FIRST LOOK: The News in Brief, June 9, 2006

VIEW ADIEU: Friday marks Meredith Vieira's swan song on The View, with Barbara Walters & co. recruiting guests like Kelsey Grammer and Joan Rivers to provide the send-off. Vieira heads for NBC's Today show in September.

SAY WHAT?!: "[I don't] need to do any more kid movies. The word kid makes you feel like a child. Someone I dated called me kid all the time. I hated it. I've been through more than some people have in lifetimes." --Lindsay Lohan in the new issue of Harper's Bazaar

BONDING WITH SIR SEAN: Sean Connery honored with the American Film Institute's Lifetime Achievement Award Thursday in a ceremony at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre. The onetime 007 was toasted and roasted by Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Harrison Ford, Andy Garcia and a kilt-wearing Mike Myers, who cracked that "men want to be him, women want him, and in my case I both want to be him and want him." Connery, who claims he has retired after doing that League of Extraordinary Gentlemen stinker, thanked his friends for "one hell of an evening."

TROUBLE ON WISTERIA LANE: Desperate Housewives vixen Nicollette Sheridan sued for breach of contract Thursday. Her former manager claims he helped land her career-reviving gig on the hit ABC series and now wants his due. Apparently, he wasn't able to make ends meet on residuals for such Sheridan non-classics as Raw Nerve and Dead Husbands.

TRAPPED IN THE COURTROOM: A Chicago judge granting permission for the press and the public to view a videotape in court that prosecutors claim shows R. Kelly having sex with an underage girl. The Trapped in the Closet singer has pleaded not guilty to 14 counts of child pornography.

EATING CROWE: The New York Post quoting Jack Marx, a reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald, as saying Russell Crowe wined and dined him, took him to a rugby match and ultimately manipulated him into writing a positive profile of the actor. Apparently feeling guilty, he wrote a follow-up piece admitting he fell for Crowe's charm act. We have one piece of advice: Watch out for flying phones, Jack.

MATERIAL DUDS: Madonna inking a deal with Sweden's H&M to provide her and her touring staff--band, dancers, roadies, assorted hangers-on--with their off-stage wardrobe during her current Confessions tour. (Jean-Paul Gaultier is handling her onstage apparel--or lack thereof.) We'll also soon be able to run out and get an H&M-made Madonna track suit to vogue around the gym in.

MAKING US PROUD: All the Idol-obsessed flocking to record stores next Tuesday to buy Taylor Hicks' debut single, "Do I Make You Proud," will be supporting more than Simon Cowell's retirement fund: 25 cents of every copy sold will go to the American Red Cross.

BUN IN THE OVEN: Per People, John O'Hurley and wife, Lisa, expecting their first child together, the actor announced Wednesday, in the apparent belief that somebody cares. Dude, your season of Dancing with the Stars was so last year.

SENATOR LATIFAH? In Washington D.C. to endorse a National Women's Confidence Day, Queen Latifah telling People she might one day get into politics. "Maybe I'll run for Senate," the rapper-actress said, while quickly adding, "I still have a few wild years to get out of the way first!"

FORGET THE OTHERS: Ruben Royce, the 21-year-old man accused of robbing Lost star Josh Holloway and his wife at gunpoint in their home last year, indicted by a grand jury Thursday. Bail was set at $1 million.

MEET THE FOCKER: Barbra Streisand announcing Thursday that she will embark on her first tour in 12 years, playing 20 U.S. concerts this fall. Proceeds will go to several of her pet causes, including education, the environment and women's health. Her most recent album, Guilty Pleasures, came out last fall.

SICK BAY: Country icon Loretta Lynn, 71, recovering at home a day after undergoing shoulder-replacement surgery in a Nashville hospital. The "Coal Miner's Daughter" singer injured her left shoulder Sunday.

CLEANING UP HIS ACT: Babyshambles frontman and Kate Moss ex Pete Doherty in a rehab clinic in Portugal, according to his lawyer, who told a London court the treatment was "going well."

MAKING BEYONCE'S BAND: Beyoncé Knowles crazy in need of an all-female band for her upcoming tour in support of her second solo album, B Day, due out on her birthday, Sept. 4. The former Destiny's Child chanteuse holding auditions Monday in Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Burbank, California and Weehawken, New Jersey. Finalists will be flown to New Orleans to audition personally for Knowles later in the week. The tour hits the road June 20.

STILL RAPPING: For a guy who continues to insist he's retired, Beyoncé's boyfriend, rapper-Def Jam overlord Jay-Z, acts otherwise. The hip-hopster takes the stage June 25 at New York's Radio City Music Hall to perform his legendary album, Reasonable Doubt, in its entirety in honor of its 10th anniversary.

NO LONGER ADDICTED: Singer and former MTV VJ Steve Isaacs and three former members of Jane's Addiction--guitarist Dave Navarro, drummer Stephen Perkins, and bassist Chris Chaney--playing a sold-out gig Wednesday night at the Roxy Theater in Los Angeles and announcing they're a "new band," calling themselves Panic Channel.

PUTTING ON THE BRAKES: Take Two Interactive settling with the Federal Trade Commission over allegations that it hid sexual content in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The company promised to allow the game to be rerated from mature to adult and to ensure future versions don't include the patch "Hot Coffee," which allowed viewers to download an oral sex scene.