Kramer Undergoes Liver
Transplant

PITTSBURGH — Larry
Kramer's got a new liver.

The AIDS activist, playwright,
and author underwent a liver
transplant and was released
from the hospital.

Kramer, 66, spent
seven months on the organ
transplant waiting list. He
moved to Pittsburgh in early
November to wait for an organ
to become available and
underwent transplant surgery
Friday.

While many transplant
centers oppose the surgery for
HIV-positive patients, UPMC's
Thomas E. Starzl
Transplantation Institute has
performed 10 liver transplants
on HIV-positive patients since
1997. Eight of the patients
have survived.

Kramer's HIV has
been relatively well con-
trolled, but he suffered from
end-stage liver failure caused
by hepatitis B.

Kramer is the author
Of the plays “The Normal
Heart” and “The Destiny of
Me,” and books about the
front line ofAIDS and gay
activism. His screenplay for
the 1969 film “Women in
Love” was nominated for an
Academy Award. He also
helped found Gay Men's '
Health Crisis which provides
services to people with AIDS,
and later helped create ACT
UP, an AIDS advocacy group.

Lance Loud Dies

LOS ANGELES — A man
whose revelation on television
that he was gay was a break-
through in the 1970s has died.
Lance Loud, who was a free-
lance journalist, died of com-
plications from hepatitis C. He
was 50.

He was part ofAn
American Family, the PBS
series that was one of the first
unscripted programs on main-
stream television. The show
focused on the family, who
allowed filming of their daily
lives for seven months in

1971. The I2-part series aired '

in 1973 and was considered a
hit.

When he was 20 years
old, Loud announced he was
gay on the show, a public
avowal that was unusual dur-

ing the early 1970s. His deci-
sion drew widespread support
from many gays.

After the series aired,
Loud lived in New York for
several years and performed in
a rock band called the Mumps.

In 1981, he moved
back to California, where he
studied journalism. He often
wrote articles for The
Advocate, Details and
Interview. He also had a few
small television and film roles.

Elton John: AIDS ‘
Activist

LONDON — Elton John says
he's lucky not to have AIDS.
John has become active in
helping those living with
AIDS and HIV.

“As a gay man I'm
very lucky not to be infected,”
he told ITV News. “My con-
cern nowadays is that young
people think they are invulner—
able, but they're not.”

John was interviewed
after the U.K. Coalition of
People Living with HIV and
AIDS gave him its Hero
Award Wednesday night. The
honor acknowledged his con-
tributions to the fight against
HIV and AIDS through the
Elton John AIDS Foundation.

“I accept the Hero
Award with gratitude, but
more importantly in the
acknowledgment of the 30,000
positive people here in the
U.K. today,” he said at the
London ceremony.

High-ranking Minister
Marries '

OSLO, Norway — A high-
ranking member ofthe
Norwegian government has
gotten married.

Finance Minister Per-
Kristian Foss’ marriage to his
same-sex partner made him
the first member of a
Norwegian government to
enter a binding same-sex part-
nership. ’

Under a "1993 law,
gays and lesbians can enter
legal partnerships with all the
rights and obligations of mar-
riage, except adoption and
church weddings.

Foss, a Conservative,
married long-term partner Jan
Erik Knarbakk in a ceremony
at the Norwegian Embassy in
Stockholm, Sweden.

The Norwegian
Finance Ministry confirmed
the wedding but said Foss was
giving no interviews or com-
ment because it is a personal
matter.

“Yes, we entered a
partnership at the embassy in
Stockholm on Friday, Jan. 4,”
Foss told the Norwegian busi-
ness newspaper Dagens
Naeringsliv. “But beyond that,
it is a private matter.”

Knarbakk is a top
manager in the Schibsted pub-
lishing concern and the two
have been described in the
news media as being among
Norway's most powerful cou-
ples.

School District Settles
with Student

ERIE, Pa. —A local school
district has agreed to pay a
former student to settle claims
that he was harassed by other
students because he was gay.
The Titusville school district
will award $312,000 to
Timothy Dahle, now 19.

He said he was pushed
down a set of stairs and sub-
jected to other physical
assaults as well as name-call-
ing and obscene jokes.

Dahle said he was
harassed beginning in sixth
grade in 1994 and was so
depressed over school that he
attempted suicide in 1998.
The Titusville school district
said Dahle was belligerent to
other students and brought the
problems on himself.

9-1 1 Victim
compensations

WASHINGTON — Family
members of gays and lesbians
are among those who are seek-
ing changes to the rules over
compensating survivors of the
Sept. «11 attacks.

People who accept
payment from the compensa-
tion fund give up their right to
sue.

Interim regulations
introduced last month by
Kenneth Feinberg, the fund's
special master, have drawn
sharp criticism from victims
who say the government is
being stingy.

Feinberg has estimat-
ed that the awards to cover
lost wages, pain and suffering
would average $1.6 million.

  the rest of our worl

But he said he will have dis-
cretion to increase awards and
those unhappy with their
award may appeal to him.
The government accepted
comments on how the fund
might be changed and V
received a slew of sugges-
-tions. .
Among the concerns
are that some gay partners
could be excluded by state
laws or shortchanged because

_ they would be treated as sin-

gles.

Concern Over New
AIDS Advisor

WASHINGTON — A new
adviser to President Bush on
AIDS has stirred concern -
because of his conservative
background. _ .

Former Rep. Tom
Coburn, R-Okla., will head the
Presidential Advisory Council
on HIV/AIDS along with
Louis Sullivan, who served as
secretary of health and human
services under former
President Bush, administration
officials confirmed Tuesday.
During six years in Congress
Coburn frequently questioned
the central role condoms play
in the fight against AIDS.

“We have a prevention
strategy that's failed,” Coburn
said in an interview Tuesday.
Coburn, an obstetrician who
has returned to his family
practice in Muskogee, Okla.,
was a leader on health issues
while in Congress. He was the
primary sponsor of legislation
renewing the Ryan White '
CARE Act, which provides
more than $1 billion a year for
AIDS prevention and treat-
ment.

He made common
cause with many Democrats as
an early Republican supporter
of a patients’ bill of rights. He
was also a fierce abortion
opponent and supporter of
teaching sexual abstinence that
excludes discussion of birth
control. _

Coburn said Tuesday
his personal views would not
dictate the work of the panel,
but he promised to challenge
the national focus on condom
use to prevent the spread of
HIV.

“Condoms are fairly
effective against HIV if people
will use them,” he said. “We
have to ask a question: Are

 

people going to use them? 
We have had a strategy that
says that's the answer. We've
spent hundreds and hundreds
and hundreds of millions of
dollars and HIV infection is
going up.”

Government statistics
show that HIV infection over-
all has been stable in recent
years, though studies suggest
rates may rise among certain
groups, including poor black
women and young gay men.

Nigel Hawthorne Dies

LONDON — British actor Sir
Nigel Hawthorne has died at
the age of 72.

Hawthorne was a ver-
satile actor known around the
world as the scheming civil
servant Sir Humphrey in the
British television series Yes,
Mnister.

Hawthorne died of a
heart attack at his home in
Hertfordshire, north of
London, his agent Ken
McReddie said. Hawthorne _
had undergone chemotherapy
for cancer recently.

“He was a brilliant
actor and a wonderful friend. I
feel very sad and extremely
cut up,” McReddie said.
Hawthorne was nominated for
a best actor Oscar for his title 4
role in the 1994 film-The
Madness of King George.

_ Born in Coventry,

England in 1929 and raised in
South Africa, Hawthorne
struggled to forge a theater
career in Britain during the
1950s and 1960s. He made his
West End debut in Talking to
You in.l962, more than a
decade after moving to
England to seek his fortune.
Hawthorne later said his shy-
ness and diffidence had held
him back, though he hadn't
realized it until he played a
ditherer in Christopher
Hampton's The Philanthropist.
Movie stardom brought
unwanted attention. In the
wake of his Oscar nomination,
Hawthorne acknowledged
publicly for the first time that
he was gay. Previously he had
been reluctant to talk about his
private life; his attitude, he
said, had been “don't scare the
horses and we'll all get along
fine.” .
Hawthorne is survived
by his long-term companion,
Trevor Bentham. I