WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) — A group of AIDS treatment activists sent a funeral wreath to Sen. Arlen Specter, lambasting the lawmaker for not including $1 billion in a federal funding bill for a global disease prevention and treatment program.

Philadelphia-based ACT-UP accused Specter (R-Pa.) of flip-flopping on AIDS issues for rejecting the $1 billion plan for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria from the $137 billion bill to fund education, labor and health programs that he shepherded through the Senate last month.

Specter “has apparently decided to stop supporting AIDS funding,” said ACT-UP spokeswoman Amy Shultz, noting that the senator pressed President Bush two years ago for aid for the Global Fund’s treatment programs.

“... (Specter’s) votes are a cynical attempt to appease the White House and rally Republican support during his re-election campaign,” Shultz said.

Specter spokesman William Reynolds said the senator has so far helped steer $2.1 billion of an authorized $15 billion to global AIDS programs over the next five years.

Specter “has recognized AIDS as a global emergency, and that the United States and other major industrial countries have to step up and help out,” Reynolds said. “This is just the beginning.”

BOCA RATON, Fla. (AP) — A gay couple has settled a discrimination lawsuit they filed against an apartment complex because it had a policy of leasing only to married couples, attorneys said.

The settlement, reached during a mediation session, requires Royal Colonial Apartments to post notices that it abides by fair housing practices in its offices and its rental agreements.

Royal Colonial also agreed to pay $25,000 to each of the men, Fred Sternbach and Stephan Miller, and to Lambda Legal, which will use the money to finance its efforts.

Sternbach and Miller sued the complex in March after Sternbach filled out a rental application while his house was being built. He listed Miller’s name and wrote “partner” to describe their relationship of 16 years.

The property manager called an hour later and asked if “partner” meant fiancée or wife, according to the civil suit, filed in circuit court. When Sternbach said he meant “partner,” the woman told him the complex rents only to married couples.

The suit alleged the complex violated a county law that protects same-sex couples from housing discrimination. Four other Florida counties and eight cities have similar laws.

“This will serve to educate commercial landlords that discrimination under this ordinance will not be tolerated, and it will serve to educate prospective tenants as to their civil rights,” said Boynton Beach attorney Agnes Hollingshead, who represented the men free of charge on behalf of Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a national civil rights organization.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A free health clinic program will offer quick HIV tests to people who don’t want to wait for conventional test results.

The Kansas City Free Health Clinic plans to buy a specially equipped van and drive to inner city neighborhoods to offer the HIV blood tests. Those tests will give preliminary results in 30 minutes, not the two weeks that conventional tests can take.

The program is funded by a $669,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as part of three new federal grants, totaling about $1.7 million. The grants are for HIV and AIDS programs.

“We hope to start testing by the end of the year,” said Holly Buckendahl, the clinic’s director of community services. “We’ll be visiting parks, health fairs, festivals, areas where there are high-risk activities.”

The program is aimed at racial and ethnic minority groups who have been reluctant to seek HIV testing, Buckendahl said.

ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. (AP) — Joshua W. Cottrell, charged with killing a Hardin County man whose body was stuffed into a suitcase, will be tried on murder charges in Hardin County instead of Breckinridge County.

The case was moved because the victim, 36-year-old Guinn Richard “Richie” Phillips, likely died in an Elizabethtown motel room, according to forensics.

Court records show police believe Cottrell killed Phillips in an Elizabethtown motel room after inviting him there. According to these records, police believe that Phillips was killed because he was gay. Cottrell’s aunt and cousin told state police that Cottrell had said to them that he planned to kill Phillips because Phillips was gay.

Phillips’ body was found stuffed inside a suitcase floating in Rough River Lake in Breckinridge County on June 25, eight days after his family reported him missing.

Cottrell is scheduled to be arraigned in Hardin Circuit Court on Oct. 28 before Judge T. Steven Bland.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina’s highest court rejected a petition from a condemned inmate and his attorney said she would appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to stop a death sentence based on bias against gays and lesbians.

Lawyers for Edward Hartman, 38, had asked the state justices to stop the execution by injection and order a lower court to impose a life sentence.

After the state court refused to intercede, Hartman’s attorneys filed similar motions with the U.S. Supreme Court, saying the death sentence should be vacated because of anti-gay bias.

The defense already has asked Gov. Mike Easley to grant executive clemency and convert the death sentence to life in prison.

At issue is the defense contention that Hartman was unfairly treated during his trial because a prosecutor repeatedly referred to Hartman’s homosexuality, which had nothing to do with the killing.

Hartman was sentenced to death for the 1993 killing of 77-year-old Herman Smith Jr. in the Pinetops community of Northampton County. Wells said Smith was a former boyfriend of Hartman’s mother and was living at Smith’s house.

HOUSTON, Tex. (AP) — A state parole panel has decided that two men convicted in the 1991 slaying of a gay banker in Montrose, Tex., will spend at least two more years in prison.

Parole for Jon Buice, sentenced to 45 years in prison for his role in the killing of Paul Broussard, was denied for at least two years. Jaime Aguirre, serving a 15-year sentence, will have to wait at least three more years for parole after his denial by a different panel, officials said.

Buice and Aguirre were among 10 teens from The Woodlands convicted in the death of Broussard, who was 27 when he and two friends were attacked as they left a gay nightclub in the Montrose area. Broussard’s friends escaped with minor injuries, but Broussard was beaten, kicked and stabbed to death.

Prison officials says Buice, now 29, has had a flawless prison record since he began serving his sentence, earning a bachelor’s degree and two associate’s degrees. His parole bid was championed by Houston gay-rights advocate Ray Hill, who also is active in prisoners’ rights.

Hill said he was disappointed with the panel and he called the ruling a result of “the seduction of revenge and the absence of courage.”

Andy Kahan, director of the Houston Victims’ Assistance Center, said he does not oppose Buice’s eventual release but that “we shouldn’t be rewarding convicted murderers by granting them early release, especially after serving only a quarter of their sentence.”

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — West Virginia University is getting a $450,000 federal grant to help treat low-income people who have HIV or AIDS and those at risk of contracting the virus.

Officials with the Department of Health and Human Services will be at the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center to discuss the grant. It’s one of 27 made nationwide, totaling more than $10.9 million.

The money can be used for counseling, testing, medical evaluation and clinical care, as well as oral health care, nutritional counseling, outpatient mental health and substance abuse services.

“This grant means that hundreds more people in the service area — which includes northern and eastern West Virginia — will get tested, find out their HIV status and learn how to protect themselves and others,” Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson said.

The grant is through the Ryan White Comprehensive AIDS Resources Emergency Act.

WVU will use some of the money for satellite clinics in Wheeling, Parkersburg and Martinsburg.

Joan Ohl, commissioner of the Administration on Children, Youth and Families, will make a formal announcement Friday with Robert Zimmerman, director of DHHS Region III. Ohl is a former West Virginia secretary of health and human resources.

They also plan to meet with WVU physicians.