Aids Activists

A group of AIDS activists was arrested Thursday for unlawfully demonstrating in the Capitol rotunda, a Capitol Police spokeswoman said. Sgt. Kimberly Schneider said 11 men and 15 women each face a charge of unlawful assembly, disorderly conduct and loud and boisterous behavior. Their names and ages were not immediately released. Schneider said the group entered the rotunda and linked themselves together with a white chain.

WASHINGTON -- Seven protesters disrobed in the office of House Speaker John Boehner Tuesday afternoon as part of a staged protest against cuts to funding for AIDS programs. Their bodies painted with slogans such as “AIDS cuts kill,” the group stood in Boehner's office for about 20 minutes until the protest was broken up by Capitol Police, according to Sahil Kapur, a reporter for Talking Points Memo, who witnessed the protest and posted a continuous stream of tweets and photos.

While I applaud your editorial (Sept. 10) calling for more needle exchange programs to combat the spread of AIDS, I felt your criticism of ACT-UP LA was off the mark. The "brown and black" community leaders who were upset by the "gay, white" activists had ample time to initiate their own needle exchange programs. This groundbreaking, initiative-seizing organization should be lauded for its commitment and courage in going where these community leaders dare not go--the back alleys and crime-ridden streets where despair is tragically soothed via potentially AIDS-infected needles.

A ballot measure asking Los Angeles County voters whether porn actors should be required to wear condoms during filming has received enough signatures to qualify for the November election, a county elections official said. The initiative, one of the most explicit ever seen on a ballot, will be decided by voters in a county that is the nation's most populous and headquarters of the U.S. porn industry. Los Angeles AIDS activists and other supporters say porn performers are at constant risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

The AIDS activists who tried to disrupt the parade were almost right in the wording of their sign. They missed it by only one word. Instead of reading "Emergency. Stop the parade. 70,000 dead of AIDS," it should have read "Emergency. Stop the promiscuity. 70,000 dead of AIDS." EMERSON JOHNSON San Juan Capistrano

Thirty-eight chanting AIDS activists were arrested today for disrupting a Board of Supervisors meeting, the latest in a series of protests designed to pressure the county to increase AIDS-related services. The 26 men and 12 women arrested during the boisterous, but otherwise peaceful, 20-minute protest were the most arrested since 27 AIDS activists were arrested May 24 for a similar protest before the board.

The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday accused the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department of harassing AIDS activists in an effort to silence critics of the county's AIDS policies. In a seven-page letter to Sheriff Sherman Block, ACLU attorneys demanded an end to alleged searches and surveillance of members of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power/Los Angeles (ACT UP/LA).

At least 60 AIDS activists were arrested today as hundreds of protesters besieged the National Institutes of Health to demand faster development of treatments for the deadly disease. About 900 protesters gathered at the NIH headquarters in the Washington suburb, and at least 60 were arrested for blocking police vehicles or trying to enter buildings. Most were charged with trespassing, officials said.

A state judge issued a temporary restraining order against two AIDS activists who allegedly made threatening calls to San Francisco Chronicle staff members, including a bomb scare that forced employees to evacuate the newspaper building. Michael Petrelis and David Pasquarelli were forbidden from contacting Chronicle employees or coming within 300 yards of the paper's office or staff.

For decades, the nation's pornographic film industry found a happy, largely accepting home in Los Angeles. Producers operated lucrative businesses in anonymous office parks in the San Fernando Valley. Available in the city were a steady supply of actors and film production talent as well as opulent mansions that often served as theatrical backdrops. By one estimate, at least 5% of on-location shoots were for adult films. But this coexistence has been suddenly shaken by sweeping health regulations that, starting March 5, will require porn performers to wear condoms while on location.

The Rose Parade has long been a magnet for protesters looking for global attention for their causes and grievances. Native Americans once threw a balloon filled with red paint onto the parade route to represent the spilling of Indian blood. AIDS activists interrupted the parade by staging a sit-in. One year, a Pasadena mayor wore a "Tournament of Racists" t-shirt to protest what he saw as the parade's lack of ethnic diversity. But this year, Tournament of Roses organizers and Pasadena police are gearing up for something different as Occupy protesters, fresh from their encampments across the country, plan to converge on Pasadena.

An HIV-AIDs activist group says that it has succeeded in collecting enough signatures to put an initiative on the ballot to require the use of condoms in the Los Angeles adult film industry. The initiative would force any adult filmmaker who gets a permit to shoot in the city to require performers to use condoms and allow the city to charge a fee to pay for inspections of film sets, said Michael Weinstein, president of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which sponsored the signature drive and intends to fund the initiative campaign.

Adult film performers would be required to use condoms in order for porn filmmakers to obtain Los Angeles city permits under a measure that AIDS activists hope to put on the city's June 2012 ballot. The proponents must submit a petition with at least 41,138 qualifying signatures (15% of all votes cast in the last mayoral election) by Dec. 23 to place the measure on the June ballot, city election officials said. If they succeed, it will be the first time the issue - litigated and disputed during state regulatory meetings - would come before voters, city election officials said.

In a move that has angered physicians and AIDS activists, Los Angeles County may shake up the management of its sexually transmitted disease program, which has aggressively investigated the spread of HIV among porn performers. Critics say the proposed change could weaken efforts to halt the spread of HIV in the Los Angeles-based, $12-billion-a-year porn industry. "This appears to be a political move which could significantly interfere with disease control activities," said Dr. Gary Richwald, who headed the STD program between 1989 and 2000.

In Tunisia's state of unrest, protesters are using blogs, Facebook, Twitter, WikiLeaks documents, YouTube and other methods to mobilize and report on what is going on. The weeks of demonstrations, including the deaths of at least three and as many as 20 people, have been largely ignored by the majority of media outlets until recent days. The Internet has been the largest source of news about the protests, and much of it has been provided by the demonstrators themselves, despite Tunisia's strict censorship of the Web. Given the nature of the Internet, information about the protests ranges from propaganda to documenting the reality on the streets.

An adult film performer in San Fernando Valley's lucrative porn industry has tested HIV-positive, prompting at least two well-known adult movie production companies to suspend filming as a precaution. The HIV infection of an active porn performer is the first known local case in more than a year and immediately strengthened calls by AIDS activists for the state to mandate condom use on porn sets and to increase regulation. The case was confirmed to The Times on Tuesday by officials at the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation, known as AIM, a Sherman Oaks clinic that primarily serves porn industry workers.

The man who may be China's most prominent defender of the rights of people living with HIV, Wan Yanhai, took refuge in the United States in April, after months of harassment by Chinese authorities. His organization, Aizhixing, has been repeatedly audited by government officials and is in imminent danger of being shut down. Other nongovernmental AIDS organizations have been similarly threatened, and people infected with HIV or at risk of infection in China continue to face discrimination and abuse.