REDWOOD CITY, Calif. (AP) – Two Pacifica men will serve time in jail for the damage they caused to a Pacifica high school.

Twenty-year-old Robert Polk Jr. and 21-year-old Daniel Walsh were sentenced to 90 days in jail Monday after pleading no contest to one count each of misdemeanor vandalism.

The two men were arrested a day after a fire was set last April at Pacifica’s Oceana High School.

In addition to the damage caused by the one-alarm fire, graffiti was scrawled on a wall that included swastikas, references to white power and hate speech against gays and ethnic and racial minorities.

Prosecutors say they did not charge Polk or Walsh with a hate crime because they could not prove that either man was responsible for the graffiti.

BALTIMORE (AP) – Maryland, which has one of the country’s highest AIDS rates, is facing a 40 percent cut in federal funds to track infections this year.

The reduction, from $1.8 million last year to about $1 million in calendar year 2008, could have an effect on funds to treat the poor, officials said.

The reduction eliminates funding for Maryland to perform tests that find whether someone testing positive for HIV was infected recently or years ago, according to the Maryland AIDS Administration.

Also eliminated are state-ordered lab tests that indicate whether someone is carrying a strain that resists treatment by certain medications.

The state agency first learned of the funding cut in November, but received paperwork showing the grant amount in January. News of the funding cuts arrived in communications from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“I think the main issue is that we are third in the country for AIDS case rates, so I find it alarming that the CDC would jeopardize our surveillance system at a time when we obviously have a significant burden of the epidemic,” said Heather Hauck, director of the state AIDS Administration.

Maryland might have a harder time directing services to regions or groups where they are most needed, because of the cutback in funding, Hauck said. Maryland, as well as Baltimore, relies heavily on federal support for activities related to HIV/AIDS treatment and tracking.

Hauck also warned that the state might find it more difficult to get as much money for AIDS treatment under the federal Ryan White Care Act. The amount is determined in part on the number of new infections in a particular state – numbers that depend on the state’s counting those infections.

In 2005, the most recent year for which state-by-state comparisons are available, only Washington, D.C., and New York state had higher rates of new AIDS diagnoses. More than 32,000 people in Maryland are living with HIV infection or AIDS.

While refusing to explain why Maryland was denied funding for the two “surveillance” activities, a CDC spokeswoman said grants were “time-limited” and not meant to continue automatically.

“Unfortunately, in 2008, Maryland did not receive funding for some of these time-limited projects, resulting in a decrease in its total award,” said Nikki Kay, the spokeswoman, in an e-mail.

The $1 million awarded to Maryland is designated for “core surveillance,” the reporting of HIV diagnoses along with basic information about the patients.

HELENA, Mont. (AP) – Representatives of the gay community demanded an apology Friday from U.S. Rep. Denny Rehberg of Montana over a prank involving an Idaho congressman.

Last month, Rehberg reportedly placed a package on the airplane seat of fellow Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Simpson during a Middle East congressional delegation trip. The package included a stuffed sheep with gloves attached to it, books on cross-dressing and sign language, a Village People CD and a T-shirt apparently referencing the Sen. Larry Craig scandal, according to The Hill, a Washington, D.C., newspaper.

Rehberg’s spokesman Bridger Pierce said Friday that “no offense was intended.”

“This was a practical joke between two friends from neighboring western states who often play pranks on one another,” Pierce said in a statement. “The real news from Congress today is the failure of the Democrats to extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and Congressman Rehberg’s efforts to reauthorize the farm bill and fix the president’s budget to make sure we adequately fund rural priories like Amtrak and wildfire suppression.”

The prank drew criticism from gay rights groups.

“This is an embarrassment to Montana,” said Jamee Greer of the Western Montana Gay and Lesbian Community Center. “Rep. Rehberg owes the gay community and all of Montana an apology.”

The Montana Human Rights Network and the Community Center of Missoula have requested a meeting with Rehberg to discuss the prank and his voting record.

“He plays silly pranks while he votes against hate crimes protections,” said state Sen. Christine Kaufmann, D-Helena, who serves as director of the Montana Human Rights Network.

Rehberg voted against a House resolution in May 2007 that would have amended the federal definition of a hate crime to include gender identity and sexual orientation.

Pierce said Friday that Rehberg voted against the resolution because “all violent crimes are deplorable, and this bill would have set a special standard of punishment for crimes involving a particular group.”

Craig, a three-term Republican from Idaho, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in August after he was accused of using a series of foot taps and hand signals to solicit sex in a bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in June. He tried unsuccessfully to withdraw his guilty plea and has denied he was soliciting sex.

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) – A 20-year-old Missoula man has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for severely beating another man last May.

Christopher Newrider pleaded guilty last month to felony assault and kidnapping in the attack on Stevenpaul Richey.

Newrider admitted tying up Richey, kicking him and hitting him in the face, breaking ribs and bones in his face. Richey spent several days in the hospital.

The 51-year-old Richey says his assailants uttered anti-gay epithets during the beating in his downtown apartment.

Newrider was sentenced Feb. 12.

A co-defendant, 20-year-old Michael Lemay, has been sentenced to five years’ custody with the Department of Corrections. Both men were ordered to pay restitution.

New York City (AP) – Leaders from five Anglican provinces said Friday they will boycott a once-a-decade world Anglican summit because the U.S. Episcopal Church ordained a gay bishop.

The five leaders from Africa and South America said they could not share communion with Episcopal bishops who in 2003 consecrated V. Gene Robinson as bishop of New Hampshire.

The Episcopal Church is the Anglican body in the U.S.

Friday’s announcement came from Archbishops Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda, Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya, Henry Orombi of Uganda and Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone, which is in South America.

“There is no serious space for those of an orthodox persuasion ... to be themselves or to be taken seriously,” the archbishops said in a statement. They lead some of the largest or fastest-growing Anglican provinces in the world.

“The gathering will be diminished by their absence, and I imagine that they themselves will miss a gift they might have otherwise received” by attending, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori said.

Anglicans are deeply divided over how they should interpret what the Bible says about truth, salvation, homosexuality and other issues.

Robinson’s elevation has pushed the 77 million-member Anglican Communion to the brink of schism. Attendance at the meeting, called the Lambeth Conference, has become a focus of the tension.

The Lambeth event is set for July 16-Aug. 3 at the University of Kent in England.

Several Anglican conservatives, including the five archbishops who announced their boycott Friday, are holding a separate meeting, seen as a rival to Lambeth, June 15-22 in Israel.

The five archbishops have also offered oversight to like-minded U.S. Episcopal parishes or dioceses that are splitting from the national church.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the Anglican spiritual leader, did not invite a small number of bishops, including Robinson, to participate at Lambeth.

Earlier this month, bishops from the traditionalist Anglican Diocese of Sydney, Australia, said they would also boycott the event.

Still, Williams has said that more than 600 out of 880 bishops have accepted invitations to Lambeth so far.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – House Majority Leader Gordon Fox says he’ll file a bill in the General Assembly that would allow married gay couples to divorce.

The state’s highest court ruled in a 3-2 decision in December that a lesbian couple who married in Massachusetts could not get divorced in their home state of Rhode Island.

Supporters of the bill say it makes no sense to require people to remain married when they have no desire to do so.

But the legislation is expected to face opposition from Gov. Don Carcieri and many other lawmakers.

The group Marriage Equality RI is also calling for passage of a measure that would give domestic partners access to benefits such as family medical leave, nursing home visitation and funeral planning.

Same-sex marriage is illegal in the Ocean State.