GOOD NEWS
NAS: Protest on Fox Marches On

Nas protested against Fox News' coverage of Barack Obama yesterday in New York City. Joining with activist groups ColorOfChange-dot-org and MoveOn-dot-org, Nas delivered more than 600-thousand petitions to the news organization's headquarters. The rapper said, "We're here to make a stand. Over 600-thousand people of every color across the country are demanding that Fox stop their racial attacks on the Obama family and on black Americans. We already know that Fox is not a news network -- they are a propaganda machine, but their racial attacks have gone way too far. Fox poisons this country every time they air racist propaganda and try to call it news." The network, which reportedly didn't accept the petitions, responded by saying, "Fox News believes in all protesters exercising their right to free speech including Nas who has an album to promote."

Last month, Fox News referred in a graphic to Michelle Obama as "Obama's baby mama."

Nas's Untitled is the nation's top-selling album. -- Elle Castro

GOOD NEWS
THE GAME: High on Wine -- Winehouse, That Is

The Game will do whatever it takes to get in the studio with Amy Winehouse -- even get high. According to London's Sun he says, "I really love Amy Winehouse. I wanna record with her one day -- hell yeah... To be in the studio with her would be an amazing experience. And I would do whatever drugs she was doing that day."

The Game's new disc, L-A-X, is due out August 26th. -- Elle Castro

CHART ACTION: Nas Ends Lil' Wayne's Reign

As expected, Nas's new Untitled disc is the nation's number-one album, selling 187-thousand copies its first week out, according to the latest SoundScan figures. That ends Lil' Wayne's four-week stint on top with Tha Carter Three, which now places at number-two. Mississippi rapper David Banner's The Greatest Story Ever Told debuts at number-eight on sales of 51-thousand copies, and Rihanna's Good Girl Gone Bad: Reloaded lands a couple of slots down at number-10. Usher's Here I Stand sits tight at number-18 for the second consecutive week. -- Elle Castro

GOOD NEWS
LUDACRIS: Gone All the Way Green

Ludacris, who stars in the environmental-themed competition series Battleground Earth, is going green in real life. He tells us, "I'm definitely working on getting solar panels in my home in Atlanta... I [also] just bought a Tahoe Hybrid G-M. So I have that for myself. And of course [I] started recycling also... These are some of the things I've just started implementing in my own life." Battleground Earth, starring Luda and rocker Tommy Lee, premieres August 3rd on the Planet Green cable network . -- Elle Castro

GOOD NEWS
DR. DRE: Detox on the Way

The wait for Dr. Dre's highly anticipated disc Detox is almost over. He hopes to release the album by the end of the year. The West Coast legend tells U-S-A Today, "I'm just now -- over the last couple of months -- starting to feel that it's going to be right and it's something I can be proud of, and everybody is going to love it. In a perfect world, I'm shooting for a November or December release... We have an entirely new thing going with the drums that's incredible, and we're still developing that." Guests on the set will include Nas, Jay-Z and Lil' Wayne.

Dre's new headphones, called Beats by Dr. Dre, will be in stores tomorrow. He teamed with Interscope head Jimmy Iovine and A-V company Monster to create the high-definition powered-isolation headphones. They'll be available exclusively at Best Buy and Apple stores for 350 dollars. -- Elle Castro

NOEL GOURDIN: Father Figure

Noel Gourdin learned early on that a good father figure isn't always the man who helped conceive you. He tells the Boston Globe, "My mom was in an abusive marriage and my biological dad denied me at birth. My stepdad took us all in. He didn't have to do that. He's my only father, and what I am as a man is what he made me. My pop worked nights and my mom worked days at a meat factory. But I had a childhood, which a lot of kids don't. My cousins and I rode bikes and played sports and were raised to be respectful." Gourdin's debut disc, After My Time, is in stores now. -- Jamila Daniel

50 CENT: Beefing With Taco Bell

Curtis Jackson filed a federal lawsuit against Taco Bell yesterday, claiming that the chain used his stage name, 50 Cent, without permission. As part of a promotional campaign called "Why Pay More?," the chain released a letter to the media in which it asked the rapper to change his name to 79, 89 or 99 Cent. According to the suit, "Without seeking or obtaining Jackson's authorization...Taco Bell made him the star and focus of its nation-wide advertising campaign...As Taco Bell intended, many customers believed that 50 Cent had agreed to endorse Taco Bell's products. Indeed, postings on numerous Internet 'blogs' castigated 50 Cent for 'selling out' by his apparent endorsement of Taco Bell." The chain defended its actions in a statement saying, "We made a good faith, charitable offer to 50 Cent to change his name to either 79, 89 or 99 Cent for one day by rapping his order at a Taco Bell, and we would have been very pleased to make the 10-thousand-dollar donation to the charity of his choice." 50 says not getting his permission is worth a whole lot more than that -- the suit asks for four-million-dollars in damages.

5o Cent plays an astronaut trainee in a new ad for Vitamin Water. The rapper joins country star Carrie Underwood, baseball player David Ortiz and football star Brian Urlacher in the commercial, in which Fif' T-K-O's a boxer in a sparring session. 50 Cent was a co-owner of Vitamin Water before Coca Cola purchased it last year. -- Elle Castro

NE-YO: Not Good on Guitar

Ne-Yo is at ease singing and songwriting, but taking guitar lessons was more of a challenge. He tells New York magazine, "They didn't tell me that learning to play the guitar hurts. Your fingers bleed and they cramp. I was like, 'This is not sexy. I do not like this.'" After two weeks of effort left him with callused hands, "that's when I gave up. I was like, 'Nah. I'm okay.' Playing guitar is not the hottest thing. And then when you shake a person's hand, you've got sandpaper hands. No, thank you."

Ne-Yo's Year of the Gentleman drops August 5th. -- Jamila Daniel

SOLANGE: Directorial Debut

Solange makes her directorial debut with the video for her new single, "Sandcastle Disco." She says of the abstract clip, "It's a living pop up book...each page folding over and zooming into the next. The colors are vivid. I used many references from the movie Across the Universe that are links in the treatment, and also the H-P commercials we've seen running with Jay-Z and Serena Williams." "Sandcastle Disco" is the second single off of Solange's sophomore release, Sol Angel and the Hadley Street Dreams, due August 26th. -- Jamila Daniel

ROUNDUP

Chris Brown will appear on the Disney Channel's The Suite Life of Zack and Cody on August 9th.

Pharrell Williams has inked a deal with Indian entertainment conglomerate Eros International.

John Legend will release his new disc, Evolver, in October. The lead single is "Green Light," featuring Andre 3000.

Ashantihas signed on to serve as one of the nine ambassadors to promote tourism in her hometown -- the NassauCounty section of Long Island, New York. The tourism campaign is pitching Nassau as "The Island Next Door" to the Big Apple.

Barack Obama will reportedly introduce Kanye West onstage at the Lollapalooza Festival, which takes place August 1st to the 3rd in Chicago.

So called "rap therapist" Black Le Vine has offered Eminem and rocker Kid Rock a million dollars to compete in a rap battle for a documentary titled Rap Therapy. The winner will receive a million dollars for a charity of their choice.

Nelly's Pimp Juice energy drink is now available in France and Sweden.

Donell Jones, Carl Thomas and Angie Stone are scheduled to perform at the I Am Woman Experience concert August 8th at the Coca-Cola Dome in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Today's Birthdays:

Anna Paquin

1982

She became the second-youngest Oscar winner ever when she won Best Supporting Actress for The Piano in 1994. More recently, she's played "Rogue" in the the X-Men movies and stars in the T-V series True Blood -- based on the Southern Vampire Mysteries books -- which premieres on H-B-O in September 2008. (Age: 26)

Stat Quo (Stanley Benton)

1979

(Age: 29)

Jennifer Lopez

1970

Singer-actress (Monster-in-Law, Shall We Dance, The Wedding Planner, Out of Sight, U Turn, Selena) (Age: 38)

Laura Leighton

1968

Actress (T-V's Melrose Place) (Age: 40)

Kristin Chenoweth

1968

Actress (The Pink Panther, Bewitched; T-V's The West Wing)-singer (Age: 40)

Kadeem Hardison

1965

Actor (The Sixth Man, T-V's A Different World) (Age: 43)

Barry Bonds

1964

Baseball star (Age: 44)

Karl "The Mailman" Malone

1963

Basketball star (Age: 45)

Karl Malone

1963

The two time N-B-A Most Valuable Player is second behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the game's most prolific point scorer and a shoo in for the Hall of Fame when he becomes eligible. (Age: 45)

Gus Van Sant

1952

Director (Age: 56)

Lynda Carter

1951

Actress (T-V's Wonder Woman) (Age: 57)

Michael Richards

1949

Actor (T-V's Seinfeld) (Age: 59)

John Whitehead Jr.

1948 -
2004

Half of McFadden and Whitehead ("Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now"), he was also a successful songwriter ("Backstabbers") for other artists. He was murdered by a gunman in Philadelphia on May 11th, 2004.

Robert Hays

1947

Actor (Airplane!) (Age: 61)

Walt Bellamy

1939

Former basketball great (Age: 69)

Monica Doby

She was a member of Brownstone.

Ann Bennett-Nesby

She's a member of The Sounds of Blackness and the grandmother of American Idol contestant Paris Bennett.

This Day In History:

2007

G-Unit rapper Tony Yayo rejects a plea offer of nine months in a New York jail in exchange for pleading guilty to slapping and punching the 14-year-old son of Jimmy "Henchman" Rosemond.

2007

Lindsay Lohan is arrested for the second time in a week in Santa Monica, California on suspicion of driving under the influence, driving with a suspended license and possession of cocaine, after she allegedly chases a car containing the mother of her just-fired assistant.

2007

Sean "Diddy" Combs is cleared of an assault charge stemming from an incident that occurred following the Oscars earlier in the year. An L-A real estate agent had accused Diddy of punching him in the face at a Hollywood after-party, but the District Attorney's office drops the charges due to insufficient evidence.

2006

Tom Cruise wins the rights to TomCruise-dot-com from a cyber-squatter who was using the domain name to sell stuff that had nothing to do with Cruise, his movies, his religion or his still-unseen daughter Suri.

2000

Farrah Franklin is fired from Destiny's Child only five months after being hired. The quartet permanently becomes a trio.

1999

Treach of Naughty by Nature marries Sandra "Pepa" Denton of Salt-n-Pepa.

1999

Will Smith hits number-one in Billboard with "Wild Wild West," the theme song to his movie of the same name.

1998

A gunman bursts into the Capitol in Washington, D-C and opens fire, killing two police officers. Russel Weston is later ruled incompetent to stand trial.

1986

Live Aid organizer Bob Geldof receives the distinguished M-B-E medal from Queen Elizabeth for his African famine relief efforts.

1984

Terry Bradshaw announces his retirement from pro football.

1978

Billy Martin is fired (for the first of three times) as manager of the New York Yankees.

1977

Pete Rose ties the National League's hitting streak record by safely reaching in his 37th straight game.

1969

An appeals court upholds Muhammad Ali's conviction for refusing the draft.

1969

After successfully landing on the moon, Apollo 11 returns to Earth.

1958

Ted Williams is fined 250-dollars for spitting at Boston Red Sox fans.

1938

Instant coffee is invented.

1937

The State of Alabama drops charges against five black men accused of raping two white women in the Scottsboro Case.

1919

Six people are killed in a race riot in Washington D-C.

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