Yearlong policy review planned on gays in service

Yearlong policy review planned on gays in service

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert Gates today will take the first real steps toward lifting the ban on gays’ serving openly in the military, announcing a yearlong review aimed at answering practical and emotional questions about the effect of lifting the ban and imposing looser standards for enforcing the ban in the meantime.

According to U.S. officials, the senior-level study will be co-chaired by a top-ranked civilian and a senior uniformed officer. It would recommend the best way to go about lifting the ban, starting from the premise that it will take time to accomplish that goal but that it can be done without harming the capabilities or cohesion of the military force, officials said.

Singing stars re-record ‘We are the World’

LOS ANGELES — More than 75 mega-stars gathered Monday to re-record the 1985 charity anthem “We are the World” in the same Hollywood recording studio where the original was cut 25 years ago.

Pink, Celine Dion, Natalie Cole, the Jonas Brothers, Kanye West, Tony Bennett, Jennifer Hudson, Akon and other musical luminaries stood shoulder to shoulder on risers at Henson Recording studios, singing their hearts out and hoping to help Haiti.

Written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, the original “We Are the World” thundered up the charts when it was released on the radio and in record stores in March 1985.

Miss America from Va. wants to be news anchor

LAS VEGAS — A 22-year-old Virginia woman who said she once thought her only talent was singing is the nation’s newest Miss America, emerging from a field of 53 contestants picked for their beauty, compassion and interview savvy.

Caressa Cameron, a broadcast journalism student at Virginia Commonwealth University, now plans a second year away from college as she travels extensively to raise money for charity and carry the 89-year-old pageant’s crown.

Cameron, the first black Miss America since Ericka Dunlap in 2005, says she wants to get a master’s degree and eventually become a news anchor.

US prosecutor removes himself from La. case

NEW ORLEANS — The top federal prosecutor for New Orleans has removed himself from the case of four conservative activists arrested last week while trying to capture hidden-camera footage in a senator’s office, the Department of Justice said Monday.

A Justice Department news release said Jim Letten, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Louisiana, recused himself from the case a day after the Jan. 25 arrests in Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in New Orleans. Letten’s top lieutenant, assistant U.S. Attorney Jan Mann, has taken over.

The news release didn’t say why Letten removed himself, and his spokeswoman Anna Christman said she couldn’t comment.

China against any meeting of Obama, Dalai Lama

BEIJING — China says it strongly opposes any meeting of President Barack Obama with exiled Tibetan leader Dalai Lama.

Zhu Weiqun, executive deputy head of the Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, said today that any such meeting would be “unreasonable and useless” and would “seriously undermine the political foundation of Sino-U.S. relations.”

Doctor apologizes for photo taken with cadaver

MELVILLE, N.Y. — A resident physician at a Long Island, N.Y., hospital apologized to faculty members over the weekend for posting a photograph of a former classmate giving two thumbs up next to a cadaver as state health officials said they would be looking into the matter.

In three separate e-mails, Erica Katz, who works in the emergency-medicine unit at Stony Brook University Medical Center, told faculty members that posting the photo on her Facebook page was a mistake.

The student who appeared in the picture, Aaron Hartman, also wrote to express his contrition: “I sincerely apologize to the deans, professors of the anatomy course, and most importantly, to the deceased for this picture.”

Combined dispatches