The U.S. government has taken another big step forward in its campaign to end drug research projects involving chimps. Late in 2011 the NIH suspended grants for biomedical research using chimps. And the big agency followed up last year by retiring more than 100 chimps that had been used for R&D work. Now the Fish and Wildlife service is looking to list all chimps as an endangered species, dropping the controversial practice of designating wild chimps as endangered and captive chimps "threatened," a split classification that allowed the captives to be used in research work. Animal rights activists applauded the move, but you can be sure that chimp research will continue in a number of other countries around the world--for now. Story