The Secret Instagram Account Teens Use For Their Realest Moments
If you ask anyone under the age of 21 where they post most frequently on Instagram, chances are they’ll tell you it’s to their finsta.
Finsta stands for “fake instagram.” It’s a separate, locked account with a nonsensical name that teens use to share everything from bad selfies, emotional rants, funny memes, screenshots of texts, homework help and more to a small, select group of friends.
Unlike a teen’s “real instagram” or “rinsta,” where their image is carefully curated for public consumption, finsta is intimate and messy and, according to every teen we spoke to, way more authentic than their main profile.
The good, the bad and the ugly
Esther Choi, a 17-year-old in Suwanee, Georgia, says that she only posts “the best parts and the big, good parts of my life,” on her rinsta. “It’s not the full picture.”
Finsta is where she gets real.
“On my finsta, it’s the good, the bad and the ugly. It’s a more multifaceted version of me,” she says.
For instance, Choi says that when she goes to a concert she’ll generally post a single photo of the show to her rinsta, but finsta is where she posts screenshots of the song lyrics with deep analysis of what they mean to her in the caption.
“It’s almost like, if you’re a political candidate, your rinsta would be your platform page, where you post the best version of yourself,” she said. “But your finsta would be your secret real account where you let your closest friends and family follow.”
“You’re the same person on both, just one is way more personal than the other,” she said.
Read more at Mic.
Is Justin Trudeau The Anti-Trump?
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada was interviewed on April 20 in Toronto by Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait. Following are excerpts from their discussion, which appear in the May 1-7, 2017 edition of Bloomberg Businessweek.
John Micklethwait: On April 18, Donald Trump went to Wisconsin and promised he would protect the dairy farmers against unfair trade. And he cited Canada in particular. And he also said for good measure, “We’re going to get rid of Nafta once and for all.”
Justin Trudeau: One of the challenges that we’ve seen in the rise of populist or nationalist politics around the world over the past years is a reflection that trade hasn’t always been great for everyone. Sometimes it has benefited only the top tier of any economy, certain multinationals, not smaller businesses. The issue, however, is if you end up going down a highly protectionistic route, if you end up creating barriers and tariff walls, you end up slowing down economic growth, and everyone ends up suffering, including and especially the middle class.
But in this particular case, he was trying to get rid of the milk subsidies that you give to Canadian dairy producers.
I understand that certain politicians are speaking to certain constituencies, that it’s politics. At the same time, the U.S. has a $400 million dairy surplus with Canada. So it’s not Canada that is the challenge here. And the way we approach our very constructive relationship with the United States on trade and on other things is to base it around the facts of the issues and a shared desire to see citizens on both of our sides of the border succeed. We know that trade, Nafta, the free and open trade between Canada and the U.S. creates millions of good jobs on both sides of the border. So we’re not going to overreact.
Read more at Bloomberg.
9 Incredible Examples Of Mobile Architecture
An eclectic collection of mobile architecture is neatly cataloged in the new book Mobitecture: Architecture on the Move (Phaidon, $24.95), comprising everything from a minimalist floating sauna designed for use on Seattle’s Lake Union to a portable one-room summerhouse that can easily be moved around the forests of Scandinavia.
Compiled by Rebecca Roke, who also authored Nanotecture: Tiny Built Things in 2016, this new, compact volume is divided into chapters like “No Wheels,” “Three Wheels,” “Sleds,” and “Water,” each one detailing resourceful structures that are, by turn, luxurious and bare-bones, elegant and outright unexpected.
From disaster shelters to houseboats, cabins-on-wheels to tree-dwellings, no category is left unexplored in this inspiring compendium of wandering homes, huts, caravans, and tents from around the world—an ideal read for those contemplating, or merely daydreaming about, a more nomadic lifestyle.
Read more at Architectural Digest.
Is This A Constitutional Crisis? Legal Experts Size Up The Comey Firing
As the news broke late this afternoon, the politicos of Washington stared into their smartphones, stunned, struggling with what to make of it. TV networks cut into their regularly scheduled programming. Chyrons promising “breaking news” actually delivered it: President Donald Trump had fired FBI Director James Comey.
Though the story is still developing and our understanding of it is evolving, we know a few basic facts. We know that Trump cited Comey’s handling of the inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s emails as a reason for his firing. We know that Comey’s FBI had been investigating whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with Russia to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. What we don’t know is where all this ends.
Is this a constitutional crisis? If not, what is it, and how dangerous? Politico Magazine asked an all-star panel of legal minds to offer their insights and tell us just what to make of it.
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It’s either ‘comforting’ or ‘alarming’
Cass Sunstein is professor at Harvard Law School. From 2009 to 2012, he was administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
There are two ways to understand President Trump’s firing of James Comey, and neither is unreasonable. The first is that in light of the multiple controversies that came to surround Comey, he was rightly fired. The FBI director needs to be widely trusted by the American people. Comey is not widely trusted. For the FBI, a fresh start is a good idea.
The second is that Trump does not want an independent FBI director; he wants someone who is fully subservient to him. Everyone should agree that Comey is not a subservient type. Like him or not, he is no one’s lackey. When Comey is in charge of an investigation, he goes where the facts take him (by his own lights). He insists on exercising his own judgment.
The first understanding is comforting; the second is alarming. Whether one or the other is right (or both), it is the responsibility of the Senate to ensure that the new FBI director is a person of unimpeachable professionalism, nonpartisanship and integrity. At this point in our history, the United States is struggling with unusually high levels of polarization and distrust, and the FBI is engaged in investigations that involve the White House itself. The Senate’s responsibility has never been more solemn.
Read more at Politico.
Will Hurd Is The Future Of The GOP (If He Can Keep His Seat)
HELOTES, Texas—Drenched in yellow light and red fog, Robert Earl Keen scratches at his guitar and unloads the lyrics to his trademark anthem with several thousand boot-and-cowboy-hat-clad Texans howling along in delirium. This is the grand finale on a warm Saturday night at Floore’s Country Store, among the holy sites in the “Texas Country” music scene, and I’m likely the only soul here who doesn’t know the words. Luckily, it’s not hard to catch on; at the end of each of the eight stanzas, Keen and his mob of devotees belt out the line that made him famous around these parts: The road goes on forever, and the party never ends.
The song isn’t especially deep or meaningful—it’s the story of two small-town social misfits who fall in love, arrange a meeting with Cuban drug dealers, steal their money, then kill the lawman who catches them, only to end with Sonny in the electric chair and Sherry driving a new Mercedes Benz—but the chorus provides an ideal thematic backdrop for a meeting of my own.
Drifting amid the sea of bodies in the poorly lit pavilion is Will Hurd, the congressman who represents Texas’ behemoth 23rd District, which stretches from this suburb north of San Antonio, all the way to El Paso some eight hours west. Of the 36 congressional districts in Texas, 35 are safely controlled by Republicans or Democrats; Hurd’s is the outlier. Not only is his district the biggest in the state—encompassing 58,000 square miles, covering all or parts of 29 counties, and including 820 miles of U.S.-Mexico border—it’s easily the most competitive, with both parties pumping millions of dollars into the 23rd every election cycle. Hurd has agreed to let me drive with him across his district; over the next three days we will traverse infinite stretches of flat and long-forgotten highway, zigzagging between dusty outposts for discussions with constituents and local officials about issues as remote as the real estate they occupy. This is all part of the routine for Hurd, who, as a Republican in a 71 percent Hispanic district, must wage what is essentially a continuous, day-in-and-day-out campaign to keep his job. Serendipitously, before we depart on this odyssey, he wants to acquaint me with the stylings of Robert Earl Keen. The road goes on forever, and the party never ends.
Read more at Politico.
Nate Silver and Mark Cuban talk a lot of politics, a little basketball

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and FiveThirtyEight editor-in-chief Nate Silver found themselves on stage together recently at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. They covered a wide range of topics, including Cuban’s political aspirations, President Trump’s political skills and the Mavericks’ bad season. We’ve reprinted a condensed and lightly edited version of the interview below.
Nate: Are you prepared here at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference to announce your candidacy for president of the United States?
Mark: [laughter] I’ll get back to you on that.
Nate: OK. But is it something you’ve thought about seriously?
Mark: Have I thought about it? Yes. Seriously is relative. Circumstantially, yes, but I’m nowhere near ready to decide anything. You know, there’s still a few years to see how things go and what direction they go, so … let’s just say, it’s not just a lifelong dream of mine to be president of the United States.
Nate: Donald Trump was able to win the nomination and the presidency. Do you consider that a kind of game-changing event?
Mark: Game changing event? Yes. Is he paving the way for businesspeople? No. Probably the exact opposite. So it probably hurts more than helps somebody who wanted to come from the business side as opposed to the political side. But it really depends on how he governs, if he governs, and what the results are. Because if things are great, then it’d be a positive, but it also is going to open a door for more Trumpian-like people, I guess, which I would not classify myself as. And if it doesn’t work, then it may swing back the other way, toward more traditional politicians. We’ll have to see.
Read more at FiveThirtyEight.
Neil Gorsuch’s Immediate Impact On The Supreme Court
Neil M. Gorsuch joins the Supreme Court just in time to cast potentially significant votes in cases that pit religious liberty against gay rights, test limits on funding for church schools and challenge California’s restrictions on carrying a concealed gun in public.
Such issues arise either in appeals filed by conservative groups that have been pending before the justices for weeks or in cases to be heard later this month.
Gorsuch’s votes in those matters may give an early sign of whether the court’s conservatives — with their 5-4 majority restored by his confirmation — will pursue an activist agenda.
The cases include a Colorado baker’s claim that he deserves a faith-based exemption from the state’s anti-discrimination law after he refused to design a wedding cake for a gay couple. The justices have been considering his appeal behind closed doors since December, but have taken no action.
The delay may mean one of the justices has been writing a dissent from the majority’s refusal to hear the appeal, or perhaps that the conservatives have been awaiting the ninth justice. Gorsuch is set to be sworn in Monday morning, and when the justices meet in their next private conference on Thursday morning, the new justice will be there.
If the court agrees to take up the issue, “I think Justice Gorsuch would be with us,” said Jeremy Tedesco, a lawyer for the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Arizona-based group that appealed on behalf of the Masterpiece Cakeshop and its owner, Jack Phillips.
Read more at The Los Angeles Times.