Which Way, L.A.?

AIDS in LA

While the International AIDS Conference in Barcelona has focused on the spread of AIDS in countries such as China, India and Russia, the disease is spreading in this country, too. Only five entire states and New York City have more cases than Los Angeles. While President Bill Clinton calls AIDS the world-s biggest problem-except for nuclear war, a new study explains the spread of AIDS-HIV as being the result of vulnerable people simply not thinking they-re at risk, and infected people not knowing it. We look at the current status of AIDS in Los Angeles and what-s being done here, with activists from AIDS Project Los Angeles, the LA County Health Department and the Minority AIDS Project. Reporter's Notebook: Inglewood Police Beating Mayor Roosevelt Dorn has voiced concern over the videotaped beating of a handcuffed boy by an Inglewood policeman, and US Attorney General John Ashcroft has opened a civil rights investigation. But John Barnett, who won acquittal for Theodore Brise-o in the Rodney King case and represents Officer Jeremy Morse, says that until all the facts are known, pre-trial conjecture violates his client-s right to a -presumption of innocence.-