Brit TV series to follow Osbourne son in L.A.

LONDON -- Jack Osbourne will give a "Brit's eye view" of Los Angeles in a new television series, Britain's Channel 4 announced.

The 17-year-old son of heavy-metal star Ozzy Osbourne will host "Union Jack," which is scheduled to air in November. The program will follow Osbourne to parties, premieres and celebrity haunts and feature his opinions on the latest movies and music.

The show would "give a fresh take on all things cool and strange in Hollywood," Channel 4 said Friday.

Osbourne -- along with sister Kelly; mother, Sharon; and father, Ozzy -- became a star through the MTV reality series "The Osbournes," which follows the profanity-filled proceedings at the British-born rocker's Los Angeles home.

Jazz musician trades instruments for award

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. -- Swing jazz bandleader Artie Shaw traded two of his clarinets with the Smithsonian Institution for a lifetime achievement award.

Shaw's clarinets, including one he used to play the Cole Porter hit "Begin the Beguine," will be on display in April at the Museum of American History in Washington, alongside other jazz treasures including Dizzy Gillespie's angled trumpet and Ella Fitzgerald's red dress.

In a ceremony on Thursday, the 93-year-old Shaw handed over the instruments and accepted the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal for lifelong "contributions to American culture and music."

The medal inscription praises Shaw's "superb technical ability and keen musical intelligence" and calls him "a vigorous spokesman for racial equality in jazz."

John Hasse, the Smithsonian museum's American music curator, called Shaw "one of the giants of jazz, a singular man of extraordinary intellect and a legendary and great American."

Fuller continues her magazine renovation

NEW YORK -- Bonnie Fuller made her latest move to make over Star magazine, hiring Jared Paul Stern, a gossip reporter and columnist at the New York Post, to be Star's executive editor.

Fuller is still looking for a top editor to take over Star, which she is remaking from a supermarket tabloid into a mainstream glossy magazine to compete with People and Us Weekly, where she was the top editor until she left in June.

Stern, who had been approached about working at Star before Fuller arrived, said the goal is to raise Star's profile among readers and to differentiate it more from other tabloids.

At the Post, Stern contributed to the newspaper's widely read Page Six column of celebrity gossip. He also wrote several columns for the paper, including "Night Crawler" and "Fashion Buzz."

His appointment was announced Thursday.

Remaking Star is one of Fuller's top priorities in her new role as editorial director at American Media Inc., the Florida-based publisher of several major tabloids including The National Enquirer and Globe. She has editorial oversight of 14 magazines there.

During her nearly 18-month stint at Us Weekly, which is jointly owned by Walt Disney Co. and Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, Fuller revamped the magazine and turned it into a newsstand hit, boosting single-copy sales by more than 50 percent.

Stallone security guard gets rough with journalist

VENICE, Italy -- A security guard protecting Sylvester Stallone roughed up an Italian journalist covering the Venice Film Festival Friday after the reporter tried to interview the muscular star.

A representative of Stallone, who was in Venice to promote "Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over," said the bodyguard had been unnecessarily rough and added that the actor had apologized to journalist Tonino Pinto of RAI state television.

Pinto, meanwhile, complained angrily about the matter.

"While I was trying to have a few words with the actor along with my colleagues, there was a bodyguard who was pushing at me with a finger in my ribs. At the end of the interview, I asked for an explanation from the man and he responded by beating me up," the ANSA news agency reported Pinto as saying.

The journalist went to the hospital, where he was treated for bruises.

Liverpool officials pay tribute to 9-11 victims

NEW YORK -- A delegation from John Lennon's hometown presented city officials and Yoko Ono, Lennon's widow, with a resolution and other memorials honoring emergency workers killed in the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks.

Ron Gould, lord mayor of Liverpool, England, presented a Freedom Scroll to honor police, fire and emergency workers killed in the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.

"We will never forget the selfless bravery from New York's emergency services," Gould said Thursday at the dedication, held at the "Imagine" mosaic in Strawberry Fields, the area of Central Park dedicated to Lennon.

The Freedom Scroll, the highest honor in Liverpool, is awarded to those who display courage, strength and kindness and dedicate their lives to service.

Gould described Lennon as "one of Liverpool's most celebrated sons who made New York his adopted home." The former Beatle was shot to death in 1980 by a deranged fan outside his Manhattan apartment near Central Park.

Ono, who still lives in the Dakota apartment building, called Liverpool "a city that gives incredible inspiration and good energy to the whole world."

Liverpool-area firefighters also presented a book of condolences from more than 1,500 of its fire, police and emergency workers; one Liverpool fire station donated $7,668 to a New York Fire Department scholarship fund.

The city of Liverpool also dedicated a Central Park bench with a plaque honoring Sept. 11 victims.

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NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Janis Ian, whose songs include "Society's Child" and "At Seventeen," married her partner, Patricia Snyder, in a ceremony at city hall in Toronto.

Ian, who lives in Nashville, wed Snyder, a criminal defense lawyer, on Wednesday, said publicist Tamara Saviano. Ian's Web site quoted Snyder as saying: "After 14 years, it's about time."

The couple wed in Toronto because Ontario is one of two Canadian provinces that legalized homosexual marriage under recent court rulings. The other province is British Columbia.

Ian's "Society's Child," a song of interracial love, was released when she was 15. She won a Grammy Award in 1976 for best female pop vocal performance for "At Seventeen."

The 52-year-old singer will release "Janis Ian Live: Working Without a Net" on Oct. 7, and said she plans to release her first studio album in four years in early 2004.

The couple planned to honeymoon at "Torcon 3," the Worldcon science fiction convention being held in Toronto, said Ian's Web site.

"I think the idea of spending my wedding week with a group of geeks masquerading as giant lobsters and 'Star Trek' characters is perfectly in character with my life with Janis," Snyder was quoted on the Web site.

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On the Net:

http://www.janisian.com/

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TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -- Interlochen Center for the Arts has filed a lawsuit against Tori Amos and her California-based manager, seeking to recoup a $40,000 deposit for a concert that never took place.

Interlochen officials canceled the Aug. 19 performance because of unresolved concerns over the terms of the singer's contract, the Traverse City Record-Eagle reported Thursday.

The lawsuit describes deadlocked negotiations over the amount to have been spent on catering, the number of "comp" tickets requested by Amos and her demand that up to three "awareness groups" be allowed to set up on the Interlochen campus during her concert.

Amos, 40, has been touring with Ben Folds on her "Lottapianos Tour." Her albums include "Little Earthquakes," "Under the Pink" and "Scarlet's Walk."

Interlochen called off the concert just days before it was to have taken place because Creative Artists Agency of Beverly Hills, Calif., didn't respond to an amended contract, said Ronald Sondee, the arts center's lawyer.

A representative for Amos at CAA didn't return a message from the Record-Eagle seeking comment.

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On the Net:

http://www.toriamos.com/

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ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. -- Greta Van Susteren is becoming a judge -- but she won't have to give up her TV gig.

Van Susteren, host of Fox News Channel's "On the Record," will serve as a judge in the Miss America pageant on Sept. 20, the pageant announced Thursday.

She'll help choose which of 51 women succeeds Miss America 2003 Erika Harold.

The seven-member panel also includes Capitol Record executive Fletcher Foster and Miss America 1994 Kimberly Aiken Cockerham.

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On the Net:

http://www.foxnews.com/ontherecord/

http://www.missamerica.org/