The United Nations has a message: access to contraception is a human right that will save lives and more than $11 billion in health costs, as well as help remove gender inequalities around the world. The United Nations Population Fund recently released The State of the World Population 2011 report, titled “By Choice, Not By Chance.” The 140-page report argues for greater accessibility to family planning and contraception. ... Read More

Stephanie Pollaro is a woman on a mission. Soon after earning her master's degree from California State University Long Beach, she sold her possessions, gave up a comfortable life in the United States, and boarded an airplane to Mumbai to rescue trafficked girls. In 2007, the former California girl founded the non-profit organization International Sanctuary with friend and fellow do-gooder Wendy Hicks. Today, iSanctuary works to ... Read More

On Sunday, the Lincoln Journal Star reported on a horrific hate crime against a woman in Lincoln, Nebraska. She was attacked in her home by three masked men who bound her wrists and ankles with zip ties, cut her body, and carved homophobic slurs into her skin. They then doused her floor with gasoline and lit a match. The woman proceeded to crawl from her house to a neighbor's doorstep, bleeding, naked and screaming for help. The community ... Read More

Wonderful news (for me and, I think, humanity)! Proposition 8, the human-rights violation of a California law that tried to deny same-sex couples the right to marry, has been deemed unconstitutional by a federal appeals court. That court's decision came after it spent a whole year hearing arguments from both sides. It now looks like Prop 8 may be on its way to the Supreme Court. Prop 8, which made marriage in the state legal only between a ... Read More

On December 13, 64 people were arrested at a punk show that was raising money for a local orphanage in the Aceh province of Indonesia. Those taken weren’t charged with a crime or brought before a court, but were arrested for having mohawks, tattoos, earrings, and wearing dark clothing. Basically for being “punk.” These men and women, most in their early twenties, were taken to the Aceh State Police School for ... Read More