Libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel funds “unethical” offshore human test of herpes vaccine, skirting FDA rules

WASHINGTON — Defying U.S. safety protections for human trials, an American university and a group of wealthy libertarians, including a prominent Donald Trump supporter, are backing the offshore testing of an experimental herpes vaccine.

The American businessmen, including Trump adviser Peter Thiel, invested $7 million in the ongoing vaccine research, according to the U.S. company behind it. Southern Illinois University also trumpeted the research and the study’s lead researcher, even though he did not rely on traditional U.S. safety oversight in the first trial, held on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts.

Uber and Lyft's Effort to Disrupt Public Transportation Will Hurt the Environment and Screw the Poor

A 15-minute Uber ride or a 30-minute transit ride? For affluent city dwellers who increasingly prefer comfort and convenience, this choice is a no-brainer. However, this choice is a privilege that remains out of reach for those who live in transit-dependent low-income communities, who face many barriers to accessing ride-hailing services.

Uber competing with taxis is old news, but many now worry that ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft compete with public transit for riders. Not only can ride-hailing service be incredibly convenient, nowadays it can be dirt cheap, increasing the appeal of simply opening the mobile app. This trend may come as no surprise to cities with limited and inefficient transit that are losing their poor, transit-dependent riders in droves to gentrification.

Who is Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh?

As Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, an Indian sect leader, made his way to a court in India's northern Haryana state on the morning of August 25, some news channels ran live coverage of the 200-car cavalcade, that included several black SUVs, as it made its nearly 250km journey from Sirsa to Panchkula in Haryana.

That Singh had been accorded Z-plus security - usually reserved for prominent politicians - was testimony to the level of political influence this controversial sect leader wielded.

This Holocaust Survivor Noticed A Detail In Charlottesville You Might Have Missed

Shock and anger were common feelings for most Americans who followed the recent tragic events in Charlottesville, Virginia.

To Jack Rosenthal, the hate-filled imagery was something he never thought he’d see again, at least not in the United States.

Rosenthal is one of 10,000 Romanian refugees who came to America after World War II. At 88 years old, he still mourns the loss of seven family members who died in the Auschwitz death camp. He was the only one to survive.

Independent Clinic Closures Put Abortion Access at Risk

A report released yesterday by the Abortion Care Network, the national association for independent community-based, abortion care providers and their allies, details an alarming trend of mass independent reproductive health clinic closures that is threatening access to care across the country.

According to “Communities Need Clinics,” 145 independent abortion clinics have closed since 2012, reducing the total number of independent providers by nearly one-third to 365. Ten clinics have closed already this year. Sixty percent of people who have abortions seek out that care at independent clinics (non-Planned Parenthood, standalone facilities not housed in a hospital that specialize in reproductive health care). Without access to independent providers, access to non-hospital abortion care after 16 weeks would drop by 76 percent.

When Nazis filled Madison Square Garden

Anxious to find precedents for the frightening and ultimately deadly white nationalist, “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, some media outlets have likened the images of the recent mayhem in Virginia to the chilling ones of the German-American Bundrally that filled Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939, with 22,000 hate-spewing American Nazis.

That rally, the largest such conclave in U.S. history, shocked Americans at the time. They had seen the press accounts and newsreel footage of the Nazis’ massive Nuremburg rallies; they had read about Kristallnacht, the murderous, two-day anti-Semitic pogrom of November 1938, which the Bund — the fast-growing, American version of the German Nazi party, which trumpeted the Nazi philosophy, but with a stars-and-stripes twist — had unabashedly endorsed.

If You Want To Understand Anti-Fascist Movements, You Need To Know This History

NORTHAMPTON, England ― In the wake of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on Aug. 12, there has been a growing public interest with the anti-fascist movement. Anti-fascism is as old as fascism, and it can be defined simply as activity that opposes fascist and extreme right-wing politics. Labels such as “alt-left” are now being used by U.S. President Donald Trump, among others, to describe, and deride, something that has a long, complex history. In order to understand today’s anti-fascist groups ― and where they might succeed and fail ― we need to revisit the ones that came before.

Liberal Government Must Face 'True History' Of Canada's Key Figures: Indigenous Activists

OTTAWA — The federal government is facing increased pressure from Indigenous advocates to confront how historical figures are celebrated in Canada following the passage of a motion by an Ontario teachers' union calling for the removal of Sir John A. Macdonald's name from elementary schools in the province.

A bigger conversation needs to unfold nationally about the role of historic figures in the "dark realities of colonialism", NDP MP and Indigenous affairs critic Romeo Saganash said Friday, adding it is the responsibility of Ottawa to begin this dialogue "in the spirit of reconciliation" with Indigenous Peoples.

Propaganda and provocation: Russia scoffs at Canada's Baltic war games

A high-level Russian official is unimpressed with Canada's war games in the Baltics.

"There is no other way to interpret what's going on in the Baltic republics [than] as a very provocative action," Maria Zakharova, chief spokesperson for Russia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said in an interview with CBC News.

Anti-Racism Activist Tim Wise: After Charlottesville, Time for White People to Say, 'By God, You Don't Speak for Me'

Two weekends ago, the world watched with horror while white supremacists, neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members and other elements of the so-called alt-right rampaged throughout the city of Charlottesville, Virginia. Their orgy of hatred against Jews, Muslims, gays and lesbians, liberals, African-Americans and other people of color would culminate in a terrorist-style attack that killed Heather Heyer and injured dozens more.

Condemnation and disgust at the white supremacist thuggery in Charlottesville should be universal; instead the response has largely been processed through a partisan lens.