HOUSING BILL SIGNED - President George W. Bush signed a law this week to aid in the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression. The law will support mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and will assist hundreds of thousands of home owners to avoid foreclosure. Yet some say the measure does not do enough to control banks and loan companies. Patricia Guadalupe has the details from the nation’s capital.

HOMOPHOBIA AND THE HIV EPIDEMIC – This weekend the International Conference on AIDS begins in Mexico City. Experts from both sides of the border say homophobia and machismo create obstacles to stopping the epidemic. Today we present the story of a young man from California who was rejected by his family and his religion after admitting his homosexuality, and turned to prostitution and drugs. The young man eventually infected with HIV. We will call him Manuel and use another voice to protect his identity. Alonso Yáñez from CSU Northridge brings us the story.

THE CENTRAL VALLEY OUD - California is home to one of the largest populations of Armenians outside of Armenia. Many of these residents descend from refugees that survived the Turkish genocide in 1915, in which between half a million and one and a half million Armenians died. Many Armenians in California keep the painful memory of that tragedy alive, and they also remember their mother country. Few communities cultivate the memory and traditions as much as the Armenian community in Fresno, in California’s Central Valley. Here it’s not uncommon to hear the sound of the oud, a twelve-string instrument typical of the Middle East. One of the people most responsible for the strength of this tradition is musician Richard Hagopian,a well-known maestro of the oud. Zaidee Stavely visited a recent concert of Hagopian’s music.