• Chris Pratt posted a lengthy Instagram story on Monday defending his church.
• It came after Ellen Page called the church "infamously anti-LGBTQ" after Pratt discussed his spirituality on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert."
• Pratt attends Zoe Church a Christian congregation in Los Angeles with ties to Hillsong, a popular church attended by many A-listers, including Selena Gomez and the Kardashians.

Chris Pratt has defended his church on Monday, days after Ellen Page called it "infamously anti-LGBTQ."

"It has recently been suggested that I belong to a church which 'hates people' and is 'infamously anti-LGBTQ,'" Pratt, 39, wrote in an Instagram story post on Monday. "Nothing could be further from the truth. I go to a church that opens their doors to absolutely everyone."

Pratt is known to attend Zoe Church, a Christian congregation in Los Angeles with ties to Hillsong, a popular church regularly attended by celebrities including Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, the Jenners, and Kardashians.

Zoe Church's pastor and founder, Chad Veach, modeled his church after Hillsong, according to The New York Times. He has also spoken at an Australian branch of the congregation.

Read more:Ellen Page calls out Chris Pratt's 'infamously anti-LGBTQ' church — where Jenners, Biebers, and other celebrities have also worshipped

Veach has not been vocal about this stance on social issues, but Hillsong has been accused of forcing members to "pray the gay away" and overcome gay demons, according to a Daily Beast exposé published in 2016.

In 2015, Hillsong founder Brian Houston published a blog called "Do I Love Gay People?" in which he said he believed marriage should be between a man and a woman.

"Hillsong Church welcomes ALL people but does not affirm all lifestyles. Put clearly, we do not affirm a gay lifestyle and because of this we do not knowingly have actively gay people in positions of leadership, either paid or unpaid," he said.

On Monday, Pratt defended his own Zoe Church, saying churchgoers supported him following his divorce from Anna Faris in 2017.

Read more:Chris Pratt just finished his 21-day Bible-inspired diet where he only ate fruits, vegetables, and unleavened bread

"Despite what the Bible says about divorce my church community was there for me every step of the way, never judging, just gracefully accompanying me on my walk," Pratt said in the Instagram story. "They helped me tremendously offering love and support. It is what I have seen them do for others on countless occasions regardless of sexual orientation, race or gender."

Pratt said his faith was "important" but that it did not "define" him.

"My values define who I am. We need less hate in the world, not more," he said. "I am a man who believes that everyone is entitled to love who they want free from the judgment of their fellow man."

Page first spoke out against Pratt's church after the actor detailed his faith and spirituality on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert."

He had just finished Bible-themed fast, which he said his pastor inspired him to participate in.

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• Watch Chris Pratt channel his 'Parks and Recreation' character for a new spin on 'The LEGO Movie' song
• Chris Pratt told us the key to maintaining a friendly relationship with his ex Anna Faris
• The engagement ring Chris Pratt gave Katherine Schwarzenegger is worth at least $350,000, according to a diamond expert

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• Tax Day 2019, the last day to file your 2018 tax return, is Monday, April 15.
• It's the first tax season under the new tax law President Donald Trump enacted in late 2017. It was the most significant overhaul of the US tax code in 30 years.
• According to IRS data, the average federal tax refund amount is down about 8% from last year, to $1,865.
• If you receive a smaller refund or owe money to the IRS, it's not an indication that you're worse off financially, according to financial experts.

We're two weeks into the 2019 tax filing season and refunds are starting to roll in.

According to IRS data, the average federal tax refund amount is down about 8% — to $1,865 — for the first week of the 2019 filing season compared to the same window last year. The total number of refunds issued dropped by 24%.

Smaller refunds are a likely result of the new tax law President Donald Trump enacted in late 2017, which was the most significant overhaul of the US tax code in 30 years. The tax law instituted new guidelines for how much employers should withhold from employees' paychecks for taxes, resulting in an increase in take-home pay for about 90% of Americans, Business Insider's Bob Bryan reported.

Employees who didn't adjust their withholdings after the new guidelines were released could be receiving a smaller refund than they expected this year, Mark Jaeger, the director of tax development at TaxAct, told Business Insider.

Read more: Here's when you can expect your tax refund to hit your bank account, according to the IRS

"Depending on a filer's tax situation, they may not get as large of a refund this year as they're used to if they didn't adjust their withholdings in 2018. That said, they shouldn't immediately be alarmed if that's the case," Jaeger said.

"Many filers received a boost in their paychecks throughout 2018; that's where the remaining amount of their refund went," he said. "Instead of waiting to receive their money as a tax refund, they received it all year long."

According to a January article in The New York Times, a Treasury Department analysis provided to the Government Accountability Office estimated that compared with last year, about 4 million fewer filers would receive refunds this year, while about 4 million more filers would have a balance to pay on their taxes because of the new withholding system.

"The good news is the IRS just announced they are waiving the estimated-tax penalty for any taxpayers whose 2018 federal income tax withholding and estimated tax payments fell unexpectedly short of their total tax liability for the year," Jaeger said. It means that if you paid at least 85% of your tax liability through the year, you won't have to pay the typical late-payment penalty.

Meanwhile, a team of UBS analysts projected that most married filers with two children would see a pretty sizeable boost in their refunds for 2018 compared with 2017, especially those making under $40,000 a year and those making $125,000 to $400,000.

But at the end of the day, receiving a big refund is neither good nor bad, Jaeger said, adding that taxpayers can either reduce or increase withholdings — the amount of money an employer withholds from your paycheck to cover your tax liability — to determine the size of their refund.

Read more: After someone stole my tax refund 2 years ago, I found the best way to protect myself is also the easiest

"Just because you receive a small refund doesn't mean you didn't get everything back you were owed or that you're worse off financially — it most likely means you paid the right amount of federal taxes you owed during the year and didn't overpay," Jaeger said.

Big tax refunds generally mean you paid too much in taxes — you had too much income tax taken out of each paycheck, and now the IRS is returning what is rightfully yours. Instead of keeping your money in a savings or retirement account where it could earn interest all year, you essentially gave an interest-free loan to the government, Business Insider previously reported.

As Business Insider's Lauren Lyons Cole, a certified financial planner, said, "I always try to either owe slightly or break even when filing my tax return." A tax refund of zero means you optimized your income throughout the year, putting yourself in the best possible position to increase your net worth, she said.

"Some individuals like receiving a larger refund because they use it as a savings account," Jaeger said. "It's a way for them to save a significant chunk of money throughout the year. For some, that's a perfectly fine strategy, as long as you can cover all of your other expenses throughout the year."

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Many companies use the term artificial intelligence, or AI, as a way to generate excitement for their products and to present themselves as on the cutting edge of tech development.

But what exactly is artificial intelligence? What does it involve? And how will it help the development of future generations?

Find out the answers to these questions and more in AI 101, a brand new FREE report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, that describes how AI works and looks at its present and potential future applications.

To get your copy of the FREE slide deck, simply click here.

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The Insider Picks team writes about stuff we think you'll like. Business Insider has affiliate partnerships, so we get a share of the revenue from your purchase.

The benefits of Amazon Prime go far beyond free two-day shipping, but the fast delivery times are extremely helpful for last-minute holiday shopping — and this Valentine's Day it can surely get you out of a jam.

Whether you completely forgot Valentine's Day was this Thursday or you've been putting it off like the procrastinator you are, there's still time to get a beautiful bouquet of flowers delivered to that special someone on Amazon.

With everything from classic red roses to colorful assortments with a variety of flowers, you'll save yourself the embarrassment of showing up with cheap, shriveled up flowers from a gas station or pharmacy.

Shop Prime-eligible flower arrangements on Amazon here.

Check out some of the best available bouquets, below:

Classic red roses

Benchmark Bouquets Two-Dozen Red Roses with Vase, $55.95

An assortment of rainbow roses

Bechmark Bouquets Two Dozen Rainbow Roses, $52.26

White hydrangeas

KaBloom Valentine's Day Collection: Colombian Hydrangeas with Vase, $30.98

• Life insurance is fundamentally hard to sell; it’s morbid to think about, promises no immediate rewards, and often requires a lengthy paper application with minimal guidance.
• Despite the popularity of personalized products in other areas of finance and fintech, life insurance largely remains unchanged.
• A small, but growing pocket of insurtech startups are shaking up the status quo by finding ways to digitize life insurance and increase its appeal.

Life insurance is a fundamentally difficult product to sell; it requires people to think about their deaths without promising any immediate returns.

And, despite tech innovations and the development of personalized services in other areas of finance, life insurance remains largely unchanged.

Luckily, there is a small but growing pocket of insurtech startups looking to modernize it. These companies are finding ways to digitize life insurance to  appeal to consumers — and they’re giving incumbents the opportunity to revamp traditional offerings, either by partnering with them or using their technology.

Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has forecasted the shifting landscape of life insurance in the The Future of Life Insurance report. Here are the key problems insurtechs are tackling:

• Lack of education: Forty percent of US consumers told the Life Insurance and Market Research Association (LIMRA) that they feel intimidated by the life insurance application process, often drastically overestimating its cost and facing uncertainty about how much or which type of coverage to buy.
• Inconvenient application process: It can take weeks or months for coverage to take effect because of the sheer number of meetings and parties combing through paperwork in each round of the application process. The risk for the insurer often warrants reviews from the carrier, a team of underwriters, a broker, and even a medical examiner.
• Low customer loyalty: Life insurance tends to be a “set it and forget it” type of purchase, with very few people revisiting it after buying. Insurers and consumers therefore have limited contact for most of the relationship — with the exception of an annual bill, of course.
• Inefficient data management and processing: The aggregate data life insurers rely on is typically fed into algorithms that make broad assumptions about particular populations, and often incorporate outdated medical documentation — all of which can delay applications and result in unnecessary rejections.

Want to learn more?

The need for modernization in life insurance is clear: Overall sales are slowing and policy ownership is hitting record lows. And because it’s such a tightly-regulated space, innovation from incumbents has stagnated — but they’re not helpless. Consumer-focused and insurer-focused startups have emerged to offer new technologies and process improvements.

The Future of Life Insurance report from Business Insider Intelligence looks at the two main strategies life insurtechs are adopting to drive change in this market, for the benefit of both buyers and sellers. In full, the report discusses best practices incumbents and startups should adopt to steer clear of the risks attached to applying emerging technologies to such a tightly regulated product.

Insurtech startups will soon set new industry standards and consumer expectations around this complex product. That, in turn will serve as a catalyst for innovation among legacy players.

Companies included in this report: Ladder, Haven Life, Getsurance, Tomorrow, Fabric, Atidot, AllLife, Royal London, Polly, Life.io, Legal & General, Vitality, Discovery, John Hancock, Dai-ichi Life.

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• "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World" arrives in theaters on February 22. 
• The movie serves as a great ending to one of the best trilogies of our decade thanks to heartwarming emotional payoff, though the villains are still lacking and the first movie remains the best of the three.

Based on a book series of the same name by Cressida Cowell, the "How to Train Your Dragon" trilogy is coming to an end with a heart-melting movie you shouldn't miss. 

Director and writer Dean DeBlois has crafted movie magic once more that is certain to bring you to tears if you're as invested in the love between Hiccup and Toothless as we are. Actors Jay Baruchel, America Ferrera, Gerard Butler, and Cate Blanchett return for this perfect endcap to the trilogy.

Why You Should Care: 'How to Train Your Dragon' is a must-see trilogy

"How to Train Your Dragon" is one of the best family-friendly movie trilogies to grace our screens in a long, long time. Nearly 10 years ago, "How to Train Your Dragon" made its debut to critical and commercial success. In the years since, its been cemented in the canon of incredible animated features you shouldn't miss.

The heart and message at its mythological core boils down to the importance of love and friendship and searching for the compassionate solution in the face of hatred and bigotry.

What's Hot: The storytelling neatly weaves together all three films for an emotional gutpunch

While watching "The Hidden World," the immense growth of the characters crystallizes with each passing scene. Hiccup particularly shines as a now-21-year-old man and Chief of Berk. His relationship to both Astrid and Toothless has adapted too, and the script smartly explores what adulthood means for both of those bonds.

Toothless and Hiccup's endearing friendship has morphed into hybrid of a father-son or brother-brother dynamic that is both sweet, at times funny, but most importantly it is an incredible display of love and affection.

"The Hidden World" has a touch more action, the same doofy sense of humor, and soaring score from John Howell and Sigur Rós frontman Jónsi that will make your heart sing.

Though the first movie remains the best in terms of tight, nonstop engaging storytelling, the final set of scenes in "The Hidden World" are an incredible culmination of emotional payoff. Don't expect many dry eyes in your theater. Bring the tissues, and prepare to feel your heart grow about three times in size.

What's Not: So-so villains and a distracting cast change

The reason why the first movie remains the strongest of the bunch comes down to the conception and execution of villains — namely, that there aren't really any. Instead the conflict comes from Hiccup's own father and the clashing of traditional violence with innovation and peace.

But the second and third movies attempt to contend with outside threats which never feel particularly, well, threatening. While Grimmel is a better-developed villain than Drago Bludvist (from the second movie), he still doesn't quite strike the right chord of terror.

Then there is the recasting of T.J. Miller's role, Tuffnut, with comedian Justin Rupple. While Rupple does a solid recreation of Tuffnut's voice from the first two films, the character is strangely given more screen time than ever which made the switch become more noticeable. This could lead to a bit of distraction, though it's possible many fans will simply not notice.

But the downsides to this movie are far and few between.

The Bottom Line: Rewatch those first two movies, and then take everyone you know to the theater for 'The Hidden World'

So many themes contained within the "How To Train Your Dragon" trilogy deserve recognition. The message of celebrating our differences, and how embracing change makes our communities stronger. The treatment of someone with a prosthetic leg as a hero whose physical abilities are not the most important factor in their lives. The upholding of sensitivity, problem-solving, and respect as the defining traits of what makes a good man, and more importantly, a good leader. The ethos that love and friendship will outlast hatred every time.

"There is no greater gift than love," one character says in the movie. Well, a fantastic trilogy of movies we can return to again and again, through all walks of life, is a close second in our eyes.

Grade: A-

"How to Train Your Dragon: Hidden World" arrives in theaters on February 22. Watch the trailer below. 

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This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here.

Regtech solutions seemed to offer the solution to financial institutions' (FIs) compliance woes when they first came to prominence around 24 months ago, gaining support from regulators and investors alike. 

However, many of the companies offering these solutions haven't scaled as might have been expected from the initial hype, and have failed to follow the trajectory of firms in other segments of fintech.

This unexpected inertia in the regtech industry is likely to resolve over the next 12-18 months as other factors come into play that shift FIs' approach to regtech solutions, and as the companies offering them evolve. External factors driving this change include regulatory support of regtech solutions, and consultancies offering more help to FIs wanting to sift through solutions. Startups offering regtech solutions will also play a part by partnering with each other, forming industry organizations, and taking advantage of new opportunities.

This report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, provides a brief overview of the current global financial regulatory compliance landscape, and the regtech industry's position within it. It then details the major drivers that will shift the dial on FIs' adoption of regtech over the next 12-18 months, as well as those that will propel startups offering regtech solutions to new heights. Finally, it outlines what impact these drivers will have, and gives insight into what the global regtech industry will look like by 2020.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• Regulatory compliance is still a significant issue faced by global FIs. In 2018 alone, EU regulations MiFID II and PSD2 have come into effect, bringing with them huge handbooks and gigantic reporting requirements. 
• Regtech startups boast solutions that can ease FIs' compliance burden — but they are struggling to scale. 
• Some changes expected to drive greater adoption of these solutions in the next 12 to 18 months are: the ongoing evolution of startups' business models, increasing numbers of partnerships, regulators' promotion of regtech, changing attitudes to the segment among FIs, and consultancies helping to facilitate adoption.
• FIs will actively be using solutions from regtech startups by 2020, and startups will be collaborating in an organized fashion with each other and with FIs. Global regulators will have adopted regtech themselves, while continuing to act as advocates for the industry.

In full, the report:

• Reviews the major changes expected to hit the regtech segment in the next 12 to 18 months.
• Examines the drivers behind these changes, and how the proliferation of regtech will improve compliance for FIs.
• Provides our view on what the future of the regtech industry looks like through 2020.
  Get The Regtech Revisited Report
  

   

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• From mergers and acquisitions to massive amounts of funding, commercial open source software companies made a splash last year.
• Confluent, Neo4j, HashiCorp and GitLab are just a few examples of commercial open source software startups that raised major rounds of funding.
• Investors are excited about open source because it's what developers want, and it's what customers want.
• Although these startups give away some of their software for free, their business model also makes marketing, sales, innovation and attracting attention from investors easier.
• Still, some startups are wrestling with how to deal with cloud providers profiting from their work, and investors predict more changes to come in this space.

Last year was open source software's long-awaited spotlight moment, and the flash of excitement is now spreading to a broad group of startups betting that the business of giving software away is ready to explode.

A series of high-profile open source deals filled the calendar in 2018, as Salesforce acquired Mulesoft, Microsoft acquired GitHub, VMware acquired Heptio, IBM announced it would acquire Red Hat, Cloudera and Hortonworks merged and Elastic went public.

OSS Capital founder Joseph Jacks, whose venture capital firm focuses on open source startups, reckons that there was roughly $70 billion in mergers and acquisitions, private equity and IPOs involving open source last year. And he estimates that there's been another $2 billion in funding for commercial open source startups in the past year, as startups like Confluent, Neo4j, HashiCorp and GitLab raised money.

"That's an astronomically huge number," Jacks said. "We’ve never seen that much activity, commercially speaking, from a business perspective. We’ve never seen that much activity in open source."

Although open source software has been around for decades, the technology is suddenly hitting its stride as a business.

Despite creating software that they give away for free, these startups have a recipe for success that they're continuously improving and refining, along with a hungry clientele that's clamoring for more. The developers and engineers that open source software is aimed at now enjoy more influence and clout within their companies than ever before.

And many of the open source companies make bank. According to Jacks, who tracks these companies, there are now 40 commercial open source software companies that generate $100 million or more in annual revenue. Four years ago, only eight companies were in that club.

In the coming year, investors expect more growth in these types of startups, as well as more M&A, private equity, IPO's and funding in that space.

"We're as interested as ever in open source startups," Daniel Levine, partner at Accel, told Business Insider. "We keep seeing it as a viable business model. There have been great results in the open source world recently in terms of acquisitions and companies going public. I think for a long time, we were always surprised at how little interest there was."

Investors are excited because customers are excited

Levine says that many investors grew up during a time when Microsoft was spreading the word that open source is bad for business.  

Now Microsoft has completely converted, and with its acquisition of GitHub it's one of the companies that made a major play last year in the open source space. And there's an uptick in open source interest — a turnaround for many investors.

"Developers want to see how many developers trust this software," Dave Munichiello, general partner at GV, told Business Insider. "The open source software world is fantastic because you can quickly assess if software works for you."

Investors are excited about open source because customers are excited about it. A growing number of companies are using open source alternatives like Kubernetes for their workloads, rather than spending money to buy proprietary software. And more companies are discovering open source as they move their operations to the cloud.

Read more: Everything you need to know about Kubernetes, the Google-created open source software so popular even Microsoft and Amazon had to adopt it

In fact, Jacks, of OSS Capital, is so bullish on the trend that he started his firm specifically to invest in commercial open source software startups.

A counterintuitive business model

Giving away software for free is an inherently counterintuitive business model. And there's still plenty of hand-wringing and doubts about whether an open source company can really build a sustainable business around free software.

In the past year, MongoDB, Redis Labs and Confluent have changed their licenses in response to cloud giants like Amazon and Baidu taking their software to sell on their clouds — a practice that's completely legal.

Eric Anderson, principal of Scale Venture Partners, says that while he's seen investors more excited about open source than they used to be, he's also seen the opposite.

"Some investors have been wary for some time that it's hard to turn on the monetization engine for open source," Anderson said.

Read more: An influential group sponsored by the Silicon Valley tech titans warns that efforts are underway to 'undermine the integrity of open source'

But investors in open source startups counter that making software available as open source has advantages over proprietary software, and, they say, it's often easier to build open source companies.

"I think it’s actually just as hard if not harder for traditional legacy proprietary software companies to make money," Jacks said. "They’re arguably more capital intensive."

That's because the people behind the software don't need to raise money to create value. Since anyone can contribute code to an open source project, the software can evolve much faster without a company needing to hire a team of developers.

Nor does the company need to spend as much on resources like sales or marketing. Instead of paying salespeople to get customers, an open source company can acquire customers cheaply as the software itself is the sales tool. 

With open source software available for anyone to download for free, people don't need to be persuaded to use it. They just need to try it out. If the product is good, a community can quickly emerge around it, spreading the word and building user loyalty.

"If you build something that’s compelling to software developers and engineers, you benefit from a network effect," Jacks said. "If those projects were proprietary and you want to get a similar level of global adoption and level, it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to get there."

This applies to getting VC money, too. When investors see thousands of people using the software, they can already get a sense how much traction and demand the product has. By the time VC's invest, the company has already found some success. And when they see all the exits that commercial open source startups have made in the past year, they get excited.

"We are excited about open source in general," Munichiello said. "It tends to be cutting edge. As a result of it being open, some of the best developers have tested it. We get a sense of how they are able to create value."

And sure, it can be hard to turn open source software into a business, but it's tough to turn any kind of software into a business, Munichiello adds.

"In general, both investing and entrepreneurship are challenging," Munichiello said. "There's more open source companies being created, and investors are willing to put their money at risk. When investors are writing their investment theses, they're thinking about the upside."

A cloudy landscape

In the coming year, investors expect more change and innovation around the way commercial open source companies license and monetize their software. This is a question that some companies are still wrestling with.

Right now there isn't one standard business license for these types of companies to use. One startup Tidelift was even built around finding an alternative way for open source developers to make money off of contributing to and supporting open source projects that enterprises rely on.

"I think we'll see continuing spectrum as the polarized worlds of proprietary and open continue to erode to a spectrum," Anderson said. "It will be interesting to see between all these new licenses, if one emerges as a standard."

Levine says he's not too worried about cloud providers becoming a threat to commercial open source startups. For the enterprise software that startups sell, they usually offer additional features that a company like Amazon can't take.

"You have to work a little harder and compete, but that's true of anything," Levine said. "The key is you want to make sure your community is happy and your customers are happy."

SEE ALSO: The CEO of App Annie, one of Silicon Valley's most popular app data platforms, explains how it revamped its culture while preparing to be IPO-ready

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• Artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and self-driving technology are helping the transportation and logistics industry finally transform by cutting costs, optimizing delivery routes, and automating mundane tasks.
• Startups will be the lynchpin of this transformation because they specifically target areas of need  with cutting-edge solutions.
• Business Insider Intelligence examined the top 5 startups within five key areas: digital freight services, warehouse robotics, AI for supply chain management, last-mile delivery robotics, and self-driving car software.

Transportation and logistics industries have operated largely the same way for decades. But the surge in e-commerce in the last several years, combined with consumers’ appetite for same-day delivery, has brought us to a tipping point.

Delivery companies are doing all they can to get orders to customers’ doors as quickly as possible, which has facilitated wholesale changes in how they operate.

Cutting-edge digital solutions (including digital freight services, warehouse robotics, AI for supply chain management, delivery robotics, and autonomous driving software) are forcing traditional delivery companies to either evolve or see their core businesses erode.

Transportation & Logistics Startups to Watch, a new report from Business Insider Intelligence, monitors the biggest change agents in the industry to offer unique insight into the development of the transportation and logistics space at large, and shows how traditional companies are adapting to their new environment.

Want to Learn More?

Business Insider Intelligence's Startups to Watch reports give a high-level overview of the funding trends for startups in a particular coverage area, as well as a list of key startups (by function, what they do, key news, and statistics). Businesses need to understand new competitive threats, technologies, and acquisition opportunities in order to thrive. These reports provide that contextual information in an easy-to-digest manner.

In full, the Transportation & Logistics Startups to Watch report dives into the top 25 companies - five startups across five key disruption areas - that are easing shipping burdens, improving order fulfillment efficiency, optimizing delivery, and automating processes.

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• On Monday, the Google Maps team gave Business Insider the chance to try out its new AR feature for pedestrian maps, which the company first announced at its developer conference last May.
• The company says the feature is in an "alpha" state and for now, will only be available to "local guides." 
• Even without a definite public release date, we were anxious to see if AR could actually improve the Google Maps experience. 
• Below we describe what it was like to use the new Google Maps AR feature on the streets of San Francisco. 

Anyone visiting a new city knows the confusion of emerging from a subway station and trying to figure out in which direction to turn. 

Even with your maps app open, orienting yourself in an unfamiliar place can be difficult and lead to some missteps.

Google believes it has solved the problem using augmented reality technology. 

On Monday, the Google Maps team gave Business Insider the chance to try out its new AR feature for pedestrian maps, which the company first teased at its developer conference last May. The team says the feature is in an "alpha" state and for now, will only be available to "local guides"— Google Maps enthusiasts who provide useful product feedback.  

Even without a definite public release date, we were anxious to see if AR could actually improve the Google Maps experience. 

Here's what it was like to use the new Google Maps AR feature on the streets of San Francisco: 

SEE ALSO: I know I am part of Apple's iPhone problem but even after doing all my research, I still don't feel the need to upgrade

We met members of the Google Maps team at Rincon Park, which is right near the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. We decided we could all use some caffeine, so to test out the new AR feature, we headed to Blue Bottle Coffee on Sansome Street.

We plugged the destination into Google Maps to begin the journey.

This is where the AR magic happens. When you hold your phone up to eye level, the standard map shrinks into a small circle at the bottom of the screen. The majority of your screen shows you the real world that's directly in front of you, as if you were looking through the camera.

But this is an "augmented" version of the real world. After a couple of seconds to process my location, the screen displayed big arrows, layered on top of the view, that pointed me in the right direction to start my walk. 

But I wasn't able to hold the phone up for too long. For safety purposes, an alert pops up after a few moments of using the AR feature, telling users to put their phones down while they walk.

And it's a good thing that I did. My path was filled with electric scooter riders — an AR accident waiting to happen! 

Google said it purposely only displays the arrows during “moments of confusion” so that users don’t walk around with their phones in the air, oblivious to those around them.

Those moments of confusion can include when users first start on their journey (like when exiting the subway), when a turn is approaching, or when arriving at a destination.

This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here. Current subscribers can read the report here.

Remittances, or cross-border peer-to-peer (P2P) money transfers, hit a record high of $613 billion globally in 2017, following a two-year decline.  And the remittance industry will continue to grow, driven largely by digital services.

Several factors will fuel digital growth globally, such as increased smartphone penetration, greater demand for digital transactions, and an overall need for faster cross-border transfers. And with the shift to digital comes an audience of younger, digital-savvy customers using remittances — a segment that companies are looking to target.

As a result, the global remittance industry is becoming increasingly competitive for firms to navigate, with incumbents like Western Union and MoneyGram competing for the same pool of customers as digital upstarts like WorldRemit and Remitly. And in order to win, companies across the board will need to prioritize the four areas consumers value most in remittances: cost, convenience, speed, and safety.  

In The Digital Remittances Report, Business Insider Intelligence will identify what young, digitally savvy users value in remittances. We will also detail the concrete steps that legacy and digital providers can take to effectively capture this opportunity and monetize digital offerings — the primary growth driver — to emerge at or maintain their presence at the forefront of the space. 

The companies mentioned in the report are: MoneyGram, Remitly, Ria, Western Union, WorldRemit, TransferWise, and Xoom, among others.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• The global remittance industry recovered from a two-year decline in 2017 to reach a record $613 billion in transfer volume. That growth will continue and will be fueled by digital remittances, which Business Insider Intelligence expects to grow at a 23% CAGR from $225 billion in 2018 to $387 billion in 2023.
• There’s a new segment of customers that both legacy and digital firms are competing to grab share of. Young, digital-savvy consumers are the customer segment that all firms are vying to reach, which is creating a highly competitive dynamic. The needs of those consumers will precipitate transformational change in the industry.
• We’ve identified several tangible steps firms can take to improve in four key areas — cost, convenience, speed, and security — to not only attract but also maintain this customer segment to align with their preferences and ultimately win in the space.

 In full, the report:

• Outlines the global remittance landscape and sizes the opportunity that the industry presents. 
• Identifies the new audience for remittances and future drivers of the remittance space going forward. 
• Discusses four key areas that providers can focus on — cost, convenience, speed, and security — to improve offerings and ultimately capture that shifting audience. 

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SEE ALSO: These were the biggest developments in the global fintech ecosystem over the last 12 months

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• Apple, Facebook, and Twitter each announced recently that they would stop disclosing some important data to investors.
• Each said other figures better depict the health of their business.
• But when companies cease reporting certain figures, it's often a sign those particular results are starting to deteriorate.
• Apple is a case in point; immediately after it announced it would no longer report the number of iPhones it sells, its smartphone sales started to drop.

It's usually not a good sign when someone stops talking about a bit of information that they frequently bragged about in the past.

If your friends stop bragging about their dating lives, or how great things are going at work, you can probably bet that things have taken a turn for the worse.

So much more is the case when it comes to companies. When they stop disclosing certain numbers they were all too happy to share in the past, there's a good chance it's because those figures no longer put them in the best light and may actually highlight the fact that something is going seriously wrong with their business.

The tech industry of late has provided three high-profile examples of this truism.

In recent months, Apple, Facebook, and Twitter each announced that they would no longer be reporting a key figure analysts and investors have used to track their businesses. In each case, the change not only threatens to make the company's results more opaque, but it also seems to be an attempt to hide something unflattering about the firm's underlying performance.

Apple stopped reporting iPhone unit sales just before they plunged

Apple, of course, is the most notorious case of the three. In November, it alerted investors and analysts that it would no longer report the number of iPhones or other devices it sold each quarter.

Company-watchers had long scrutinized the figures, particularly for iPhone sales, seeing them as an important indicator of demand for Apple's products, their share of their markets, and the relative success of the company's business. But Luca Maestri, the company's chief financial officer, said Apple's competitors don't disclose their unit sales figures, and he argued that the numbers aren't "necessarily representative" of the health of its business.

Apple is in new lines of business, such as its collection of services, that don't depend directly on the number of devices it sells, he said. It also now offers devices at a wide range of price points, he said; the sale of a $1,000 iPhone X is obviously much more meaningful to its revenue than a $450 iPhone 7, but both would could as one unit sold.

Investors and even some analysts immediately saw through that line of reasoning. The number of iPhones Apple sold barely grew in its 2018 fiscal year, and Apple watchers worried that the company’s real reason for ceasing its unit-sales reports was because it figured its iPhone sales were about to start to decline. Apple's stock dropped 7% on the news.

Those fears were soon validated. Within a couple weeks of Apple’s announcement, the first reports started trickling out that it was seeing weak demand for its latest phones and was already starting to cut production. Although company officials initially tried to reassure nervous investors that sales were doing just fine, CEO Tim Cook eventually had to bow to reality, publicly acknowledge that sales were poor, and warn that that would translate into disappointing financial results.

Read this: Hey Tim Cook, there's a simple solution to your iPhone sales problem

Now analysts — working, admittedly, with much less data than they used to have — are forecasting a big drop in iPhone sales this year, and potentially further declines on into the future.

They’re also refuting the notion that unit sales are no longer important to Apple’s business, arguing convincingly that even the revenue the company gets from its services is closely tied to the number of iPhones it sells, given that so many of those services are exclusive to Apple devices. With iPhone sales expected to decline, many are now reducing their expectations for Apple’s service business.

Facebook and Twitter investors should be concerned

The Apple experience is instructive for investors and analysts hoping to make sense of similar moves by Twitter and Facebook. Both companies announced they would no longer disclose certain numbers about their respective user bases. Each attempted to justify the move by saying other numbers were more relevant to its business now. And in each case, there’s good reason for investors to worry about what they’re hiding.

Take Twitter. That company announced that it will no longer be reporting its number of monthly active users. Instead, it will disclose its number of monetizable daily active users; i.e. the average number to which it can show ads each day. Company officials didn't offer much of an explanation for the dropping the monthly number; Ned Segal, Twitter's chief financial officer, said merely that the daily number and its growth were "the best ways to measure our success."

But like Apple with the iPhone sales figure, Twitter had good reason to mask the monthly user number — it's been falling. After declining for three straight quarters, the company had 321 million monthly users in the holiday period. That was the least number of monthly users it had had since the end of 2016 and was down 4% since the first quarter.

Not to worry, Twitter officials essentially said. Its daily user count has been growing consistently for years now.

That may be the case, but the daily usage figure is problematic for multiple reasons. One of them is that the number is relatively small — just 126 million. At least nominally, that's 48% fewer than the number who use Snapchat on a daily basis. And it's less than 10% of Facebook's daily user base.

A second shortcoming is that Twitter says the number isn't necessarily comparable to other companies' daily usage figures and isn't determined by "any standardized industry methodology." That makes it kind of a black box — who knows how Twitter is actually calculating it? It also means that investors can't directly compare Twitter's performance with those of its social-networking peers.

Another problem with the figure is that it gives a very narrow window to view Twitter's usage. It would be best to be able to use it in tandem with the monthly figure to get a sense of how well Twitter is doing growing its overall user base and convincing them to use the site more regularly.

Like Apple shareholders, Twitter investors didn't seem thrilled with the change. The company's stock dropped nearly 10% on the day of its report, even though its results beat Wall Street's expectations.

Facebook is still reporting its usage numbers — for now

But even Facebook plans to get into the hidden figures game. In recent quarters, company officials have been touting usage of its family of services, including not just its core Facebook app, but also Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. The point officials have been trying to make is that the number of people who interact with at least one of its services daily is significantly higher than the number that just use Facebook. Additionally, the wider number has helped illustrate the growth of Instagram in particular.

Soon, though, company officials plan to only release the combined usage number and to cease reporting the Facebook-only figures. Again, the reason they gave was that the wider figure is a better indication of the health of the overall company.

"We believe these numbers better reflect the size of our community and the fact that many people are using more than one of our services," Dave Wehner, Facebook's chief financial officer, said on a conference call with investors.

As with Twitter and Apple, though, Facebook has an incentive to stop reporting usage of its main app — user growth on that service has slowed markedly. In the fourth quarter, daily and monthly usage of Facebook each grew by less than 9% from the same period a year earlier. As recently as the fourth quarter of 2016, monthly usage was growing at nearly a 17% annual clip and daily usage was growing by more 18%.

The broader figure will likely obscure that flagging performance. That's a problem because even though Instagram in particular has been growing rapidly, the core Facebook service still caters to the vast majority of users and brings in the bulk of the company's revenue and profit.

So keep a close eye on companies that stop reporting certain data. What they're hiding almost certainly isn't good news.

• Read more:
• One of Apple's best-known analysts says an all-time low iPhone upgrade rate is going to cause more pain than investors realize
• The most important things we learned from Apple's earnings call
• Here's why Apple's iPhone sales won't get better anytime soon
• Here's why Apple's China situation is at 'code red,' and why it needs to take dramatic action to plug up a key weakness in the business

SEE ALSO: Apple needs to get serious about video. Here are 3 Hollywood studios it could buy to boost its new streaming service.

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NOW WATCH: We compared the $1,200 MacBook Air with the $500 Surface Go, and the results were a mess

Digital disruption is affecting every aspect of the fintech industry.

Over the past five years, fintech has established itself as a fundamental part of the global financial services ecosystem.

Fintech startups have raised, and continue to raise, billions of dollars annually, pushing incumbent financial institutions to get in on the action. Legacy players have begun using fintech to remain competitive in a rapidly evolving financial services landscape.

So what's next?

Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, explores recent innovations in the fintech space as well as what might be coming in the future in our brand new exclusive slide deck, The Future of Fintech: How Fintech Is Taking Over The World and What Comes Next.

To get your copy of this free slide deck, click here.

Join the conversation about this story »

This is a preview of a research report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about Business Insider Intelligence, click here.

The virtual reality (VR) market is expected to rally in 2018 after seeing slow growth from 2016 to 2017. The uptick will be largely catalyzed by the emergence of the newest headset form factor, stand-alone VR headsets, which address some of the biggest pain points that have prohibited mainstream consumers from adopting VR.

This new form factor is more affordable than cost-prohibitive high-end headsets and more capable than its smartphone-powered counterparts. Additionally, it features in-unit processing that frees the VR headset from wires. The first major stand-alone headset, the Vive Focus from HTC, was launched in January of this year, and more from other major companies like Oculus and Google are expected to follow over the next six months. 

In a new report, Business Insider Intelligence lays out where the VR market is and forecasts how it will grow over the next five years. We dissect the various hardware categories and the unique strengths and opportunities of each, and identify how they will gain traction at different points of the market’s evolution. Finally, we examine various components impacting consumer adoption.

Here are some of the key takeaways:

• Business Insider Intelligence forecasts shipments of all VR headsets to grow 69% year-over-year (YoY) to reach 13.5 million in 2018. Powering that growth is the stand-alone VR headset category, which is expected to account for 30% of total headsets shipped in the year ahead. 
• The VR hardware market is volatile because getting a device right is a balancing act. On one hand, the price point needs to be affordable for most consumers, and on the other, the experience has to be distinctive and immersive enough to convince a consumer to strap a visor to their face on a regular basis. 
• While only a handful of stand-alone VR headsets will hit the market in 2018, they mark the biggest step toward mainstream adoption of consumer-oriented VR headsets by making the technology more accessible for the average consumer. 
• Declining price points, coupled with high-quality headsets and the introduction of a game-changing app, are crucial for the VR industry to achieve before VR can really gain traction on a global scale.

In full, the report:

• Forecasts the growth projections and shipment expectations of the global VR headset market, and breaks it up by the major headset categories.
• Explores the four major segments in the current VR hardware market, defined by the hardware needed to power the experience — stand-alone, smartphone-powered, PC-powered, and game console-powered VR.
• Identifies the key players shaping the burgeoning stand-alone VR headset segment.
• Discusses the biggest challenges to VR development and adoption.

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• The city of Sandusky, Ohio, has made Election Day a paid holiday in a move to boost civic participation.
• It only impacts municipal workers, but "this can spark a lot of conversation in the city with private employers or beyond the city with other local governments — our hope is that this can make a deeper impact," city manager Eric Wobser said.
• Election Day as a holiday is not a novel concept, and House Democrats in the 116th Congress have drafted the HR 1 bill, which, in addition to anti-corruption measures, would also make election day a holiday for employees in both the public and private sectors.

The city of Sandusky, Ohio just made a small but significant change to encourage civic participation.

Sandusky, which is located in the north of the state on the banks of Lake Erie, made Election Day a paid holiday — swapping it out for Columbus Day.

The swap only impacts roughly 250 municipal employees, NPR reports, but the change is significant for several reasons: It tackles Columbus Day, a controversial holiday, expands access to the polls, and it's inspiring other cities to look into similar action.

"You know, some of the criticism that we've heard has really been around a couple of things, and one of those pieces of criticism is that it's actually a pretty narrow application of the voting base, because we don't have the ability to apply it to voters outside of city employees," city manager Eric Wobser told INSIDER in an interview on Monday. "But again, we look at this as one effort of many efforts that we can make to improve access or remove barriers [to voting].

"This can spark a lot of conversation in the city with private employers or beyond the city with other local governments," Wobser said. "Our hope is that this can make a deeper impact."

And so far it has, Wobser told INSIDER that "we have heard from a lot of other local government that are considering doing something similar now," from all around the country.

The genesis for this piece of legislation began with 2018 discussions on how to expand access to the polls and union negotiations four years prior that included dropping Columbus Day as a holiday.

The legislation went into immediate effect and will mean that this year's Columbus Day, on October 14, 2019, will not be a paid holiday in Sandusky, while Election Day will be.

"In 2018 when we began conversations with the unions, we were much more focused on Election Day and prioritizing eliminating barriers to access the polls," Wobser said, which in addition to wanting to make Election Day a holiday, included free rides to the polls.

During the 2019-2021 negotiations with the three major unions representing city workers, which began in 2018, the idea of swapping Columbus Day for Election Day as a paid holiday was met with very little pushback, Wobser told INSIDER.

According to NPR, the main concern was giving up the possibility of a three-day weekend, but the prospect of increased civic engagement ultimately won out.

After the agreement with the unions, legislation was drafted and brought to the nonpartisan, democratically elected city commission which voted on it. Wobser explained that the process was relatively simple, essentially amending the legislation on paid holidays to strike out Columbus Day and add in Election Day.

Beyond being known for making Election Day a holiday, Wobser hopes that Sandusky will also be recognized for its diversity, economic development, and booming tourism industry (it is also home to the Cedar Point amusement park).

Election Day as a holiday is not a novel concept, and House Democrats in the 116th Congress have drafted the HR 1 bill, which in addition to other measures, would make Election Day a holiday for employees of both public and private employers.

"For purposes of any law relating to Federal employment, the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November in 2020 and each even-numbered year thereafter shall be treated in the same manner as a legal public holiday described in section 6103 of title 5, United States Code," the bill reads.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell balked at the idea, referring to the overall anti-corruption bill as a "power grab."

"Just what America needs," he said on the Senate floor, "another paid holiday and a bunch of government workers being paid to go out and work, I assume our colleagues on the other side, on their campaigns." According to a poll conducted last year by The Hill, 54% of Americans surveyed think Election Day should be a national holiday.

Wobser says the city of Sandusky's plan did not arise out of partisan politics, but rather to focus on what they can do to help people at the local level — without waiting for state or federal action.

"But it's hard for me to understand how increasing access to the ballot, or increasing somebody's ability to vote could be partisan at all," he said.

SEE ALSO: Columbus Day has been controversial since it was established, and its history is even more gruesome than you realize

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NOW WATCH: We compared Apple's $159 AirPods to Xiaomi's $30 AirDots and the winner was clear

• Lawmakers reached a tentative deal on border-security funding Monday that they hope will avert another government shutdown.
• It includes $1.375 billion to build a barrier at the southern US border — less than a quarter of the $5.7 billion Trump demanded in December, triggering the first shutdown.
• A lead Republican negotiator said that lawmakers "hope" Trump would sign the bill and that the White House had been kept up-to-date. It would also need to pass both chambers of Congress.
• Trump made it clear at a rally later on Monday that he wanted the full wall built.

Lawmakers negotiating a new border-security deal in a bid to avoid another government shutdown reached a tentative deal on Monday night.

Its provisions, however, fall far short of the $5.7 billion for a wall on the southern US border that President Donald Trump has repeatedly demanded.

The provisional deal would provide $1.375 billion for border fortifications, made from vertical steel slats, rather than a solid wall, sources familiar with the deal told the Associated Press and Politico.

This is 24.1% of the $5.7 billion that Trump said he wanted in December. Congress' refusal to approve that funding led to large parts of the federal government shutting down for a record 35 days.

The lower amount would allow for 55 miles of barriers to be built, both outlets reported. The White House had demanded 215 miles in December.

Democrats also dropped a new demand for a cap on the number of people whom Immigration and Customs Enforcement could detain at once.

In exchange, Republicans agreed to reduce the number of beds in detention centers to 40,250 from 49,057.

Details of the agreement will not be officially released until later this week, the outlets said.

Read more: It could take 300 years for Joshua Tree National Park to recover from the government shutdown

Both parties say they are keen to avoid a repeat of the first shutdown, which left more than 800,000 federal workers without work or working without pay. US national parks were left with heavy damage, and organizations like the FBI warned that Americans were being put at risk.

Sen. Richard Shelby, a lead Republican border-funding negotiator, said lawmakers from both parties were motivated by their desire to keep the government open.

"With the government being shut down, the specter of another shutdown this close, what brought us back together, I thought tonight, was we didn’t want that to happen," he said, according to the Associated Press.

But he described the agreement reached between the 17 Democratic and Republican lawmakers as an "agreement in principle."

For the deal to work in time to prevent a shutdown, both the House and the Senate must approve it, and Trump must sign it by midnight on Friday.

Shelby said the White House had "been consulted all along." Asked whether Trump would support the deal, he said: "We certainly hope so."

Read more:FBI Director Christopher Wray slams government shutdown, says he's as angry as he's been 'in a long, long time'

Trump has repeatedly made it clear that he will only sign funding legislation that includes funding for a physical barrier along the US-Mexico border.

Shortly after the deal was reached, Trump led a rally in El Paso, Texas, where he made it clear that he wanted a full wall built.

"They said that progress is being made with this committee," Trump told the crowd, the Associated Press reported. "Just so you know, we're building the wall anyway."

Trump has previously threatened to declare a national emergency to secure funds for the wall, though he would most likely face legal challenges if he did so.

Trump could also sign this new spending bill while also signing an executive order aimed at moving additional federal money not approved by Congress to build the wall — a move the White House is preparing to take, according to Politico, which noted that that move would almost surely be met with court challenges as well.

While Trump spoke, former Rep. Beto O'Rourke of Texas led a march and rally through El Paso, his hometown, opposing a new border wall.

O'Rourke, as well as local politicians and law-enforcement officials, have repeatedly challenged Trump's claims that a border wall is necessary, citing federal statistics as well as local experience.

Read more: Trump versus O'Rourke: Scenes from their dueling rallies in El Paso, Texas

"Here is one of the safest cities in the United States of America, safe not because of walls but in spite of walls," O'Rourke said at the rally.

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Michael D'Antonio reveals Donald Trump's 'strange' morning ritual that boosts his ego

• Exclusive: Labour members warn their leaders that the party's Brexit plan would torpedo its manifesto.
• In a letter sent to Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell on Tuesday, anti-Brexit campaigners in the Remain Labour group said that Labour's updated Brexit policy would result in the UK losing around £24 billion a year over a decade. 
• This would force Jeremy Corbyn to ditch many of his anti-austerity spending promises, the letter said.
• Economist Jonathan Portes said the letter was "a fairly good approximation of what Labour policy would deliver" if implemented. 
• A Labour spokesperson dismisses the analysis as inaccurate.
• Corbyn has vowed to support a Brexit deal which includes a permanent customs union, close links with the single market, and EU-level workplace and environmental rights.
• However, he is under growing pressure to take a tougher stance against Brexit and back a new referendum.

LONDON — Jeremy Corbyn's Brexit proposals would torpedo his spending plans and deprive an incoming Labour government of billions of pounds in lost revenue, anti-Brexit campaigners in the party have warned.

In a letter sent to Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell on Tuesday and shared with Business Insider, the Remain Labour group — which represents pro-European Labour activists nationwide and is backed by a cross-section of Labour MPs— warned that the party's revised Brexit plan would hamstring a Labour government's spending power.

Last week, party leader Corbyn wrote to Theresa May, urging her to accept Labour's Brexit plan of a permanent customs union, close links with the single market, and EU-level workplace and environmental rights.

However, the letter sent today warned McDonnell that this sort of Brexit would lead to the UK losing an estimated £24 billion a year over a decade, citing London School of Economics (LSE) and Kings College London research.

"Labour’s plan set out in the letter to the Prime Minister would cost the economy £24billion per year and devastate Labour’s 2017 manifesto spending plans," the Remain Labour group told McDonnell.

The letter — which has been sent to McDonnell and every other Labour MP — stressed that £24 billion a year is over half of the £44 billion annual increase in public spending promised in the party's 2017 manifesto.

This economic damage would stifle a Labour government and force it to "ditch a wide range of anti-austerity policies that could include schools, welfare and pensions, childcare and the NHS," Remain Labour said.

It would sink some of Corbyn's most eye-catching manifesto promises, the letter added, pointing to the estimated £9 billion it would cost to abolish tuition fees and £4 billion for improvements to the welfare state.

Andrew Lewin, founder of the Remain Labour group, told BI: "This analysis must serve as an urgent wake up call. If the party leadership chooses to pursue a ‘Labour Brexit’, the outcome will be Labour austerity.

"Brexit in any form will damage our public services, cost jobs and hit hardest those who have least. We must change course, have the courage to back a People’s Vote and campaign to Remain in the EU."

One academic behind the LSE and Kings research, Jonathan Portes, said the analysis sent to McDonnell "is probably a fairly good approximation of what Labour policy would deliver – if free movement is not on the table."

He added: "If, however, Labour were to accept free movement, at least in a modified form, that would open up the possibility of a much closer relationship, including for service trade, which would be far less damaging to the economy and public finances."

A Labour Party spokesperson dismissed the analysis as inaccurate, telling BI: "This analysis is predicated on Labour's Brexit deal being identical to the government's deal which Labour voted against and defeated recently.

"It clearly doesn’t therefore reflect Labour policy. Contrasted with the Government’s approach to the discussion of Brexit,  Labour considers it is always best if this debate is undertaken with a degree of accuracy and objectivity."

The Remain Labour letter accused the Labour leadership of abandoning party policy of "full participation in the single market," which was agreed by party delegates at the most recent Labour conference in September.

Labour's policy is "close alignment" with the single market, which campaigners said betrayed the conference agreement.

"We have taken this to mean that Labour’s policy is to leave the single market," the letter to McDonnell said.

"This is despite our motion agreed at conference calling for 'full participation' in the single market."

Corbyn is under growing pressure from thousands of party members and dozens of Labour MPs to take a tougher stance against Brexit and back a new referendum, or what campaigners call a "People's Vote."

However, the Labour leader is currently trying to work with May on a revised Brexit deal, while his inner circle believes that backing a new referendum would go down badly among the voters they need to win at the next election.

Senior Labour sources on Monday denied reports that Corbyn's office had edited his recent letter to the prime minister to remove a reference to a new referendum allegedly inserted by Shadow Brexit Secretary, Sir Keir Starmer.

Read the letter to McDonnell in full:

Dear John

I am writing as the founder of the grassroots Remain Labour campaign.

We’re an organisation of Labour voters and members who are campaigning for our party to embrace a People’s Vote and campaign to Remain in the EU.

Jeremy Corbyn’s letter to Theresa May last week set out five demands that must be met if Labour is to support a Brexit deal. We have analysed the economic implications of the terms and as a result, are writing urgently to you as Shadow Chancellor.

Labour’s plan set out in the letter to the Prime Minister would cost the economy £24billion per year and devastate Labour’s 2017 manifesto spending plans.

Crucially, the form of words in Jeremy’s letter says Labour wants, 'close alignment with the single market.' We have taken this to mean that Labour’s policy is to leave the single market.

This is despite our motion agreed at conference calling for 'full participation' in the single market.

The 2017 Labour manifesto committed to £44billion per year in extra spending. If we are not members of the single market, the £24billion Brexit hit to the economy will take out more than half of the 2017 spending commitments.

- The cost of scrapping tuition fees is £9 billion per year
- The plan to reverse welfare cuts and help those hardest by austerity was £4 billion a year

Even if you dropped both of these plans, there would still be an £11billion hole in our finances, risking spending promised on the NHS, schools and childcare. Alternatively, you’d need to raise income tax by an unprecedented 6p in the pound to meet the shortfall.

I’m sure you agree that a £24billion hit to our economy would be a disaster. It would devastate our plans to invest in the country and rebuild our public services, which are so urgently needed after years of Tory cuts.

I hope you agree this analysis proves beyond doubt that there is no good Brexit deal. A Labour Brexit would mean Labour austerity.

Can you please reply to confirm that as Shadow Chancellor you cannot back a plan that will cost our economy £24billion per year?

I hope instead you will now support a People’s Vote and campaign to Remain in the EU.

Yours sincerely

Andrew Lewin,
Founder, Remain Labour

SEE ALSO: Theresa May is about to force through an avalanche of new Brexit laws

DON'T MISS: Why even Conservative Brexiteers now accept that Brexit will be delayed

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Michael D'Antonio reveals Donald Trump's 'strange' morning ritual that boosts his ego

• After a shaky start, wearables like smartwatches and fitness trackers have gained traction in healthcare, with US consumer use jumping from 9% in 2014 to 33% in 2018.
• More than 80% of consumers are willing to wear tech that measures health data — and penetration should continue to climb.
• The maturation of the wearable market will put more wearables in the hands of consumers and US businesses.

The US healthcare industry as it exists today is not sustainable. An aging patient population and rising burden of chronic disease have caused healthcare costs to skyrocket and left providers struggling to keep up with demand for care. 

Meanwhile, digital technologies in nearly every consumer experience outside of healthcare have raised patients’ expectations for good service to be higher than ever.

One of the key mechanisms through which healthcare providers can finally evolve their outdated practices and exceed these expectations is wearable technology.

Presently, 33% of US consumers have adopted wearables, such as smartwatches and fitness trackers, to play a more active role in managing their health. In turn, insurers, providers, and employers are poised to become just as active leveraging these devices – and the data they capture – to abandon the traditional reimbursement model and improve patient outcomes with personalized, value-based care.

Adoption is going to keep climbing, as more than 80% of consumers are willing to wear tech that measures health data, according to Accenture — though they have reservations about who exactly should access it.

A new report from Business Insider Intelligence, Business Insider’s premium research service, follows the growing adoption of wearables and breadth of functions they offer to outline how healthcare organizations and stakeholders can overcome this challenge and add greater value with wearable technology.

For insurers, providers, and employers, wearables present three distinct opportunities:

• Insurers can use wearable data to enhance risk assessments and drive customer lifetime value. One study shows that wearables can incentivize healthier behavior associated with a 30% reduction in risk of cardiovascular events and death.
• Providers can use the remote patient monitoring capabilities of wearable technology to improve chronic disease management, lessen the burden of staff shortages, and navigate a changing reimbursement model. And since 90% of patients no longer feel obligated to stay with providers that don't deliver a satisfactory digital experience, wearables could help to attract and retain them.
• Employers can combine wearables with cash incentives to lower insurance costs and improve employee productivity. For example, The Greater Dayton Regional Transit Authority yielded $5 million in healthcare cost savings through a wearable-based employee wellness program.

Want to Learn More?

The Wearables in US Healthcare Report details the current and future market landscape of wearables in the US healthcare sector. It explores the key drivers behind wearable usage by insurers, healthcare providers, and employers, and the opportunities wearables afford to each of these stakeholders. 

By outlining a successful case study from each stakeholder, the report highlights best practices in implementing wearables to reduce healthcare claims, improve patient outcomes, and drive insurance cost savings, as well as how the evolution of the market will create new, untapped opportunities for businesses.

Join the conversation about this story »

• Warren Buffett, with an estimated net worth of nearly $85 billion, is the third-richest person in the world.
• From having a fast-food-heavy diet to believing in a value-focused investing strategy, he always does things in his own unique way.
• People around the world are so fascinated with the legendary Buffett that they'll spend millions of dollars to eat lunch with him.
• Here are 21 of the most interesting quotes from the "Oracle of Omaha."

Warren Buffett, the chairman of Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway, is one of the most famous investors around. He has an estimated net worth of nearly $85 billion, making him the third-richest person in the world.

Buffett is known for many things — his fast-food-heavy diet, his reading habit,his philanthropy, and his value-focused investing style.

People around the world are so fascinated with the legendary Buffett that they'll spend millions of dollars to eat lunch with him. While you may not have that much money laying around, you can still learn from his brilliant mind by reading his famous quotes. 

We've rounded up 21 brilliant quotes from the so-called Oracle of Omaha, and they're presented below.

'Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years'

Source: Forbes

'Don't watch the market closely'

"Don't watch the market closely," Buffett said during a wild bout of market volatility back in 2016.

He continued: "If they're trying to buy and sell stocks, and worry when they go down a little bit … and think they should maybe sell them when they go up, they're not going to have very good results."

Source: CNBC

'I always knew I was going to be rich'

"I always knew I was going to be rich," he said. "I don’t think I ever doubted it for a minute." 

Source: Economic Times

• A man trying to get into an abandoned Houston house to smoke weed was surprised to find a gigantic female tiger inside.
• The man told police he thought he might be hallucinating, but the tiger was indeed discovered in an unlocked cage.
• Estimates of the weight of the tiger range from 400 to 1,000 pounds.
• The tiger was tranquilized and taken to a local animal shelter, and has since secured a forever home.

A man went into an abandoned house in Houston to smoke weed, and he thought he was hallucinating when he came across a gigantic female tiger.

Sgt. Jason Alderete from Houston Police Department's Major Offenders/Livestock Animal Cruelty Unit said that a "concerned citizen" called police when he was "trying to get into this house to smoke marijuana" and spotted a tiger inside — though he thought he might be hallucinating.

According to ABC 13 in Houston, he added: "We questioned them as to whether they were under the effects of the drugs or they actually saw a tiger. They saw a tiger in this building, this vacant house that's obviously been abandoned for some time."

Local news site Click2Houston reported that officers from BARC Animal Selter found the tiger in the garage of the house on Monday.

Reporter Lauren Talarico from location TV station KHOU tweeted a video of the tiger in its cage.

The tiger was reportedly nicknamed "Tyson" after the tiger from "The Hangover."Alderete estimated that the tiger weighed between "400 to 800 pounds," though other estimates are as high as 1,000 pounds.

Police obtained a warrant to tranquilize and remove the tiger, though officials called her "friendly."

According to ABC, the tiger was being kept in a cage that "was not large or sturdy enough for a creature of that size," alongside some packages of meat. Click2Houston added that the cage was not locked and the garage was secured by a screwdriver and a nylon strap.

ABC 13 photojournalist Charles Fisher shared a photo of the caged tiger on Twitter.

Reporter Marla Carter then tweeted footage of the tiger being removed from the home after it was tranquilized.

The tiger was taken to the BARC animal shelter with plans to move it to another permanent facility on Tuesday, though the Houston Zoo said it would not take the tiger, adding: "The Houston Zoo is home to two Malayan tigers, Berani and Satu, and does not have capacity to receive additional tigers."

On Tuesday, Talarico tweeted that an animal sanctuary in Texas had agreed to take the tiger, who would be transported on Wednesday morning.

An investigation into how the tiger got there and who owns it is ongoing.

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