Now that she's PETA's "enemy number one," the animal activist group is storming everything J. Lo to protest her Sweetface clothing line's abundant use of fur. Last week, PETA crashed her Times Square appearance, and Thursday, the group took the protest to the singer's Pasadena, California, restaurant, Madre's, holding up images of Jennifer Lopez tagged as a "Fur Hag" and posters of orphaned animals that read "J. Lo: These Babies Miss Their Mother — Is She On Your Back?" ...

On Wednesday night in his hometown, the late King of New York was honored all day and all night. Radio station Hot 97 ran a special promotion where listeners could call up and request any Notorious B.I.G. song they wanted but had to donate funds to the Christopher Wallace Foundation to hear it. Some donated $2, while stars like Jay-Z and Jadakiss donated thousands. More than $90,000 was raised by the station. ... During the night, two separate B.I.G. tribute parties were held. One was at club Exit and thrown by radio station Power 105.1. Cuban Link , Mario , Memphis Bleek , Faith Evans , P. Diddy and 112 were on hand for that one. Meanwhile, Big's crew, the Junior M.A.F.I.A. , held their own shindig at the Roxy, where the likes of the Alchemist , Tony Touch and Mr. Cheeks showed up. ...

Beyoncé and Tina Knowles are expanding their clothing line, House of Dereon, to include outerwear, they announced Thursday (March 10). "We want to launch an extraordinary outerwear collection for the holiday season," Beyoncé said in a statement, "the perfect coat to complement our fashion line." ... Britney Spears has made her peace with Zoller Laboratories, the makers of diet aid Zantrex-3. The singer was once photographed spilling the pills, prompting a pre-emptive federal lawsuit filed by the drug maker claiming she was threatening to sue them for using her image without permission. While the terms of the settlement remain confidential, a representative for the diet aid confirmed that the matter was resolved. ...

A Michigan state prison system that tracks former convicts will purge information on about 215,000 ex-cons, including rapper Eminem , because officials feel the system is being abused, according to the Detroit Free Press. The state's Offender Tracking Information System will remove information on anyone not currently in custody, on parole or on probation. Eminem, who is the third-most-searched entry, received two years probation in 2000 for carrying a concealed weapon. Previously, any member of the public could find info on the location of Eminem's six tattoos, for example. ... Scott Weiland gives up drug buddy Courtney Love in the April issue of Esquire, in which the rocker reflects on his battles with addiction, jail stints and living the high life. At one point in the mid-1990s, he holed up for a month in a hotel, where his next-door neighbor was none other than the former Hole singer. "We shot drugs the whole time," Weiland told the magazine. "Most of the time she just walked around in panties. There was never anything that went on between us. ... Dope was the most important thing. But gettin' high with her was sort of like watching a reality show unfold. It was very entertaining." The Velvet Revolver singer says he's giving up narcotics for good — replacing them with the high he gets from coffee, cigarettes and being with his family. ...

A grand jury indicted singer Gerald Levert on Tuesday on two charges of felonious assault and one of obstructing official business, according to a Cuyahoga County clerk's office spokesperson. The indictment stemmed from an incident on February 25 when police said Levert and a friend confronted two officers who had pulled their friend over for speeding. Levert will be arraigned on March 22. ... Where has former Da Band member Chopper (a.k.a. Young City ) been? He landed a Bad Boy recording contract, but before you hear his debut album, you'll see him on packages of Rap Snacks Pork Skins and Cracklins. Chopper has signed on as the official spokesperson for the latest line of Rap Snacks, which have previously featured Master P , ODB and Lil' Romeo . Each bag will also have a motivational phrase printed on it, such as "seize every opportunity." A company spokesperson said a line of Rock Snacks is being planned for later this year; the company has already landed Insane Clown Posse for those, and is in negotiations with bands such as P.O.D. and Good Charlotte . ...

Drew Lachey is looking forward to returning home to Los Angeles after finishing up his run in "Rent" on Broadway. Hanging at Wednesday night's Napster to Go Cafe party in New York's Union Square, Lachey said that playing filmmaker Mark Cohen for eight shows a week has been a thrill very different from his touring days. "That's a pro and con," he explained. "When you're on the road you're like, man, I wish I could just have a character, a story line. When you're doing that, then it would be fun just to be carefree and loose on the road and have the show be whatever you wanted it to be that night." ... Stephan Jenkins also dropped by the Napster event, but joked that he just came for the goody bag and MP3 player. The Third Eye Blind singer said that he'll make a trip out to South by Southwest because "there's a band that I want to sign to my budding label that's going to be there." Jenkins said he plans to spend the spring finishing the lyrics for his band's new album. Laughing, he then added, "Basically we take the first two Police records, Outlandos d'Amour and Reggatta de Blanc, and we're just ripping them off, just lifting it." ...

Now that the Get Up Kids have called it a day, keyboardist James Dewees ' side project Reggie and the Full Effect are going full steam ahead, launching a tour with New Found Glory on Thursday in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. The 50-plus-date tour wraps May 21 in New Orleans. ... Madonna and her Maverick Films co-founder Guy Oseary were sued on Wednesday by a former female employee who claimed she was sexually harassed and wrongfully terminated, according to an Associated Press report. Yael Oestreich claims that she was not given a promised salary increase and was fired in July without cause after suffering sexual harassment from chief executive Mark Morgan. The suit contends that Oseary and Madonna "failed to conduct a reasonable investigation into defendant Morgan's background before hiring him and knew or should have known of his propensity for sexual harassment and discrimination." A spokesperson for the singer could not be reached for comment. ...

Patrick Elasik , co-founder of the New York hip-hop magazine Mass Appeal, was found electrocuted early Thursday morning at a train station in Brooklyn, according to the New York Medical Examiner's Office. Elasik, 26, apparently entered the wrong side of a local station after a friend's party and was trying to cross to the other side. ... The Dandy Warhols ' first album on Capitol is Come Down, but the band actually recorded an earlier disc for the label that was rejected. Fans looking for this curiosity, known as The Black Album, can now buy it on the Dandy Warhols' Web site. ...

03.09.2005

If you get caught pouring human excrement and urine all over a bunch of tourists, sometimes it's just best to fess up. And that's what Dave Matthews Band tour bus driver Stefan Wohl did on Wednesday (March 9), when he pleaded guilty to charges of reckless conduct and discharging contaminates to cause water pollution, which stemmed from an August incident in which Wohl emptied the bus' septic tank while driving across the open grating deck of the Kinzie Street bridge in Chicago. According to The Associated Press, Wohl, who managed to hit passengers on a boat below the bridge with the waste, was sentenced to 18 months probation and 150 hours of community service, and was fined $10,000, which will be paid to the conservation group Friends of the Chicago River. ...

Britney Spears is threatening to storm back on the scene, according to a recent post on her Web site: "I feel as though I have been very quiet and still lately. 'The calm before the storm' ... I can really relate to that statement right now." Then again, in the five months since she's announced she was taking a break, the singer's released a greatest-hits collection, co-directed a video, leaked a song on the radio, posed for two magazine covers ( Redbook and Allure ), participated in her husband's Details cover story, and started writing regularly on her Web site — so much for being quiet. ... Madonna 's follow-up to "Truth or Dare," an as-yet-untitled documentary about her Reinvention Tour, looks "very likely" to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, to be held May 11-22, according to the singer's rep. The documentary was directed by Jonas Akerlund , who chronicled her tour and the "new" Madonna. A theatrical release is planned for later this year. ...

J-Kwon has teamed up with fellow St. Louis rappers Nelly and Chingy for Louisville Slugger, the follow-up to his 2004 debut, Hood Hop. The album, due this summer, will also feature Ebony Eyez , a female rapper from the Lou who performed "Get XXX'd" (from the "XXX: State of the Union" soundtrack, due April 19) with J-Kwon at last week's Soul Train Awards. ... Moby will launch a tour in support of his upcoming double album, Hotel (March 22), on April 11 with a show in Norfolk, Virginia. The 16-date swing is currently scheduled to hit Atlanta, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Boston, Toronto and Chicago, ending with a May 8 date in San Diego, according to his spokesperson. Buck 65 will open on most of the dates. ...

Missouri's emo stalwarts the Get Up Kids announced this week through a statement posted on their Web site that they'd be throwing in the towel. "After 10 years, close to a hundred recorded songs and several trips around the world, the Get Up Kids will be playing their last shows this summer," the statement reads. "We feel it's best to let the last 10 years speak as a document for what the band was. We can look back and say that we are proud of everything that we accomplished. In the end, we will always remember this as a good time; we hope that you remember it that way, too." The Get Up Kids' final performance will go down July 4th weekend in the band's hometown of Kansas City, Missouri ... The punk rock breast-cancer benefit site Shirts for a Cure — which helps raise money to provide financial assistance and therapy to underprivileged women fighting breast cancer — has added a number of new shirts for sale. Exclusive tees from the bands Alkaline Trio , Coheed & Cambria , Dillinger Escape Plan , Funeral for a Friend and Head Automatica will soon join shirts from Motion City Soundtrack , the Get Up Kids, Hot Water Music , My Chemical Romance , Bouncing Souls , Thursday and Avenged Sevenfold . Check out shirtsforacure.com for more information. ...

RZA — who has scored "Kill Bill," "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai" and "Blade: Trinity" — is stepping in front of the camera with his first full-fledged acting gig in the upcoming Jennifer Aniston / Clive Owen movie "Derailed," in which he plays an ex-con mailroom clerk named Winston. But now that the Wu-Tang mastermind has the acting bug, what he really wants to do is direct. He's been talking to Quentin Tarantino , Jim Jarmusch and John Woo to get advice, and has his first film project already planned out. "I'm ready to come out of the can," RZA said. "I got some scripts passed over to me, but I want to do one I wrote myself, 'The Man With the Iron Fist.,' " a kung-fu movie. ... British funk act Jamiroquai will issue album number six, Dynamite, on May 24. No word on whether the album's title is a nod to the film "Napoleon Dynamite," which prominently featured Jamiroquai's song "Canned Heat" during one of the film's most memorable scenes. ...

"So What the Fuss" will be the first single off of Stevie Wonder 's new album, A Time to Love, due in stores on May 3. It'll be the first studio album in a decade for the legendary singer . ... Meanwhile, Tiger Woods ' annual fund-raiser for his Tiger Woods Learning Center, Tiger Jam VIII, will take place on May 21 at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas and will be headlined by Wonder, according to an event spokesperson. Counting Crows will open the show. ... The All-American Rejects will be hitting the road this spring for a nine-week headlining tour kicking off March 29 in Atlanta. The band will be plugging songs from its sophomore album, still untitled, which is set to be released this summer. ...