MYSTERY: Uganda's Only Gay Bar: Closed By Suspicious Landlord!

One openly gay bar was too many for conservative, queer-hating Uganda. The nation's only LGBT watering hole, Sappho Islands, was shuttered this week by a landlord worried about the "strange people" who congregated there.

The bar was run by a steely-eyed woman of awesome chutzpah named Jaqueline Kasha, an international freedom fighter and the founder of the LGBT rights organization "Freedom and Roam Uganda." Last Sunday, Kasha arrived to work and found the bar door padlocked. Perhaps it's unnecessary to point out: in the several press reports issued since the closure, no one has suggested that Kasha was late on her rent.

The closing of a bar is small potatoes, maybe, in a country whose government is seriously considering legislation to execute its practicing LGBTs. Then again, that's just the kind of place where some drink and fellowship can do the heart some good.

NOT PROTECTED: Contraceptive Shot May Double HIV Risk!

Alarming new research out of eastern and southern Africa, where both unplanned pregnancies and AIDS wreak havoc: The most popular contraceptive used by women there appears to double their risk of contracting HIV—and if a woman already has HIV, it doubles her risk of transmitting it to her partner compared to women who use no contraception. The study centers around a hormone shot given once every three months, which is the best contraception available in Africa today, one expert tells the New York Times: “If it is now proven that these contraceptions are helping spread the AIDS epidemic, we have a major health crisis on our hands.”

The fate posed by unplanned pregnancies is often no better: Hundreds of thousands of African women suffer injuries, bleeding, infection, or death in childbirth. Worse, the study also found that pregnancy itself doubles the risk of contracting or transmitting HIV, meaning women could still face the same increased risk should they decide to stop taking the hormone shot. In light of the study, WHO will meet in January to re-evaluate its contraceptive recommendations. The reason for the increased risk is not clear, though researchers essentially ruled out the possibility that decreased condom use was a factor.

HOPE: AIDS Drugs Slash Risk of Getting HIV in First Place!

The same antiretroviral drugs that treat HIV and AIDS can also be used to cut down the risk of contracting HIV in the first place, two new studies show. The dramatic results are just the latest evidence that AIDS drugs can be effective at prevention as well as treatment. While previous research has shown antiretroviral drugs to be effective for specific groups, the new studies, carried out in Kenya, Uganda, and Botswana, show that they are also effective in the general heterosexual population. In one study, which ended early because results were so startling, antiretroviral drugs reduced the risk of contraction by 62% to 73%.

The other showed a 63% decrease. Taking the drugs daily is important: A previous experiment, in which many doses were skipped, was less effective. About 6.6 million infected people in the developing world are taking antiretroviral drugs, but this news will likely spur efforts to provide more drugs to those not yet infected, the Washington Post reports.