred MacMurray) welcomes her into his family's home. 

"Remember the Night" was commended by critics for its smart script and dazzling directorial style. 

"Playing superbly on the personae of his leads, Leisen creates a movie of warmth and immense style, which never quite trips over into excessive sentimentality," film critic Geoff Andrew wrote for Time Out. 

Critics called "The Shop Around the Corner" (1940) sweet and satisfying.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 100%

Summary: In the romantic comedy "The Shop Around the Corner," Alfred Kralik (James Stewart) and his new hire Klara Novak (Margaret Sullavan) are at each other's throats from the moment they meet, unaware that they have been writing love letters to one another.  

Dave Kehr wrote for the Chicago Reader: "This 1940 film is one of Ernst Lubitsch's finest and most enduring works, a romantic comedy of dazzling range."

"Tangerine" (2015) was praised as a unique and inventive drama.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 96%

Summary: Set on Christmas Eve, "Tangerine" follows working girl Sin-Dee Rella (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) as she strikes out through Tinseltown to confront her cheating boyfriend and pimp Chester (James Ransone). 

Critics praised the independent drama for breaking new ground in its genre and handling its subject matter with humor and intelligence. 

"It radiates a candour, immediacy and tongue-scalding sex appeal that a bigger budget would have only smothered,"Robbie Collin wrote for The Telegraph. 

"Miracle on 34th Street" (1947) remains a favorite with critics for its whimsy and heart.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 96%

Summary:  In the treasured holiday film "Miracle on 34th Street," Macy's supervisor Doris Walker (Maureen O'Hara) hires Kris Kringle (Edmund Gwenn) on as the new department Santa and is surprised when she learns that he genuinely believes himself to be the real Saint Nick. 

"Miracle on 34th Street" has been a critical favorite for decades due to its irresistible whimsy and warmth. 

"It is light, it is charming, it is delightfully funny and completely captivating,"Kate Cameron wrote in her review for the New York Daily News. "It is all that, and something more."

"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer" (1964) is a top-tier stop-motion classic for many critics.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 95%

Summary: A reindeer named Rudolph (voiced by Billie Mae Richards) feels sidelined by other reindeer at the North Pole when he's turned away because of his glowing, red nose. Determined to find a place where he belongs, Rudolph and his friends set out in search of the Island of Misfit Toys. 

The oft-repeated children's story found a new life as a stop-motion Christmas special and has remained a staple during the holiday season ever since. 

"Rudolph set the template for dozens of specials to come, from the theme of acceptance to celebrity narrators and original songs, but few ever matched the captivating high of the godfather of Christmas specials," wrote Ryan Voyles in his review for Paste magazine. 

Although technically a Halloween film, "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993) is a holiday favorite for critics who love its unconventional story and dazzling design.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 95%

Summary: Jack Skellington (voiced by Chris Sarandon) has long reigned as the Pumpkin King of Halloweenland and is satisfied by another successful year of spooks and scares. But when he accidentally discovers a portal to nearby Christmastown, Jack Skellington tries to bring a bit of festive cheer into his own world. 

When "The Nightmare Before Christmas" was first released in 1993 it blew critics' away with its production value and undeniable, oddball charm. 

"Part avant-garde art film, part amusing but morbid fairy tale, it is a delightfully ghoulish holiday musical that displays more inventiveness in its brief 75 minutes than some studios can manage in an entire year,"Kenneth Turan wrote for the Los Angeles Times. 

"The Apartment" (1960) is still hailed as a classic comedy by critics.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 94%

Summary: "The Apartment" is a classic comedy in which office worker C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) discovers that he and his ruthless boss (Fred MacMurray) are dating the same woman (Shirley MacLaine) during the Holiday season. 

Critics praised the directorial vision of Billy Wilder and the chemistry between leads Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon. 

As critic Shaun Munro wrote for What Culture, "Even over a half-century on, 'The Apartment' remains a biting classic due to its modern romantic sensibilities and Lemmon's commanding, thoroughly charming central performance."

"Carol" (2015) stunned critics with its rich, emotional storytelling.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 94%

Summary: Based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith, "Carol" is a romantic drama about the powerful connection shared between Therese (Rooney Mara), a department store employee, and beautiful Manhattanite Carol (Cate Blanchett). 

An unconventional Christmas film centered around love, class, and identity, "Carol" has received a lot of love from critics. 

"It's a joy to see female characters written with such depth and played so achingly well by actors at the top of their game," wrote Di Golding in her review for Dear Cast and Crew. 

"It's a Wonderful Life" (1946) has gone on to become a cherished Christmas classic.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 94%

Summary: When good-hearted George Bailey (James Stewart) faces arrest and financial ruin for operating a small bank that's on the edge of collapse, he feels he has nowhere to turn. Thankfully, an angel appears in his darkest hour to remind him of the goodwill he's spread throughout his life. 

Although "It's a Wonderful Life" was not initially popular upon its first release, the film has become a treasured film in decades since. 

"By now everyone knows Frank Capra's holiday classic and the tears it so effortlessly conjures up year after year — but it's easy to forget how truly vicious the film is, and how brilliantly James Stewart rises to the challenge," wrote Jeffrey M. Anderson for Combustible Celluloid. 

Critics think "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (1965) is a wholesome and charming classic.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 94%

Summary: In the animated television special "A Charlie Brown Christmas," Charlie Brown and the entire Peanuts crew gather together to put on a festive Christmas play, but first they have to find the perfect Christmas tree. 

Short and sweet, "A Charlie Brown Christmas" has become an annual, must-watch movie for critics and audiences alike. 

"The special ends on a joyous note, and the lo-fi charms of its non-professional voice cast and simple-yet-expressive animation retain a pleasantly transportive power," wrote the staff of the AV Club. 

Critics say "Die Hard" (1988) still influences action films today.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 93%

Summary: In the action film "Die Hard," Detective John McClane (Bruce Willis) flies to Los Angeles to attend his wife's work Christmas party, but shortly after he arrives a group of terrorists overtake the office building. McClane then works to keep the hostages safe. 

Although the internet has often debated "Die Hard's" place in the Christmas genre, critics can agree that it delivers a solid action-packed plot with compelling characters. 

"What sets 'Die Hard' apart from most action movies is the depth of characterization," wrote Marylynn Uricchio for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "[Detective John] McClane is not a macho toy with a bullet-proof body. He is a thinking, feeling man who can't believe he's doing most of what he does."

"About a Boy" (2002) earned rave reviews from critics for its moving story and smart script.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 93%

Summary: In "About a Boy," playboy bachelor Will (Hugh Grant) seeks out emotionally-detached relationships with single mothers until he unexpectedly befriends the son (Nicholas Hoult) of one of his dates (Toni Collette). As Will grows closer to young Marcus, he finds his outlook on life and love changing for the better. 

"About a Boy" tells its story across two holiday seasons and it won critics over with its moving character development and talented cast. 

"'About a Boy' is better than a feel-good movie, it's a feel-great movie," wrote Joe Morgenstern for the Wall Street Journal. "Genuinely clever, affecting when you least expect it to be and funny from start to finish."

Alternatively, critics found "Jack Frost" (1998) to be cloying and nonsensical.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 19%

Summary: Traveling blues musician Jack Frost (Michael Keaton) never makes time for his family, but he's given a second chance to reconnect with his son when a bizarre car accident causes him to be reanimated as a snowman. 

Critics dragged the family film "Jack Frost" for its predictable plot and overly sentimental script. 

Bob Fenster summed the movie up simply in his review for the Arizona Republic: "No story, not enough humor, a silly setup, and a guy in the snowman suit who looks like he didn't make the first cut at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade."

"Love the Coopers" (2015) did not earn a lot of love from critics.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 18%

Summary: The family comedy "Love the Coopers" tells the story of four generations of the Cooper family as they gather together for the holidays with bickering parents Sam (John Goodman) and Charlotte (Diane Keaton). 

Critics collectively shook their heads at "Love the Coopers," questioning how such a talented cast could be dragged into such a contrived comedy.

"The biggest disappointment is the waste of such an excellent cast," wrote Independent critic Geoffrey Macnab. "This is terminally treacly fare in which the writing is often very trite indeed."

Critics said "The Perfect Holiday" (2007) was far from perfect.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 17%

Summary: In the family comedy "The Perfect Holiday," the young daughter of single mother Nancy (Gabrielle Union) asks a mall Santa (Morris Chestnut) to give her mom a new husband for the holidays. 

Despite the undeniable efforts put forth by the film's stars, "The Perfect Holiday" was not a perfect fit for critics, with some even calling it unwatchable. 

"'The Perfect Holiday' makes the safest, blandest choices possible in delivering some Christmas cheer for the whole family," wrote Scott Tobias for AV Club. 

"The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause" (2006) was ripped apart by critics.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 17%

Summary: In the third installment of "The Santa Clause" franchise, Santa Claus (Tim Allen) finds his usual Christmas festivities rudely interrupted by mischievous visitor Jack Frost (Martin Short), who hopes to take over the holiday for himself. 

Critics said that the oversaturated "The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause" barely counts as entertainment for children, let alone for the parents who dare watch the film with them. 

"Christmas cheer is in short supply in The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, a feeble festive farce that's more no-no-no than ho-ho-ho,"wrote film critic Neil Smith for the BBC. 

"Black Christmas" (2006) horrified critics with its terrible script and ill-conceived plot.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 15%

Summary: In the dark horror thriller "Black Christmas," six sorority sisters take up residence in a house that was once the site of a brutal double murder years prior. As the girls are harassed by a mysterious caller and picked off one by one, they try to arm themselves against the intimidating murderer.

Critics said that "Black Christmas" suffered from a poorly thought out plot, weak characters, and a witless script. 

"As yuletide counterprogramming goes, here's one smelly lump of coal," wrote Michael Rechtshaffen in his review for The Hollywood Reporter. 

"Jingle All the Way" (1997) assaulted the senses of even the most lenient of film critics.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 15%

Summary: Desperate to please his son (Jake Lloyd) during the holidays, workaholic father Howard Langston (Arnold Schwarzenegger) goes to great lengths to procure the perfect Christmas gift: a Turbo Man action figure. 

The loud, raucous film was criticized by film reviewers for its overstuffed plot and cartoonish violence. 

The Telegraph critic Anne Billson described the film as "very loud and festooned with the sort of comic violence far more disturbing than anything in an 18-rated movie."

Critics felt that "A Merry Friggin' Christmas" (2014) did its lead actors a disservice.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 14%

Summary: In "A Merry Friggin' Christmas," Boyd Mitchler (Joel McHale) is dreading spending Christmas with his estranged father Mitch Mitchler (Robin Williams), especially when a last-minute road trip forces them to spend the holidays in close quarters. 

Critics heralded the efforts of the cast, with particular praise given to McHale and Williams, but picked apart about everything else in the humorless comedy. 

"The makers of 'A Merry Friggin' Christma' sprung for the fancy wrapping but skimped on the gift inside," wrote Geoff Berkshire for Variety. "How else to explain the gathering of such a talented and likable cast in service of such undercooked, utterly laugh-free material?"

Critics found "An American Carol" (2008) to be deeply unfunny.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 13%

Summary: The classic "A Christmas Carol" story is parodied in the David Zucker comedy "An American Carol," with Kevin Farley playing a disillusioned documentarian who is visited by the ghosts of America's past, present, and future. 

Critics panned the parody as a film that was so actively unfunny that it was difficult to consider it a comedy at all. 

"It's a polemic, a screed, a combination comic rant and sentimental flag-waver that doesn't work as either," wrote Roger Moore in his review for the Orlando Sentinel. 

"Mixed Nuts" (1994) was slammed by critics for being absolutely absurd.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 10%

Summary: In Nora Ephron's dark comedy "Mixed Nuts," crisis-helpline operator Philip (Steve Martin) celebrates a less-than-cheery Christmas season as he realizes his crisis operation is facing eviction. 

Critics described the comedic misfire as excruciating and even exhausting. 

"Every character shines with such dazzling intensity and such inexhaustible comic invention that the movie becomes tiresome, like too many clowns," wrote Roger Ebert for the Chicago Sun-Times. 

Critical reception was low across the board for "Surviving Christmas" (2004).

Rotten Tomatoes score: 7%

Summary: In "Surviving Christmas," Drew Latham (Ben Affleck) travels back to his childhood home to spend Christmas with his family, not realizing that his folks have long since moved away. In a desperate attempt to surround himself with company during the holidays, Drew pays total strangers to pretend to be his family. 

Critics warned audience members away from watching "Surviving Christmas," calling it a joyless affair. 

"The movie is dead from the outset given the artificiality of the premise about a lonely rich guy who hires the folks living in his boyhood home to be his family for the holidays," wrote David Germain for the Associated Press. 

"Deck the Halls" (2006) was difficult for critics to enjoy.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 6%

Summary: In the comedy "Deck the Halls," two warring neighbors — Steve Finch (Matthew Broderick) and Buddy Hall (Danny DeVito) — compete with each other over who can create the most outrageous, extravagant lights display during the Christmas season. 

Critics called the comedy "Deck the Halls" over-the-top and too corny to be taken seriously.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones compared it to other poorly received comedies, writing, "This one follows the depressing pattern of 'Surviving Christmas' and 'Christmas With the Kranks:' enforced holiday cheer gives way to bilious hatred, then hollow forgiveness."

Critics said "Christmas With the Kranks" (2004) was too mean-spirited for its own good.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 5%

Summary: When their dutiful daughter tells them that she won't be home in time for Christmas, Luther (Tim Allen) and Nora Krank (Jamie Lee Curtis) decide to plan a getaway vacation on a Caribbean cruise. But when their daughter announces she's coming home last minute, the Kranks have to scramble to put together the picture-perfect Christmas. 

Critics accused "Christmas With the Kranks" of running audience members through the wringer with the overstuffed comedy. 

As Stephanie Zacarek wrote for Salon, "Purports to kindle the warm glow of love for humankind in our hearts but actually reaffirms that the trappings of the holiday season are all that really matter."

"Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas" (2014) seemingly couldn't save itself from poor reception.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 0%

Summary: Worried that Christmas has become over-commercialized and that his folks have lost focus of Jesus Christ's place in the yuletide cheer, Kirk Cameron takes it upon himself to inform his friends and family about the real reason for the season.  

"Kirk Cameron's Saving Christmas" was panned as unenjoyable and difficult to watch by film critics.

"Perhaps the only Christmas movie I can think of, especially of the religious-themed variety, that seems to flat-out endorse materialism, greed and outright gluttony," wrote Roger Ebert critic Peter Sobczynski.

Critics said "Christmas Eve" (2015) lacked Christmas spirit.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 0%

Summary: In the comedy "Christmas Eve," an unexpected power outage traps six separate groups of New Yorkers in different elevators on the night before Christmas, forcing them to get to know each other under undesirable circumstances. 

Critics said that "Christmas Eve" suffered from underdeveloped characters and a lack of meaningful material. 

Los Angeles Times critic Martin Tasi wrote: "Who knew a movie seemingly meant to spread holiday cheer could be so off-putting in an almost sadistic way?"

Critics felt that "All I Want for Christmas" (1991) was a humorless ride.

Rotten Tomatoes score: 0%

Summary: After asking a mall Santa to help their divorced parents fall in love again, two young children scheme to keep their mother's new boyfriend from stepping into the picture in the family comedy "All I Want for Christmas." 

The slapstick-filled film was derided as unfunny and overhanded in critical reviews. 

"When it comes to yuletide cheer, 'All I Want for Christmas' ranks just under dead reindeer on the roof,"Rita Kempley wrote for the Washington Post. 

Read More:

• 11 surprising things you probably didn't know about 'Love Actually'
• 10 actors who have played Santa Claus in movies
• 16 stars you probably didn't know had Christmas songs and albums

• Sonder is an apartment-rental company that claims to combine the best parts of a hotel and a private home.
• It's one of several new hybrid companies like Lyric and Blueground that combine elements of hotels and apartment rentals.
• Unlike Airbnb, which is mainly made up of individuals renting out their homes, Sonder leases and manages its own rentals, which are licensed as hotels.
• Sonder has 9,000 properties in cities including New York, Chicago, Washington DC, San Diego, Austin, Miami, New Orleans, London, and Dubai.
• I recently stayed in a Sonder apartment in New York City, and the way it combined aspects of an apartment with hotel-like cleanliness and amenities made it an enjoyable and comfortable stay.
• But I also found that in order to take full advantage of a Sonder, you probably need more than one night to stay there.
• Editorial Note: Business Insider paid a discounted media rate for one night's stay in a Sonder apartment.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

In my travels — both personal and for work — I've stayed in countless Airbnbs and hotels.

I tend to prefer Airbnbs for their homeyness and often find that they have better value, but I've also encountered unwelcome surprises including unreachable hosts, strange odors, and in one case, an unbelievably loud cat whose meowing kept me up all night.

On the other hand, I often find staying in hotels to feel somewhat soulless and depressing, and I don't like not having access to a kitchen.

Enter Sonder. The apartment rental company, which has a valuation of more than $1 billion, claims to offer the best parts of a home and a hotel. 

Sonder has 9,000 rental properties in 26 cities including New York, Chicago, Washington DC, San Diego, Austin, Miami, New Orleans, London, and Dubai. In contrast to Airbnb, which is mainly made up of individual owners listing their homes and apartments, Sonder leases, designs, furnishes, and manages its apartments.

Most of Sonder's units are hotel-licensed, meaning they must comply with hotel safety codes and pay hotel taxes, according to a spokesperson for the brand.

On a recent November evening, I spent the night at a Sonder apartment in New York City to see what it was all about. Here's what it was like. 

SEE ALSO: How to book an apartment on Sonder, the $1 billion company that combines hotel service with the feel of a private home

DON'T MISS: Airbnb-style company Sonder just became a unicorn with backing from a billionaire hotel family

Sonder is an apartment-rental company that claims to combine the best parts of a hotel and a home.

Sonder has 9,000 properties in 26 cities including New York, Chicago, Washington DC, San Diego, Austin, Miami, New Orleans, London, and Dubai.

Most of Sonder's units are hotel-licensed, meaning they must comply with hotel safety codes and pay hotel taxes, a spokesperson for the brand told me. But unlike a hotel, the apartments come with full kitchens and separate bedrooms and living areas.

Sonder is one of several new hybrid companies like Lyric and Blueground that combine elements of hotels and Airbnbs. It's what's called a "unicorn:" a startup that's valued at more than $1 billion.

I booked a Sonder apartment on Broad Street in Manhattan's Financial District.

The building, which is right next to the New York Stock Exchange, was less than a 10-minute walk from my office.

After I booked, I received a confirmation email telling me that when I entered the building, the concierge would be inside. What wasn't clear was whether that concierge would be a person or some sort of digital system.

20 Broad Street, where I booked my Sonder, is a 29-story luxury rental building.

The building has 533 units, according to StreetEasy, 179 of which are leased and operated by Sonder. 

Sonder's units at 20 Broad, which span floors two through 12, are all hotel-licensed, a spokesperson for the brand told me.

I arrived at about 6:15 on a November evening.

It was already dark outside, but 20 Broad Street's lobby was brightly lit and decorated for the holidays.

I told the person at the reception desk that I was here to check in to a Sonder rental, and he directed me toward a concierge near the back of the lobby.

I passed by the main set of elevators, which is used by residents and their guests only — not by Sonder users.

The Sonder concierge — who turned out to be a person after all, not a machine — checked my name on a list. He also checked the IDs of both myself and my companion.

Apparently, the Sonder concierge can be both digital and human: Sonder has a local team in each city to service their properties and provide concierge services. But at some properties, guests check in with their smartphones and access the unit via a lockbox or an access code.

At 20 Broad Street, Sonder has its own dedicated set of elevators for guests.

The building has eight floors of contiguous Sonder units.

Sonder guests also have access to amenities including a lounge, a luggage storage room, an essentials closet stocked with things like extra toiletries and towels, a theater room, and a co-working space.

Guests can also use the New York Sports Club gym next door at 30 Broad Street.

My Sonder apartment was on the fifth floor. I didn't see or hear anybody else around when I stepped out of the elevators.

The fact that Sonder apartments have their own designated elevators (at least at 20 Broad Street) seemed to be a huge step up from Airbnb listings in apartment buildings, which can be a nightmare for permanent residents who have to deal with the noise and inconvenience of strangers constantly coming and going with their luggage.

The apartment was just diagonal from the elevators.

Access to my Sonder apartment was keyless. I entered the code that had been provided to me on the Sonder app.

My first impression upon stepping into the apartment was surprise at how big it was.

Looking down the long hallway, I could see a sliver of the living room. The bedrooms were to the right. 

A handwritten note attached to the wall right by the door read: "Welcome home."

It also offered suggestions for coffee shops and bars in the neighborhood.

The phone number for the concierge, which Sonder says you can call or text 24/7, was also written down. Fortunately, I didn't have any reason to use it during my stay.

The first bedroom came with a king-size bed.

The décor was chic but minimal, with only black-and-white bedding, a gray patterned rug, two gold-toned side tables, wall sconces, and a couple of graphic art prints.

I stayed in this bed, and it was one of the more comfortable beds I've ever slept in, with squashy pillows and a firm yet supportive mattress.

Notably, what the room did not have was a window. While some people might not like the lack of windows in the bedroom, the complete darkness helped me sleep more deeply than I usually do.

The other bedroom seemed to be slightly larger, but with a queen-size bed.

Neither of the bedrooms came with windows or closets.

There were two spacious closets in the hallway with built-in shelving, hangers, and luggage stands.

The bathroom was the part of the apartment that reminded me the most of a hotel.

It was all-white and spotlessly clean, with plenty of towels and provided toiletries.

In a drawer underneath the sink, there were extra towels and toilet paper, as well as a hairdryer.

The bathroom was stocked with Jonathan Adler toiletries.

The living area was spacious for New York City. The modern furnishings included a sofa and coffee table, an armchair, a TV, and a small dining nook.

The sofa pulled out into a bed, which meant this apartment could sleep up to six people.

Extra sheets, pillows, and a duvet were stowed in one of the closets.

Sonder apartments come with fully equipped kitchens.

There were cooking essentials like olive oil, salt, and pepper.

The kitchen seemed to have all the basics you'd need for cooking, from pots and pans, baking trays, a colander, and a cheese grater ...

... to cooking utensils like a spatula, tongs, a ladle, and measuring cups.

There were also bowls and plates, coffee mugs, tumblers, and stemless wine glasses.

There was even a Bosch dishwasher, a coveted amenity in New York apartments.

A coffee station came stocked with coffee and creamer, as well as various types of teas.

As someone who requires coffee first thing in the morning, I really appreciated this part — and the coffee was much better than most hotel coffee I've tasted.  

On the kitchen counter was a welcome packet with detailed instructions on how to use the TV, appliances, and sofa bed, as well as how to adjust the thermostat.

There were also two Mast Brothers chocolate bars, which were once made in Brooklyn but are now made in Westchester County, north of New York City.

I was pleasantly surprised that the kitchen was stocked with everything I could think of needing for cooking and cleaning up, including paper towels, dish soap, and a sponge.

Under the sink was a dish rack, extra paper towels and garbage bags, and dishwasher tablets.

And there was plenty of space in the fridge to store groceries.

As someone who can get sick of constantly eating out while traveling, the fully equipped kitchen was a huge plus for me.

One of the best parts of the apartment — especially if you're staying a while — is the washer and dryer.

Laundry detergent tablets were also provided.

Once I'd checked out the apartment, I headed down to the fourth-floor lounge, which was hard to miss, thanks to the huge, illuminated Sonder sign.

A small sign on the desk read, "We had to step out," insinuating that there's usually a Sonder employee at the desk.

The lounge was clearly designed to look like someone's cozy living room.

There was a long conference table as well as squashy leather armchairs set up in a circle.

A bathroom was attached to the lounge.

Also on the fourth floor was the essentials closet, which guests can visit to grab anything from extra laundry pods, toilet paper, and towels, to mini bottles of olive oil.

Sonders aren't cleaned and re-stocked every day like hotel rooms, but this seemed like a straightforward and easy way to let guests grab whatever they need, whenever they need it. Everything in the essentials closet was free of charge.

On the sixth floor of my Sonder building was a game room, which featured a large leather wraparound couch and a sleek wooden ping pong table.

There were even a couple of arcade games tucked away in the corner.

On the eighth floor was the theater room.

It looked like the two rows of leather seating could easily fit ten people. 

The coworking space on the ninth floor had an assortment of work areas.

I could use myself using amenities like the coworking space if I were staying longer, but during my Sonder stay, I really just wanted to hang out in the apartment.

Overall, my night in the Sonder apartment was enjoyable and comfortable. I only wished I would've had more time to make use of the kitchen and the amenities.

I didn't feel like I was sleeping in someone's home, but I didn't feel like I was sleeping in a characterless hotel, either.

The big thing I'd do differently next time is stay for longer than one night. Due to my short stay, I didn't get to take full advantage of the best parts of Sonder such as the washer and dryer, the kitchen, and the shared amenities.

Sonder apartments seem ideal for groups and families who are staying for longer than just a night or two. Some of its units have two-night minimum stays, but a publicist told me they're currently experimenting with different minimum stay approaches to find the best fit for guests. 

The total cost — which would come to a little over $400 without my media discount — was really not bad for a night in New York City, considering the apartment can sleep six people. Included in that $400 charge is a $100 cleaning fee, which is steep for a single-night's stay, but feels more reasonable if you've stayed for multiple nights.

For comparison, the average Manhattan hotel charged about $258 per night in the third quarter of 2019, according to PwC's Manhattan Lodging Index — and that may only sleep two people and typically won't include a kitchen.

Sonder claims to offer guests "the best parts of home and hotel"— and I actually think they're onto something.

• Long-time International Brotherhood of Teamsters boss, James "Jimmy" Hoffa, went missing in 1975. 
• While theories surrounding his disappearance are still circulating today, the case has been described as one of America's greatest unsolved mysteries.
• Martin Scorsese's "The Irishman" starring Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci, among many other legendary actors, is a fictionalized account of Hoffa's disappearance from the point of view of Mafia hitman Frank Sheeran. 
• The film is based on a book by ‎Charles Brandt, "I Heard You Paint Houses," which details interviews and confessions that Sheeran once reportedly made to Brandt before he died. 
• Scorsese and De Niro have both said the film isn't necessarily a true representation of Sheeran — rather it's about a character they built together based on Sheeran.
• Here's what we know so far about the real-life Jimmy Hoffa and the ongoing investigation into his disappearance. 
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. 

SEE ALSO: What the life of Judy Garland was really like, from her dramatic childhood rise to fame to her tragic death

DON'T MISS: Inside the 1966 Aberfan Disaster, one of Britain's most tragic mining disasters, where a collapsing mountain of coal waste killed 116 school children

James "Jimmy" Hoffa was last seen on July 30, 1975, at the Machus Red Fox Restaurant near Bloomfield Township, Michigan, just 25 miles from Detroit. The next day, he was reported as a missing person. Seven years later, in 1982, he was declared "presumed dead."

Source: Encyclopædia Britannica, History

Jimmy was a long-time leader of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, "North America's strongest and most diverse labor union," according to the organization itself.

Source: International Brotherhood of Teamsters

While the union has been known for supporting truckers across America ...

Source: History

... it also became known for its ties to organized crime and the Mafia specifically.

Source: History, The New York Times

The mob ties and mysterious disappearance of Hoffa are the basis of the Martin Scorsese-directed Netflix film "The Irishman."

Source: Netflix

The story is an adaptation of the book "I Heard You Paint Houses"— Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran's account of his involvement with the Mafia, the Bufalino crime family, and Hoffa's death.

Source: Netflix, Esquire

Although Sheeran claims to have shot his long-time friend, Hoffa, on orders from the Bufalino family, he's reportedly one of 14 people who've taken responsibility for Hoffa's disappearance over the years.

Source: Newsweek, Esquire

The film depicts Sheeran as the last surviving member of his mafia generation. It tells the story of his involvement, and his relationship with Hoffa, from his own point of view, which is why historians and critics are skeptical of how accurate this portrayed confession really is.

Source: Esquire, Newsweek, USA Today

While the confession and description of how Sheeran killed Hoffa and what he did with Hoffa's body is skepticized to this day, the reason why Hoffa was targeted in the first place is not, and it goes back to the election of John F. Kennedy into the White House.

Source: USA Today

Hoffa served as the Teamsters president from 1957 through 1967. During that time, JFK was elected President of the United States. The president appointed his brother, Robert Kennedy, Attorney General.

Source: History, Biography, JFK Library, Washington Post

Robert and Hoffa had a long-standing and well-documented feud. Kennedy's then-new position as Attorney General allowed the two to face-off even more intensely than before.

Source: Washington Post

Although Bobby was no longer Attorney General following the assassination of his brother, Hoffa was still facing other charges and trials, particularly in Nashville.

Source: Tennessean, Washington Post

Eventually, Hoffa was sentenced to 13 years in prison under multiple convictions including jury tampering, fraud, and racketeering.

Source: History, Biography

Hoffa was sent to Lewisburg Federal Prison in Pennsylvania.

Source: Biography, USA Today

While he was in prison, Hoffa's vice president Frank "Fitz" Fitzsimmons stepped in.

Source: Biography, USA Today

Hoffa was released from prison after almost five years on probation granted by the Nixon Administration. The administration changed his sentence from 13 years to 6 and a half years, and Hoffa would serve the then-remaining year and a half under probation.

Source: The New York Times

"The Irishman" emphasizes that Hoffa wanted to relax with his wife when he left Lewisburg, but not that he became known as a prison reform activist as well.

Source: The Harvard Crimson, The New York Times, Getty Images

The part of his post-prison life the film focuses on — and the part arguably most important to his disappearance — is that he wanted to reclaim his place on top of the Teamsters union. But, in Hoffa's absence, mobsters reportedly had formed a successful relationship with Fitz that they didn't want to change.

Source: USA Today, The Harvard Crimson

It's believed by historians that Mafia members wanted to continue working with Fitz. The theory continues on to say that Hoffa had too much information on the Mafia and its involvement with the Teamsters, and they wanted him dead so he couldn't reveal what he knew.

Source: USA Today, USA Today

When police started to investigate Hoffa's disappearance, they found his car at the restaurant where he reportedly had a lunch planned with Anthony "Tony Pro" Provenzano of New Jersey and Anthony "Tony Jack" Giacalone of Detroit.

Source: Encyclopædia Britannica, History, USA Today

"The Irishman" has been reviewed as "great filmmaking, but bad history," by author Dan Moldea who has been researching Hoffa for more than four decades. Other historians and critics say the same.

Source: USA Today

As a loose reiteration of Sheeran's account of what happened, the film hints at the cremation of Hoffa's body. However, historians like Moldea think it's possible that his body was shoved into a waste drum and buried in a New Jersey Landfill.

Source: USA Today, USA Today

No one really knows what happened to Jimmy, and some people including members of Hoffa's family and investigative reporter Scott Burnstein think we never will.

Source: USA Today

But with the resurgence of the story and persistence of investigators, other people including Moldea are hopeful that the truth will come out soon.

Source: USA Today, USA Today

• Netflix released a number of original thrillers this year, but not all of them have been a hit with critics.
• Critics enjoyed haunting flicks like "I Am Mother" and "The Perfection."
• On the other hand, they widely panned thrillers like "Polar" and "The Red Sea Diving Resort."
• Visit Insider's homepage for more.

Netflix released a limited amount of original thrillers this year, and they've received mixed reviews across the board.

Here are some of the best and worst Netflix original thrillers of the year, according to critic scores on Rotten Tomatoes. 

Note: The scores listed throughout the piece were accurate at the time of publication but are subject to change.

"I Am Mother" impressed critics with its unique premise.

Rotten Tomatoes rating:90% 

Starring: Hilary Swank, Clara Rugaard, Rose Byrne

As critic Brad Newsome wrote for The Sydney Morning Herald, "An intriguing premise, fine performances and a string of startling reveals that just keeps on coming make this Australian sci-fi film a real winner — and a must-watch for the Black Mirror set."

"The Perfection" was called seductive yet disturbing by critics.

Rotten Tomatoes rating:73%

Starring: Allison Williams, Alaina Huffman, Steven Weber, Logan Browning

As critic Katie Rife wrote for the AV Club, "The Perfection takes deep, fetishistic satisfaction in pushing the envelope, then pushing it some more, building in seductive fits and shocking starts to an orgiastic frenzy of cinematic excess."

The heist-focused thriller "Triple Frontier" was praised for being loaded with action.

Rotten Tomatoes rating:72%

Starring: Ben Affleck, Oscar Isaac, Charlie Hunnam

"Triple Frontier makes a decent stab at looking beyond the usual ambitions of the genre. There's thought behind all this gun-toting," wrote critic Clarisse Loughrey for The Independent.

The thriller "Velvet Buzzsaw" featured a number of familiar faces.

Rotten Tomatoes rating:63%

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, John Malkovich, Billy Magnussen, Toni Collette, Natalia Dyer, Rene Russo

As Cosmopolitan's entertainment editor Emily Tannenbaum wrote, "Is director Dan Gilroy trying to catch us in our own shallow consumption? ... Frankly, if this is the case then thank you. I'll take it."

"Fractured" is a mystery thriller that most critics enjoyed.

Rotten Tomatoes rating:62%

Starring: Lily Rabe, Sam Worthington, Stephen Tobolowsky

"When I wasn't busying myself making an internal checklist of films I was reminded of, I was happily playing armchair detective, curious enough to engage with the pieces I was given,"  wrote critic Benjamin Lee for The Guardian.

On the other hand, the horror-thriller "In the Tall Grass" didn't spook most critics.

Rotten Tomatoes rating:37%

Starring: Patrick Wilson, Laysla De Oliveira, Harrison Gilbertson

As critic Noel Murray wrote for the Los Angeles Times, "'In the Tall Grass' runs too long and repeats itself too much to be as gripping as its source material. Turns out there's a limit to how scary weeds can be."

"Secret Obsession" is a thriller that left critics wanting more suspense.

Rotten Tomatoes rating: 31% 

Starring: Brenda Song, Mike Vogel, Dennis Haysbert

As critic Linda Holmes wrote for NPR, "This is a pretty bad movie, but it seems to be bad in the way it's meant to be bad. It's cheerfully trashy, and if that's up your alley, have at it."

"The Silence" couldn't be saved by a star-studded cast.

Rotten Tomatoes rating: 30%

Starring: Stanley Tucci, Kiernan Shipka, Miranda Otto, John Corbett

As critic Brian Tallerico wrote for RogerEbert.com, "Even the always-welcome Stanley Tucci can't add any flair to a movie that feels so much like a relative of John Krasinski's 2018 smash hit ['A Quiet Place']."

The spy thriller "The Red Sea Diving Resort" didn't receive high marks.

Rotten Tomatoes rating:30%

Starring: Chris Evans, Michael Kenneth Williams, Haley Bennett

As Mark Kennedy wrote for the Associated Press, "A large part of the problem is the casting of Chris Evans as the leader of the Israeli spy ring that set up the hotel. He is most known for playing Captain America and seems not to have put aside his shield for this film."

"Polar" is a thriller that fell flat for most critics.

Rotten Tomatoes rating:20%

Starring: Mads Mikkelsen, Vanessa Hudgens, Katheryn Winnick, Matt Lucas

"Polar is pure trash, but the generousness — and, in the final stretch, the poignancy — with which Mikkelsen approaches even the most lurid of the film's conceits at least pushes it toward the top of the garbage heap,"wrote Keith Uhlich for The Hollywood Reporter.

Read More:

• 30 of the most popular movies of the year, ranked from worst to best
• 13 of the best and 13 of the worst movies of the decade, according to audiences
• 9 of the best and 9 of the worst TV shows that came out this year
•  

• The Dubai Mall is one of the biggest shopping centers in the world.
• I found that I couldn't get to grips with it even after two different visits over two separate days, and even when I used the mall's own app to navigate.
• But I did find that it was filled with entertainment options to break up the shopping, like selfie rooms and a giant aquarium.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

The Dubai Mall is the world's biggest shopping mall by land area, and I was curious to see what it was like to experience more than 10 million square feet of shopping in a city known as one of the most luxurious on Earth. 

It doesn't have a ski slope like its rival Mall of the Emirates, which I tried out while I was there, but it has a huge aquarium and access to the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.

The mall actually does a good job of providing entertainment and light to stop things from getting too claustrophobic or overwhelming.  But I still found the experience to be exhausting, and repeatedly got lost, couldn't get the mall's navigation systems to work, and spent 20 minutes trying to find a way out before relenting and queuing for 10 minutes for a taxi.

I visited over two separate days, and still couldn't get to grips with the place.

This is what my visits were like:

The Dubai Mall is the world's biggest shopping mall by land area, and promises more than 1,200 stores and hundreds of food outlets over more than 10 million square feet (one million square meters).

Source: Visit Dubai

On a recent trip to Dubai, I decided to visit it. Partly because I was curious about its sheer size, and partly because I wanted to check out the city's legendary shopping.

But first, I actually needed to get there — and that journey gave me a glimpse of the scale of what was in store. I decided to take the metro, which was very convenient until I realized that the raised passage from the train to the mall took 10 whole minutes to walk down.

It gave views of Dubai's famous skyscrapers and, as you got closer, the outside of the luxurious mall.

It also felt bizarre that the journey was filled with ads for the mall itself. Everyone in th passage was going to the mall already, so why bother?

I was delighted when I finally saw a sign that told me I'd reached the mall ...

.... only to realize that I wasn't fully in yet, and was instead in an area filled with smaller, more tourist-focused stands.

A few minutes later and, finally, I'd made it!

The first thing I noticed was just how large every individual store was — you couldn't see the back of most.

The mall is divided up so it never actually feels that big when you wander around. Every section almost feels like its own mall, so it takes a while to get to grips with the sheer scale of the complex.

I unintentionally ended up in the decadent "Fashion Avenue" area almost immediately.

It felt like its own, self-contained mall, filled with luxury brands.

Even the cafés were extremely decadent.

I made my out of the luxury section, and got another glimpse into the glitz of the mall. From inside the huge Nike store, I could see the famous Dubai Fountain.

The mall was filled with signs, but they didn't make things that much clearer to me. Aquarium? Underwater Zoo?? Are those not the same thing???

I never managed to figure out the difference, but I did see huge crowds gathered to watch the aquatic life that could be seen without paying to enter, as well as the huge queues to get inside. It was pretty cool to have my shopping interrupted by views of sharks, rays, and fish.

The aquarium has a 10-million liter tank, and describes itself as "the largest suspended aquariums in the world."

You can go through a long tunnel, take a glass boat tour, or even meet an otter or a shark while in cage — big experiences for a mall.

It was time to return to wandering around, where I saw things like "selfie rooms" that I assumed were designed to break up the slog of navigating the place.

I ducked in to one that was filled with lights. (My selfie game is not very strong).

There were also decorated walls that were hugely popular with visitors.

After walking around some more, I was exhausted and decided it was time to leave. But there was a problem: I couldn't figure out how, unless I took the metro again.

There were no signs for an exit, and it took me 15 minutes to reach a door that looked like it led to the outside. I wanted to order an Uber, but ended up crossing an enclosed taxi rank and emerging in a huge car park.

I desperately wanted to get out, so I settled on taking a regular taxi. I walked five minutes to the taxi rank entrance ... and then had to queue for 10 minutes.

I was so tired that I actually almost convinced myself of a conspiracy that the building design was the result of some sort of lobbying by the taxi industry to force people to take cabs.

I thought I was free of the place, but ended up back there with a colleague five days later. This time, I decided it was time to test the mall's app, which uses your location to tell you how to get to particular stores. It worked great ...

... until it didn't. It sometimes just didn't give the proper information, so we had to go to the information screens. There were always queues of lost people waiting to use them, and not nearly enough for the size of the mall.

We ended up in entirely new parts of the mall that I didn't discover last time, including luxury jewelry and watch stores that had closed doors and heavy security.

There were also lots of famous American stores, like Bloomingdale's.

Leaving turned out to be a huge struggle — again. We needed to find a certain hotel connected to the mall to get to the bar on top of the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building, but neither the app, Google Maps, nor the information screens were any help.

We actually had to ask staff at the concierge service for help twice, and were still a bit confused by what we had to do. We ended up leaving through what appeared to be very fancy entrance to the Fashion Village, which felt like somewhere we absolutely were not supposed to walk through.

Finally, finally we made it outside. It felt like it had been days since I'd actually breathed fresh air. Like all malls, The Dubai Mall is designed to make you forget about the passage of time. And while it had lots of natural light to stop you getting claustrophobic and lots of entertainment options, I still found it totally overwhelming, even when experiencing it for a second time.

• The Duke and Duchess of Sussex are set to break some major royal Christmas traditions as they spend their first holiday season without the Queen and the rest of the royal family. 
• The couple has spent every Christmas at the Queen's Sandringham Estate since they got engaged in 2017. 
• This year, Prince Harry, Meghan Markle, and their son Archie will spend the holiday with the duchess' mother, Doria Ragland, likely at her home in LA. 
• With a different location comes a whole new Christmas experience for the family, who will miss out on the monarch's annual Christmas Eve afternoon tea and exchange of gifts.
• Scroll below for a complete list of every tradition the family will break this year, as well as some traditions they could actually keep while being in the US. 
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

1. They won't attend church with Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip

Every year, the royal family is photographed walking to St Mary Magdalene church, close to the Queen's Sandringham Estate, for the annual Christmas day service.

This year, Harry, Markle, and their son Archie are spending Christmas with the duchess' mother, Doria Ragland. Although the location they will be spending the holiday has not been officially disclosed, it's believed the family will spend it in LA, where Ragland lives.

2. It won't be a black-tie affair this year

The couple will also miss the royal family's annual dinner and drinks on Christmas Eve, which is a black-tie event, according to Pop Sugar.

3. Harry and Meghan won't exchange gifts over afternoon tea on Christmas Eve with the rest of the family

Grant Harrold, former butler to Prince Charles, told Insider that the royal family has a set time schedule when it comes to giving and receiving their Christmas gifts.

"The Queen arrives a few days before everyone else, like any good hostess, to ensure everything is ready," Harrold said.

"Then most of the royals will arrive on Christmas Eve. They will have afternoon tea, which is traditionally held between 4 pm and 6 pm, where they will exchange gifts."

Harrold added that most of the gifts aren't meant to be taken seriously. The former butler said he has heard (although not personally witnessed) that the family "tend to give each other humorous gifts."

"What do you give people who have everything?" he added.

Here's hoping the Queen doesn't mind breaking the tradition so the couple's son, Archie, can receive his first Christmas gifts in time for the big day. 

4. They'll miss out on the annual palace staff party also attended by the Queen and the royal family

Harrold said the black-tie party, held "behind closed doors" at St James's Palace is a traditional event where palace staff gets to mingle with the Queen, Prince Charles, and other members of the royal family.

"I was able to see Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall and exchange a few words. Princes Harry and William were there as well," he said.

"During the first [party] I got to sit down and have lunch with Prince William. Not many people can say they had a meal with the future King," he added.

It is not known whether the duke and duchess plan to host a different party for staff at their Frogmore Cottage base in Windsor.

5. Markle's decorations won't be as traditional as the Queen's

The royal family recently released pictures of their traditional Christmas decorations at Windsor Castle, which include a 20-foot-high Nordmann Fir Christmas tree in St George's Hall.

Her Majesty's annual speech, pictured above, shows the family favors traditional decor, such as garland draped across the mantle-place.

According to a 2015 interview, when Markle hosts Christmas she likes to add her own unique twist to the decorations.

"Traditionally garland or magnolia branches are used to adorn a stairwell banister or mantle," the former actress told Grazia.

"Take this concept and trim the outline of a mirror or beautiful piece of artwork that is centrally located in your entry hallway or living room."

6. They likely won't have a royal chef to cook Christmas dinner

The Queen's personal chef cooks dinner for the family every year, and her former chef Darren McGrady once shared the meals served to them during previous years.

"It was the same meal every year," McGrady told Hello! Online."They're actually boring when it comes to festivities! They didn't do hams or anything, just traditional turkeys. We did three turkeys for the Queen and her family in the royal dining room, one for the children's nursery and then more for the 100 or so staff, so everyone had a Christmas lunch."

It's unlikely that Harry and Markle will have a royal chef to cook Christmas dinner for them in LA. However, Markle once shared her favorite festive recipes that she makes herself— including her own almond milk spiced holiday cocktail and maple glazed potato wedges — so she's probably got it covered.

However, there are a few traditions the couple could keep, even all the way from the US

One tradition the couple could easily keep up from overseas is the annual royal Christmas card. This is a tradition that was started by Queen Victoria, according to Harrold, who says the monarch would send cards with portraits of her family on the front of them.

Our current Queen Elizabeth II sends 750 Christmas cards every year, according to the royal family's official website.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex shared their first joint Christmas card last year, which featured an elegant black-and-white photo from their wedding day.

They could also present their staff with Christmas gifts, just like the Queen does every year

Her Majesty also sends out 1,500 Christmas puddings every year to staff throughout the royal palaces, the Court Post Office, and the Palace police.

However, the monarch isn't the only member of the family that traditionally gives Christmas gifts to her staff, so it's likely this is something Harry and Markle partake in too.

"I've been given lovely gifts from Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall," Harrold told Insider. "I've received teacups and saucers, trays, crystal glasses, and more personal gifts."

Read more:

Meghan Markle once shared tips on how to host the perfect Christmas, and it shows what her first holiday without the royal family could look like

The Queen's televised Christmas speech is the only day of the year that Her Majesty doesn't do her own makeup

There's a holiday romance novel based on Meghan Markle's mom, and it sheds some light on how the royals spend Christmas

• Australia was just named Travel + Leisure's Destination of the Year for 2020.
• As someone who recently returned from visiting the country for the first time, I'm not even remotely surprised by its latest accolade.
• I only spent a fortnight in the country — in Sydney and Melbourne, which are two very different cities — but it was enough to make it abundantly clear to me why everyone should visit Australia.
• From the beaches to the brunch, here are 14 reasons everyone should plan a trip to Australia in 2020.
• Visit Insider's homepage for more stories.

Australia is hardly an under-the-radar destination.

Popular with all sorts of tourists, from backpackers to pensioners from across the world, the country offers something for everyone.

In November 2019, Australia was announced as Travel + Leisure's Destination of the Year for 2020.

That same month, I visited the country for the first time, and despite only visiting Australia's two main cities, Sydney and Melbourne, it was immediately clear to me why it won its latest accolade.

Here are 14 reasons you should visit Australia.

1. The coastline.

The Bondi-Coogee coastal walk in Sydney is a tourist essential for a reason: it's stunning. You walk along rugged cliffs looking down at clear blue sea and crashing waves.

2. The beaches. Whether you prefer something quiet and secluded ...

... or big and busy, there are plenty of beaches to suit you in Australia.

3. The saltwater pools, which are far superior to indoor swimming pools. Icebergs pool in Bondi (below) may be Sydney's most famous ...

... but I actually preferred the one at Bronte Beach (below).

4. The brunches. You may think Australian cuisine is just avocado on toast and BBQ, but if you ask me, the country's real culinary strength lies in brunch. There were so many inventive dishes such as the below: herb and chilli scrambled eggs on zataar bread with halloumi, sujuk sausage and parmesan, and lots of acai bowls. Go there, eat everything, return home heavier and happier.

5. The Asian food. As a country that has a lot of immigrants from all across Asia, Australia has no shortage of fantastic Asian restaurants.

6. The coffee. Not only is the coffee in Australia exceptionally good (seriously, I didn't have one bad coffee), it's also far cheaper than what I'm used to in London.

7. The friendliness. The Australian accent makes anyone sound friendly, but people genuinely are. When I ordered a coffee in Manly, Sydney, I said my name was Rachel. What did the barista write? "Rach," like we were already friends. It was nice.

8. The hummus. Look, I know hummus isn't traditionally Australian, but I was amazed at how much and how many different types there were on offer. It was really quite excellent.

9. The public transport ferries. Forget the subway or buses — cities like Sydney and Brisbane have public transport ferries to take you around. You could seriously upgrade your commute ...

... and going home at the end of a night out has never been more fun.

10. The wine. Sure, you can get Australian wine across the world, but it is essential to sample regional specialties and support local businesses while traveling, after all.

11. The architecture. I barely scratched the surface of Australia, but it struck me that there was a particularly huge range of architectural styles, which made Melbourne and Sydney especially interesting to explore on foot.

12. The weather. How much sunshine you get really depends on where in Australia you are — the weather in Sydney is a lot better than in Melbourne, for example — but on the whole you're likely to see a fair amount of blue sky.

13. The green spaces. Australia is a huge country, which means the cities really sprawl and there's a lot of green space.

14. There's so much more to see! From the Great Barrier Reef to Perth, you could spend years traveling around Australia and not see everything. I already can't wait to go back.

Read more:

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I spent 3 hours in Emirates' first class Dubai lounge, and despite the showers, spa, and beds, it wasn't as luxurious as I expected

I've travelled to Austria 3 times, and there are 8 dishes that prove the country's cuisine is massively underrated

• We've identified 19 of the high-powered executives that Microsoft has assembled in a team to fight its rivals in the cloud wars, based on information from insiders and experts.
• Microsoft has long been considered the No. 2 cloud provider versus dominant Amazon Web Services, but that perception has started to change through recent and significant victories, such as landing a $10 billion cloud computing contract with the Pentagon.
• Experts say that contract puts Microsoft's Azure cloud computing business in the same league as AWS — whether Amazon likes it or not.
• Of course, Microsoft still has a lot of catching up to do. Gartner estimated Amazon's 2018 cloud market share was three times the size of Microsoft's.
• Click here to read more BI Prime stories.

Microsoft's cloud business is on the rise and the Redmond, Washington-based company has assembled a team of high-powered executives to upend its rivals.

Microsoft Azure has long been considered the No. 2 cloud provider versus dominant Amazon Web Services, but that perception has started to change.

"Azure is the primary growth engine for the company and positions them to have a leading marketshare in a potentially multitrillion-dollar opportunity in the future of computing," RBC Capital analyst Alex Zukin said. 

To be sure, Microsoft still has a lot of catching up to do. Gartner in a report released over the summer pegged the 2018 market share for AWS at 47.8% and that of Microsoft Azure at 15.5%. But Microsoft has scored some significant wins and recent moves indicate the company is prioritizing the cloud above all else.

Perhaps most significant is the company's recent win of a $10 billion cloud computing contract with the Pentagon. AWS was considered the frontrunner but experts say the win puts Microsoft in the same league as the AWS.

"It signals to the market Microsoft is no longer a runner-up and can be viewed as a leader in the category where they can surpass AWS in certain areas," Zukin said.

To lead that charge, Microsoft has assembled a team of high-powered executives to guide its all-important cloud strategy. We spoke with insiders and experts who said that these were the 19 power players to watch within Microsoft's cloud business.

Meet Microsoft's ace cloud team:

SEE ALSO: Amazon reportedly restricted partners at its New York conference from mentioning competitors like Microsoft and Google

Ann Johnson, corporate vice president in the Cybersecurity Solutions Group

Johnson oversees Microsoft's strategies for cybersecurity and compliance solutions across marketing, engineering, and product teams.

She's an expert in cyber resilience, online fraud, cyberattacks, compliance, and mobile security, and "has built and shaped one of the company's highest performing teams whose digital transformation expertise leverages built-in cloud security capabilities,"according to her bio on Microsoft's website. 

Johnson started at Microsoft in 2015 as general manager of the company's enterprise cybersecurity group and has been in her current position since 2018.

Bharat Shah, corporate vice president of Cloud and AI Security Engineering

Shah's job is to make the Azure cloud platform secure.

He's spent more than 30 years at Microsoft, including a decade in the cloud computing business, and now runs services that help cloud customers protect against security threats including Azure Security Center, Azure Sentinel, and Azure Key Vault.

Shah also leads security product development teams for user and infrastructure-oriented security and runs the Microsoft Security Response Center, which responds to attacks against Microsoft's cloud, as well as the data center security team, which protects the physical security of Microsoft data centers.

Charles Lamanna, corporate vice president of Citizen Applications Platform

Lamanna leads the engineering and program management teams for the business applications group's Low Code Application Platform, which includes products such as Microsoft's Dynamics 365 customers relationship management platform and PowerApps, which helps companies create business apps without coding.

Offering products that require little or no coding — part of the so-called low-code/no-code movement in the developer tech market — has become a priority for Microsoft.

"Microsoft has a very big commitment not just to true software developers, but citizen developers [or non-professional developers," Daniel Newman, Futurum Research principal analyst and founding partner, said. "They're trying to drive low-code, no-code adoption where you can do it all without needing to be an experienced coder." 

Lamanna's team includes nearly 1,000 people in Redmond, Hyderabad, Paris, and Toronto.

Charlotte Yarkoni, corporate vice president of Commerce and Ecosystem

Yarkoni's job is to attract customers and partners including developers, enterprises, and independent software vendors into Microsoft's cloud business.

Her team is responsible for the Microsoft Scale-Ups program, which provides sales, marketing, and technical support for Series A startups, and Microsoft's Imagine Cup student competition. 

Yarkoni also runs Microsoft's Channel 9, which publishes videos behind-the-scenes at Microsoft, and learning resources and forums such as developer.microsoft.com and doc.microsoft.com, making her a visible part of the company's all-important push to appeal to developers.

Corey Sanders, corporate vice president of Microsoft Solutions

Sanders sets the sales strategy and runs the corporate technical sales team for Microsoft's Azure cloud business, its productivity apps, and Dynamics 365, its competitor to Salesforce. 

Sanders joined Microsoft in 2004 and has worked on the Azure team since before its release.

"I find Corey Sanders as one of the well-trusted names in the space," Gartner research director Sanjeev Mohan said.

Eric Boyd, corporate vice president of AI Platform

Boyd runs Azure AI, the artificial intelligence platform for Microsoft's Azure cloud business.

Microsoft formed the Azure AI group during a company wide reorganization last year. It is charged with finding a way to sell the artificial-intelligence research and technologies already used in the company's products to customers – and making it easy for any type of company to use.

Simplifying artificial intelligence and machine learning for cloud customers could make Microsoft more competitive in the fierce cloud-computing battle with AWS, and Boyd is a leader in that effort. 

Erin Chapple, corporate vice president of Azure Compute

Chapple is the head of product for Azure Compute, which provides the infrastructure customers need to build applications.

She joined Microsoft in 1998 and has spent much of her time at the company working on Windows Server, Microsoft's server operating system.

"She has domain expertise and knowledge," Gartner research director Sanjeev Mohan said. "She can transcend the legacy Windows Server and the Azure business. That is a very important combo right there."

Gayle Sheppard, corporate vice president of Microsoft Azure Data

Sheppard oversees strategy for Microsoft's data and analytics products and services. 

She's in charge of product management and customer experiences for Microsoft products and services including Microsoft's SQL Server database management system and other products related to SQL, the programming language designed for managing data, plus additional data and analytics products within Azure.

Sheppard joined Microsoft in April about six months after leaving Intel, where she was vice president and general manager of the Saffron AI Group. Microsoft is still in the "first innings" of data and artificial intelligence, CEO Satya Nadella said when he recently listed the technologies that will guide the future of the company.

James Phillips, corporate vice president of Business Applications

Phillips leads Microsoft's business applications group, in which his teams build and operate Microsoft business applications including Dynamics 365 customer relationship management, the Power Platform that helps customers customize cloud applications with minimal coding, and Microsoft's artificial intelligence and mixed-reality business applications.

He started at Microsoft in 2012 as a strategic adviser to Satya Nadella, the company's current CEO. 

Phillips' team had more than 5,000 employees globally as of 2018.

Jason Zander, executive vice president of Azure Intelligent Cloud and Intelligent Edge

Zander is the top executive within Azure, Microsoft's overall cloud platform and its rival to the market-leading Amazon Web Services.

He's run the team since Microsoft reorganized in 2018, dismantling its traditional Windows organization in favor of a focus on cloud computing. 

That means Zander is in charge of everything from product management to engineering withing Azure. The Azure group is part of the Cloud & AI group – also created during the reorganization – and Zander reports to Scott Guthrie, the head of that group.

Judson Althoff, executive vice president of Worldwide Commercial

Judson Althoff leads Microsoft's worldwide commercial business, which sets the sales strategy for the overall company, and helps make sure customers, partners, and developers are getting the most out of the company's technology.

Althoff first joined Microsoft in 2013 as president of Microsoft North America, where he was responsible for customers and partners in the US and Canada. 

Before joining Microsoft, Althoff served as a senior vice president at Oracle, where he worked for 11 years. Similarly, he also managed and supported the company's partners and sales. Prior to that, he worked at EMC. 

Julia Liuson, corporate vice president of Developer Division

Julia Liuson leads the developer division at Microsoft, which is responsible for many of Microsoft's popular products for software engineers. One of these is Visual Studio Code, an open source code editor that has become the top open source project on GitHub. Another is .NET, which is a leading standard for developing Windows applications.

Liuson first joined Microsoft in 1992 as a software design engineer working on Office and developer products. Since then, she has held a variety of technical and management positions, working on products like Visual Studio, as well as its server and developer tools.

Liuson holds the distinction of having been the first woman at Microsoft ever promoted to the title of corporate VP of development. This year, she was inducted into the Women in Technology International Hall of Fame.

Julia White, corporate vice president of Azure Marketing

Currently, Julia White serves as corporate vice president of Azure marketing, focusing on Microsoft's cloud, enterprise security, and IT management businesses.

In 2001, she left Intuit, where she started her career, and joined Microsoft as a product manager. Since then, she has held various management positions in product management, channel sales, and marketing. 

Besides working in tech, White was an Olympic hopeful in the synchronized swimming event. She garnered attention for a stylish leather jacket she wore to a Microsoft event in 2014. 

Mark Russinovich, chief technology officer of Microsoft Azure

Mark Russinovich is the CTO of Microsoft Azure.

He's particularly focused on leading Microsoft's efforts in serverless computing —which allows developers to build and run applications without having to manage the infrastructure behind it. 

Russinovich has worked at Microsoft for 13 years. Before serving as Azure's CTO, he started as a technical fellow, where he helped architect Microsoft's cloud.

Before joining Microsoft, Russinovich cofounded Winternals Software, where he worked for nearly a decade. He also spent three years working at IBM as a researcher.

Noelle Walsh, corporate vice president of Cloud and Infrastructure Operations

Noelle Walsh joined Microsoft in 2017 as corporate vice president. Currently, she's leading the cloud and infrastructure operations which underpin services like Azure and Office 365. She focuses on security and reliability of the cloud.

Prior to joining Microsoft, she spent nearly three decades at the Dow Chemical Company, where she made use of her background in chemical engineering There, she served as corporate vice president, as well as various other positions in multiple businesses.

Rohan Kumar, corporate vice president of Azure Data

Rohan Kumar heads Azure Data at Microsoft, where he leads the engineering, product strategy, development, and design of Microsoft's data applications, analytics software, and databases for data scientists, developers, and IT professionals to use. Mohan joined Microsoft after he received his masters degree, and has stayed for the last 21 years.

One of Kumar's efforts includes leading data applications on Microsoft's hybrid cloud, which allows customers to run applications both on their private data centers and Microsoft's cloud. Kumar previously told Business Insider that hybrid cloud is a key part of Microsoft's strategy.

"I think he's very influential because he oversaw a wide spectrum of Azure's data and analytics offerings," Gartner research director Sanjeev Mohan said. "The fact that he's now more focused on engineering, to me it tells me that Microsoft is doubling down on engineering efforts so they needed him to focus on the engineering side and let someone move over to the planning side."

Sam George, corporate vice president of Azure IoT

Sam George leads Azure Internet of Things (IoT), the organization that creates software that allow customers to access Microsoft's cloud from any connected device, whether it's computers, mobile phones, factory sensors, mapping technology, or even smart cars. 

George has worked at Microsoft since 1997, serving various roles in development, testing, and program management.

Currently, George is a major proponent of IoT and says that companies are increasingly using this technology for manufacturing, construction, agriculture, oil and gas, and other industries.

Scott Guthrie, executive vice president of Cloud and AI

Scott Guthrie has worked at Microsoft for over 22 years. As executive vice president of Microsoft's cloud and AI group, he is responsible for Microsoft's cloud, servers, artificial intelligence technology, databases, security, business applications, and more. These include products like Microsoft Azure, HoloLens, GitHub, and Visual Studio Code. 

Guthrie joined Microsoft after graduating college. Since then, he has served in various management and executive roles, leading the Microsoft Azure team and the developer division. He was one of the original founders of Microsoft's .NET framework, which is used for developing Windows applications — and is one of the most famous developers in the world, at Microsoft or otherwise.

Ulrich Homann, corporate vice president and distinguished architect of Cloud and AI

Ulrich Homann has worked at Microsoft for over 24 years and currently heads engineering for Microsoft's cloud and artificial intelligence products. He spent most of his career at Microsoft as an architect at various businesses at the company. 

Most recently, he was the distinguished architect for Microsoft's cloud and enterprise business, building out Microsoft's business applications. 

Before he joined Microsoft in 1995, he worked at several consulting companies.

• The chicken biscuit just might be the new chicken sandwich, and chains are trying to get in on the action.
• I compared the new chicken biscuits from McDonald's and Wendy's against the Chick-fil-A original to see if they could compete.
• I found that while McDonald's has a decent biscuit and Wendy's has decent chicken, Chick-fil-A's chicken biscuit is much better in every way.
• Here's how they compared:
• Sign up for Business Insider's retail newsletter, The Drive-Thru, to get more stories like this in your inbox.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Chicken has been the hottest item on fast food menus this year.

Ever since Popeyes took a giant bite out of the chicken sandwich market, other chains have been scrambling to get a piece of the pie. Now, chains are hoping that the chicken biscuit will be the next chicken sandwich.

Wendy's is releasing a maple chicken biscuit as part of its upcoming breakfast menu, and McDonald's is adding chicken to its breakfast menu, both in 2020. McDonald's is testing a McChicken biscuit in select markets but hasn't announced which chicken items it's planning to add next year.

Chick-fil-A's chicken biscuit has been a menu mainstay since 1985 and has singlehandedly carved Chick-fil-A a hefty piece of the fast-food breakfast sector. So can these brand-new buttery bites compete with the champion of breakfast chicken biscuits?

In order to find out, I ate all three. Here's how they compared:

SEE ALSO: Popeyes' new chicken sandwich convinced us that we never need to go back to Chick-fil-A

I went to my local McDonald's, Wendy's, and Chick-fil-A restaurants and ordered their respective chicken biscuits.

From left to right: McDonald's McChicken biscuit, Chick-fil-A's chicken biscuit, and Wendy's maple butter chicken biscuit.

McDonald's biscuit costs $3.19 before tax, Chick-fil-A's costs $3.79 before tax, and Wendy's costs $2.59 before tax.

From the top, the biscuits looked largely the same. Wendy's was the only biscuit that didn't feel crispy.

Opened up, it was obvious McDonald's had the flattest, most processed patty. Chick-fil-A's chicken was tall and natural, and Wendy's wasn't bad-looking either.

McDonald's has previously had other chicken biscuits on its menu, but the McChicken biscuit is the first to grace its breakfast in a while.

One of the best parts of McDonald's breakfast is its buttery, crumbly biscuit.

And in this sandwich, the biscuit does most of the heavy lifting. It's got a satisfying crunch and buttery texture.

But the McChicken inside the biscuit tastes like it's just been slapped on with no thought or effort.

Together, they make a salty, dry, and ultimately disappointing sandwich.

While the biscuit is satisfying, the McChicken on a biscuit feels cheap, lazy, and confusing. McDonald's chicken lovers deserve better.

But if McDonald's makes a "B"-plus biscuit, Chick-fil-A's baked breakfast bread is valedictorian.

While chicken is something of a side hustle for McDonald's, it's Chick-fil-A's main thing.

So it's no surprise that I let out an audible "mmmmm" as soon as I bit into the buttery crust of this biscuit.

The softness of the chicken is enmeshed beautifully with the crunchiness of the chicken thanks to a generous pat of melted butter.

The tart pickle-brined flavor of the chicken really shines through, while the light sprinkle of black pepper in its coating adds a little something extra.

Sure, Popeyes may have a better chicken sandwich. But Chick-fil-A has the chicken biscuit.

There's a lot at stake for Wendy's when it comes to the chicken biscuit.

Every time Wendy's has tried to launch breakfast, McDonald's has combated those efforts. So when Wendy's announced it'd launch a new breakfast menu complete with chicken, McDonald's naturally decided to add chicken breakfast items soon after.

Wendy's biscuit has a great flavor concept. Maple butter is unique and tastes wonderful on fried chicken and a biscuit.

However, Wendy's biscuit itself is by far the weakest of the three — so much so I'm not even sure it qualifies as a biscuit.

It's mushy, not at all crispy, and even kind of chewy, which a biscuit shouldn't be.

Wendy's sandwich has strong potential, but it's being held back by its below-average biscuit.

So how do fast-food's chicken biscuits stack up? Well, Chick-fil-A's is clearly on top.

Wendy's has decent chicken and McDonald's has a decent biscuit, but their sandwiches are overall much, much worse than Chick-fil-A's.

Maybe if they made love, not war, they could build a better chicken sandwich.

• Silicon Valley startups are offering no-shoes office policies, allowing employees to spend the workday in house slippers, socks, or barefoot.
• It's the latest trend that embodies the region's famous pared-down office culture.
• Here's what it's like in the shoeless offices of Silicon Valley.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The tech world has become inextricably linked to a very specific work uniform: hoodie, t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers.

That informality has permeated the office environment as well, with startups in Silicon Valley garnering a reputation for embracing out-of-the-norm office perks to compete for the best and brightest of the region's stock of tech talent. They've famously included free lunches, in-house nap rooms, free fitness classes and massages, and dog-friendly offices. 

But now some of those perks have come to include strutting around the office in house slippers or socks, or for some, bare feet.

Why? A simple reason: The CEOs grew up in households with no-shoe policies.

The offices of Gusto and Notion, both enterprise software startups, are a far cry from the American offices of old, where strict dress codes were enforced and meandering through the office in jeans, let alone barefoot, could have sent you packing.

But if shoeless workspaces are going to become a reality, it might as well be in tech country. After all, Silicon Valley was the epicenter of the business-casual dress movement in the 1990s. Since then, as Business Insider's Aine Cain writes, much of the corporate world — outside of finance and law — has taken on a results-oriented mindset. Employers don't care what you look like when you're working, as long as you're producing results.

And more than that, it's become a way for employers to lure freshly graduated tech workers — they're more likely to join you if they don't have to shed their hoodie for a suit jacket or swap their couch for a stiff desk chair.

As for the barefooted-ness, is it a health code violation? Turns out it's not, according to the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

"We are not aware of any health code violations in San Francisco for workers to be barefoot in a commercial space," a spokesperson told Business Insider in an email.

So march on, shoeless techies. March on.

Here's what it's like in the shoeless offices of Silicon Valley.

SEE ALSO: Inside dating app Tinder's new San Francisco office, where teams are devoted to studying Gen Z and employees are served tasty local lunches through Caviar

Shoe cubbies were once thought to be confined to the preschool classroom.

Nowadays, you'll find them in the Gusto office in San Francisco, where employees store their shoes while they navigate the workday barefoot or in socks.

Office culture is markedly lax in the West Coast tech hub, and there are a lot of reasons why.

Some have called the region the birthplace of the business casual movement of the late 1980s and 1990s.

Source: Business Insider

Eventually, it evolved into the inescapable t-shirt-and-sneaker combination we know today. You've seen the look embodied on the CEOs leading the region's tech giants.

The Valley's schtick has always been "discarding norms and celebrating rule-breaking," as The Atlantic reports.

Source: The Atlantic

And over time, that hallmark has bled into the work environment as well.

Tech companies famously began instituting office perks like free lunch, nap rooms, and dog-friendly offices.

Gusto and Notion are two startups in the past few years that have offered similar out-of-the-box office practices to workers.

Gusto CEO Joshua Reeves told Business Insider's Melia Russell in 2018 that he grew up in a shoeless household.

Source: Business Insider

And then when Reeves and a few other techies launched the company in 2011, it was out of a house in Palo Alto.

They all took their shoes off before ascending into the upstairs bedroom-turned-office.

Source: Business Insider and Entrepreneur

When Gusto moved into a more stable office, the tradition stuck.

The company's employees sprawl out on living room furniture — as well as at desks — sporting slippers or socks. Some are barefoot in the Gusto office.

Over at Notion, CEO Ivan Zhao had the same reasoning for implementing a no-shoes policy.

Zhao told Business Insider that he grew up in a shoeless household as well.

And in lieu of a designated shoe cubby, Notion's office is even more pared-down — employees merely kick them off on the floor near the front door.

Employees saunter around in slippers and socks ...

... and foot cushions are placed beneath their desks.

Both companies said their offices are outfitted with radiant heated floors to help keep their shoeless workers' feet toasty.

The shoeless practice is an example of startups crafting their own unique company culture.

Source: LinkedIn

There's a high turnover rate at tech companies, and singling your company out in one way or another can help not only recruit, but retain, techies.

Source: LinkedIn

On the other hand, some perks that companies offer, like beer on tap and yoga rooms, have been seen as "golden handcuffs" that persuade workers to stay at the office later and work overtime.

Source: Forbes and Quartz

Some critics have painted them as more harmful than beneficial to workers as it reinforces the Valley's "work hard/play hard" startup culture.

Source: Quartz and The New York Times

In response, some tech companies are changing the way they implement startup culture for the better.

Source: Forbes and Business Insider

And some made sure they embraced a healthy culture from the beginning. For Gusto, the company has managed to avoid the fratty company culture often associated with Silicon Valley startups, as Business Insider's Melia Russell writes.

Source: Business Insider

Fortune magazine has named Gusto one of the 100 best workplaces for millennials.

Source: Fortune

The distinction is likely for a number of factors, but no doubt the cozy office environment and practices are among them.

The company has also earned rave reviews by employees on Glassdoor, with some crediting the company for its "ridiculously generous benefits."

Source: Business Insider

Eight years in and the company's growth is notable too. Gusto crossed over into the unicorn club in 2015, and now has a post-money valuation of $3.8 billion.

Source: Crunchbase and Fortune

And Notion — besides attracting so much buzz in Silicon Valley's VC scene that investors were literally knocking on the door — has a tight-knit workforce in San Francisco's Mission District.

Source: Business Insider

So maybe they're onto something with bringing the coziness of home into work.

• Sony is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the original PlayStation console, which launched in Japan on December 3, 1994.
• The PlayStation was released worldwide a year later and became the first video game console to sell more than 100 million units.
• Here a list of the 25 best PlayStation One games, based on professional reviews from Metacritic.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Sony is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the original PlayStation, the company's first video game console and one of the most influential gaming devices of all time.

The PlayStation debuted in Japan on December 3, 1994 and sold 100,000 units on its first day of release. Sony took the PlayStation worldwide a year later, and it went on to become the very first video game console to sell more than 100 million units.

Sony's PlayStation brand has grown into a titan of the video game industry, launching four home consoles, two portable consoles, a virtual reality headset, and tons of PlayStation gadgets. Sony has sold more than 500 million PlayStation systems through the last 25 years.

Nintendo and Sega dominated gaming during the early 90s, but the innovative PlayStation helped Sony earn its footing. The first PlayStation popularized the use of CD-Roms for video game releases — Sony's competitors were using plastic cartridges with much less storage space. As a bonus, the PlayStation could also play music CDs, giving it some extra utility as a media player.

But the PlayStation's huge library of games is what really set it apart from the Nintendo 64, the Sega Saturn, and the rest of the competition. PlayStation gave birth to blockbuster franchises like "Resident Evil" and "Tomb Raider," while old series like "Final Fantasy" and "Metal Gear" found new life on the PlayStation, thanks to its impressive 3D graphics.

Below, we've listed 25 of the best games for the original PlayStation, as rated by professional critics. These scores are collected by Metacritic, which aggregates dozens of publications and also lets fans vote on their favorites.

SEE ALSO: YouTube's list of the 10 most-watched video games of 2019 proves that new games aren't the most popular online

25. "WWF SmackDown! 2: Know Your Role"

Critic score: 90/100

User score: 8.4/10

24. "Dance Dance Revolution"

Critic score: 90/100

User score: 8.4/10

23. "Syphon Filter"

Critic score: 90/100

User score: 8.7/10

22. "Ape Escape"

Critic score: 90/100

User score: 8.6/10

21. "Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped"

Critic score: 91/100

User score: 9/10

20. "Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver"

Critic score: 91/100

User score: 8.9/10

19. "Resident Evil"

Critic score: 91/100

User score: 9/10

18. "Tomb Raider"

Critic score: 91/100

User score: 8.4/10

17. "Spyro: Year of the Dragon"

Critic score: 91/100

User score: 8.9/10

16. "Colony Wars"

Critic score: 91/100

User score: 7.5/10

15. "PaRappa the Rapper"

Critic score: 92/100

User score: 7.5/10

14. "Medal of Honor"

Critic score: 92/10

User score: 8.7/10

13. "Final Fantasy VII"

Critic score: 92/100

User score: 9.1/10

12. "Tony Hawk Pro Skater"

Critic score: 92/100

User score: 8.9/10

11. "Vagrant Story"

Critic score: 92/100

User score: 9/10

10. "Wipeout XL"

Critic score: 93/100

User score: 8.5/10

9. "Castlevania Symphony of the Night"

Critic score: 93/10

User score: 9.2/10

8. "Street Fighter Alpha 3"

Critic score: 93/100

User score: 8.6/10

7. "Gran Turismo 2"

Critic score: 93/100

User score: 9.2/10

6. "Metal Gear Solid"

Critic score: 94/100

User score: 9.2/10

5. "Chrono Cross"

Critic score: 94/100

User score: 8.8/10

4. "Final Fantasy IX"

Critic score: 94/100

User score: 9/10

3. "Gran Turismo"

Critic score: 96/100

User score: 8.6/10

2. "Tekken 3"

Critic score: 96/100

User score: 9.1/10

1. "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2"

Critic score: 98/100

User score: 7.5/10

• Tesla recently announced that it would revise its service relationship with owners of its original Roadster, while simultaneously encouraging them to considering trading in Tesla's first car for a new model.
• The original Roadster is perhaps the most important car in the history of electric vehicles.
• Here's a look at what made it great — and why it still is.
• Sign up for Business Insider's transportation newsletter, Shifting Gears, to get more stories like this in your inbox.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Tesla's first vehicle was the original Roadster, and even CEO Elon Musk now admits it was an early draft of what Tesla could do. The design was borrowed from Lotus, and the UK automaker supplied Tesla with chassis through the Roadster's run, from 2008-2012.

The Roadster announced, dramatically, what Tesla was all about: fast, sexy, all-electric cars. No more glorified golf carts.

The Roadster hit the market priced at $80,000, but by the time the third upgrade was retired, the sticker had topped $150,000. Around 2,500 were sold.

Many are still on the road, and Tesla recently announced it would provide separate customer service and maintenance support to Roadster owners; these folks are a committed crew of early adopters and Tesla continues to care about them.

Here's a closer look at the Tesla that fathered all that followed, from the Model S to Model X, Model 3, Semi, Cybertruck, and forthcoming New Roadster.

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The original Roadster hit the street in 2008, after several years of development by an upstart Silicon Valley automaker called Tesla, after Nikola Tesla, the Serbian-American inventor.

Elon Musk had taken all his winnings from selling PayPal to eBay and sunk them into Tesla and another company, SpaceX. He was determined to make electric cars a viable alternative to gas-powered vehicles.

The first Roadsters arrived in 2008, and Musk himself later admitted that they weren't the greatest cars in the world. But they made a statement, and over three iterations, Tesla ironed out the kinks.

The Roadster wasn't an original Tesla design; "glider" chassis were borrowed from Lotus.

The electric drivetrain consisted of a rear-wheel-drive motor, a 53-kilowatt-hour battery pack consisting of 6,000 lithium-ion cells wired together and serving up over 200 miles of range, and a single-speed transmission. The 0-60 mph time was an impressive 3.9 seconds.

Tesla later improved the Roadster, launching the Sport 2.0 version in 2010. I drove it then, and was blown away. The 0-60 mph time improved to 3.7 seconds, but the price tag went up to about $100,000.

About five years, later, Tesla found a Roadster for me to revisit. It's still my favorite Tesla and the one I'd buy.

Read all about it.

By the time the Roadster had been officially retired, the battery pack had been upgraded to an 80 kWh capacity.

What the car never lost, even as it got beefier power and more carbon fiber, was blinding straight-line speed and point-and-shoot handing. The car was a joy to steer, so precise was the rack.

The soft top could be quickly removed and stowed in a tiny trunk for open-air motoring.

The Roadster was how we got to know Tesla and understand Musk's ambition.

The car was rudimentary, however. Sure, the powertrain was high-tech. But you still started it with a key.

The interior was bare-bones.

The transmission was basic.

Readouts were digital, but they were like an early 2000s video game.

The infotainment system just barely got the job done.

Still, if you don't count the Lunar Rover, this is the only Earth-bound car to make it into space. Piloted by "Starman," Musk's personal Candy Red Roadster was mounted atop SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket and sent into orbit in early 2018. It's still up there.

For Roadster lovers, there's currently no two-door on sale from Tesla. But the New Roadster, unveiled in 2017, is on the way. The 0-60 mph time is projected at 1.9 seconds, which would make it the fastest street-legal car available.

Was a great car, still is. It's wonderful that Tesla continues to look after owners, even as it encourages them to think about adding newer Teslas to their fleets.

• For Disney fans, Disneyland is one of the most magical places on Earth, so naturally, they'd love nothing more than a gift that pays tribute.
• From a fun LEGO set to a Disney Plus subscription, these gifts are perfect for the Disneyland fan in your life.
• We've also got great gift ideas for Disney dads and those who love classic Mickey. And if you're looking for more gift ideas, check out all our holiday gift guides here.

Take it from a Disneyland fan: we are fierce in our devotion. We love nothing more than to boast about our appreciation of the attractions, snacks, and general Disney-ness whether we're at the park in Anaheim or hundreds of miles away. 

While the fandom that surrounds Disneyland can be misconstrued as obsessive (I won't be offended if you think so), it also means that if you have a hardcore fan among your friends and family, then holiday shopping will be super easy. 

To help, we found 20 great holiday gifts that even the biggest Disneyland fan will love — myself very much included.

The top 5 Disneyland gifts: 

1. Park tickets
2. A Disney Plus subscription
3. A custom map of Disneyland
4. A Mickey Mouse diaper bag
5. A Disneyland LEGO set 

From LEGOs to a Disney Plus subscription, here are 20 gifts perfect for any Disneyland fan:

Tickets to Disneyland

Disneyland California 2 Day, 1 Park, $210, available at Target

What every Disneyland fan needs is a good excuse to go back to the park. Help them get there with park tickets — it's the gift that keeps in giving. 

A Disney Plus subscription

Disney+ Subscription, $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year, available at Disney+

In addition to hundreds of classic Disney movies and original shows, the documentary "The Imagineering Story" dives into the history and engineers behind Disneyland and other parks. They might just stream all six episodes before opening all their other gifts.

Here's everything to know about Disney+.

A custom map of Disneyland

A custom map of Disneyland, from $49, available at Grafomap

Grafomap makes custom maps of any place you can think of — including Disneyland. Just search for the park, customize the design and colors, and ship. We reviewed the service and absolutely loved it, here's our full review.

A Mickey Mouse diaper bag

Mickey Mouse Diaper Bag – Disneyland, $39.99, available at shopDisney

This diaper bag has all the charm and function parents will need to take care of business. There are plenty of pockets for organization, adjustable and removable shoulder and stroller handle straps for convenience, and Mickey Mouse accents that will help distinguish their bag no matter where they are.

A Disneyland LEGO set

Disney Train and Station, $329.99, available at LEGO

The first thing you'll see when you step foot into the happiest place on earth is the iconic Disney train station that's home to all the trains that navigate around the perimeter of the park. This 2,925-piece LEGO set includes the train station, a train, and five mini figures with accessories.

A Mickey Mouse stand for your Google Home Mini

Mickey Mouse Stand for Google Home Mini, $19.95, available at Otterbox

If they have a Google Home Mini, this adorable Mickey stand would be the perfect backdrop for it. It's a cute and fun way to liven up their smart home devices.

A Disneyland Travel Mug

Disneyland Park Starbucks Ceramic Travel Tumbler, $24.99, available at shopDisney 

Give them a dose of Disneyland in the morning with this ceramic travel tumbler featuring images from the happiest place on earth. It's part of Starbucks's exclusive Disneyland collection, so there's a classic mermaid and drink options list on the other side of the cup.

A spirit jersey

Disneyland Spirit Jersey Sweater for Adults, $74.99, available at shopDisney

The Disneyland sweatshirt gets updated for various seasons and attractions. The newest one is cozy and comfy, featuring the letter "D" in vintage lettering that won't look out of place at the office on Fridays.

A charm necklace

Fantasyland Charm Necklace by CRISLU, $125, available at shopDisney

This necklace is well, quite charming. The gold charms look sophisticated against the gold chain, and features the King Arthur Carrousel, Mad Tea Party, Fantasyland Castle, Dumbo's ears, and it's a small world.

A phone case

Disneyland Resort OtterBox iPhone 8 Case, $59.99, available at shopDisney

This sturdy OtterBox iPhone case has colorful scenes from Pixar-Pal-Around, Sleeping Beauty's Castle, it's a small world, and more.

A Monorail play set

Disneyland Resort Monorail Play Set, $99.99, available at shopDisney

For those who lean more towards the future, a modern Monorail play set would be a great gift. The set includes five Monorail cars, 14 feet of tracks, and eight miniature Disney characters.

A Disneyland cap

Disneyland Baseball Cap for Adults by Junk Food, $27.99, available at shopDisney

This retro-styled baseball cap features the iconic Sleeping Beauty castle, and ''The Happiest Place on Earth" embroidered on the back, just in case there's any question.

A suitcase with prints of their favorite Disneyland attractions

Disney Parks Rolling Luggage – Small, $159, available at shopDisney

This sturdy suitcase includes images of Mickey, Minnie, Fantasyland Castle, Space Mountain, the Mad Tea Party, The Enchanted Tiki Room, and more. It's a perfect way for them to pack for that next trip to Disneyland. 

A Disneyland tank

Disneyland Tank Top for Women by Junk Food, $25.95, available at shopDisney

This comfy tank features vintage Disneyland graphics that just screams nostalgia. 

A purse with subtle prints of Disney characters

Disney Parks Icons Tote by Dooney & Bourke, $468, available at shopDisney

From afar, this just looks like a purse with a subtle print. Up close, they'll realize the prints are actually of Mickey Mouse, Tinker Bell, the Castle, Mickey balloons, and more.

A set of Mickey ears for babies

Mouseketeer Ear Hat for Baby, $17.99, available at shopDisney

Made for the youngest Disneyland fan, these Mouseketeer ears can be personalized with their little one's name.

A Disneyland onesie for grown-ups

Minnie Mouse Bodysuit for Women, $69.99, available at shopDisney

Just because they're all grown up doesn't mean that they can't still wear onesies. This one comes with a rose gold bow and set of sequinned Minnie ears.  

An embroidered patch featuring Sleeping Beauty's castle

Sleeping Beauty Castle Patch, $19.99, available at shopDisney

Customize your backpack, jacket, or jeans with this large embroidered patch. It's adhesive, so you can put stick it on temporarily, or sew it on for a more permanent placement.

A sparkly necklace

Disneyland Initial Necklace by CRISLU, $100, available at shopDisney

This cubic zirconia and sterling silver necklace features the distinctive Disneyland D. It comes in silver and rose gold to complement their style; we'll bet it becomes their new favorite everyday piece. 

A book about Disneyland

Walt Disney's Disneyland By Chris Nichols, $41.49, available at Amazon.com

Between visits to the park, Disneyland fans can flip through the pages of this massive book five-pound book and dive into Disney history or to just bask in all the beautiful vintage images.

• According to Mansion Global, a sprawling San Francisco-area home located in one of the country's most expensive ZIP codes just hit the market for $85 million, making it the priciest listing in the region.
• The home takes the title from 950 Lombard, which is still on the market after a price cut lowered the listing to $40.5 million. The city's current real-estate record is $38 million – whichever property sells first will shatter the record.
• The recently-listed property, which is just north of San Francisco in Ross, sits on a five-acre lot and features a main house, a pool house, and a caretaker's house, according to the listing.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

The Bay Area housing market is bleak. 

As Business Insider previously reported, even tech workers (who are generally paid well) say they are being priced out. And yet, extravagant properties just keep hitting the market.

In November, an estate that spans nearly 220,000 square feet in Ross, a town just north of San Francisco, was listed for $85 million, according to Mansion Global.

That price tag makes it the most expensive current listing in the area. It is currently priced at more than double the area's real-estate record. The home that holds the record was initially listed for $42 million and ultimately sold for $38 million. Another home, 950 Lombard, has been on track to break the record at its current reduced $40.5 million asking price, as previously reported by Business Insider.

The $85 million listing is held by Neal Ward and Glen Williams of Compass. Keep reading for a look at the five-acre property.

SEE ALSO: The most expensive house for sale in America is a $225 million Bel-Air estate built by a rejected socialite and once owned by the founder of the Hilton empire. Take a closer look at the sprawling property.

DON'T MISS: Billionaire hedge-fund manager Cliff Asness just listed his Miami penthouse for $29.5 million only a year after buying it because he wants to upgrade to a bigger home. Here's a look inside.

If the property sells for anywhere near the asking price of $85 million, it will dwarf the current San Francisco-area real-estate record of $38 million.

Source: Compass

The home has nine bedrooms and 14 bathrooms. It also has four fireplaces scattered throughout the main residence.

Source: Compass

In addition to a pool house that doubles as a guest house, there is also a caretaker's house on the property.

Source: Compass

The sprawling outdoor area includes a terrace with a pergola, a pool deck, a tennis court, a bocce ball court, and a labyrinth.

Source: Compass

The entire property, which covers five acres, is lined with oak and magnolia trees.

Source: Compass