Britney Spears

Her singing was dominated by a backing track. Her moves were nothing special -- defined by much strutting and stripper-like shimmying, with the minimum amount of acrobatics to prove her mettle as a dance-pop queen. Her physical form, still beautiful, didn't take one's breath away the way it did when she was 17.

Entering his second hour on the witness stand, Britney Spears' father was the picture of resigned misery. His shoulders sagged like he was carrying buckets of cement. His suit jacket flapped open and his tie lay crookedly across his barrel chest. His eyes were puffy and cast down and his mouth drooped in the pronounced frown of a bulldog.

With her new "Circus" album landing in stores Tuesday as she turned 27, Britney Spears expanded her birthday festivities with the announcement of a full-scale 2009 tour, including a pair of Southland shows next April. "The Circus Starring Britney Spears" will open March 3 in New Orleans and will take her to more than two dozen cities in the U.S. and Canada through the end of April. Her Southern California stops will be April 16 at Staples Center and April 19 at the Honda Center in Anaheim.

Where there's smoke, there's . . . well, there's no Britney Spears. The 27-year-old pop star left the stage for about 30 minutes during a concert on Wednesday night in Vancouver, apparently because of smoke in the audience -- although no one has confirmed that tobacco was the culprit. As reported in the Vancouver Sun, Spears' concert was halted about 15 minutes into her performance, and an announcer admonished concertgoers to put out their cigarettes. Some audience members grew impatient while waiting for Spears and her troupe to return to the stage, the Sun reported.

Britney Spears was hospitalized as a Los Angeles court commissioner Friday barred her from visiting her two young sons. But it was the behavior of the paparazzi that was generating debate after a bizarre media swarm outside her hillside mansion. Spears is perhaps the most pursued celebrity in Hollywood. So when she allegedly refused to hand over one of her children at the end of a custody visit Thursday night, dozens of photographers were outside her door.

During Queen Christina of Sweden's more than 20-year reign, she converted to Catholicism, abdicated her throne and was rumored to have had love affairs with men and women. Christina's controversial nature is at the heart of playwright Howard Casner's "Queen Christina Goes Roman," opening this weekend at the Complex's East Theatre in Hollywood. But nothing is as it seems in this fictional account of the monarch's life.

As paparazzi become ever more competitive in their quest for the perfect tabloid photo, complaints about their tactics are intensifying. TMZ.com regularly places stationary video cameras in front of celebrity hot spots such as the Urth Caffe and the Ivy, streaming live on the Internet in hopes of catching the comings and goings of stars.

The plan to involuntarily commit Britney Spears for mental healthcare began with confidential conversations Monday. Representatives of the pop star told Los Angeles Police Department officials they believed Spears needed a psychiatric evaluation because of continuing erratic behavior. After extensive discussions about alternatives, the LAPD mapped a strategy for getting her to UCLA Medical Center amid an anticipated swarm of paparazzi.

Singer Britney Spears was released from a psychiatric ward at the UCLA Medical Center on Wednesday after nearly a week of treatment and later checked briefly into the Beverly Hills Hotel, trailed by a parade of paparazzi, authorities said. The release prompted an angry response from the performer's parents, Jamie and Lynne Spears, who issued a joint statement suggesting that her freedom posed a threat to her life.

Britney Spears is back in the studio and at work on a "brand-new album," according to a joint statement released by her manager, Larry Rudolph, and her label, Jive Records. "Britney Spears is spending her summer in the recording studio," the statement, released Tuesday, says. "She's working with a team of top-notch producers and songwriters. We're very excited about what she's achieved so far."