FRESNO, Calif. (AP) – A Fresno County Superior Court jury has convicted a man of soliciting sex in a Fresno park, the first of 40 people arrested during a six-month sting.

Stephen Mark Lake, 49, was convicted of the misdemeanor solicitation charge. He was sentenced to 21 days in a work program and two years probation.

In 2002, deputies with the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department went undercover for a sex-sting operation called “Protecting Our Children.” They arrested dozens of men for solicitation or for allegedly engaging in sex acts in public restrooms and other places.

Defense attorneys have charged the sheriff’s department with discrimination, saying officials targeted gay men.

TRACY, Calif. (AP) – Administrators at a northern San Joaquin Valley high school said they pulled an ad for a gay-friendly prom from the school’s daily announcements because it’s being promoted by an outside group.

The April event was organized by West High School’s Gay-Straight Alliance, but the statewide gay-advocacy group, Equality California, is helping sell tickets on its Web site.

The school’s bulletin is reserved for school-related announcements, Principal Herman Calad said.

“It’s not an outside thing. … It’s a West High School club putting on a West High School event,” said senior Justin Daley, president of the school’s Gay-Straight Alliance and director of the Equality California’s San Joaquin County chapter.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) – Same-sex couples should be able to adopt children, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis told a largely gay group Feb. 4. But the Congress member later told reporters that he does not support same-sex marriage in Florida.

Davis spoke at a conference of the Florida Gay-Lesbian-Bisexual-Transgender Democratic Caucus.

“I believe, as my grandfather did, that we are all equal in the eyes of God,” he said. “What matters is on the inside.”

He told reporters afterward that he supported civil unions, but he did not think the state was ready for a Massachusetts-style system allowing marriage between same-sex partners.

“I think marriage is a religious sacrament, and I don’t think the government should get involved in that,” Davis said. “But I do think as governor I have an obligation to make sure that every person is treated fairly.”

According to census data, about 1.2 million of Florida’s estimated 10 million voters consider themselves to be gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, said Stephen Gaskill, the caucus’ communications director.

About 70 percent of those voters are Democrats, Gaskill said.

Davis and state Sen. Rod Smith are competing in the Sept. 5 primary for the gubernatorial nomination. The winner will face either Attorney General Charlie Crist or state Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher, who seek the Republican nomination.

MIAMI (AP) – A gay Colombian man who is HIV-positive is seeking to stay in the United States, arguing that paramilitary groups in his native country will kill him if he returns.

Luis Fabriciano Rico’s initial asylum request was rejected by an immigration judge in 2003, a decision that was upheld by appellate judges. Now, Rico is asking the Board of Immigration to reopen his case, arguing that the persecution of gays in Colombia has shot up in recent years, The Miami Herald reported.

The 38-year-old hails from Barrancabermeja, Colombia, which has been under the control of right-wing paramilitary groups in recent years.

His attorney, Leon Fresco, told The Associated Press that since 2003, the groups have targeted anyone perceived to be gay.

“As they drive around, they see you on the road, they think you’re gay, and they kill you,” Fresco said.

Rico filed the appeal Jan. 13. The Board of Immigration Appeals could decide at any time whether to send the case back to an immigration judge or simply deport Rico, Fresco said.

Rico, who worked as an accountant in Colombia, now washes dishes in Orlando and lives with his longtime partner, Juan Carlos Rodriguez.

The couple began dating in Colombia in 1996, where they were both gay activists, Fresco said.

A different judge granted asylum to Rodriguez, who did not mention he was gay.

Rico, 38, first asked for asylum in 2001 for political reasons. He later amended his request to add his fears about specific homophobic threats from the paramilitary groups.

Immigration Judge Rex J. Ford denied that request in 2003. He questioned Rico’s credibility because Rico did not include claims related to his sexual orientation in his initial application.

Ford also noted that Rico traveled to Colombia during the time he said he was being persecuted.

Fresco said Rico had suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome and was afraid to make public his sexuality. Fresco also said Rico returned to Colombia twice to visit his young daughter, who is being raised by his parents.

The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to rehear the case, saying it could not revisit the facts of the case.

U.S. Reps. Debbi Wasserman Schultz, D-Pembroke Pines, and Corrine Brown, D-Orlando, have sent letters on Rico’s behalf.

Professor James D. Wilets, who heads Nova Southeastern University’s Inter-American Center for Human Rights, also filed an expert affidavit, noting that attacks on homosexuals in Colombia are significantly on the rise and come from police, military and paramilitary groups connected with the government.

ATLANTA (AP) – Patients with the AIDS virus are better off if they start taking powerful medicines early, rather than waiting for symptoms of their disease to appear, new research suggests.

A new study calls into question guidelines that say patients should delay taking the toxic drugs to stave off treatment-related complications.

The research focused on “drug cocktail” combinations of three or more drugs. The regimens have become a standard treatment in the last decade, but are associated with such complications as kidney failure and a hand- and foot-numbing condition called peripheral neuropathy.

Federal health officials advise patients to delay this treatment until they develop severe symptoms or the infection causes their natural armament of certain white blood cells to dip below a certain level.

But the researchers found that patients who began taking the drugs early, and took them continuously, developed 28 percent fewer cases of kidney failure and peripheral neuropathy.

“That means one quarter of these cases could be avoided,” said Dr. John T. Brooks of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the scientists who worked on the study.

The findings were presented at a scientific conference in Denver. Dr. Kenneth Lichtenstein of the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center led the research.

“The intuitive thing to think is … the longer you’re on the drug, the greater the toxicity,” Lichtenstein said. “The surprise in our study is if you didn’t develop toxicity in the first six months to a year, your risk of toxicity went down, rather than up.”

The researchers examined the medical records of 2,304 patients with HIV in eight U.S. cities.

They placed patients into five groups based on their white blood cell counts, an indication of how sick the patients were.

The researchers compared the risks of kidney failure and the numbing condition for patients with varying white blood cell counts.

For both side effects, the risk was about 28 percent lower for the patients who started treatment early, before their cell counts dropped, Brooks said.

The study did not attempt to separate out the effect of specific drugs. The work is being prepared for submission to a peer-reviewed journal, but has not been published yet.

The findings argue for early HIV testing and treatment, Brooks said, but “I don’t think anyone is ready to recommend changing the guidelines based on a single report.”

DUBUQUE, Iowa (AP) – The City Council has approved sexual orientation as a protected class under the city’s human rights ordinance.

The council took less than a minute to approve an amendment to the ordinance Feb. 6. The amendment had been rejected three times by the council since the 1980s.

It provides legal recourse for anyone denied housing, employment, credit, education or service because of sexual orientation.

Judy Haley Giesen, chair of the Dubuque Human Rights Commission, said the council’s approval of the amendment was long overdue.

“It has been a long journey with many people working on this diligently,” Giesen said.

“There’s great joy in my heart and also great joy for the gay and lesbian community in the fact that they know they live in a more hospitable city and have equal rights,” she said.

The council voted 6-1 to approve the amendment.

Councilmember Pat Cline was the lone no vote.

“I believe this belongs in the state Legislature,” she said.

SANTA FE (AP) –A state district court judge has ruled that probable cause exists to charge two men in connection with a gay-bashing incident last year in a motel parking lot.

Paul Montoya and Jonathan Valdez, both of Santa Fe, now face charges of aggravated battery causing great bodily harm, conspiracy and criminal damage to property for their roles in the beating of James Maestas, 22, and Joshua Stockham, 24.

The two are charged as accessories for allegedly encouraging the attack. One of the co-defendants, Joseph Cano, 19, testified during the preliminary hearing that ended Feb. 10 that he, Valdez and Montoya watched the attack from about 10 feet away.

Maestas spent eight days in a coma with numerous injuries, while Stockham received minor injuries.

The charges against Valdez, 21, and Montoya, 20, previously were dropped because prosecutors did not give the two enough notice before the grand jury that indicted them met.

District Judge Michael Vigil, however, found the evidence demonstrated probable cause – a relatively low standard of proof – to charge them.

Vigil dismissed counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor against Valdez and Montoya. One of the six males involved in the attack, David Trinidad, was 17 years old at the time. Vigil said the charge would not stand because evidence shows Trinidad acted independently.

The trial for Valdez and Montoya is scheduled to begin April 25.

Four other men – Cano, Gabriel Maturin, Trinidad and Isaia Medina – have been convicted in Maestas’ beating and are awaiting sentencing.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) – Oklahoma City and Tulsa were among 100 cities chosen to sponsor HIV/AIDS awareness programs for black Americans last week.

Feb. 7 was the sixth annual National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

“HIV and AIDS aren’t readily talked about among black family members,” said Theodore Noel, executive director of the Guiding Right community outreach program.

Noel was out on the streets of northeast Oklahoma City with a hearse, celebrity obituaries and the message that fear, poverty, apathy, misinformation, stigmas and substance abuse have made black men and women prime targets for HIV and AIDS.

While HIV can be deadly itself, it’s HIV cases that develop into full-blown AIDS that have killed nearly 2,500 Oklahomans since 1983.

Oklahoma health authorities are especially concerned because the percentage of blacks with HIV and AIDS is disproportionately higher than the percentage of blacks in the state. According to U.S. Census data, 7.6 percent of Oklahomans are black.

On National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, Noel and Guiding Right colleagues were stationed at four locations in Oklahoma City, handing out information about HIV and AIDS and canvassing the community with their messages and literature.

The hearse was a visible reminder that HIV and AIDS are killers, and blacks are prime targets.

Many health authorities term the virus an epidemic at worst and a crisis at best among black men and women.

The obituaries were of prominent American blacks who died from AIDS, including designer Willi Smith, television journalist Max Robinson, actors Gene Anthony Ray and Howard Rollins, songwriter Fela Kuti, rapper Easy-E, recording artist Jermaine Stewart and tennis star Arthur Ashe.

“In Oklahoma, African Americans represent 7.6 percent of the population, yet they account for 18 percent of people diagnosed with AIDS,” said Michael Harmon, Oklahoma Health Department director of services for HIV and Sexually Transmitted Diseases.

Joining Guiding Right staffers on Feb. 7 were American Red Cross leaders and volunteers who focus on HIV and AIDS prevention.

“We are in the business of disasters, and we consider HIV a disaster,” said Elizabeth Kolliopoulos, American Red Cross HIV-prevention coordinator in Oklahoma City.

The latest national data shows that black teens represent 65 percent of all new HIV cases among American teens, she said.

Also, 73 percent of new HIV cases in American women involve black women.

LEVITTOWN, Pa. (AP) – The U.S. Supreme Court’s refusal to intervene appears to clear the way for a new trial in the case of Richard Laird, who has spent nearly 20 years on death row for the slaying of a gay artist.

The Supreme Court last week refused a request by the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office to hear arguments in Laird’s case. In August, a federal appeals court ordered a new trial for Laird, citing errors in his 1988 trial.

Laird, 37, of Bristol Township, and Frank Chester, 35, of Tullytown, were convicted in the 1987 slaying of artist Anthony Milano. Chester is also appealing his conviction.

“The highest court in the land has spoken, and now we have to adhere to the order,” First Assistant District Attorney David Zellis said. “Obviously, there’s great disappointment in the fact that the case is coming back, and that the victim’s family has to relive this nightmare all over again.”

Milano was found murdered along a road in Bristol Township near his burning car. He had been beaten and slashed in the head and face, and his throat was cut so many times that his spinal cord was severed.

Jurors in the trial heard testimony that Laird and Chester, believing Milano to be gay, harassed and humiliated him as he tried to get a beer and sandwich, forced him to buy them drinks and then left the bar with him.

In granting his appeal, U.S. District Judge Jan E. DuBois cited erroneous jury instructions by the trial judge and prejudicial comments by the prosecutor. He also cited the fact that Laird was shackled in court and the defense attorney’s failure to investigate and present evidence during sentencing of childhood sexual abuse, head injuries and alcoholism.