He was on tour for his most recent book, Basketball Jones, about the gay lover of an NBA star.

Harris grew up in Little Rock and attended the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where he continued to teach courses through last fall.

He self-published his first book, Invisible Life, after failing to find a publisher. He sold it himself at black-owned bookstores and beauty salons until Anchor Books published it as a trade paperback in 1994.

Harris wrote 11 books, with four million copies of his work in print. His writing also appeared in Essence, the Washington Post Sunday Magazine, and Sports Illustrated.

His novel If This World Were Mine was nominated for a NAACP Image Award and won the James Baldwin Award for Literary Excellence. Abide with Me was also nominated for a NAACP Image Award. His anthology Freedom in this Village won the Lambda Literary Award in 2005. Over the past three years, he has also been named to Ebony’s “Most Intriguing Blacks” list, Out Magazine’s “Out 100″ list, New York Magazine’s “Gay Power 101″ list, and Savoy’s “100 Leaders and Heroes in Black America” list.

Listen to an audio interview with E. Lynn Harris.

Delaney, the founder and longtime director of the HIV advocacy/education organization Project Inform, was recently presented with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director’s Special Recognition Award for his many contributions to the fight against HIV/AIDS.

In 1985, Delaney founded Project Inform, a leading national HIV treatment and public policy information and advocacy organization based in San Francisco, and served as its director until 2008.

According to the organization’s online biography, Delaney was a key player in the development of today’s widely used Accelerated Approval regulations and the Parallel Track system for providing experimental drugs to seriously ill people prior to formal approval by the FDA.

When he was presented with the NIAID award Dr. Anthony S. Fauci released a statement saying: “Millions of people are now receiving life-saving antiretroviral medications from a treatment pipeline that Marty Delaney played a key role in opening and expanding.  Without his tireless work and vision, many more people would have perished from HIV/AIDS.  He is a formidable activist and a dear friend.  It is without hyperbole that I call Marty Delaney a public health hero.”

Delaney died of liver cancer.

He was born and raised in Chicago and studied for the seminary before becoming an elementary school teacher in Chicago.  After contracting Hepatitis B, he moved to San Francisco in 1978 where he participated in the clinical trial for the use of Interferon to treat the disease.

In the 1980s, as the number of gay men with HIV began dying in large numbers, he became involved in HIV/AIDS issues.

Project Inform began with little money and grew within a decade to a million dollar a year education outreach program with a staff and dozens of volunteers.

“Martin Delaney was one of the pioneers of AIDS activism,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese.

“While not HIV-positive himself, Delaney dedicated much of his life to shaping our nation’s public policy on HIV/AIDS legislation and worked on the local level to promote education and a greater understanding of HIV/AIDS issues.” Solmonese said.

“He worked with the drive and hope to one day find a cure for HIV/AIDS, and while it did not happen in his lifetime, we’ll continue the important work of lobbying Congress for additional HIV/AIDS funding to find a cure.”

Police are investigating but say there is nothing to indicate foul play. 

Lavender, 20, had been watching television with friends when he suddenly plunged through the window witnesses said.

He was to have returned this week to the US for Christmas.

Lavender was raised in southern Arizona and in 2006 headed east to Dartmouth College to major in women and gender studies . He became co-chair of the student LGBT group Gender Sexuality XYZ and was an outspoken advocate for LGBT rights.

Earlier this year he went to Edinburgh as a part of Dartmouth’s foreign study program to take a religious studies course. 

In Scotland, he continued his LGBT advocacy work, leading a gay rights protest outside the US Consulate in the Scottish capital last month.

“Cody always stood up for what he believed in. He was a great guy who was eager to make new friends. Cody has left this world, and has touched many people in a way he’ll never know,” his sister Alyssa, 18, said.

Students at Edinburgh held a memorial service Tuesday for Lavender. At Dartmouth, Dean Tom Crady said the school had sent its condolences to Lavender’s family.

“The college is now reaching out to students in the foreign study program and other members of the community to offer counseling resources,” Crady said.

The US Consulate General in Edinburgh is arranging for Lavender’s body to be returned to the US.

Del Martin (left) and her partner Phyllis Lyon being married by SF Mayor Gavin Newsom

Del Martin, beloved figure of the gay and lesbian civil rights movement, died this morning. She and her partner Phyllis Lyon were the first to be legally married in the state of California.

Gavin Newsome is speaking in remembrance now – more soon.

Abse served in the House of Commons for nearly 30 years, championing civil rights for minorities and helping to liberalize divorce laws.

As a Labor Member of Parliament from Wales, Abse introduced a bill in 1967 to abolish the sodomy law. He pressed the issue until the repeal of the law was passed.

The sodomy law was placed on the books in 1885 during the Victorian era. Among the more notable victims of the law was writer Oscar Wilde.

Wilde was accused of sodomy by his former lover the Marquess of Queensberry, known as Bosie. In 1895, Wilde sued for libel and lost. He was subsequently charged with the criminal offense of sodomy, convicted and sentenced to two years in prison with hard labor. Wilde died in 1900.

Abse was born in Cardiff, Wales, the grandson of Jewish immigrants. He went on to become a lawyer with a reputation as a maverick.

During his long parliamentary career, Abse was noted for his flamboyant attire and his ability as a sharp-tongued debater in the Commons.

Abse was fondly remembered Wednesday.

“He was a very distinguished parliamentarian and social reformer who has left an indelible mark on his country,” Wales Secretary Paul Murphy told Britain’s Press Association. “The lives of millions of people over the years have been improved because of his social reforms.”

Abse is survived by his second wife Ania.

Getty, who suffered from advanced dementia, died at about 5:30 a.m. Tuesday at her Hollywood Boulevard home, said her son, Carl Gettleman of Santa Monica.

“She was loved throughout the world in six continents, and if they loved sitcoms in Antarctica she would have been loved on seven continents,” her son said. “She was one of the most talented comedic actresses who ever lived.”

“The Golden Girls,” featuring four female retirees sharing a house in Miami, grew out of NBC programming chief Brandon Tartikoff’s belief that television was ignoring its older viewers.

Three of its stars had already appeared in previous series: Bea Arthur in “Maude,” Betty White in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and Rue McClanahan in “Mama’s Family.” The last character to be cast was Sophia Petrillo, the feisty 80-something mother of Arthur’s character.

“Our mother-daughter relationship was one of the greatest comic duos ever, and I will miss her,” Arthur said in a statement.

When she auditioned, Getty was appearing on stage in Hollywood as the carping Jewish mother in Harvey Fierstein’s play “Torch Song Trilogy.” In her early 60s, she flunked her “Golden Girls” test twice because it was believed she didn’t look old enough to play 80.

“I could understand that,” she told an interviewer a year after the show debuted. “I walk fast, I move fast, I talk fast.”

She came prepared for the third audition, however, wearing dowdy clothes and telling an NBC makeup artist, “To you this is just a job. To me it’s my entire career down the toilet unless you make me look 80.” The artist did, Getty got the job and won two Emmys.

“The only comfort at this moment is that although Estelle has moved on, Sophia will always be with us,” White said in an e-mail to The Associated Press after Getty’s death was announced.

“The Golden Girls” culminated a long struggle for success during which Getty worked low-paying office jobs to help support her family while she tried to make it as a stage actress.

“I knew I could be seduced by success in another field, so I’d say, ‘Don’t promote me, please,’” she recalled.

She also appeared in small parts in a handful of films and TV movies during that time, including “Tootsie,” “Deadly Force” and “Victims for Victims: The Theresa Saldana Story.”

After her success in “The Golden Girls,” other roles came her way. She played Cher’s mother in “Mask,” Sylvester Stallone’s in “Stop or My Mom Will Shoot” and Barry Manilow’s in the TV film “Copacabana.” Other credits included “Mannequin” and “Stuart Little” (as the voice of Grandma Estelle).

“The Golden Girls,” which ran from 1985 to 1992, was an immediate hit, and Sophia, who began as a minor character, soon evolved into a major one.

Audiences particularly loved the verbal zingers Getty would hurl at the other three. When McClanahan’s libidinous character Blanche once complained that her life was an open book, Sophia shot back, “Your life’s an open blouse.”

Getty had gained a knack for one-liners in her late teens when she did standup comedy at a Catskills hotel. Female comedians were rare in those days, however, and she bombed.

Undeterred, she continued to pursue a career in entertainment, and while her parents were encouraging, her father also insisted that she learn office skills so she would have something to fall back on.

Born Estelle Scher to Polish immigrants in New York, Getty fell in love with theater when she saw a vaudeville show at age 4.

She married New York businessman Arthur Gettleman (the source of her stage name) in 1947, and they had two sons, Carl and Barry. The marriage prevailed despite her long absences on the road and in “The Golden Girls.”

Getty was evasive about her height, acknowledging only that she was “under 5 feet and under 100 pounds.”

In addition to her son Carl, Getty is survived by son Barry Gettleman, of Miami; a brother, David Scher of London; and a sister, Rosilyn Howard of Las Vegas.