9 Feature Stories You Can't Miss This Week: Bros, Brawls, And Broken Hearts

People in Texas get thrown behind bars just because they can’t afford their traffic tickets. That’s a disaster for people who are already struggling. It’s also completely against the law. Read it at BuzzFeed News.

Johana Bhuiyan uncovers how the Las Vegas taxi industry used every political maneuver in its arsenal to keep Uber and Lyft off the strip — and why it didn’t work. "In Las Vegas, Uber and its pugnacious CEO Travis Kalanick really did run into the corrupt taxi cartel bogeymen that they had long claimed to be saving us from...But when push came to shove and the fight turned ugly, the world’s fastest-growing company ran right over its entrenched opposition." Read it at BuzzFeed News.

Zeke Faux bros out with "semiretired" best friends Abe Zeines and Meir Hurwitz, two former Orthodox Jews who cashed in big on the lucrative business of merchant cash advances, yet feel their returns are diminishing. “It’s a matter of time before we get involved with something else...We can’t sit around and golf and f--- beautiful ladies all day.” Read it at Bloomberg Businessweek.

Nextdoor.com, a social networking site for neighborhoods, has grown exponentially in recent years, allowing neighbors to swap updates about everything from community meetings, to furniture sales, to babysitters. But after visiting with black residents of Oakland, CA, Sam Levin discovers how the site has also encouraged racial profiling — with potentially disastrous results. Read it at East Bay Express.

After obtaining a number of internal financial documents, Nitasha Tiku reveals how the enormously successful startup justifies the $10 billion valuation that has made it a Silicon Valley "decacorn.""Sketching out a 'grand' vision will only get a decacorn so far. At some point, that story about the future becomes a demand from the present." Read it at BuzzFeed News.

Brendan Koerner tells the sad — yet all-too-familiar — tale of Audrey Elrod, a middle-aged divorceé who thought she'd found love online, but instead got entangled in an international web scam. “Any time I questioned anything, he had a comeback...He could make you feel like the dumbest person in the world.” Read it at Wired.

A five-month investigation by BuzzFeed News reveals that Lycamobile, one of the biggest corporate donors to Britain's Conservative Party, deploys men to drive around in an unmarked van and deposit bags of cash at post offices around London. Seems suspicious. Read it at BuzzFeed News.

Charlie Warzel meets two British expat podcasters who are obsessed with making good on the decades-old promise that America will care about soccer more than once every four years. If it finally happens, they’ll be a big reason why. Read it at BuzzFeed News.

Raquel Willis describes the exhaustion of having to explain herself — and fearing for her safety —  while dating as a trans woman. “'So you’re a man?' he asked. 'Do you know how lucky you are that I’m not, like, crazy? Because I know plenty of guys who would really do some shit to you.'" Read it at BuzzFeed News.