NAMES AND FACES

B.I.G. Damages

A Nashville judge on Friday halted sales of the late Notorious B.I.G's breakthrough 1994 album "Ready to Die" after a jury decided the title song used part of an Ohio Players song without permission.

Finding against Bad Boy Entertainment and executive producer Sean "Diddy" Combs , a jury awarded $4.2 million in punitive and direct damages to two music companies that own rights to the Ohio Players' 1992 song "Singing in the Morning."

Diddy and company aren't ready to let the matter die, though. They said they plan to appeal the ruling.

In other Notorious news, Los Angeles authorities announced last week that a new team of detectives has been assigned to the rapper's unsolved murder. The 24-year-old rapper, born Christopher Wallace, was shot and killed March 9, 1997, after a party in Los Angeles. His relatives have alleged the shooting was orchestrated on behalf of Death Row Records chief Marion "Suge" Knight , an accusation Knight denies.

The Sinful Life?

"The Simple Life 4: Till Death Do Us Part," dropped by Fox and rescued by the E! cable network, might be getting simpler: Nicole Richie upset a Los Angeles family during taping of the cable show by asking an 11-year-old boy in graphic language if he thought she was attractive.

The boy was playing basketball last week in the driveway of his home. Richie, pushing a baby carriage, approached and questioned the boy about how she looked, using a profane word. Two camera operators and another crew taped the exchange.

Shot in the Castaic neighborhood of Los Angeles, the episode will air in the spring, a publicist for the show said. Richie and co-star Paris Hilton "are taking turns on their own as wife and mother in their own house," show publicist Chris Delhomme said. "The premise is fish out of water. These rich celebutantes in the environment they know little about. That's the comedy." Oof.

Robert Blake Gets Dramatic

Home, home on the range: That's where 1970s television icon Robert Blake works as a ranch hand and plans his career comeback. "I want to live," he told the Associated Press on Friday.

Acknowledging that the past year since his acquittal in the criminal trial for the killing of wife Bonny Lee Bakley has not been a happy one, the 72-year-old actor said he is working as "a stable boy" on a friend's ranch in Malibu.

In the first interview he's granted since a civil trial last fall found him liable for Bakley's death and ordered him to pay her family $30 million, Blake said he's broke and living on Social Security and his Screen Actors Guild pension. With his bankruptcy case pending, he said he needs permission to get a new car.

"Yesterday was the one-year anniversary of my acquittal" in the criminal trial, Blake said. "I've woken up some nights and wanted to drive till the car goes off a cliff. And an hour later, poetry is coming to me. I want to go act. I want to go teach. I want to dance."

When the AP probed further, the actor said: "I feel like I'm on location in a movie where you're always walking down a long hallway."

End Notes

· Starting this week, Ana Marie Cox , the writer formerly known as Wonkette , joins the mainstream media establishment as a regular contributor to Time. Her first essay for the magazine is "Lobbyists in Love."

· Chester Bennington of the rap-rock group Linkin Park is a new father. Bennington's wife, Talinda , gave birth in Los Angeles on Thursday to a 9-pound 3-ounce boy, Tyler Lee . Bennington's band shared a Grammy last month with rapper Jay-Z .

· Singing seductress Shakira was set to be honored last night with a likeness that would tower over her native Barranquilla, Colombia -- a steel statue by German sculptor Dieter Patt .

-- Compiled by Christian Hettinger from staff and wire reports