FIRST LOOK: The News in Brief, June 3, 2003

INTO THE FRYER: According to her lawyer, Martha Stewart will plead innocent if federal prosecutors file criminal charges against the home-making guru stemming from her 2001 insider-trading scandal.

PASSING: Actor and screenwriter Richard Cusack, father of Hollywood stars John and Joan Cusack, died of pancreatic cancer Monday. He was 77. His credits include The Fugitive and My Bodyguard.

GET WELL: Linkin Park lead singer Chester Bennington hospitalized in Los Angeles since Friday with severe back and stomach pains. No word on the cause of his ailments. The band has canceled all European tour dates for this month.

GETTING VILLAINOUS? Tom Cruise in talks to star in director Michael Mann's Collateral as a contract killer who travels around Los Angeles conducting his business, Variety reports.

BUSTED: Slipknot bassist Paul Gray taken into custody on Sunday in Des Moines, Iowa, for possession of marijuana, cocaine and drug paraphernalia, as well as failing to obey a traffic signal, after running a red light and colliding with another car. An arraignment's set for June 10.

HE BELIEVES HE CAN LIE? Prosecutors accusing R. Kelly of deliberately misleading the judge supervising his child pornography case by requesting to travel this past weekend to New York to appear in a concert when he wasn't on the bill, the Chicago Sun Times reports. The R&B star's lawyer said Kelly was waiting to get approval before signing on.

IN THE CLEAR: California's supreme court ruling on Monday that DC Comics' albino villains Johnny and Edgar Autumn may have been inspired by musicians Johnny and Edgar Winter, but the publisher did not violate the Winters' publicity rights. The Winter brothers claimed the characters illegally exploited their images.

HEADED FOR THE SLAMMER: Rap producer and convicted drug lord Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff, of Murder Inc. Records, sentenced to three years in prison in Maryland for illegally possessing a handgun.

BACK ON THE HOLIDAY ROAD: Production getting underway this month on National Lampoon's Cousin Eddie's Christmas Vacation, a made-for-TV family adventure starring Randy Quaid and scheduled to air on NBC during the holidays.

ON THE TUBE AGAIN: Willie Nelson's birthday special, Live & Kickin', which aired on the USA Network on Memorial Day snagging the highest ratings ever for a concert special in the history of basic cable, besting 1999's VH1 Divas Live Concert. A live album of the show hits stores on June 24.

WHO'S BAD? A Los Angeles judge announcing on Monday that she's mulling over possibly throwing out a $12 million lawsuit against Michael Jackson by a former top financial advisor, but also said she'd consider requests by the press to televise the trial if it goes forward as planned on June 18.

SARS CASUALTY: The Dixie Chicks postponing their June 12 Toronto show because of the city's most recent outbreak of SARS. The Texas trio also nixed Sunday's show in Cleveland after singer Natalie Maines felt ill.

SARS ADD: Disney's Toronto production of The Lion King announcing it will end its run on September 28 due largely to SARS, which has dramatically hurt attendance.

RERUN TIME: Reruns dominating the Nielsen ratings last week as CBS won averaging a meager 9 million viewers. A repeat of the Eye's CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, was the most watched show, snagging 13 million viewers, about half as many as normally watch during the season.

OUT OF THE RUNNING: CBS pulling out of bidding for the 2010 and 2012 Olympic Games because of its estimated $2 billion cost and the fact that CBS already airs NFL games and the NCAA basketball tournament.

STILL GOT THE BEAT: Chick Corea paid special tribute at this weekend's annual Puerto Rico jazz festival, where thousands of jazz fans turned up to honor the 61-year-old pianist-composer .

CURTAINS: Little Shop of Horrors, an $8 million revival of one of off-Broadway's biggest hits, forced to cancel its summer Broadway engagement because producers weren't happy with the quality of the show. It was set to open on August 14.

SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT: Legendary film director Ingmar Bergman honored Monday in Stockholm by the International Federation of Film Archives for his work in preserving and restoring aging color films.