FIRST LOOK: The News in Brief, December 9, 2002

BUSTED: E! News Live reporting that actor Tom Sizemore was arrested on December 7 for misdemeanor battery charges stemming from an argument with his fiancée. Sizemore was booked and later released on $2,500 bail. An arraignment is scheduled for January 8. Police say the woman involved was not Sizemore's on-again/off-again gal-pal Heidi Fleiss.

LIVE AND LET DIE: Guns N' Roses concert promoter Clear Channel Entertainment scrapping the remaining dates on the band's 2002 tour. No reason was given for the cancellations. The band had nixed shows in Philly and Vancouver, sparking mini-riots.

WINONA FALLOUT: Celebrity Justice reporting that the Medical Board of California has revoked the license of Dr. Jules Lusman citing "gross negligence," after he admitted supplying Winona Ryder with a controlled substance without a prescription.

PARTYING DAYS ARE OVER: Jack Nicholson telling Newsweek magazine that he doesn't have the sex drive at 65 that he did when he was younger, saying he now finds it "liberating" to sleep alone.

CRIKEY: Crocodile Dundee star Paul Hogan, 63, in a Sydney hospital after suffering a back injury while moving furniture. He's expected to be released in a couple of days and fully recover.

BACK TO THE BOARDS? Nicole Kidman, once described as "pure theatrical Viagra" when she appeared in The Blue Room four years ago, in talks to star in director Trevor Nunn's London production of Henrik Ibsen's The Lady From the Sea due to open next year.

A NIGHT AT THE OPERA! Australian director Baz Luhrmann's Broadway production of Puccini's classic opera La Bohème scoring rave reviews and a standing ovation following its premiere Sunday night at the Broadway Theater.

PAYING TRIBUTE: Elizabeth Taylor, James Earl Jones, Paul Simon, Broadway musical star Chita Rivera and conductor James Levine recipients of the 25th anniversary Kennedy Center Honors Sunday. The artists attended a White House dinner hosted by President Bush followed by an evening gala performance and supper dance.

BOND REPLAY: Die Another Day regained the number one position at the box office after playing second last weekend. The James Bond adventure earned an estimated $13 million to beat the comedy sequel Analyze That, which debuted with only $11.3 million.

TOOTH FAIRY WATCH: With Liam Gallagher's two front teeth repaired, Oasis resuming its European tour Sunday in Wales. Gallagher lost the choppers in a Munich bar fight last weekend. During the show, Gallagher dedicated "Live Forever," to his new front teeth.

AN OFFER HE COULDN'T REFUSE: Filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola agreeing to pay $31.5 million--a wine industry record--for the Cohn Vineyard in Napa Valley, an area renowned as one of the best locations to grow Cabernet in the world.

ALL ABOUT PEDRO: Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's Talk to Her, a movie about a man's relationship with a comatose woman, winning Best Director and Best Film Saturday night at the European Film Awards.

BRANCHING OUT: Jon Stewart signing a deal to write and executive-produce an NBC sitcom starring fellow Daily Show writer-actor Stephen Colbert. The untitled series will supposedly draw from Colbert's experiences growing up in South Carolina and is slated to debut next season.

TEAMING UP: Jude Law and Gwyneth Paltrow pairing on the big-budget sci-fi thriller The World of Tomorrow, described as "retro sci-fi" in the vein of Raiders of the Lost Ark set at the turn of the 20th century.

JAWS IN CHINA: Entertainment giant Vivendi Universal signing an agreement this weekend to build a Universal Studios theme park in Shanghai in an attempt to steal the thunder of the Walt Disney Company, which has its own ambitions for a theme park on the mainland.

HOLLYWOOD VERSUS HACKERS: Prosecutors in Norway Monday putting on trial hacker Jon Lech Johansen for writing and distributing a program that unlocked copy-protected DVDs. The complaint was brought by the Motion Picture Association of America hoping to clamp down on computer piracy. Johansen wrote the program when he was 15.