National Black HIV/Aids Awareness day, an annual initiative organized by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, was held Monday, Feb. 7 to encourage Americans to be informed about HIV and get tested.

“By race/ethnicity, African Americans face the most severe burden of HIV in the United States,” the CDC said in an online report released Monday.

While African-Americans make up about 13 percent of the U.S. population, they constitute nearly half of new HIV cases, the organization said, adding that the gulf was not caused by race but by social barriers.

“Frequently, we know that if you don’t have the means to see a doctor, you may not get an HIV test or treatment early in the disease cycle, when treatment can be most effective,” the CDC said. “In 2007, nearly 1 in 5 African Americans were without health insurance versus just over 10% of whites. This disparity places African Americans at greater risk for late detection of a number of diseases.”

Many clinics all over the country offered free, confidential HIV counseling and testing in observance of the event. Community-based organizations also sponsored educational forums to raise awareness of the devastating disease.

Kirk Cameron, the born-again Christian who previously starred in the popular “Growing Pains” series, also appeared in film adaptations of the apocalyptic “Left Behind” books. Broadcast journalist Anderson Cooper brought the actor in for an interview to get his input on the recent slew of animal die-offs.

Anderson teasingly asked Cameron whether the mass bird kills were a sign of the end of the world.

“Well, I first think that they ought to call a veterinarian, not me. You know, I’m not the religious-conspiracy-theorist go-to guy, particularly,” Cameron said. “But I think it’s really kind of silly to try to equate birds falling out of the sky with some kind of an end-times theory.”

“People love to find codes and signs of future events and see if they can decipher them before anybody else,” the 40-year-old actor told Cooper. “But birds falling from the sky? That has to do more with pagan mythology; the direction that the birds flew told some of the followers of some of those legends that the gods were either pleased or displeased with them.”

Steve Buckley, a longtime sportswriter for the Boston Herald, revealed he’s gay in a column published Thursday.

In a piece titled “Welcome to my coming-out party,” Buckley explained that he had been wanting to write the column for a long time, ever since his mother suggested the idea seven years ago.

“With a vacation lined up for the first week of December, I told her I’d get to it when I returned to Boston — just before Christmas,” he said. Plans changed after she died of a heart attack upon his return from vacation.

“I haven’t been fair to my family, my friends or my co-workers. And I certainly haven’t been fair to myself: For too many years, I’ve been on the sidelines of Boston’s gay community but not in the game — figuratively and literally,” he wrote.

In 2007, Mike Penner, a sportswriter for the Los Angeles Times, came out as a transsexual in a column. He committed suicide in 2009, the New York Daily News reports.

Buckley says such tragedies helped him in his own journey to come out of the closet.

“These tragic events helped guide me to the belief that if more people are able to be honest about who they are, ultimately fewer people will feel such devastating pressure,” said Buckley. “It’s my hope that from now on I’ll be more involved. I’m not really sure what I mean by being ‘involved,’ but this is a start: I’m gay.”

LinkedIn, the largest social networking site for business professionals, may be considering an initial public offering for the first quarter of this year.

The Mountain View, Calif.-based company has declined to comment on the speculation.

A source familiar with the matter told Reuters that LinkedIn has hired the following banks to advise it on the IPO: Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase.

“An IPO is one of many tactics that we could choose to pursue,” LinkedIn said in a statement. “We are focused on building our business and doing what is in the best long-term interest of LinkedIn members and shareholders.”

The Los Angeles Times said the valuation of the IPO is expected to be relatively small.

BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis says this is a good move on LinkedIn’s part.

“LinkedIn has its own story to tell, and this gives them a window to get out there and tell that story,” Gillis said. “Even though the business models are different, it’s wise for LinkedIn to get out there and avoid getting lost in the Facebook noise.”

According to FT.com, LinkedIn has around eighty-five million users in 200 countries. Although LinkedIn does not have the “explosive growth” of Facebook, the Times reports, it is one of the first social networking sites to become profitable.

Smartphones manufacturers are upping their competition in the new year, as AT&T Wednesday announced plans to introduce 20 high-speed smartphones models, including a dozen Google Android devices.

The move emphasizes AT&T’s goal to diminish its dependence on the iPhone. Industry insiders are predicting tough competition for the mobile operator, which was originally the exclusive U.S. provider for the iPhone, as its biggest foe Verizon Wireless prepares to sell the Apple device early this year.

At the Consumer Electronics Show today, AT&T executives unveiled smartphones from Samsung and HTV supporting the carrier’s new HSPA+ network. Joining the Motorola Atrix 4G as AT&T’s first HSPA+ smartphones, the Samsung Infuse 4G will be the thinnest Android smartphone on the US market, and the HTV Inspire 4G will include the newest generation of HTC’s Sense software.

Both new phones will run on Android 2.2 “Froyo.” No word yet on whether they’ll be upgradeable to 2.3 “Gingerbread.”

Meanwhile, the Motorola Atrix 4G will attach a new type of accessory called a lapdoc, which has a laptop size screen and keyboard aimed at better Web Browsing, video viewing and typing than on a typical cell phone.

“It will change the way people work,” AT&T’s president and head of mobility, Ralph de la Vega, said in an interview at the event.

Elizabeth Edwards omitted one-time U.S. vice-presidential nominee John Edwards from her will, sources say.

TV’s “Inside Edition” reported Wednesday that Elizabeth Edwards, who died of cancer Dec. 7, left her entire estate to her three children.

“All of my furniture, furnishings, household goods, jewelry, china, silverware and personal effects and any automobiles owned by me at the time of my death I give and bequeath to my children,” the will states.

Elizabeth Edwards signed the document in Orange County Superior Count in North Carolina six days before her death.

The last will and testament names her eldest child, lawyer Cate Edwards, as the executor of the estate.

Elizabeth and John Edwards separated early last year after a cheating scandal during which John Edwards admitted he fathered a child with a former campaign worker.

Khloe Kardashian has landed her own reality show with husband Lamar Odom on E!, it was announced Wednesday.

As sisters Kourtney and Kim head to New York to shoot their own new show, Kardashian will be filming her “Newlyweds”-style series in early 2011. The show will also prominently feature Kardashian’s little brother, Rob, who is making a foray into the music industry.

The reality show veteran blogged about her plans for the series on Wednesday.

“Ok dolls, it’s official! Lamar and I will soon begin filming our very own show on E! called Khloé & Lamar!” she wrote. “WOOOOHOOOOOOOO! How exciting is this?! It’s been an option since we got married, but we wanted to enjoy our first year in private. With ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians,’ only a very small part of our life together is shown, but with this show, we’re putting it ALL out there LOL.

“Rob will play a major role in this too since he lives with us,” she continued. “He’s basically like our son LOL. With the three of us living together, it’s honestly like a sitcom. Trust me, there will be a lot of laughs. Lamar and I could not be more thrilled about this. It’s show time baby!!!!”

The eight-episode series is tentatively titled “Khloe & Lamar.”

“Khloe and Lamar are such a dynamic couple that we just knew we had to give them their own series,” E! executive vice president Lisa Berger said, according to AP.

“They are funny, dramatic, opinionated, and we intend to capture all this, along with the unvarnished reality of their lives together and apart, since each is constantly followed by their own celebrity spotlight.”

Kardashian and Los Angeles Lakers player Lamar Odom were married in September 2009 after dating for a month.