"According to a public income statement, more than ninety-four per cent of Young Living’s two million active members made less than a dollar in 2016"

NY:

many distributors who don’t make a substantial income nonetheless stick with it, in part because the benefits are more than just monetary. Distributors, many of whom are stay-at-home mothers, find social connections and creative outlets through their oil business

...

What held Amway together was its ability to foster strong feelings of identification, and to get its members to see the company as the embodiment of an idealized life. Young Living’s affection for abstract nouns—purity, abundance, wellness, vitality—helps to define a shared culture that prizes freedom, family, and self-sufficiency, and is suspicious of regulation and Big Pharma.

...

Gary Young, the founder of Young Living, made his first appearance at the convention by riding into the arena on a sled pulled by a team of huskies. (Last year, he flew in on a zip line.) An annual highlight is the announcement of a new oil blend.

...

As Young Living grew, former employees told me, reining in Young’s spending became an issue. At the company’s showcase farm, in Mona, Utah, Young built replicas of a Wild West town and a medieval castle. As “Sir Gary,” he hosted tournaments, in which he donned a suit of armor and competed in jousting events. He had plans drawn up for a two-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar theme park, Mount Youngmore, which would feature jousting, a five-star hotel, and a mountain with Young’s face etched on it. (Young has denied this.)

"Atlanta Braves general manager John Coppolella, who oversaw the construction of baseball's top-rated farm system, has resigned amid an investigation into whether the franchise circumvented international signing rules"

"reported Monday that MLB discovered the breach of international signing rules as part of a much larger investigation of the Braves and Coppolella, 38, including the Atlanta's domestic draft practices and Coppolella's treatment of team employees."

"Facebook blocks Guo Wengui, fugitive Chinese billionaire who dishes dirt on China's elite"

SI:

Guo, who is living in New York, has been using social media to make a series of incendiary, though mostly unverifiable, claims of corruption in the top levels of the Chinese government.

His campaign has been timed for maximum impact ahead of this month's critical congress of China's ruling Communist Party, which is held only once every five years.

"The world’s largest collection of genealogical records is housed in a secure vault located in the mountains near Salt Lake City, Utah"

Imagining a heist:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints built the Granite Mountain Records Vault in 1965 to preserve and protect records of importance to the Church, including its vast collection of family history microfilms.”

But then it goes on saying “For security reasons, there is no public access to the Granite Mountain Records Vault”

Lego Ikea Space Freighter

By LIM.

SNL reveals a dark truth of Avatar

"One idea had all players wearing a patch on their jerseys that would read, 'Team America'"

"NFL owners struggled to retain control after Trump's attacks, rise of player protests":

The session was off to an ugly start. A few owners believed the players were delivering union talking points. Players saw something more monumental: The owners found themselves in a position of weakness; their worry about the impact on their business had become a crisis, and they needed the players to help them.