Don Francis

It should have been the crowning moment of his life. Amid the post-inaugural hubbub, Don Francis got a phone call last month from President Clinton's transition team. Would he be interested in running the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and launching a new national battle against AIDS? His resume seemed perfect: He was a brilliant public health doctor who had mobilized early reaction to the epidemic. A straight talker who knew how to crack heads.

It should have been the crowning moment of his life. Amid the post-inaugural hubbub, Don Francis got a phone call last month from President Clinton's transition team. Would he be interested in running the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta and launching a new national battle against AIDS? His resume seemed perfect: He was a brilliant public health doctor who had mobilized early reaction to the epidemic. A straight talker who knew how to crack heads.

Only someone with a heart of granite would not be moved or angered on some level by HBO's ambitious, cameo-studded 1993 movie of the late Randy Shilts' chronicling of the government's public-health policy regarding the AIDS epidemic. Like the book, this newsreel-woven movie, written by Arnold Schulman and directed by Roger Spottiswoode, focuses on the band of pioneering anti-AIDS researchers and activists.

Kurt Altenberg, 50, who caught a pass from Gary Beban to set up the winning touchdown in UCLA's first Rose Bowl victory on Jan. 1, 1966, is in the coronary care center at UCLA Medical Center awaiting a heart transplant. Altenberg, who led the Bruins in receiving in 1964 and '65, was vacationing in Mexico with former teammate Byron Nelson last November when he caught a virus, another former Bruin, Don Francis, said Friday.

Chad Bickley, a six-foot junior point guard for Santa Maria Valley Christian Academy, scored a Southern Section record 89 points--including a record 20 three-point shots--to lead the Lions to a 130-48 Coast Valley League victory over host Cuyama Valley. Bickley's 89 points broke the previous record, which was set by Nick Tenneriello of Colbert in a game against Brentwood in the 1967-1968 season, by 15 points.

Two gunmen burst into an auto body shop and opened fire with automatic weapons, killing five men and wounding a sixth who hid under a vehicle until the assailants left, police said. Chief Don Francis said the six victims were all working on an old car Tuesday night inside Medina's Auto Shop when two men entered, looked around, went back outside, returned with automatic weapons and opened fire.

The TV dramatization of Randy Shilts' best-seller on the beginning of the AIDS crisis, "And the Band Played On," which has been on- and off-track since its 1987 publication, has a new director and will start filming in October for HBO. "It took a while to get going, but it definitely is going to happen this time," said Bob Cooper, vice president of HBO Pictures. "Of course, I always felt it would happen."

The worlds of the real and the unreal, of the near sublime and the almost ridiculous, intersect at random on the set of "And the Band Played On," HBO's long-awaited television movie based on journalist Randy Shilts' landmark 1987 book about the first five years of AIDS in America.

The lone survivor of an auto body shop massacre that left five men dead rested under guard in a hospital Wednesday, while police searched for two gunmen who had traded "dirty looks" with their victims in the past. Police speculated that drug dealing may have sparked the shootings, but stressed they had no firm motive. Drugs, especially cocaine, have long been a problem in this south-central Washington town of 19,000 residents, police Sgt. Andy Anderson said.

VaxGen Inc., which shifted its focus to bioterrorism vaccines after failures in HIV research, said Monday that it might restate financial results for 2002 and 2003 as it reviewed its accounting for some contracts. VaxGen said it was reviewing when it should account for revenue from contracts with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The company last month hired PricewaterhouseCoopers as its auditor to replace KPMG.

More widespread HIV testing among the general public, but especially for pregnant women, was strongly advocated Tuesday by AIDS experts during the second day of an Orange County conference on the disease. "All HIV-infected people must be identified" so that they can be taught how to prevent the spread of the disease and be provided with medical and social services, said Dr. Don Francis, a longtime researcher of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. Dr.