Portside

In a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) complaint filed last week against three U.S. government agencies, documentary film maker Laura Poitras charges she was subjected to intense rounds of detention and questioning on more than 50 occasions between 2006 and 2012. It’s an important story with profound implications for the press. Yet, her lawsuit also highlights a second threat to journalism in the U.S., the worrisome way the federal government handles FOIA requests.

On Thursday more than 100 prominent oncologists came out in support of a patient-driven initiative to lower the high price of cancer drugs, charging at least 20 percent of their patients can’t follow their cancer treatment because they can’t afford the drugs. In their article in Mayo Clinic Proceedings the physicians also called upon the federal government to, among other things, allow Medicare to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices.

London activists have found a creative way to subvert the proliferation of metal studs and other devices purposely designed to discourage homeless and other people from occupying public spaces. The collective, called Space, Not Spikes, is transforming them into cozy bedrooms, complete with tiny libraries. Anti-homeless spikes and an anti-loitering device that only teenagers can hear are part of a movement some have defined as “defensive architecture.”

Public ownership is already widespread in the United States, and is popular in practice, if not in the abstract, with both liberals and conservatives. It includes hospitals, parks, public utilities, public Internet systems, hotels, and Public Wealth Funds generated by state owned oil and mineral wealth that subsidize public education and provide guaranteed incomes to millions of people. With skepticism about capitalism growing, will we see more such endeavors?

When mass shootings fit into Gov. Bobby Jindal’s view of “radical Islamic terrorists” he is quick to condemn the violence as terrorism. But when the incidents are results of lax gun control laws and radical right-wing shooters he simply calls the situation tragic and is quick to move on. The evidence already indicates that the shooter in the Lafayette Theater was a fan of David Duke, neo-Nazis, and antigovernment conspiracies.

In Jurassic World, Velociraptors are depicted as big, drab-coloured, scaly brutes. We've known for some time that wasn't true - Velociraptors had feathers. And now, thanks to a spectacular fossil of a new dinosaur, we know in detail what the real Velociraptor would have been like. Far from being a scaly-skinned reptilian monster, Velociraptor would have been a fluffy, feathered poodle from hell.

When fast-food workers started protesting just two years ago for a $15 minimum wage, they were mocked. This week, they secured their biggest victory yet.

Slavery to Mass Incarceration. Mess Within Texas - Sandra Bland's Arrest. Traffic Stop. Are We Really 99% Chimp? The First Openly Asshole President.

Anti-abortion groups have long pushed to defund Planned Parenthood, even though no federal money is used to provide abortions. But that hasn't stopped their efforts to shut down the clinics, which provide services like contraception, cancer screening and other tests.

Many Israeili security insiders say the deal signed in Vienna isn't as bad as Netanyahu claims. Some call it good for Israel. They include former chief of military intelligence, Amos Yadlin; former chief of arms technology, Yitzhak Ben-Yisrael, who now chairs The Israel Space Agency; former chief of military operations, Israel Ziv; the architect of Israeli military intelligence, Dov Tamari; former director of Shin Bet domestic security service, Ami Ayalon; and others.