Lil' Kim's jewels 'stolen'

Hip-hop performer and producer Lil' Kim has said £150,000 worth of her jewellery was stolen at New York's JFK airport.

The singer, who is known for flaunting her elaborate collection of trinkets, said the alleged theft happened on the way to Los Angeles to attend an awards ceremony.

Lil' Kim - real name Kimberly Jones - is up for best female hip-hop artist at the Black Entertainment TV Awards.

Her jewellery bag was checked in to the plane's luggage hold by mistake and items were missing when it was retrieved.

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Scott Thomas to make radio acting debut

Film actress Kristin Scott Thomas is to make her radio debut in a play on BBC Radio 4, it has been announced.

Scott Thomas, who starred in Four Weddings And A Funeral and won an Oscar nomination for The English Patient, will narrate Virginia Woolf's Night And Day.

The 43-year-old was chosen for her "quintessentially English voice".

Scott Thomas, who lives in Paris, revealed on Desert Island Discs that she always wanted to do a radio play - but had never been asked.

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Caricaturist honoured by celebrities

Stars including Whoopi Goldberg, Nathan Lane and Arthur Miller have attended a memorial service for caricaturist Al Hirschfeld.

Broadway's Martin Beck theatre was re-named the Al Hirschfield theatre at the service on Monday.

The artist, who died at the age of 99 in January, drew cartoons of showbiz figures for nearly 70 years and had much of his work published in the New York Times.

"People in a Hirschfeld drawing all shared the one quality of energetic joy in life that they all wished they had in reality," playwright Miller said. "Looking at a Hirschfeld drawing of yourself is the best thing for tired blood."

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Former roadie 'to sue Blink-182'

A former roadie for pop-punk band Blink-182 is seeking recognition for coming up with the album title Take Off Your Pants and Jacket, it has been reported.

Larry Palm claims the band asked him for a title suggestion and he came up with the one they used for their 2001 album, according to Rolling Stone magazine.

Mr Palm filed a suit against the group in Los Angeles on Thursday for breach of oral and/or implied contract, said the magazine.

He is reported to say that Blink-182 refused to pay him after an oral agreement that the band would give him "a reasonable value" for use of the phrase.

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Exorcist creators sue Warner Brothers

The author of The Exorcist and the director of the 1973 movie of the same name filed a lawsuit on Friday against film distributor Warner Brothers, saying the studio did not do enough to make them money.

Superior Court Judge Laurie Zelon said in a tentative ruling prior to Thursday's hearing that writer William Peter Blatty and director Willam Friedkin's could not claim for breach of fiduciary duty.

However, she ruled that they could claim for breach of contract and misrepresented accounting at a trial set for 14 July.

Warner says it has no financial responsibility to both men, who were hired to perform a service and were paid for that service. "They received a specified percentage of the net profits," said the company's lawyer David L. Burg.

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Singer Vic Taylor dies

Vic Taylor, who sang with Jamaican bands Tommy McCook and the Skatalites and Byron Lee and the Dragonaires, has died at the age of 56.

The New York-based singer died of a heart attack at Mercy Medical Centre on Long Island on Monday, his daughter Vanessa Taylor said.

Taylor's solo hits included Heartaches and For Your Precious Love.

He leaves three daughters, a son and two grandchildren.