DISTRICT BRIEFING

Thursday, September 25, 2008

HIV-AIDS

Fenty Responds to Criticism, Announces Ad Campaign

The District plans to launch an ad campaign to promote testing and prevention in a fight against one of the largest HIV-AIDS epidemics in the country, D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D) said yesterday.

"There have been some setbacks, some things we could've done better in the past 20 months or so," Fenty said, responding to a report issued yesterday that said the city was not doing enough to raise public awareness of the epidemic.

The District government has improved its performance this year in the battle against HIV-AIDS, with better needle-exchange programs, testing and education, said the report released by the DC Appleseed Center for Law and Justice.

The District is thought to have the highest rate of new reports of AIDS in the United States, and it has one of the highest rates of people living with AIDS among major U.S. cities, according to the D.C. Department of Health.

Almost 12,500 people in the District were known to have HIV or AIDS in 2006, the most recent year for which statistics are available. HIV was spread through heterosexual contact in 37 percent of the cases, compared with 25 percent attributed to men having sex with men, the most common mode of transmission nationally.

In the District, reports of new AIDS cases were coming in at the rate of 128 per 100,000, compared with 14 cases per 100,000 nationally. One in 50 D.C. residents is thought to have the disease.

-- Petula Dvorak

FEDERAL COURT

Man, 58, Admits Receiving $150,000 in Stolen Goods

A 58-year-old District man pleaded guilty yesterday to federal charges of conspiring to receive more than $150,000 in stolen property, including gold necklaces, Gucci purses and Omega watches.

Under a plea agreement with federal prosecutors, David Nikolow faces a mandatory sentence of 20 months in prison in December. U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth provisionally accepted the deal yesterday but can reject it after examining a pre-sentence report by probation authorities.

Nikolow stashed the items at various locations, including his home in the 1300 block of E Street SE and a liquor store in the 1500 block of Good Hope Road SE, prosecutors wrote in court papers. Authorities were led to Nikolow after investigating thefts of expensive purses by several other men at a Neiman Marcus store in January, authorities said. The men sold the purses to Nikolow, according to prosecutors. Authorities did not say what Nikolow intended to do with the merchandise.

-- Del Quentin Wilber

SCHOOLS

Rhee Cancels Meetings Of Enrollment Commission

D.C. Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee announced yesterday that she has decided to cancel a series of public meetings that were to be held by a newly formed advisory commission on enrollment policy.

The first meeting of the panel, which will look at redrawing enrollment boundaries, was scheduled for today. Dena Iverson, Rhee's spokeswoman, said in a statement that after examining preliminary enrollment numbers, officials decided not to push ahead until they had received verified figures and reviewed the effect of last year's school closings on enrollment.

Preliminary figures show an enrollment decline of about 8.5 percent from last year.

-- Bill Turque