“I’d always been curious about my HIV status,” Early said outside a community agency where the state’s top doctor was announcing progress and setbacks in the fight against AIDS ahead of National HIV Testing Day, an annual campaign to encourage people at risk to receive testing and counseling.

The number of newly reported AIDS cases in Illinois dropped by 3 percent in 2005 compared to the previous year, indicating better treatment is keeping people with HIV healthier longer, said Illinois Department of Public Health Director Eric Whitaker.

The number of new HIV and AIDS cases combined also dipped by less than 1 percent from 3,933 cases in 2004 to 3,906 cases in 2005, Whitaker told those gathered at the Gift House, which offers HIV testing and counseling.

Half the new cases were among blacks, Whitaker said, a disproportionate share when only 15 percent of the population is black. He noted that 62 percent of the new cases were among young adults, 25 to 34 years old – a figure he finds alarming.

“We need to pay particular attention to our youth as we begin to speak about intervention,” Whitaker said.

The state has taken its HIV testing campaign to black churches and, in February, to a college hip-hop concert featuring the rapper Twista. Whitaker said he did a radio show with Twista and was impressed by how effective he was as a spokesperson.

“I was in awe of how well he did in terms of his facts and being a messenger,” Whitaker said.

David Munar, associate director of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, said some young people don’t consider AIDS a fatal illness because they don’t remember a time before the new antiretroviral drugs.

“That is an issue: newer generations who don’t see a deadly disease and believe there is a cure when there’s not,” Munar said. “It speaks to the need for continuous and ongoing prevention education.”

Munar said young people should know that HIV treatment poses serious side effects, is not accessible to all patients and is expensive.

It’s too early to tell how a new name-based reporting system for HIV may affect testing rates, Whitaker said. In January, Illinois began tracking HIV cases using infected patients’ names in order not to lose millions of federal dollars.

Some advocates worry that the new system will discourage HIV testing. An estimate 10,000 Illinois residents may be HIV positive and not know it, Munar said.

On the sidewalk outside the press conference, Early said he wants to encourage other black men to find out their HIV status, particularly young people.

“Our younger generation is out here freewheeling and not really keeping in touch with their status, so I definitely would say they should come in and be tested so at least they know their status,” he said.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) – Gov. Rod Blagojevich signed legislation that requires HIV testing for every newborn baby in the state when the status of the mother is unknown.

Opponents argue testing newborns could divulge women’s HIV status against their will. But some doctors contend immediate drug treatment for a newborn exposed to HIV may prevent the child from becoming infected.

The law took effect immediately.

Officials say Illinois’ voluntary testing program implemented in August 2004 has meant that 98 percent of mothers know whether they have HIV before they leave the hospital, up from 72 percent at the start of the program.

The task force monitoring the voluntary program, Perinatal Rapid Testing Implementation in Illinois, said only 1.9 percent of 13,205 babies born in the state last December went untested.

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) – Gov. Robert Ehrlich has named an openly gay judge to serve on the Baltimore District Court.

Ehrlich appointed Christopher Panos, 47, a special master in the city Circuit Court family division, to a fill a court vacancy.

Panos and his partner of 17 years, Dennis Cashen, are raising a young daughter, Cate.

“This is indicative of social progress within the form of a judicial nomination,” Panos told Baltimore’s The Sun.

The governor’s appointment came more than a week after he fired one of his appointees to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, Robert J. Smith, for saying on a talk show that homosexuals lived a life of “sexual deviancy.”

Ehrlich, a Republican, has been careful about gay issues since being elected governor with strong crossover support from Democrats.

The governor’s balancing act was on display during this year’s General Assembly session, after a Baltimore judge ruled that Maryland’s law prohibiting same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. Ehrlich first said he did not think a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman was necessary, and then said an amendment was necessary.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) – A conservative group sued to stop Michigan State University from offering health insurance to the partners of gay and lesbian workers and said the school is violating a 2004 amendment to the state constitution.

The American Family Association of Michigan filed the lawsuit in Ingham County Circuit Court and hopes to get a ruling setting a precedent that would block domestic partner benefits at other state universities.

Deborah Labelle, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, said the suit is pointless because the state appeals court already is set to rule on the issue. She characterized attempts to strip benefits from gay and lesbian partners as “mean-spirited.”

Schools that provide benefits to same-sex couples include the University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Central Michigan, Northern Michigan, Wayne State, Saginaw Valley and Oakland.

The purpose of the suit is to ensure that courts rule on the constitutionality of domestic partner benefits at public universities, said Patrick Gillen, an attorney for the Thomas More Law Center in Ann Arbor, which is representing the American Family Association.

By providing same-sex benefits, Michigan State is “recognizing same-sex marriage in substance if not by label,” Gillen said. A related case is pending before the Michigan Court of Appeals, which heard arguments in April.

Michigan State spokesperson Terry Denbow said the school would not comment on pending litigation.

In 2004, Michigan voters approved a constitutional amendment that made the union between a man and a woman the only agreement recognized as a marriage “or similar union for any purpose.”

Those six words spurred a legal fight over benefits for the partners of gay and lesbian employees who work for state and local governments and other public employers. Gay rights advocates say voters meant to prevent same-sex marriage but never intended to keep gays and lesbians from getting health insurance.

Twenty-one same-sex couples, including employees at Michigan State, sued the state in 2005 after Republican Attorney General Mike Cox issued an opinion interpreting the amendment as barring domestic partner benefits in future contracts.

Gillen said the American Family Association’s lawsuit is needed because there are questions about whether the couples have the right to sue and whether the related case applies to universities, which have argued the constitution gives them freedom to provide domestic partner benefits.

“If MSU doesn’t allow an employee to put her elderly grandmother or little sister on the university’s health insurance, how do they justify singling out only employees involved in a homosexual relationship for special treatment?” said Gary Glenn, president of the American Family Association of Michigan. Glenn and Gillen wrote the 2004 amendment.

But Labelle said health insurance and other benefits are given to children and other dependents, not just married people.

“In one fell swoop, they manage to diminish both what marriage is and to exaggerate the impact of domestic partner benefits,” she said. “What’s really bizarre is nobody would say providing health benefits to a boyfriend and girlfriend [in a heterosexual relationship] makes it a marriage.”

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) – An HIV-positive woman alleges a caseworker coerced her to have sex by threatening to take away her benefits and report her to Child Protective Services.

The 26-year-old woman filed a lawsuit against AIDS Outreach Center of Greater Tarrant County, where she met the caseworker after seeking help in early 2005.

“It’s a pretty nasty deal,” said the woman’s attorney, Todd Turner. “I wouldn’t have filed this type of case if I didn’t feel we had a strong case.”

The center’s executive director, Dara Austin, wouldn’t discuss the allegations or say whether the caseworker was still employed there.

The woman still receives services from the agency, Turner said.

In court filings, the woman alleges she felt forced to have sex with the caseworker after he threatened to cut off some of her benefits, including housing and utility help. The caseworker also told her if she didn’t have sex with him, he would tell Child Protective Services she wasn’t providing her three children with adequate housing.

The lawsuit also says the caseworker sent the woman “extremely sexually suggestive and harassing” text messages and made threatening telephone calls.

After the woman reported the caseworker to superiors, the agency investigated, but its insurance carrier declined to reach a settlement, Turner said.

The woman hasn’t ruled out lodging a criminal complaint with police, he said.