Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates said that military recruits came increasingly from the South, the mountain West and small towns, and less often from the Northeast, West Coast and big cities. The military’s own basing decisions have reinforced the trend, he said, with a significant percentage of Army posts moved in recent years to just five states: Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Texas and Washington. A military of 2.4 million of active and reserve members is less than 1 percent — the smallest proportion ever — of the population it serves. here

Officials accuse Anwar Awlaki of planning attacks for Al Qaeda’s Yemen branch, and he is believed to be on a “targeted killings” list for the military and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Al-Aulaqi (al-Awlaki) v. Obama, 10cv1469, U.S. District Court, District of Columbia (Washington).

A lawsuit seeks an injunction to block the government from killing him. While the government’s brief did not confirm that Mr. Awlaki was being targeted, it contended, among other things, that his father, Nasser al-Awlaki, had no legal standing, that targeting decisions are for the executive branch to determine and that litigating the matter would jeopardize state secrets. The brief also included a classified annex. The government filed its brief to U.S. District Judge Robert Bates just after a midnight Friday deadline, blaming technical problems, and the late-night maneuvering underscored the political and diplomatic stakes for President Obama here