FIRST LOOK: The News in Brief, December 3, 1996

TOGETHER AGAIN? One day after Pamela and Tommy Lee announced their reconciliation, comes a report from London that Mick Jagger has patched things up with Jerry Hall...For all the celebrity gossip, see the E! Files.

MAN FOR HIRE: Want Michael Jackson to perform at your party? Well, you better have a spare $1 million around. That's the price the Sultan of Brunei is paying the King of Pop to perform at the Brunei theme park on New Year's Eve. All the Sultan's subjects are invited.

WHAT'S A TV-13?: Looks like the networks moving closer to a ratings system similar to the film industry. Read more about it here.

SUIT, COUNTERSUIT: Wynonna has issued a statement denying that she and her husband sexually harassed their former farm manager. Andria Surles claims Wynonna once told her she had "a cute butt" and offered to massage it. Surles also accuses Wynonna's husband of trying to measure her rear end with a tape measure. Surles is suing for $800,000. Wynonna's filing a countersuit.

GOING PUBLIC: Tomorrow night, Madonna will make her first public appearance since giving birth. She'll accept a special award at the Billboard Music Awards in Las Vegas...We're not usually ones for tooting our own horns, but E! Online is pleased to announce we will produce an exclusive Webcast of Madonna's Evita premiere on December 14 starting at 6 p.m. PT, with live video and your questions to celebs answered in real time.

UNFORGETTABLE: Irving Gordon, the Grammy-winning composer of Nat King Cole's classic "Unforgettable" has died of cancer at age 81. Gordon also wrote Abbott and Costello "Who's On First" routine...A 100-year-old storefront featured in the opening credits of Northern Exposure was destroyed by fire and its owner collapsed and died Monday.

COME TOGETHER: Whoopi Goldberg, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Elton John, Max Roach and Anna Deavere Smith join diva Jessye Norman in a performance to benefit The Balm In Gilead--a national organization that mobilizes black churches in the fight against AIDS. The concert will be at the Riverside Church in New York Wednesday night.

OLYMPIC TASKS: Turner Broadcasting will have the exlcusive cable rights to the 1998 Winter Olympics in Japan, it was announced today. It's teaming with CBS--which has the TV coverage--and will show up to 55 hours of the games.

DOTTED LINE Jim Carrey is doing James Thurber. The elastic-faced comedian is signed to star in the latest screen version of Thurber's classic tale The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Carrey will get $20 million. The City Slickers writing team of Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel will script the flick...For all the casting news, check out the dotted line.

CYBER-REPORT: For the first time in 25 years that the World Intellectual Property Organization--a U.N. body--has convened to approve new copyright treaties that could apply to the Net: one for literary and artistic works, one for the rights of performers and a third for producers of databases--which includes books and computer data...MGM Interactive is entering the Web-sodic business. The studio hopes its developing Web-based dramas and comedies can be spun off as TV series or films.

QUITTIN' TIME: Superstar tenor Luciano Pavarotti told an Italian newspaper that he wants to quit crooning in 2001, exactly 40 years after he began his career.

JUST KIDDING: It was called Electric Carousel: The Movie. The press lined up for a Planet Hollywood fete for the film, which was going to star Judd Nelson and be directed by John Waters. Problem was, neither ever heard of the project. It seems the film's no-name writer, Ben Castro, was hoping that some publicity would help launch his film. Castro swears the show will go on, even without Nelson and Waters.

EQUAL RIGHTS: For the first time in the event's history, an Australian man has qualified for the finals of the Miss Australia contest, which raises money for charities. "I'm not here to make a political statement for blokes...I'm not into that gender specific stuff," quoth the beautiful Brad Rogers.