All in a Knight’s Work, Madam

--He won’t answer to the name “Sir Caspar,” but former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger will receive honorary knighthood in Britain. Queen Elizabeth II approved the award, on the recommendation of Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe, in recognition of Weinberger’s “outstanding and invaluable” contribution to defense cooperation between Britain and the United States, the Foreign Office said. Weinberger called it “a great surprise and a great honor.” He is to receive the order from the queen at Buckingham Palace either Feb. 22 or 23. A Foreign Office spokesman said that Weinberger, 70, will be appointed an Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. The honor entitles Weinberger to place the initials “GBE” (for Grand Cross British Empire) after his surname, but he will not be “Sir Caspar.” Only British citizens are allowed to use the “sir” designation.

--”Wedding bells will ring for South Africa’s Romeo and Juliet,” according to a headline in the Star, South Africa’s largest-circulation daily. Both the Star and the Sowetan, a major black-oriented paper, reported that Annette Huenis, who is white, has returned to the black township of Kathlehong and plans to marry 23-year-old Jerry Tsie, a black man, in November, when she turns 21. So rare are such relationships in South Africa that the couple’s story has been treated as front-page news since reports a little over a week ago that police had escorted the woman from the man’s home. “I left the township because my feelings about Jerry and my responsibility towards my father were very confused,” the Star quoted Huenis as saying. “After eight days, I decided my place was with Jerry.”

--Soul singer Aretha Franklin was among at least 350 people who turned out at the Museum of African-American History in Detroit to honor Rosa Parks, the seamstress who helped ignite the civil rights movement when she refused to give up her seat to a white man on a Montgomery, Ala., bus. Franklin gave Parks a bottle of perfume from Tiffany’s. Artist Carl Owens unveiled his portrait of Parks, and students from Rosa Parks Middle School in Detroit sang and danced. Parks’ arrest in Montgomery 32 years ago inspired the campaign of mass protest that led to the desegregation of buses in Montgomery and other cities in the South. “I’m just about speechless,” said Parks, who will turn 75 Thursday. “I can hardly think of a thing to say, but this has been a great day.”