Happy New Year: Judy Garland sings 'Auld Lang Syne'

Happy New Year! Here's a 1940/41 recording of Judy Garland singing Auld Lang Syne.

Brought to you courtesy of Yahoo's The Judy Garland Experience. Home of Judy's rarest recordings: http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/thejudygarlandexperience/

TMZ: Charlie Sheen apologizes after calling nightclub crowd 'lying bunch of faggot a--holes'

Charlie Sheen found himself in hot water again, according to TMZ, which published video of him calling a nightclub crowd a "lying bunch of faggot a--holes."

Maryland same-sex couples prepare for marriages just after midnight on Jan. 1

BY BRIAN WITTE, ASSOCIATED PRESS

ANNAPOLIS, Md. -- Maryland's law allowing same-sex marriage takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, and gay couples across the state are preparing for New Year's Day weddings.

In Baltimore, Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake will attend ceremonies at City Hall shortly after New Year festivities at the Inner Harbor.

On Tilghman Island in the Chesapeake Bay, six couples will marry at the Black Walnut Point Inn on Tuesday. Owners and same-sex couple Bob Zuber and Tracy Stables will marry as well. Stables says the island community has been highly supportive.

Same-sex couples in Maryland have been able to get marriage licenses since Dec. 6, but they don't take effect until Tuesday.

Nine states and the District of Columbia have approved same-sex marriage. Maryland is the first state south of the Mason-Dixon Line to do so.

First gay Anglican bishop, Gene Robinson, reflects on tenure in New Hampshire

BY LYNNE TUOHY, ASSOCIATED PRESS

CONCORD, N.H. -- New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop Gene Robinson says he chafed for several years at being branded the first openly gay bishop of the Anglican Church until he realized that he was wasting a pulpit from which he could advocate for equality.

"I'd been given this really remarkable opportunity and it would be selfish of me not to be the best steward of that opportunity," he recently told The Associated Press in an interview as he prepares to retire in January. "We went from my consecration, which set off this international controversy, to nine years later seeing gay, lesbian and transgender congregants welcome at all levels of the church, including bishop."

Robinson's election in 2003 as the first openly gay bishop in the Anglican church created an international uproar and led conservative Episcopalians to break away from the main church in the United States.

Robinson, 65, will hand the pastoral staff to his successor, A. Robert Hirschfeld, in a ceremony at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Concord on Jan. 5.

As he prepared to retire after nearly a decade as bishop, Robinson reflected on the crucibles and crusades of his tenure.

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