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A blast from Britney Spears' past is going away for a while.

Adnan Ghalib, the paparazzo who dated Spears at the height of her public meltdown two years ago, has been sentenced to 45 days in the slammer today stemming from a hit-and-run incident.

The 37-year-old shutterbug agreed to a plea deal to avoid deportation for running over a process server trying to deliver a restraining order on behalf of Spears' conservatorship. He ultimately wound up being permanently barred from further contact with the "Toxic" songbird.

Ghalib was immediately taken from the courtroom today to begin his jail time. After he gets out, he must complete 45 days of roadside trash pickup and 52 weeks of anger-management classes, as well as pay various fines and fees. And then he still has to deal with a civil suit from the run-in.

To paraphrase his former squeeze: Oops!

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Adnan's not the only one facing legal problems. Check out E! Online's Court Appearances photo gallery.

Twitter

Has Britney Spears gone to the dark side?

Early this morning, she papered her Twitter account with dark and twisty images of the Illuminati and wrote a pair of rather anti-Jesus Christ messages.

"I give myself to Lucifer every day for it to arrive as quickly as possible. Glory to Satan!" she writes. "I hope that the new world order will arrive as soon as possible! —Britney."

Obviously, the "Toxic" purveyor's account fell into the hands of yet another hacker.

In less than an hour, the creepy background gave way to promotional images of the star and the red was removed from her thumbnail pic. A while later, another, less suggestive message was posted.

"Britney's twitter account was just hacked," it read. "The situation has been resolved and we apologize for any offense the hacker's messages caused."

The star's MySpace account was compromised simultaneously.

At least the hackers didn't try to leave her for dead this time.

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Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

Why are Australian newspapers trying to rain on Britney Spears' parade circus?

Last weekend, Oz's Daily Telegraph published a story about the pop tart's recent concerts, accusing her of lip-syncing and claiming fans were unhappy and called her boring.

The show's promoter said the star was aware of the reviews and "extremely upset by it." Now, all these days later, she's "upset" enough to release an official comment.

"I hear there is a lot of controversy in the media about my show," she said in a statement to the Agence France Presse. "Some reporters have said they love it and some don't. I came to Australia for my fans!"

Those priorities sound right on point, except for the fact that her lip service neglects to address the actual issue at hand: the lip-syncing.

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Get a load of Britney Spears' Circus Spectacular right here.

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

Britney Spears brought the Circus to town, but probably not the way she was hoping to.

Fans have been complaining about the quality of the pop tart's performance Down Under, even walking out of her show in Perth, according to reports in the Australian media.

The cause? Disgruntled concertgoers apparently accused the pop tart of lip-syncing during the dance numbers, as well as giving a lackluster performance overall, according to the Daily Telegraph.

One story even claims she was "boring."

John Mayer, who is in Australia promoting his album, joined the pile-on Sunday night, tweeting, "If you're shocked that Britney was lip-syncing at her concert and want your money back, life may continue to be hard for you." 

And what were Brit's people saying? Read on...

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For those of you needing more than the few seconds of the "3" video that Britney Spears teased us with yesterday, you're in luck, as the whole darn thing now makes its debut.

And of course, given the song's ménage à trois theme, it's really no surprise to see the pop princess bringing the sexy here, complete with lacy outfits, revealing leotards and a whole lot of gyrating with her multiple backup dancers.

Much like those few seconds from yesterday.

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Sometimes singers don't just get sexy, they also get animated.

OK, we're keeping this short, as it doesn't seem right to make this text any longer to read than the length of the preview clip that Britney Spears has just released for her "3" video debuting Friday. 'Nuff said.

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Listen to the whole song, sans the full video of course, here!

Mike/Fame Pictures

Hitting Britney Spears one more time paid off.

The chart topper has settled a lawsuit brought against her by a paparazzo whose foot she ran over with her car outside a Beverly Hills medical building in 2007 (not to be confused with the feet she squished that year belonging to a sheriff's deputy and a different shutterbug), according to paperwork filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court.

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but Ricardo Mendoza, who was pounding the pavement when the accident occurred, had been seeking nearly $230,000 in damages and medical expenses.

Mendoza sued in May for an unspecified amount, then followed up with an amended complaint last month.

Perhaps it was the big round zeros that finally caught Britney's lawyers' attention.

Attorney Benjamin C. Alvarez's rebuttal papers had described Mendoza as a "self-serving, profit-hungry paparazzo" who "positioned and placed himself in the roadway in front of Ms. Spears' vehicle."

We're glad Britney's apparent foot fetish is behind her. It's so much more fun critiquing her sartorial choices in our Fashion Spotlight.

Courtesy Jive Records

Britney Spears has taken "3" to 1.

The pop tart's ode to ménage à trois has hit the public's sweet spot, coming in atop the Billboard singles charts and rather aptly giving Brit-Brit her third career No. 1.

"I want to thank my fans for making '3' the No. 1 song on the Billboard Hot 100," she said.

Not to mention marking the first time in three years (can you spot the theme forming here?) that an artist has debuted in—and not been forced to make the slow climb into—the top spot. Clearly, when it comes to record busting, she doesn't do small: Spears is now also the first non-American Idol winner to reach the chart summit since 1998. (We hope you're proud of yourselves, Taylor Hicks fans.)

 "I am truly blessed with the greatest fans in the world, and I am so happy y'all love it because I do this all for you," Spears said. "I can't wait till you see the video."

The wait won't be long. Taking into consideration both her fans' buying power and her time-tested pop star formula, Spears knows that a successful Britney is a raunchy Britney. And judging by the steamy threesome-happy stills released this week, this is going to be one successful video.

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Britney's back, but has her sartorial sense followed suit? Judge for yourself in our Fashion Spotlight: Britney Spears gallery.

Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

At least when U.S. tabloids make up exclusive cover stories, they have the good sense not to include direct and easily traceable quotes from the stars themselves. Not so the British and French rags.

The U.K.'s More! magazine has become the latest glossy-paged publication to eat crow and issue an apology, this time to Britney Spears over a June cover story billed as an exclusive one-on-one conversation with the singer.

Instead, the "interview" was more like a greatest-hits collection of every publicly issued statement Spears had delivered over the past year, with such banal revelations as "I'm just not that into going out late at night or going to clubs anymore" and "There are so many things that I am grateful for."

Hardly seems worth the effort, really. Unfortunately, More! couldn't open the door of apology without throwing someone out the window...

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Courtesy Jive Records

We're happy Britney Spears is getting so much quality time with her sons, but she may want to scale back the Sesame Street marathons. And not just because her new, slightly phoned-in single, "3," could very well have been brought to us by the letters W, T and F.

The only new track to appear on her forthcoming compilation, The Singles Collection, the fun-with-numbers song—which debuted this morning on New York's Z100—features such thought-provoking lyrics as "everybody loves counting," "come out and play," and, oh yes, the ad nauseam repetition of "1, 2, 3."

Of course, the ménage à trois-promoting (and, oddly enough, Peter, Paul and Mary-referencing) tune isn't for the Big Bird set. Unless they too think that "living in sin is the new thing."

And it being a Britney track, we're well aware it's also not for the lyric-dissecting set. It's for the dance-floor set. And, since it happens to have been produced by Max Martin, the same guy responsible for Spears' career-launching "…Baby One More Time," we'd say it has a pretty good shot at becoming a hit.

What do you say?

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