Quick Takes: A plea for aid via Bob Marley song

A global social media campaign featuring a Bob Marley song was launched by some of the music industry’s top stars on Tuesday to help stem the hunger crisis that is increasing in the Horn of Africa.

More than 150 stars, including Lady Gaga, U2, Justin Bieber, Jay-Z, the Rolling Stones and Paul McCartney, are among the well-known figures using their Facebook pages and Twitter feeds to urge fans to donate money to help the numerous families starving in the region.

The campaign, called “I’m Gonna Be Your Friend,” can be found at https://www.imgonnabeyourfriend.org. It shows a video by Kevin Macdonald of Bob Marley & the Wailers’ 1973 song “High Tide or Low Tide” with footage of malnourished children.

—Reuters

Singer DeGraw out of hospital

Singer-songwriter Gavin DeGraw was released from a New York City hospital Tuesday after an attack that left him with a broken nose, a concussion and other injuries.

DeGraw tweeted Tuesday afternoon that he didn’t remember much of Sunday’s beating. Police said DeGraw was attacked by a group of men in the East Village. No arrests have been made.

A representative for the 34-year-old DeGraw singer of such hits as “Chariot” and “I Don’t Want to Be” also suffered black eyes, cuts and bruises.

DeGraw canceled concerts this week in upstate New York and Massachusetts after the assault.

—Associated Press

Golden Globe case to get trial

A federal judge in L.A. says a jury should decide whether the longtime producer of the Golden Globe Awards had the rights to negotiate a deal keeping the glitzy awards show on NBC through 2018.

U.S. District Judge Valerie Baker Fairbank refused to side with either dick clark productions or the show’s organizers, the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn.

Each side had been asking the judge to determine whether agreements between the two entities gave the production company the right to negotiate an extension with NBC.

The trial is scheduled to begin Aug. 30.

—Associated Press

Governors prize to go to Walsh

John Walsh, the host and creator of Fox’s long-running series “America’s Most Wanted,” is set to receive the Governors Award at the 2011 Creative Arts Emmy Awards on Sept. 10 at the Nokia Theatre in downtown L.A.

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Board of Governors made the announcement Tuesday.

“John Walsh has dedicated his life to the betterment of society, and while doing so has used television in an inventive and extraordinary way,” said John Shaffner, chairman and chief executive of the television academy.

“American’s Most Wanted” has helped law enforcement agencies capture about 1,500 fugitives and reunited more than 50 missing children with their families since the series began in 1988. Walsh became a crime fighter and victims’ advocate after his only child, Adam, was kidnapped from a mall near his home in Hollywood, Fla., in 1981. Adam’s body was found two weeks later.

The series was canceled in May after 23 seasons.

—Susan King

Cowsills reunion in Rhode Island

Three surviving members of the Cowsills, a family pop group that enjoyed a meteoric rise in the 1960s and served as the inspiration for the TV show “The Partridge Family,” are scheduled to perform Wednesday evening in Providence, R.I., a rare onstage reunion in the state where they saw their beginnings.

The performance will follow the premiere of a new documentary about the band’s rise and fall, “Family Band: The Cowsills Story,” at the Rhode Island International Film Festival.

Filmmaker Louise Palanker says the 90-minute film is a story of tragedy and triumph — of a family that seemed flawless on the surface but grappled with a physically and emotionally abusive father who was involved in the band’s promotion at every turn and a mother who chronically felt she came up short.

The band featured seven members of the Cowsills family, including Barbara, the mother. Both parents are dead now, as are two of their sons.

—Associated Press

Levine named poet laureate

Pulitzer Prize winner Philip Levine, known for his detailed and personal verse about the working class, has been appointed the country’s new poet laureate.

The Library of Congress will announce Wednesday that Levine, 83, of Fresno, will succeed fellow Pulitzer winner W.S. Merwin this fall.

The laureate, who receives $35,000 and is known officially as the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, serves from October through May. Richard Wilbur, Joseph Brodsky and Robert Pinsky are among the previous appointees.

—Associated Press