On Sunday night, "Shark Week" viewers were disappointed to find out that swimmer Michael Phelps, sometimes called the greatest Olympian of all time, did not actually race against a great white shark.

Instead, Phelps raced against a simulation of a shark, using a special swimsuit with a large fin to help him move through the water at superhuman speeds.

Even with the help of that monofin, though, Phelps lost to the shark by two seconds.

That's because great whites are really, really fast. They can speed through the water at 25 miles per hour (mph), potentially achieving 35 mph for the short bursts. That allows them to propel their entire bodies out of the water.

Even top Olympians like Phelps are unlikely to surpass 6 mph while swimming in the conventional way.

For the "race," Phelps swam 100 meters alone in chilly open water off the coast of South Africa. Viewers watched a simulation of a shark swim alongside him. Discovery producers calculated that shark's speed by towing a seal-shaped decoy in front of a real white shark for 100 meters, and measuring the shark's time. The ocean swimmer came in at 36.1 seconds, just over 6 mph. 

Great white sharks often go much faster than that, of course, but the producers of Discovery Channel's "Shark Week" pointed out that the sharks don't usually keep their speeds up for distances as long as 100 meters.

Under the conditions set for the race, Phelps did pretty well: He beat the world record for the 100m freestyle (set without special gear) by about 10 seconds. Of course, his monofin made a big difference. 

Phelps says he's down to race again.

Although many fans were disappointed that they didn't get to watch Phelps race a real shark, none of us should really want to watch him attempt that. Such a race might end badly, as evidenced by this Discovery video showing a determined shark chasing down a decoy.

Of course, if Phelps really wanted a challenge, marine biologist Andrew Nosal suggested he take on the fastest shark out there, the mako, which can leave great whites behind in its wake. 

SEE ALSO: Baby Boomers could irreversibly ruin the planet for Millennials — and the clock is ticking

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NOW WATCH: A diver in Florida filmed this extreme close-up of sharks feeding

Warning: Spoilers if you have not seen "Game of Thrones" season seven, episode two.

After nearly four seasons of undeniable chemistry between Grey Worm and Missandei, the two finally revealed their feelings for each other on "Game of Thrones," Sunday night.

Grey Worm and Missandei's romantic confessions lead to an ultra-intimate sex scene, which is sure to be one of this season's most passionate. Sex is hardly a rare occurrence on "Game of Thrones," but Nathalie Emmanuel, who plays Missandei, spoke with Entertainment Weekly about what made Missandei and Grey Worm's sex scene particularly special:

“There’s something unique about it purely because of Grey Worm’s situation — his brutal history of being mutilated — there’s a real sense of trust here and that really plays out in this lovely scene where they physically act upon their love. For him to do that is a really big deal and Missandei knows that and doesn’t really care. She just loves him and that intimacy they’ve shared comes to a head.”

The mutilation Emmanuel is referring to, is Grey Worm's castration. All Unsullied soldiers are eunuchs, castrated at a young age, and Grey Worm is no exception.

Grey Worm himself is hesitant to engage with Missandei sexually, until she reassures him that she doesn't care about the fact that he was castrated. As Emmanuel states this moment is a "really big deal" for Missandei and Grey Worm because it shows these normally very reserved characters allowing themselves to be vulnerable, and act on the feelings they've had for each the past four seasons, despite their reservations.

Grey Worm and Missandei's sex scene also communicates that sex, and intimacy, isn't limited or defined by one sexual act. Grey Worm and Missandei, undeterred by Grey Worm's castration, emphasize that sex does not rely solely on male genitalia, and that sexual satisfaction can be achieved in numerous ways. 

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NOW WATCH: Here’s the first trailer for 'Inhumans' — the Marvel movie that was turned into a TV show

Justin Bieber has canceled the remaining dates on his "Purpose" world tour after performing 150 shows. 

Bieber's website and Facebook page were updated Monday afternoon with the news that Bieber would be ending the tour prematurely due to "unforeseen circumstances." 

The "Purpose" tour was supposed to play 15 more shows throughout the summer in North America and Asia, before ending on October 10 in Jakarta, Indonesia. 

Bieber was recently banned from performing in China for "bad behavior," and one of his remaining tour dates was in Hong Kong, China. 

Purchased tickets will be refunded, according to Bieber's statement.

SEE ALSO: The best album of every year since 2000, according to critics

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NOW WATCH: Here's what Kevin G. from 'Mean Girls' is up to today

From the outside, Warner Bros. looks like it's riding high, with the latest movie from its DC Comics Extended Universe, "Wonder Woman," now the highest-grossing movie of the summer.

But Variety is reporting a different vibe inside the studio, specifically for its next big DC release, "Justice League."

The movie that will combine some of the biggest superheros from the DC Comics — Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Aquaman, and Cyborg — is going through some extensive reshoots. Approximately $25 million of them, in fact. 

Though it's common for huge studio movies to have reshoots, recently the practice has become major news due to the end-result of some big titles. Reshoots were praised after the huge success of "Rogue One," though they led to mixed results for "Suicide Squad" (which was critically slaughtered, but earned over $750 million worldwide). 

Now, it's time for "Justice League" to go through the ringer. 

It seems the reshoots are extensive. Reshoots typically go for a few weeks, but for "Justice League" they have gone on for two months, sources tell Variety.

Part of this has been dealing with the cast's schedules. Ezra Miller, who plays The Flash, is also shooting the sequel to "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them." While Henry Cavill, who plays Superman, has been bouncing back and forth from shooting the next "Mission: Impossible" movie, which has an added challenge since Cavill is sporting a mustache for the "M:I" movie.

According to Variety, the mustache will have to be digitally erased from the "Justice League" scenes as Paramount, the studio behind "Mission: Impossible," will not allow Cavill to shave it while the movie is in production.

The reshoots might also be lengthy because a new director is on the project. Joss Whedon, known for his "The Avengers" movies for Marvel, took over the project after the original director for "Justice League," Zack Snyder, left following his daughter's suicide in March. Whedon is reportedly working on scenes where the dialogue needs to be punched up, and sequences that will link to Snyder's existing set pieces.

It's still not clear if Whedon will get a director credit on the movie (a source close to the movie told Business Insider he won't get one, which coincides with Variety's reporting on the matter).  

All this will be an afterthought if "Justice League" performs at the box office (and critically) as well as Warner Bros. expects it to, when it opens November 17.  

Watch the "Justice League" footage shown at Comic-Con below:

SEE ALSO: Charlize Theron pulled off an amazing fight scene in "Atomic Blonde" the director had wanted to make for years

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NOW WATCH: Here's what Kevin G. from 'Mean Girls' is up to today

Venezuela is less than a week from the vote called by President Nicolas Maduro to elect for members of a constituent assembly that would start redrafting the country's constitution — a move widely criticized as an attempt to expand government's power while disempowering citizens.

Widespread public displeasure with Maduro's effort has manifested itself in numerous street protests — continuing a period of protest that has gripped the country since April — and in an unofficial referendum organized on short notice by the opposition that drew more than 7 million of the country's 19 million registered voters out to reject Maduro's plan.

The Venezuelan president has said the vote will go ahead, however, and he has continued his campaign to support it. The latest part of that campaign appears to be a version of the Spanish-language pop song "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee, which recently become the most streamed song of all time.

Maduro, who debuted the song over the weekend on his show, "Los Domingos con Maduro," did not specify who made his version, referring only to "a group of creators."

"We going to see if it also passes the test to become viral," Maduro said before the music started.

"For the unity and peace of our country ... the constituent [assembly] goes on," begins the song, which you can see in the video below.

The government has indicated that the song was sent to the president by Ernesto Villegas, the minister of communication and information, according to El Nuevo Herald.

Panamanian composer Erika Ender, who coauthored the song, rejected its use by Maduro.

"To see that a song, on which I was coauthor, is used without permission in order publicize campaigns tied to a regime that is causing discontent and suffering in a country, far from making me happy, it angers me," she wrote in an Instagram post. "I DO NOT APPROVE of its use."

Business Insider has reached out to a contact listed on Luis Fonsi's website and will update this post with any comment.

Despite a years-long political and economic deterioration and months of violence, Maduro has maintained about 20% support among Venezuelans, but his constituent assembly has been rejected by an overwhelming majority of the country and drawn international rebuke.

Most of the region voiced support for the July 16 referendum convened by the opposition against the assembly, and the EU and the US have suggested they could level sanctions on the Maduro government should the July 30 vote go ahead.

The opposition continues to call for protest, and it plans to mount a nationwide strike on Wednesday and Thursday this week, after a similar action last week. Ahead of the 48-hour strike, opposition leaders have encouraged Venezuelans to stock up on food and other goods — a call echoed by the US embassy in Venezuela.

Shortages have already left many stores and and shelves in Venezuela bare, and Twitter users in Caracas reported that grocery stores around the city were empty, due to both the shortages and people shopping in preparation for the strike.

SEE ALSO: 'All options are on the table' for Trump to go after Venezuela, but the side effects could be severe

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The 25th installment of the James Bond franchise will be released in theaters on November 8, 2019, according to a release sent out Monday by EON Productions and MGM.

There was little doubt that another Bond movie was on the horizon, but the release — which touts longtime franchise writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade ("Casino Royale," "Quantum of Solace," "Skyfall" and "Spectre") taking on the script, and Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli as producers — did not give us the one piece of information we all are seeking: the confirmation that Daniel Craig will be returning as 007.

Though earlier this month, it was reported that Craig will return to the franchise that made him famous, all Monday's announcement would give us is that the "film’s cast and director, will be announced at a later date."

SEE ALSO: Steven Soderbergh makes a much better "Ocean's Eleven" with Channing Tatum and Adam Driver in "Logan Lucky"

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NOW WATCH: Here's what Kevin G. from 'Mean Girls' is up to today

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

What is eSports? History & Rise of Video Game Tournaments

Years ago, eSports was a community of video gamers who would gather at conventions to play Counter Strike, Call of Duty, or League of Legends.

These multiplayer video game competitions would determine League of Legends champions, the greatest shooters in Call of Duty, the cream of the crop of Street Fighter players, the elite Dota 2 competitors, and more.

But today, as the history of eSports continue to unfold, media giants such as ESPN and Turner are broadcasting eSports tournaments and competitions. And in 2014, Amazon acquired Twitch, the live streaming video platform that has been and continues to be the leader in online gaming broadcasts. And YouTube also wanted to jump on the live streaming gaming community with the creation of YouTube Gaming.

eSports Market Growth Booming

To put in perspective how big eSports is becoming, a Google search for "lol" does not produce "laughing out loud" as the top result. Instead, it points to League of Legends, one of the most popular competitive games in existence. The game has spawned a worldwide community called the League of Legends Championship Series, more commonly known as LCS or LOL eSports.

What started as friends gathering in each other's homes to host LAN parties and play into the night has become an official network of pro gaming tournaments and leagues with legitimate teams, some of which are even sponsored and have international reach. Organizations such as Denial, AHQ, and MLG have multiple eSports leagues.

And to really understand the scope of all this, consider that the prize pool for the latest Dota 2 tournament was more than $20 million.

Websites even exist for eSports live scores to let people track the competitions in real time if they are unable to watch. There are even fantasy eSports leagues similar to fantasy football, along with the large and growing scene of eSports betting and gambling.

So it's understandable why traditional media companies would want to capitalize on this growing trend just before it floods into the mainstream. Approximately 300 million people worldwide tune in to eSports today, and that number is growing rapidly. By 2020, that number will be closer to 500 million.

eSports Industry Analysis - The Future of the Competitive Gaming Market

Financial institutions are starting to take notice. Goldman Sachs valued eSports at $500 million in 2016 and expects the market will grow at 22% annually compounded over the next three years into a more than $1 billion opportunity.

And industry statistics are already backing this valuation and demonstrating the potential for massive earnings. To illustrate the market value, market growth, and potential earnings for eSports, consider Swedish media company Modern Times Group's $87 million acquisition of Turtle Entertainment, the holding company for ESL. YouTube has made its biggest eSports investment to date by signing a multiyear broadcasting deal with Faceit to stream the latter's Esports Championship Series. And the NBA will launch its own eSports league in 2018.

Of course, as with any growing phenomenon, the question becomes: How do advertisers capitalize? This is especially tricky for eSports because of its audience demographics, which is young, passionate, male-dominated, and digital-first. They live online and on social media, are avid ad-blockers, and don't watch traditional TV or respond to conventional advertising.

So what will the future of eSports look like? How high can it climb? Could it reach the mainstream popularity of baseball or football? How will advertisers be able to reach an audience that does its best to shield itself from advertising?

Robert Elder, research analyst for BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has compiled an unparalleled report on the eSports ecosystem that dissects the growing market for competitive gaming. This comprehensive, industry-defining report contains more than 30 charts and figures that forecast audience growth, average revenue per user, and revenue growth.

Companies and organizations mentioned in the report include: NFL, NBA, English Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, NHL, Paris Saint-Germain, Ligue 1, Ligue de Football, Twitch, Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, ESPN, Electronic Arts, EA Sports, Valve, Riot Games, Activision Blizzard, ESL, Turtle Entertainment, Dreamhack, Modern Times Group, Turner Broadcasting, TBS Network, Vivendi, Canal Plus, Dailymotion, Disney, BAMTech, Intel, Coca Cola, Red Bull, HTC, Mikonet

Here are some eSports industry facts and statistics from the report:

• eSports is a still nascent industry filled with commercial opportunity.
• There are a variety of revenue streams that companies can tap into.
• The market is presently undervalued and has significant room to grow.
• The dynamism of this market distinguishes it from traditional sports.
• The audience is high-value and global, and its numbers are rising.
• Brands can prosper in eSports by following the appropriate game plan.
• Game publishers approach their Esport ecosystems in different ways.  
• Successful esport games are comprised of the same basic ingredients.
• Digital streaming platforms are spearheading the popularity of eSports.
• Legacy media are investing into eSports, and seeing encouraging results.
• Traditional sports franchises have a clear opportunity to seize in eSports.
• Virtual and augmented reality firms also stand to benefit from eSports.  

In full, the report illuminates the business of eSports from four angles:

• The gaming nucleus of eSports, including an overview of popular esport genres and games; the influence of game publishers, and the spectrum of strategies they adopt toward their respective esport scenes; the role of eSports event producers and the tournaments they operate.
• The eSports audience profile, its size, global reach, and demographic, psychographic, and behavioral attributes; the underlying factors driving its growth; why they are an attractive target for brands and broadcasters; and the significant audience and commercial crossover with traditional sports.
• eSports media broadcasters, including digital avant-garde like Twitch and YouTube, newer digital entrants like Facebook and traditional media outlets like Turner’s TBS Network, ESPN, and Canal Plus; their strategies and successes in this space; and the virtual reality opportunity.
• eSports market economics, with a market sizing, growth forecasts, and regional analyses; an evaluation of the eSports spectacle and its revenue generators, some of which are idiosyncratic to this industry; strategic planning for brand marketers, with case studies; and an exploration of the infinite dynamism and immense potential of the eSports economy.

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

1. Subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and over 100 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >> START A MEMBERSHIP
2. Purchase & download the full report from our research store. >> BUY THE REPORT

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NOW WATCH: 6 things that happen in 'House of Cards' season 5 that mirror the Trump presidency

CHICAGO — About 20,000 Pokémon Go players traveled from all corners of the world to Chicago's Grant Park for a highly anticipated event on Saturday that quickly turned into a disaster.

The first-ever Pokémon Go Fest promised the hit game's most diehard players the chance to catch extremely rare Pokémon throughout the day, including the long-awaited unveiling of ultra-powerful Legendaries.

But rampant server outages and poor cell service quickly turned the celebratory Poké-mecca into an experience so disappointing that the game's owner, Niantic Labs, issued refunds and $100 worth of in-game credits for each ticket holder.

Business Insider was in Chicago to witness the Pokémon Go Fest, and all the troubles, firsthand. Here's what it was like:

SEE ALSO: Here are the best Pokémon for defeating powerful Legendaries in 'Pokémon Go'

Pokémon Go Fest started early in the morning for many of the event's roughly 20,000 attendees. When I arrived to get my press credentials at 8:30 that morning, there was already a line that wrapped around Grant Park for several blocks. Hundreds had been waiting since as early as 6 AM.

The game's developer, Niantic, charged each attendee $20 for entry into the park with the promise that rare and exclusive Pokémon could be caught inside.

Here's how to play Pokemon Go.

Tickets to the event sold out in under 10 minutes, and many people ended up paying hundreds of dollars extra to buy them off the resale market. Anticipation and excitement for this event were very high.

"The Daily Show" promoted a video on Monday showing the striking similarities between President Trump's and Anthony Scaramucci's speaking styles.

Scaramucci was named White House director of communications on Friday.

In the video compilation, Scaramucci is seen mirroring Trump's body language and hand gestures almost perfectly.

In a tweet promoting the video "The Daily Show" noted: "The Mooch did his homework."

See the full video below:

SEE ALSO: Anthony Scaramucci reportedly refers to Sean Spicer as Melissa McCarthy

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NOW WATCH: 'I'm used to dealing with friction': Trump’s new communications director reacts to Sean Spicer’s abrupt resignation

While watching "Game of Thrones," do you ever catch yourself wondering, "Wait, is that person dead or alive?"

There's so much death, and so many characters, that it's certainly a possibility — even for someone who has been paying close attention.

It can also get hard to keep track of who's related to whom, so it also helps to keep track of where loyalties lie. 

To help you with both of these problems, here's a handy guide to the life status of every member of the major noble houses in Westeros.

SEE ALSO: The 5 ways to kill a dragon in ‘Game of Thrones’ — and how Cersei plans to do it

House Stark

Ned Stark — dead

Catelyn Stark — dead

This past February, Alex Jafanz spent much of his 18th birthday on an important phone call discussing the future of his video game business. 

About three weeks earlier, Jafanz and his business partner had published a cops-and-robbers video game called "Jailbreak" on Roblox. Although Jafanz and his partner had created Roblox games before, "Jailbreak" was their first overnight success, hitting about 65,000 simultaneous players on the day it launched and maintaining that level afterward. "Jailbreak" is on track to generate "seven figures" in revenue this year, and Jafanz said he's already made enough to cover the entire four-year cost of his undergraduate education at Duke University, where he plans to study artificial intelligence starting this autumn. 

Now, Roblox's developer relations department wanted to pick Jafanz's brain about the game's success and figure out how they could work together. It was just the exclamation mark on a period where he had to manage both the last few months of his senior year of high school, and a growing community of paying players.

"That was pretty crazy," said Jafanz, who lives in Florida "A lot of things happening at once." 

The same might be said about Roblox. The company offers a massively multiplayer online platform that encourages anybody and everybody to create games for its mostly-younger audience to play together. 

This past weekend, Roblox held its annual conference, an invite-only event for the platform's top developers. At the event, Roblox officials said the company expects to pay out $30 million to developers this year. One young programmer is on track to bring in $3 million. Two more could hit $2 million each.

I was on the ground at the conference, aiming to hear more about Roblox, the massive entrepreneurial opportunity it's creating, and how it's turning teenagers into media moguls. Here's what I found out.

The big deal

If you're older than, say, 15, there's a good chance you've never heard of Roblox. Although it's been available for PCs since 2005, it exploded in popularity only over the last few years as the newer smartphone, tablet, and Xbox versions of the app have opened it up to a new generation of players. 

Nowadays, Roblox boasts 56 million monthly players. That actually puts it ahead of Minecraft. Earlier this year, Microsoft said about 55 million people play its hit game every month. Meanwhile, by some measurements, more people search for Roblox's website than for Lego, company officials boast. 

Roblox's platform is open; anyone with the requisite skills can make a game for it. That openness is reflected in the tremendous variety of games on offer. Beyond "Jailbreak," popular games include "Roblox High School," a high school role playing game; "Work At a Pizza Place," which is pretty much what it sounds like; and "Pokémon Brick Bronze," a multiplayer homage to the Nintendo franchise. 

Players use a virtual currency called Robux to buy items in games. In "Jailbreak," for example, you can buy a stereo for your in-game car, or a VIP pass with unique privileges.

Roblox sells Robux for real money; alternatively, players can earn the currency by playing games. When users spend their Robux in a game, the game's developer gets a cut. 

Robux's platform is "a free market that works remarkably well,"David Baszucki, the company's CEO, told Business Insider in an interview earlier this year.

The supply chain

In conversation with Jafanz and other Roblox developers, one thing became clear: Most people who make Roblox games started out by playing games on the platform when they were younger.

Take Andrew Bereza. Bereza is an 18-year-old who lives with his father in New Jersey. He started playing Roblox as a kid, but as he got older, he started experimenting with programming and designing in Roblox and released some basic games. 

Nowadays, Bereza is best-known as the creator of "Miner's Haven," a "tycoon" game that casts users as mining barons. First released in June 2015, the game is still going strong with thousands of players. Bereza said he's "lost track" of how much money he's made on the game. But it was enough to pay for his entire undergraduate education at the University of Washington, where he'll start later this year. 

Some developers, as their experience deepens and ambitions broaden, abandon the Roblox platform to pursue their own fortunes. But Bereza said his success wouldn't be possible without Roblox. 

"The cool thing about Roblox is that it handles a lot of the hard parts," he said. 

If you're building with Roblox, you don't have to worry about configuring servers, or building a way for players to connect with each other, or setting up a payment service. You also don't have to worry about porting your game to different platforms, because Roblox has already done the hard part of configure its app to work on a variety of devices, from PCs to phones to games consoles.

Because of that support, and because Roblox is accruing so many new players, Bereza plans to continue developing for the platform for the foreseeable future. In fact, he's working as an intern at the Roblox office right now, bringing his perspective as a developer back to the company's Silicon Valley mothership.

"I think Roblox is growing at an incredible rate right now, and it would be silly to abandon it," he said. 

The ecosystem

Jafanz and Bereza are extreme cases, but there's a lot of opportunity on Roblox even for those who aren't the developers of a hit game on the platform.  

Jafanz and his partner, for example, have subcontracted out lots of work for "Jailbreak," including sound design, the user interface, and character art. To really stand out in the crowded Roblox marketplace, you need your game to be as polished as possible, Jafanz said. That's creating a booming opportunity for specialists. 

Among those who are benefitting is Anne Shoemaker, 18, who was visiting the Roblox Developers Conference from Florida. A 3D artist and scripter, Shoemaker goes by "Myzta" on the platform.

Shoemaker's been taking on freelance work for other Roblox developers while she raises funds to make her own passion project. Thanks to Roblox, "I started falling in love with game design," she said. She now intends to pursue it as a career. 

Another beneficiary is Kacey "KaceyWillEatChu" Matthews, a 17-year-old from North Carolina. Matthews does freelance design and also streams Roblox gameplay to her Twitch channel. She hopes to parlay her participation in the Roblox community into a job at the company itself. 

And then there's Vivian "EvilArtist" Arellano, a 17-year-old freelance artist from Texas. She's made about $1,000 from Roblox in the last few months, contributing art to projects and drawing custom portraits of in-game characters. As Roblox grows and matures, there's more demand for artists and designers, not just programmers, Arellano said.

Arellano praised the Roblox community for being supportive. She brought her stepfather to the Roblox Developers Conference, and while he was skeptical at first, even he was won over by the generally positive atmosphere at the event.

"They're all nerds," Arellano's stepfather told her, approvingly.

SEE ALSO: This game turned players into $50,000-a-month entrepreneurs — now it has a plan to help them make $1.68 million a year

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NOW WATCH: 6 reasons why 'Minecraft' is so incredibly popular

For most of his adult life, former US Vice President Al Gore has warned of the dangers of global warming.

The 2006 documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” revealed the eye-opening presentation Gore had been delivering around the globe for decades. The movie earned $50 million worldwide and won an Oscar for best documentary. In 2007, Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for his environmental work.

Gore returns to the big screen with “An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power,” directed by Bonni Cohen and Jon Shenk, opening in limited release July 28 and in wide release August 4. This time, Gore serves as our guide to show us the effects of global warming firsthand, whether walking through floods in Miami or seeing the melting of huge glaciers.

The movie’s most gripping scenes capture Gore’s tireless — and successful — efforts in 2015 to get global leaders to sign onto the Paris Agreement. The historic climate accord gives individual countries the freedom to set their own goals to lower their carbon footprint. It was a major achievement for Gore and the environmental movement. But earlier this year, President Donald Trump withdrew the US from the pact, despite Gore's personal appeal to the president.

Business Insider spoke with Gore in New York City about the documentary, his belief that the US will continue to be a leader on climate change, and why he has no interest in talking to Trump again. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Jason Guerrasio: I’ve read that you weren't fully sold on doing a sequel to "An Inconvenient Truth." Why?

Gore: It took me a bit to realize how big the changes have been in the last decade. Number one, the climate-related extreme-weather events are way more frequent now and way more destructive. We have had 11 once-in-a-thousand-year events in the US just in the last seven years.

Secondly, we've got the solutions now. They were in the first movie a decade ago, but they were on the horizon, and you had to take the technology business point of view to say, "Oh, yeah, that will eventually get here." Now they are here. And in so many places — electricity from solar and wind is cheaper than electricity from fossil fuels, and now the batteries are coming down in costs very quickly. So it's very exciting news that needed to be told.

Guerrasio: But still, as you say, very scary events still happen. There's the icebergs, and in Antarctica that piece that collapsed that was the size of Delaware.

Gore: Yes.

Guerrasio: When you hear news like that, what do you think? Is that a major issue when it comes to climate change?

Gore: Well, it's a major signal that the warming of Antarctica is moving even faster than was predicted.

Guerrasio: And it's real; it's hard to dispute that.

Gore: It's hard to dispute it. Absolutely. It's one of the largest icebergs ever recorded. Now, it was already floating in the sea, so by itself it will not raise the sea level, but it's part of a larger pattern in Antarctica that's very tightly connected to how much the seas will rise in the decades ahead.

Guerrasio: We're talking about sea level. One of the things you show in the sequel is that one of the scenarios in the first movie — the flooding of lower Manhattan and the damage to the 9/11 Memorial — could happen and did happen with Hurricane Sandy.

Gore: It happened many years before the scientists predicted that it would.

Guerrasio: And to give a modern-day look, you go to Miami and you show parts of Miami that are flooded, with people driving and walking through knee-high water.

Gore: On a sunny day.

Guerrasio: Yeah, it's not like it's pouring rain.

Gore: The sea levels have risen so much that when a high tide comes in, it floods the streets. I saw fish from the ocean swimming in the streets. Since then, somebody sent me a picture of an octopus in a parking garage there. That's not something you see every day. But there are a lot of low-lying coastal cities that are now seriously threatened by sea level rise, which comes from the melting ice.

Guerrasio: Scientists are saying the same thing. In a story we ran not too long ago by David Wallace-Wells for New York Magazine, he said: "Most people talk as if Miami and Bangladesh still have a chance of surviving: most of the scientists I spoke with assume we’ll lose them within the century, even if we stop burning fossil fuel in the next decade.” So when you hear a quote like that, and you see that President Trump has a Cabinet with many people who feel climate change is not a major issue, how does that make you feel?

Gore: The truth about the climate crisis is still inconvenient for the large carbon polluters and the politicians who are in their pockets.

Guerrasio: But are you disappointed that in some ways America is not a leader in climate change on the world stage?

Gore: Of course, but I would distinguish between Donald Trump and the United States of America. Although he is president, he does not speak for the country on this issue, and that was vividly illustrated in the aftermath of his speech pulling the US out of the Paris Agreement.

Almost immediately, not only did the rest of the world double down on its commitments, but also here in this country, governors, mayors, business leaders, they said, we're still in the Paris Agreement, and they're doubling down. A lot of cities have now made a decision to go 100% renewable energy, and the latest studies indicate that the US is certainly going to meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement, regardless of what Donald Trump says.

Guerrasio: Recently, Trump has said he might reconsider going back into the agreement. Do you feel that's a good thing? Does it even matter?

Gore: I’m not going to hold my breath. I had conversations with him after the election and during the first part of his presidency, trying to convince him to stay in the Paris Agreement, and I thought there was an excellent chance that he would come to his senses and stay in, but I was wrong about that. I would take his statements to the French president, that he might come back into the Paris Agreement, with a grain of salt, but I hope I'm wrong again. I hope that actually he does reconsider. But I don't put much stock into it.

Guerrasio: You rattle off many stats about climate change — you know many of them. Is there one stat that scares you the most when it comes to climate change?

Gore: There are a couple that go together, and this is a bit geeky. So you asked for it.

Guerrasio: No, let's geek out.

Gore: The cumulative amount of man-made global pollution that's in the atmosphere now traps as much extra heat energy every day as would be released by 400,000 Hiroshima-class atomic bombs exploding every day. It's a big planet, but that's an awful lot of energy.

Now the second statistic is, we're still putting 110 million tons of that stuff into the air every single day as if the sky is an open sewer. And all of the increase temperatures that people talk about, that's air temperature. More than 90% of the extra heat energy is going into the oceans, and that's why superstorm Sandy was so much more destructive, that's why the ice is melting more rapidly, that's why the water cycle is being disrupted and we get a lot more water vapor coming from the oceans into the sky, and that's why we get these enormous downpours and big floods. They happen all the time. Every night on the TV news is like a nature hike through the Book of Revelation.

Guerrasio: One thing that stood out for me with “An Inconvenient Sequel” is you touch on, for one moment, the personal failures in the evolution of bringing climate change to all our attention. Though off the Paris Agreement, it seems everyone has rebounded to get back on. What was it like initially for you when you heard Trump pulled out of the agreement? For you, was that up to that level of a personal failure?

Gore: Well, I worried a lot that other countries would follow his lead, but I was so gratified when the rest of the world said, "No, we're not going to pay any attention to that. We're still in, and we're going to double down." And I was even more gratified when all of the domestic political and business leaders stepped up to the plate and said we're going to fill the gap.

Guerrasio: In a strange way, with all the news about the Paris Agreement, did it give a heightened sense of the climate-change issue? I mean, there's more press talking about it now, the Weather Channel changed their whole homepage to show the effects of climate change. This movie was coming out regardless, so we were going to have this conversation. But it seems like a lot more people are talking about it now because of the actions he took.

Gore: Yeah, I think it's partly a reaction to Donald Trump. You know, in physics there's the old law for every action there's a equal amount of reaction. Sometimes that's true in politics. If somebody's out there making nonsensical statements, but wielding power behind them a lot of people say, "Well, I need to react to that." I think that's happening. I also think another reason for the increased prominence of the issue is the Paris Agreement itself. It's not a small thing when just about every nation in the entire world comes together and makes an historic agreement like this. It's a big deal. And the old cliché "The train is leaving the station" kind of applies. People who might not regularly pay that much attention to it, they say, "Oh, the whole world is moving in this direction. I guess there's a lot to this, we better go along."

Guerrasio: And you must be very proud of it. As the movie shows, you were backstage, wheeling and dealing, making calls, trying to get India on board.

Gore: I was doing my best and so were lots of other people. It was a group effort and a lot of people succeeded in getting an agreement that many thought was impossible.

Guerrasio: A very powerful moment in the movie is you taking that elevator ride up Trump Tower to meet the president-elect, which I believe was organized by his daughter Ivanka Trump. Have you spoken to Ivanka since that meeting?

Gore: Oh, yes. Many times. But not since the speech in which President Trump pulled out of Paris.

Guerrasio: Have you talked to President Trump at all since that meeting?

Gore: Not since his decision on Paris, no.

Guerrasio: One thing you said when you left Trump Tower was that it was a conversation that would be continued. Do you feel you need to continue that conversation with him?

Gore: I did continue it. And that was not the only conversation I had with him. But after he made his decision on Paris, I have not reached out to him again; he has not reached out to me.

Guerrasio: Do you feel it's important? Do you need to talk to him anymore?

Gore: I would never close the door to responding, but I don't expect that and have no real desire to talk to him anymore. I think he made such an obviously reckless and indefensible decision, I think now, my time, the time of others, is better spent helping to move the country forward in spite of him.

Guerrasio: You say it in the movie, and I think you've said it a few times in other places, that you're a recovering politician.

Gore: Yeah. [Laughs]

Guerrasio: But I do want you to do a little armchair quarterbacking for me. What is your feeling of Trump as a president? Give me a grade: How is he doing?

Gore: Well, I never like the question about letter grades, but I think he's failing. I think that every day there's another set of tweets and another set of controversies, and nothing seems to be getting done that's any good. And there seems to be kind of a policy paralysis in Washington. Even the appointments he's supposed to make as a new president — he's way behind all his modern-day predecessors, as I understand the statistics — so I focus most of all on climate, and so my opinion of his time as president is certainly influenced by my opinion of the job he's done on climate. He's tried to move the country in the wrong direction.

Guerrasio: Believe it or not, we're going to ask some question other than Trump.

Gore: OK.

Guerrasio: Do you think about your own legacy? Are you at a point in your life where you think about that at all?

Gore: No, not really. Maybe I should. [Laughs]

Guerrasio: I don't know. You've done many things, many very important things. Does that every pop in your head, of what you want to be remembered for?

Gore: I don't really think about that. It's not about me. I have a sense of mission on this climate crisis, and I'm trying to pour all the energy I have into it. And I hope that I, along with others, can catalyze the emergence of real solutions to the climate crisis. I think we're making a lot of progress. I think we're going to win this, but it matters how quickly we win it. So I'm focused on that.

Guerrasio: Give me the next decade for you, goal-wise, with climate change. What needs to be accomplished?

Gore: Every five years, under the Paris Agreement, all the countries that signed to it have an obligation to renew their plans and ratchet up their commitments, which is going to be easy to do because, again, the cost reductions for renewable energy continue downward in a very dramatic way. We're in the early stages of a sustainability revolution in the globe that has the scale of the industrial revolution but the speed of the digital revolution. And you see it with renewable energy and you see it with LED lighting, which takes a fraction of the energy for the existing bulbs. And within a few years, all new lights are going to be LED. Electric vehicles. I can go down the list for sustainable agriculture and forestry. There are a lot of changes underway right now. I'm excited by the prospect, and I look forward to working in the months and years to come to accelerate this transition.

SEE ALSO: How Texas Republicans are fighting to save the planet

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After Linkin Park shared a moving tribute letter on Monday to the band's late lead singer, Chester Bennington, the group's rapper-producer Mike Shinoda took to Instagram to share an early photo of Bennington.

The late '90s picture, taken before Linkin Park had released any music, shows Shinoda and Bennington in the "first photo" they ever took together.

"1997 or 1998 … I think this was the first photo we ever took together," Shinoda wrote in the caption. "We had just told Chester that we wanted him to join the band. He said he was ready to move out from Arizona to L.A. We went to a pizza place near UCLA to hang out and talk about what to do next." 

In the band's emotional tribute letter issued the same day, the group reflected on Bennington's talents, charisma, and personal demons. Bennington committed suicide last week.

"Your absence leaves a void that can never be filled—a boisterous, funny, ambitious, creative, kind, generous voice in the room is missing," the band wrote."We're trying to remind ourselves that the demons who took you away from us were always part of the deal."

SEE ALSO: Linkin Park wrote an emotional tribute to their late lead singer, Chester Bennington: 'Your absence leaves a void that can never be filled'

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NOW WATCH: Here's what Nickelodeon slime is made of — according to 'Double Dare' host Marc Summers

Netflix has released the titles that will be leaving its streaming service in August, so make sure to catch a few of these great movies and TV shows before they're gone.

Departing titles to check out include acclaimed comedies like "Superbad" and "10 Things I Hate About You," and the first few seasons of Seth MacFarlane's animated comedy show, "American Dad."

Here's everything that's leaving Netflix in August (we've highlighted the titles we think you should watch in bold):

SEE ALSO: Netflix's new show 'Ozark' is perfect if you miss 'Breaking Bad'

Leaving August 1

"10 Things I Hate About You"
"Justice League Unlimited: Season 1 - Season 2"
"Justice League: Season 1 - Season 2"
"Babe"
"Babe Winkelman's Outdoor Secrets: 2014: Quarter 4"
"Babe: Pig in the City"
"Beneath the Helmet"
"Black Widow"
"Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry"
"Electric Slide"
"Elizabethtown"
"From the Terrace"
"From Time to Time"
"Goodbye World"
"Horsemen"
"Hunter X Hunter : Season 1 - Season 5"
"Josef Fritzl: Story of a Monster"
"Malibu's Most Wanted"
"Prefontaine"
"Russell Brand: End the Drugs War"
"Russell Brand: From Addiction to Recovery"
"Teacher's Pet"
"The Delivery Man: Season 1"
"The Diabolical"
"The Heavy Water War: Season 1"
"The Hunt: Season 1"
"The Little Engine That Could"
"The Lizzie McGuire Movie"
"The Verdict"
"Young Justice: Season 1 - Season 2"
"Young@Heart"
"Zack and Miri Make a Porno"

Leaving August 4

"Superbad"

Leaving August 5

"Pelican Dreams"
"Personal Gold: An Underdog Story"

Oscar winner Charlize Theron has spent her career staying out of the proverbial “box” Hollywood can throw its stars in.

From beautiful starlet to serious actor, it’s her current phase as an action heroine that might be her most impressive yet.

Playing the closest thing we have currently to a female Bond in “Atomic Blonde” (opening in theaters Friday), Theron delivers an electric performance that’s brutal and sexy at the same time.

From director David Leitch, of “John Wick” and the upcoming “Deadpool 2” fame, the movie is based on the graphic novel “The Coldest City,” and is a slick look back at 1980s Cold War Berlin — just as the wall is about to fall. Theron plays MI6 agent Lorraine Broughton, who travels to Berlin to investigate the murder of an agent, and to retrieve a document that reveals the identity of undercover agents before it gets into the wrong hands.

Lorraine pretty much kicks ass from the moment she lands in Berlin. Whether it’s a high heel, a rubber hose, guns, or just her fists, she has a deadly execution for every occasion, and there are many in this movie. 

But that doesn’t mean Lorraine doesn’t have time to slip on a dress and knock down some vodkas with her new friend, Delphine (Sofia Boutella). This leads to some passionate scenes between the two, played over memorable 1980s tracks.

Like the “John Wick” movies — really, most action movies — there’s little about the story to pay attention to. Even though it tries to pull the rug from us (a few times) at the end, and is filled with some great performances by James McAvoy, John Goodman, Toby Jones, and Eddie Marsan.

The real things to marvel at are the insane action sequences that seem scarily real. Theron did most of the action herself, and it gives the movie an authentic feel that will satisfy the most snobbish action movie fan. Especially impressive is a single-take 8-minute sequence toward the end of the movie. But unlike most action movies, Leitch shows the aftermath of swollen faces and aching bodies that comes after days of being beaten and dishing out beatings.

And through it all, Theron has a wicked style that is a joy to watch.

SEE ALSO: Charlize Theron pulled off an amazing fight scene in "Atomic Blonde" the director had wanted to make for years

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NOW WATCH: HBO released an incredible, action-packed trailer for 'Game of Thrones' season 7

In a push to more accurately reflect the new ways people watch TV, Nielsen announced Tuesday that it will start incorporating YouTube TV and Hulu's live TV programming into its traditional TV ratings. 

Hulu and YouTube both launched their own live TV streaming services within the past four months, creating even more platforms for viewers to choose from. These services function much like your traditional cable TV package, but are delivered over data to your smart TV, phone, and so on (like Netflix).

How many people are watching?

Networks have criticized Nielsen for the absence of some digital platform views in their TV ratings for some time, claiming that without full digital streaming numbers, they don’t have a truly accurate read on program views.

The television industry has been working for years to figure out the most effective way to collect data from all viewing platforms, but has yet to find an ideal solution.

Nielsen has been pushing toward that goal by creating the Total Content Ratings (TCR) report, which promises to report wide-ranging data from multiple platforms. Since March, that program has been in a "limited commercial release," after some networks lobbied for its wide release to be delayed, citing concerns about accuracy. 

Linda Yaccarino, NBCU’s chairman of advertising sales and client partnerships, wrote a strongly worded letter to Nielsen back in December, asking Nielsen to delay, according to Variety. 

Yaccarino wrote, “Some say ‘something is better than nothing.’ We disagree.” Yaccarino continued to criticize Nielsen in her letter saying that, “Bad, inaccurate and misleading data is far worse than no data at all.” 

Still, networks like CBS have started to tout the TCR data, and Nielsen incorporating this new Hulu and YouTube data is a step in the TCR direction.

Nielsen will collect data for Hulu and YouTube's live programming in the same way it has for live linear channels, including DVR and streaming views that happen three to seven days post-premiere of an episode. But older episodes of television shows still available on Hulu and YouTube won't be factored into these ratings, nor will the programming offered on the original Hulu streaming package.

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NOW WATCH: This man played Barney the dinosaur for 10 years — here's what it was like

People from all over the world descended upon Grant Park in Chicago on July 22, 2017 to meet other players and catch some rare Pokémon. The much hyped event, which had fans excited to participate in, ultimately turned out to be a complete disaster. We were there to experience it all from the early rainy morning waiting in line to the hot, muddy mess later in the afternoon. 

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Canadian rock band Arcade Fire has found themselves in a bit of a controversy over an upcoming show that will be livestreamed on Apple Music. 

Fans headed to the Brooklyn concert this Thursday received an email on Monday asking them to comply with a "HIP & TRENDY" dress code, Brooklyn Vegan reported on Monday. 

The dress code for the Arcade Fire album release party banned shorts, logos, flip flops, tank tops, baseball caps, and solid red or white clothing. 

The ticket for the album release show also mentioned that the show would be a phone-free viewing experience, with all smartphones "secured in Yondr pouches" that prevent them from taking photos or being used during the show. 

The album release party isn't a standard concert — tickets were distributed to fans who answered questions about the band online, the Brooklyn Paper reported. 

Of course, there was immediate backlash — specifically about the dress code. In a bizarre statement tweeted from the band's official account, attributed to a fictional social media manager, the band walked back from the dress code, and said it was "due to the involvement of our partners at Apple."

Arcade Fire frontman Win Butler tweeted that the rules "must be an Apple thing." 

But Apple made no demands either about a dress code or for a cell-phone free environment during the "Everything Now" album release party, which will be livestreamed on Apple Music on Thursday. 

Apple would not enforce a "hip and trendy" dress code, and hasn't done so in the past with Apple Music shows that have been livestreamed, a person with knowledge of Apple's thinking said. 

Apple certainly wouldn't push a concert to ban smartphones from the venue, considering it's the company best known for making the iPhone, the person added. 

It's true that previous concerts on Apple Music have had no restrictions on either clothing or iPhone use. There are lots of smartphone-shot clips from concertgoers wearing shorts from Apple's Apple Music Festival last September, for example. 

So why the dress code for Thursday's concert? One explanation is that the ticketing group responsible for the concert may have sent out an email with the restrictions before the band signed off on them. The show is at an unusual venue which is better known for hosting weddings. 

But the other explanation is that this controversy is a big, manufactured joke to drum up publicity for the upcoming album, titled "Infinite Content." The band has played jokes in the past, such as planting a fake tour rider, and has courted controversy over concert dress codes. 

Here's how Dazed Magazine explains that theory: 

Back in 2013, the band faced criticism for requesting that their audience members adhere to a strict dress code when attending their North American arena tour (they later declared the dress code “super not mandatory”). So the latest controversy seems to be a metacommentary on a previous controversy, presumably designed to parody the sort of manufactured social media-friendly controversies that seem to always accompany major album campaigns, albeit as part of an actual campaign for their new album (which is out this Friday!!).

SEE ALSO: Trump says Apple promised to build 'three big plants' in the United States

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What was once a simple fictional battle between Ash and Team Rocket has quickly been subsumed by the battle over who's to blame for the failure of the big Pokémon Go event in Chicago.

In a blog post Tuesday, Niantic CEO John Hanke responded to allegations that the game developer had not adequately prepared for Saturday's 20,000 person event which was plagued by technical problems that made the game unplayable for many attendees.

"Last Saturday was not a happy day for us but we are committed to listening to that feedback, however harsh, to improve what we do," Hanke wrote in the post.

"We heard boos and shouts from the crowd," Hanke noted, describing the crowd's reaction.

Niantic did have some server issues, Hanke acknowledged. But, he said, it was mostly inadequate coverage by cellphone providers that led to lagging or inaccessible apps.

What happened? Technical issues with our game software caused client crashes and interfered with gameplay for some users. The gameplay issue was resolved with a server configuration change and the crashes were also addressed for many but not all users. A more protracted problem was caused by oversaturation of the mobile data networks of some network providers. This caused many attendees to be unable to access Pokémon GO or other Internet services. Network congestion also led to a login issue which affected some users able to access the Internet. This latency-related login issue was addressed with a second Niantic configuration change.

On the pure network access issue, we provided detailed estimates on attendance and required data throughput per user to our event partner who worked with the major carriers to allow them to plan for adequate coverage. Some carriers deployed Cellular on Wheels (COWs) to extend their capacity. In other cases the providers deemed them unnecessary based on other infrastructure already in place at the site. Users reported different levels of success with these providers. Wifi was enabled by one provider as a solution which helped some users but not all. Sprint was on site as an official partner, deployed a COW, and their network was busy but held up well. Although many players were able to play normally for the majority of the day, many were not, and based on that we made a number of adjustments to the event plan.

This is the first comment Niantic has made publicly since the event, when Hanke told attendees that they would be refunded their $20 ticket fees, and offered $100 in in-app purchases. 

Verizon, one of the networks that suffered from major lags, told Business Insider on Monday that it was not responsible for problems at the event. 

A spokesperson for Verizon said that company engineers "reported that even when attendees were experiencing issues accessing the game itself, other applications like YouTube worked just fine — which indicated the issues were outside of Verizon's control, like an issue with the game's server itself

T-Mobile, one of the few service providers that didn't have major issues on Saturday, had increased its network capabilities throughout the park in anticipation of the summer events, in addition to launching extended coverage throughout greater Chicago earlier in spring. 

Hanke noted in the post that after many attendees left the park, they moved to other parts of the city where cellular networks were less overburdened and continued playing. 

"Together, from late Saturday to Sunday, Trainers in downtown Chicago participated in more than 69,000 Raid Battles and captured more than 7.7 million Pokémon, including more than 440,000 Legendary Pokémon. It was an amazing sight to behold and is a testament to the love of the game and to the bonds these Trainers share with one another," Hanke wrote.

He said that a Niantic planned to go forward with an even bigger event in Yokohama, Japan later this summer. 

SEE ALSO: Verizon points the finger at Niantic for problems that led to Pokémon Go fiasco

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NOW WATCH: We drove a brand-new Tesla Model X from San Francisco to New York — here's what happened

"The Daily Show" host Trevor Noah focused on a different target during a segment of his show Tuesday night, ripping into the Democratic Party's series of nationwide election losses since November.

"As the health care effort lurches through the Senate, it shows the importance of momentum in politics," Noah said. "And you know who has a lot of momentum right now? The Democrats," Noah said jokingly.

"In the past year, they've lost the presidency and four special elections," he said, "not to mention control of Congress, a dozen governorships, and countless state seats since 2008. Now that's momentum."

Noah also tore into the Democrats' campaign strategy of winning back voters with remarks dripping with sarcastic overtones: "At this rate by next year, San Francisco will have elected Mayor Hannity," Noah said, referring to Fox News' conservative host Sean Hannity.

The comedian then critiqued the Democratic Party's "revamped message" and called it "as fresh as cold pizza," subtly referencing the Democrats' possible new 2018 slogan.

Watch the full clip:

SEE ALSO: 'The Daily Show' launches a tournament to determine Trump's 'greatest' tweet

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NOW WATCH: This man played Barney the dinosaur for 10 years — here's what it was like