1. Light One Candle: Three themes—Alianza, Acción y Amor—dominated the spirited eighth-annual Puerto Rican/Hispanic AIDS Memorial at New York City’s Riverside Church.

2. Skipped Groove: Offended by a line in the summer hit flic How Stella Got Her Groove Back that linked Haitians to AIDS, the Coalition Against Haitian Defamation picketed 20th-Century Fox’s Manhattan offices.

3. Priced to Kill: Outside DuPont Pharma’s Delaware headquarters, ACT UP/Philly dumped on the sky-high price of the company’s new once-a-day HIV med, Sustiva.

4. This Sold House: The cream of the AIDS crop packed AmFAR head Mathilde Krim’s Park Avenue digs to honor UNAIDS director Peter Piot. But with the sudden Swissair 111 death of Dr. Jonathan Mann, the fete was filled with tears and tributes to the late father of the global AIDS movement.

5. Brunette Ambition: Kicking off APLA’s 14th-annual AIDS Walk in Los Angeles, a dressed-down Madonna slammed Ken Starr’s pricey Puritan probe as Congress nixes funds for needle-exchange programs.

6. Had His Phil: New York City council-member Phil Reed joined the Coalition for Methadone Choice in denouncing the PWA-unfriendly methadone-program cuts planned by Mayor Giuliani.