May 3, 2016

• Andrew Sullivan: The rise of Trump marks the extinction of our democracy.
• Opposition to Vietnamese refugees in the '70s was higher than today's opposition to Syrians.
• Collection of once-embargoed photos of “enemy” Japanese Bay Area citizens being rounded up.
• Neither free-market policy nor individual behavior is responsible for Japan's steadily climbing poverty rate.
• Whatever “affordable” college options still exist, they're fading fast.
• Italy is an unlikely source for sound financial thinking about Europe.
• Interviews with five reformed criminals on how they justify their crimes.
• Albert Woodfox of the Angola Three released from 43 years of solitary confinement.
• Orly Faya’s portraits merge her subjects with the nature around them.
• Brady Campaign launches plug-in to replace identities of mass shooters online with names and pictures of their victims.
• Three libertarian proposals to counter North Carolina's bathroom law.
• The image of the trans world as an open church that includes all comers, all variants on the possibilities of sex, is... misleading.
• St. Louis is now the center of chess in America, thanks to a retired financial executive.
• Justice Department says thousands of South Dakotans are being held unnecessarily in restrictive group homes.
• America has two separate, distinct opioid crises; treating them the same is a disservice to the afflicted.
• Greenpeace leak of TTIP documents shows the US planning to persuade Europe to loosen consumer protections.
• This season’s hot new tourist attraction: Antarctica.
• In their excellent new video, Braids are singing around architecture.
• South Florida’s coral reef, only of its kind in the continental US, severely damaged by recent dredging for cruise ships.
• First American cruise ship in 40 years docks at Havana.
• Primer on the disaster that is Sykes-Picot, and how it still haunts the Middle East.
• Google Maps features less cities and more roads than it did six years ago, but at the cost of good cartography.
• New record set for hoverboard flight: covering 7,388 feet from 100 feet above the ocean, reaching a top speed of 44 mph.
• Hawaii blocks Woody Harrelson’s attempts to open a cannabis dispensary.