• In St. Maarten, the trial against four men accused of brutally assaulting American Ryan Smith and his friends is put on hold — so Smith can return to the island to testify. [AP]

• Christina Aguilera, pissed that her friend Lance Bass can't marry boyfriend Reichen Lehmkuhl, comes out to publicly support gay marriage. [IE]

• In Mississippi, Willie Lee Mack pleaded guilty to the 2003 stabbing murder of his employer Gregory Acker, who Mack claimed "chased chased him with a baseball bat after Mack rebuffed a sexual advance." He was sentenced to 18 years. [AP]

• Senator Hillary Clinton is holding up the renewal of the 1990 Ryan White Act, a federal law passed to fight HIV/AIDS. She claims she wants more funding for her home state of New York, but critics say her political ambitions are the driving force behind the stall. [WaPo]

• In South Africa, cabinet members have moved to push through a gay marriage bill, foreshadowing the first African country to grant gays and lesbians the right to marry. [Reuters]

• In Connecticut, a lawsuit against an Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut bishop Andrew D. Smith – filed by a consortium of priests – who voted for the election of an openly gay bishop gets thrown out by a judge, who claims the civil courtroom is no place to decide such a matter. [Hartford Courant]

• In Oklahoma, a one Michael Cich plans to flout the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell rules by trying to enlist and be open about his sexuality. The catch: The same day he tries to sign up, so too will his straight brother — and if they don't take Michael, he knows why. [KOTV]

• In Colorado, Focus on the Family has spent a half million dollars advocating for a state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage — the largest amount spent on any issue this election season. [Colorado Springs Gazette]

• In Toronto, more news from the 16th annual International AIDS Conference: There's conclusive evidence some STDs of the anus – specifically gonorrhoea and anal warts – directly raise the risk of HIV infection during anal sex if one partner is positive. [AIDS Map]

• In Britain, openly gay comedian and and former Pop World presenter Simon Amstell takes over hosting duties on the music quiz show Never Mind the Buzzcocks. [Pink News]

• In California, the State Assembly passes legislation banning discrimination in public schools based on sexual orienation. This measure, of course, is the lesser result of a previous push to also force schools to include notable gay historical figures in textbooks. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger could still veto the bill. [SJ Mercury News]

• In Israel, Jerusalem is set to play host to another pride demonstration. After WorldPride's mixed results and controversy, the city's Open House for Pride and Tolerance decided over the weekend it would hold its own gay pride ceremony in the capital. [Free Republic]

• The Democratic National Committee yesterday passed new regulations to increase LGBT representation at its national convention. Starting with the 2008 event, new delegate selection rules will increase the number of gays and lesbians attending the convention. [Gay Wired]

• In Madrid, four mathematicians were awarded with the Fields Medal, which is given away every four years. Grigory Perelman, a recipient of the honor for his work in solving a "key piece" of the infamous Poincaré conjectur, did not want the award. [NYT]

• The case for circumcision: It can cut female-to-male transmission of HIV by 60 percent. "Scientists estimate that over the next 20 years, circumcision in sub-Saharan Africa could prevent 6 million infections and 3 million deaths." [Slate]

• Civil rights leader and Wal-Mart "image maker" Andrew Young steps down from his post after saying the retail giant should displace mom-and-pop stores, as it's been Jewish, Arab and Korean local store owners who've been "ripping off" urban customers for years. [NYT]

• Soon-to-retire Martina Navratilova writes in to People magazine this week to urge Lance Bass to use his celebrity to become a pioneer for gay rights. In his own People coming out story, Lance has said he doesn't only want to be connected to gay issues. [Pink News]

• In Toronto, news comes via the 16th annual International AIDS Conference that new HIV infection rates in Canada, the U.S. Europe, and Australia have been rising 1.9 percent each year. [TodayOnline.com]

• In Israel, porn mogul and star Michael Lucas is set to arrive to entertain the troops. You know, the straight women. [Something Jewish]

• In Chicago, a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church may be ousted from the church after revealing he's been in a relationship with a man for two years. The church allows gays to serve in the church, so long as they remain celibate. [Chi-Tri]

• Eva Longoria's publicist rushes to deny reports the Desperate Housewives star claimed she wanted a full-on gay experience and that she flirts with other men to make boyfriend Tony Parker jealous.

• In Saudi Arabia, twenty men were arrested during a purported gay wedding, which had 400 men in attendance. Homosexuality is illegal there and punishments are determined under Islamic law. [IOL]

• Call them "mutant" (and damn fortunate) HIV patients: As many as one in every 300 people infected with HIV will never see the worst effects from it. Doctors want to go after these "elite" examples of HIV infections, which never lead to AIDS, but such lucky individuals often don't want the attention. [Reuters]

• In Georgia, Georgia Tech University repealed protections for gays in its student housing code of conduct to comply with the findings of a lawsuit filed by two students (who were represented by the Christian law firm Alliance Defense Fund). Students will no longer face the threat of punishment for using gay epithets and derrogatory language based on orientation. [Advocate]

• In Britain, a retrial of murdered lesbian Mandy Power finds a one David Morris guilty, which clears suspicion – at least legally – that it was Power's ex-lover Alison Lewis who killed her, her two children, and the children's grandmother. [BBC]

• In Oregon, the longtime leader of the Oregon Christian Coalition and staunch anti-gay advocate, Lou Beres, admits to sexually molesting young girls. [AP]

• In New Jersey, a former high school student got the OK from an appeals court – even though he missed the filing deadline – to sue the school district on charges his then-band teacher infected him with HIV during their sexual relationship. [AP]

• Though the military's discharging of 726 service members under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy last year represents a 10 percent increase over 2004, there's no evidence to show there's been an increased effort to force out members. [NYT]

• In Australia, the federal government is expected to move for a ban on gay couples from abroad being allowed to adopt children from the county. Such policies are usually left up to states – where some allow gay citizens to adopt, others not – but P.M. John Howard is likely to assert federal power over the matter. [Pink News]

• Big Pharma companies Gilead and Merck announced they'll be providing once-daily HIV pill Atripla to developing nations around the world. No word yet on which countries will receive the drug, and at what cost. [Advocate]

• In New York City, City Council speaker Christine Quinn – almost always an ally in gay rights – is at the center of criticism over a push to have the city's nightclubs install security cameras at entrances and exist. Critics say it's a privacy violation, especially for gay men and women not open about their sexuality. [NYT]

• In Britain, Price Harry cops a feel. [The Sun]

We can't imagine why only 37 postings have been made on the government-funded "official" gay bulletin boards. Doesn't the fact that the Chinese government has put up bulletin boards for the gays mean that they are showing their support for gay issues?

Apparently not. Popular opinion is that Chinese gays are worried the government would track them down and monitor what they are saying. The fact that these official sites popped up around the time the government was closing popular, non-government-run gay sites is another point of concern.

The Chinese government takes such a simplistic and heavy-handed approach to this and other issues (like cartoons) that sometimes we wonder if they haven't been sharing tips with our own President.

China Gays Rebuff Websites [365 Gay]

Some of you are quite familiar with the online space devoted to hooking up. Perhaps too familiar? Gay.com might exist at the more mundane end of things, but sites like Manhunt.net and Squirt.org exist for the sole reason of pairing up guys for anonymous sex. And when you're in the business of matching sex partners, surely – within the depths of morality – these services bear some responsibility for encouraging safe play among their membership. And then you see that just about every third ad lists someone looking for "PNP" and there are chat rooms strictly devoted to barebacking. So what's a hookup site to do?

Manhunt.net is taking a novel approach: It hired a safe-sex outreach advocate to chat among the horny troves, bringing up safe sex methods to prevent HIV and other STDs among the "hrny bear lking 4 NOW" and "young hung twink needs daddy." No word yet – and perhaps there never will be – on whether screenname "VIPBoy" is yielding many results, but now it's time to push for more than just one paid chatter to be responsible for the masses.

Gay internet dating service has a safe-sex message [Pink News]

If we can curb the AIDS pandemic in, say, Uganda, why are we having such a hard time keeping new infections from raising right here in the U.S.? Since its recognition in 1981, annual rates of new infections peaked at 160,000 in the mid-1980s and fell to about 40,000 in 1990. But there it has remained, for a decade and a half.

The number of new HIV infections in the United States has been about 40,000 a year for the past decade and a half. It has not budged -- not with new drugs, new prevention strategies or new administrations. Five years ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention launched an effort to cut it in half. It did not move. [...]

There is little question that, for public health experts and AIDS activists, the fact that the HIV infection rate has not changed since 1990 is an embarrassment. At the same time, it is a testament to a victory -- albeit one that happened long ago.

Meanwhile, the total number of Americans living with AIDS is on the raise. The number is currently pegged at 1.1 million people, but with drugs helping people with the disease live longer, that number is increasing. The sunny side of all this? That even with the number of total Americans living with AIDS going up each year, new infections are not. Perhaps that there's "only" 40,000 new cases of HIV infection each year – and not any more than that – is a sign of progress all by itself.

Why the U.S. Has Not Stemmed HIV [WaPo]

• In Kansas, the rainbow flag flying at a local hotel in Meade is the site of vandals. Early Friday morning, a brick was tossed through one of the hotel's windows; it had the word "fag" written on it. A second brick found outside the hotel had "Get the fuck out of town" scrawled on it. [Hutchinson News]

• In Toronto, the 16th International AIDS Conference calls efforts to fight AIDS in Zambia a "success." The conference is also the gathering site between grandmothers in Canada and across Africa, who are coming together to cope with the pandemic. [NYT, NYT]

• In Manhattan, Boy George reports for community service duty. [1010 WINS]

• In Florida, police make an arrest in Ft. Lauderdale in a May sex assault case. A homeless man is accused of drugging, assaulting, and robbing another man he met at a gay bar. [Express Gay News]

• In Estonia, attacks on gay pride revelers in Tallinn, the country's capital, on Saturday surprised both police and participants. The violent attack was led by Estonian skinheads brandishing sticks and throwing stones; they left several people injured — the first time in the city's three year march history that protests turned violent. [Monsters and Critics]

• In Arizona, a superior court judge rebuffs an attempt by gay marriage advocates to block a proposed proposed state constitutional to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. [Advocate]

• In Israel, the skies are quiet — but for how long? [NYT]

• In Britain, authorities say they've foiled a plot to blow up plans traveling between the U.K. and the U.S. [NYT]

• The Rev. Fred Daley, a gay priest who claims a vow of celibacy, was supposed to head to Lesotho on an AIDS relief mission on Sunday but had his participation pulled by organizers at the Catholic Relief Services. The reason? Not that he was gay, says CRS, but that he's a gay rights advocate. "Sounds like 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell.'" [ABC News]

• In New York, a preacher is fighting to display Biblical passages on outdoor billboards. She bought and paid for the ads – which read "Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womenkind. It is an abomination" – but when Staten Island's borough president saw them, he lobbied the billboard owner PME to remove them. PME, meanwhile, accepts plenty of ad dollars from the borough. [Pink News]

• In Missouri, Jolie Justus is set to become the the first openly gay state senator. [U.S. Newswire]

• In Arkansas, the Young Democrats elected as its president Hendrix University's Josh Blevins, the org's first openly gay leader. We've since been notified that the press release we referenced contained many factual errors, among them: Blevins is not, in fact, gay. Meanwhile, many of the quotes cited in the press release are apparently made up, as is the name of Blevins' school; it is Hendrix College. Further, he is no longer a student there. [PR Web]

• Also in Arkansas, candidates for the lieutenant governor position are battling over whether to make a campaign issue out of the the State Supreme Court's reversal of a ban on gay foster parents. [Advocate]

• In California, a gay synchronized swimming team from San Francisco was banned from the FINA World Masters Championships at Stanford University because of official Olympic rules, which state the sport is for women only. [Advocate]

• Just like traditional media, gay media continues to consolidate: Nine-year-old Instinct magazine buys 8-year-old travel quarterly Gay Travel News. At last, a fair battle against LPI Media. [Advocate]

• National Underwear Day took Times Square — and Elton John and David Furnish watched in earnest. [PAYOR]

• Gay couples looking to challenege Washington State's Supreme Court ban on gay marriage will get two more weeks to file papers. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

• Massachusetts has dismissed claims by an assault victim that medical personnel delayed treatment and physically and verbally attacked him for being gay. [Boston Herald]

• White collar firms are working harder than ever to attract gay MBAs. [Business Week]

• So Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn are engaged? For real this time? Then why is Jen's publicist denying it? [Jossip]

• Naturists at a British beach have been banned from the area over concerns it's a breeding ground for gay sex. [BBC]

• Pressure builds to have HIV/AIDS considered the word's prime epidemic. [PharmaLive]