America Is Knocking Back Its Liquor Laws, Slowly
RealClearInvestigations
From Utah to Pennsylvania, Washington to Texas, states are loosening restrictions on the production and sale of spirits - part of a broader pushback against regulations that clash with modern, more permissive sensibilities. With alcohol, though, history has a way of cutting people off when they've had enough. How the U.S. Triggered a Massacre in Mexico
ProPublica & National Geographic
It began as a coup for the Drug Enforcement Agency: In 2011, it had gotten hold of trackable cellphone data for two kingpins of the Zetas cartel. But it turned into a weeks-long bloodbath for the people of Allende, Mexico, when the DEA shared its information with a leak-prone unit of the Mexican federal police. Years later, accounts of survivors, cartel members and government officials offer a rare chronicle of such violence. The Strange, Secret History of Operation Goldfinger
New Yorker
During the Johnson administration, as gold's role in the monetary system was about to implode, the U.S. government ran a secret project to look for the stuff in the oddest places: seawater, meteorites, plants, even deer antlers. Plans were even drawn up to use nuclear explosives to extract gold from deep inside the Earth. The project's name drew on popular culture: Operation Goldfinger. Wall Street Self-Regulator Blocks Scrutiny of Firms With Tainted Brokers
Reuters
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority - the industry-financed overseer of Wall Street brokerages - knows which firms tend to employ advisers with histories of misconduct, legal disputes and financial distress. But it keeps that data secret and says it can't prevent hiring practices it acknowledges are a threat to investors. Poor Chicago Neighborhoods Hit Hardest by Asset Forfeiture
Reason
According to public records, poor areas were most affected as police in greater Chicago seized $150 million over the past five years under asset-forfeiture law aimed at suspected criminal activity. Seizures included a $200,000-plus Rolls Royce Ghost and a lot of cash, but some items were hardly the hallmarks of crime bosses: televisions, game controllers, a pair of rhinestone cufflinks - and 12 cans of peas. How a U.S. Open Visionary Wound Up in the Rough
Wall Street Journal
Bob Lang was a businessman with only a passing interest in golf when he turned a rural Wisconsin cow pasture into the site of the U.S. Open. But that envied accomplishment ruined him financially. When players tee off Thursday, he'll attend not as triumphant host but as just a face in the crowd - one full of spectators who would not be there without him. | 
