MP3.com News Breakers: Britney & Justin, Foxy, R. Kelly, Beck, Morrissey

Spears reportedly skips recording session; Brown going to Rikers; jury to see sex tape; new single on iTunes; Moz preps residencies.

If Britney Spears is going to make a comeback from a disastrous run of public embarrassments and missteps, she's probably going to have to do it without the help of ex-boyfriend Justin Timberlake and producer Timbaland. The New York Post reported today that Spears skipped a scheduled recording session for a planned duet with Timberlake at Timbaland's studio in Virginia Beach last month, a move that would have helped her comeback plans immensely.

The Post quoted a source as saying that Timberlake wrote the duet specifically for Spears, although they wouldn't have been together in the studio. "Timbaland set aside a week out of his crazy schedule to do this--and then, just before she was supposed to fly out, Britney abruptly canceled the session and refused to do the song," the source told the paper. "It's crazy. She's looking for a comeback, and this would have not only been a huge hit, but something she could have opened the MTV Video Awards with and really blown everyone away."

Pregnant Foxy Brown sent to jail

Foxy Brown has seemingly been in hot pursuit of the record for most arrests without serving jail time this side of Pete Doherty--until now. Following an arrest earlier this month where she allegedly hit her neighbor with a BlackBerry, and an arrest last week for giving false information to cops who pulled her over for blowing through a stop sign, Brown is on her way to Rikers Island.

In an unexpected twist, Brown revealed to the New York Post that she is three months' pregnant and is set to get married, although the terribly lucky groom was not revealed.

Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Melissa Jackson placed Brown in custody today for violating the terms of her probation. The recent arrests compounded the situation, as Brown--real name Inga Marchand--had already failed to attend court-ordered anger-management classes. She had also left the jurisdiction without permission by going to Florida, where she wound up arrested for assaulting a beauty shop staffer with hair glue and resisting an officer.

The rapper will remain behind bars until her next status hearing Sept. 7. At that point, the judge could decide to sentence Brown to a jail term up to the maximum she would have faced for attacking two manicurists at a Chelsea beauty salon in 2004.

But Brown copped a plea deal last October that spared her jail time and left her with three years' probation, anger-management classes, and random drug testing.

R. Kelly sex tape to be show in trial

A jury in Chicago is going to get a chance to view the infamous sex tape that has R. Kelly in a heap of trouble. Kelly--real name Robert Sylvester Kelly--is set to go on trial Sept. 17 on 14 counts of child pornography charges, and a judge confirmed this week that the jury will indeed be allowed to see a tape that allegedly shows Kelly having sex with, and urinating on, an underage girl.

The judge's rationale is that the girl denies she is the girl who appears on the tape, as does Kelly. But the judge said that he would rescind that decision if the prosecution calls the girl as a witness. The trial is set to begin more than five years after Kelly was first indicted with 21 counts of child pornography.

Earlier this month, Kelly began releasing chapters 13-22 of his ongoing Trapped in the Closet soap opera through IFC's Web site.

Beck releases new track on iTunes

The last we heard from Beck, he was parading a group of marionettes on tour. Now the hipster troubadour has released a new song called "Timebomb," which will be exclusive to iTunes for one week, and then available on other digital music services after Aug. 28.

The self-produced track features a dance beat, plenty of electro sounds, and Beck crooning in a sarcastic voice such lines as, "We got a red alert/We cut the power and we/Na na na na."

The song is Beck's first output since 2006's The Information, and appears to be his only planned release for the foreseeable future.

Moz lines up multishow tour stops

Forced to postpone a handful of summer dates in the US because of a serious viral infection, Morrissey is making up for it with a series of long-term residencies in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and NYC, as well as 10 other shows in various US cities.

Morrissey will play four shows at the Fillmore in San Francisco (9/23-27), five shows at Madison Square Garden in New York (10/22-28), and a whopping 10 shows at the Palladium in LA (10/1-13). He will kick off the tour Sept. 20 at El Foro in Tijuana, Mexico, and wrap it up Nov. 2 at Constitution Hall in Washington, DC. The trek also includes shows in Las Vegas; Santa Barbara; Salt Lake City; Waukegan, Ill.; Royal Oak, Mich.; Merriville, Ind.; Boston; and Baltimore.

In related news, former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr recently told the UK's Word magazine that he and Morrissey plan to collaborate on a long-in-the-works Smiths boxed set, to be released within 18 months.