Activists

AIDS specialists and activists -- outraged that the Bush administration apparently has shelved a proposal to allow people infected with the AIDS virus to enter this country -- are launching a counterattack.Harvard planners of an international conference on acquired immune deficiency syndrome, to be held in Boston next year, will hold a news conference tomorrow to respond to the federal government's reported action, which was publicized over the weekend."The entire public health community has made it clear that neither travel nor immigration poses a threat to the U.S. population," said Hilary Rao, director of communications for the Harvard-sponsored conference.

Women's and gay rights activists held several small protests during Pope John Paul II's visit yesterday, handing out condoms and waving signs opposing his stands against abortion and birth control.But with their planned parade to Camden Yards blocked by city police for lack of a permit, the protesters apparently didn't make much of an impression on either the pope or the multitudes who had come to see him.The four dozen or so protesters did rally for about 90 minutes at the Washington Monument and then split up to try to gain attention along the papal parade and other stops of his visit.

One day soon, before she is too arthritic, Elizabeth McWethy says she wants to turn the poetry she has written by hand into a single-volume anthology illustrated by her grandchildren because it is "more fun than worrying whether the developers are ruining your creek."At 74, the Annapolis woman who has been an activist as long as she can remember wants to step down as chairwoman of the Weems Creek Conservancy. She is not alone among Anne Arundel's "greenies," who are going gray and hoping to cut back on their activities.

ARLINGTON, VA. -- The death of "peace activist" Tom Fox, and the threatened execution of the three others held with him in Iraq, is doubly tragic. It is tragic whenever an innocent person is murdered. It is also tragic because the likelihood that the presence of Mr. Fox and his colleagues would change the attitude or behavior of their captors was zero to none. That the "peace activists" believed their brand of Christianity would trump the fanatical Muslims who regarded them as infidels and worthy of death meant that Mr. Fox and the others would either be used for propaganda purposes by the enemies of freedom or made to sacrifice their lives like animals on an ancient altar in the furtherance of the fanatics' dream of a theocratic state.

Angela Ward's job is to be Rhoda Eskwith's body.The organization can be reached by calling 1-800-487-6007.

Hundreds of city workers and community activists packed Gillis Memorial Christian Community Church last night to denounce the mayor's plan to slash basic services and outsource municipal jobs to make up a shortfall in next year's budget. "When you fire workers, you'll be looking at more boarded-up houses in the city," said Glen Middleton, president of Local 44 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, an organizer of the event at the church at Park Heights Avenue and Cold Spring Lane.

The weather was warm, but the reception at Baltimore's Inner Harbor was chilly yesterday for two dozen peace activists who turned out to distribute leaflets urging an end to the United States' involvement in Iraq. Sharon Kangas, 57, of Bel Air angrily took one of the group's leaflets and tore it up. "I support [President] Bush; I think he's doing a fabulous job," she said. Describing Bush as "a Christian who listens to God," she said that if he hadn't gotten rid of Saddam Hussein, "10 years from now my daughter would be fighting them in our country."

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The word "squaw," long the stuff of TV westerns and American vernacular, is so offensive to many American Indians that a national activist group is launching a campaign to remove it from more than 100 places throughout California, including the most famous of all: Squaw Valley.These activists, leaders of the American Indian Movement, say the word is the white man's pejorative slang for "vagina," and they consider it among "the worst of the worst."The group's crusade has already met with success in Minnesota, where activists persuaded the state Legislature to pass a law decreeing that 19 places containing the word "squaw" be changed.

ARCADIA, Fla. -- Finals over and next semester far enough in the future to ignore, they piled into cars and pointed them southward, driving like so many of their friends round-the-clock in a spring-break-or-bust frenzy to Florida. Awaiting them at journey's end, though, were not the usual hotel rooms crammed with 10 frat brothers, or days splayed on a crowded beach and nights squeezed into two-for-one bars. Instead, these 85 college students are spending spring break at a campground east of Sarasota learning how to scale buildings, halt traffic, stage street theater, spin the media, challenge authorities and, if necessary, get arrested.

Neighbors of Fort Detrick were not diagnosed with cancer in greater numbers than the broader population of Frederick County during the period for which data are available, state health officials told the community Monday. But local activists said the state's analysis does not capture the history of cancer around the Army base because it does not take into account cases before 1992, when the state began compiling its cancer registry. Clifford Mitchell of the state Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said cases recorded in the Maryland Cancer Registry from 1992-2008 within two miles of Fort Detrick showed no statistically significant increase in any type of cancer as compared to the rest of the county.