The news happens all the time, even while you're catching up on beauty sleep. Check out this brief rundown to bring you up to speed this morning -- a quick heads up from your friends at MTV News.

Here's what we've got:

As Chris Brown gets older, [article id="1559602"]he's "only getting better," producer Bryan-Michael Cox told us[/article] -- and Brown is inspiring others to up their own games. "Chris is very competitive and his competitive sprit motivates the people around him," Cox said. "His competitive spirit motivated me to make nine records in seven days." ...

"300" director Zack Snyder is worried about the state of horror films, but he's found "one glimmer of hope." [article id="1559511"]In a guest column for MTV News[/article], Snyder explains why he's picked DVD new release "Pan's Labyrinth" -- not "the steaming tripe Hollywood has been feeding us lately" -- as the scariest film of 2006. ...

And new music by Linkin Park, Wilco, Rick James, Rufus Wainwright and Marco Polo hits stores today. [article id="1559522"]Check out our full rundown of the week's new releases right here[/article].

Quote of the Day: "If Melinda doesn't win, it ain't fair." -- [article id="1559533"]"American Idol" veteran Anthony Fedorov[/article]

Here's what everyone else is talking about:

Britney Spears is bringing her [article id="1558527"]not-so-secret show[/article] to Florida, PerezHilton.com reports. The M+Ms are scheduled to play Saturday at Orlando's House of Blues and Sunday at Miami Beach's Mansion. ...

Maxim isn't exactly going out on a limb with their "Hot 100" top three: Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Alba and Scarlett Johannson. Lohan tops the eighth-annual list because "no other star in the world causes more of a stir in the public eye," according to Editor in Chief Jimmy Jellinek. MTV Movie Awards host Sarah Silverman doesn't make the top 10 (she's #29), but she does score the June issue's cover. ...

People reports that Paris Hilton is too "distraught" over her recent sentencing to testify next week in a $10 million libel suit filed against her by Zeta Graff, according to a psychiatrist's statement filed with the court on Monday. Graff has accused Hilton of spreading lies about her and common ex Paris Latsis. ...

[article id="1458787"]"You Hear It First" veterans the Exies[/article] have hitched a ride on the Hilton hype machine, revealing themselves as the minds behind the "Jail Paris Hilton" petition -- and ending up on TMZ.com for their efforts. ...

"The Un-Dead," a new Dracula film, will begin shooting in Eastern Europe later this year. The movie is based on a novel co-written by Dacre Stoker, the grandnephew of Dracula creator Bram Stoker, Variety reports. ...

"Spider-Man 3" took a bigger fall over its second weekend than estimated, Variety reports. The initial $60 million figure announced Sunday was close to $2 million off, according to data released late Monday. Spidey really racked up $58.1 million from Friday through Sunday. ...

Peter Jackson and Steven Spielberg are joining forces for a trio of "Tintin" films, Variety reports. The adventures, based on a series of Belgian comic books, will be adapted with digital 3-D animation using performance-capture technology. ... In other adaptation news, the Wayans brothers' "Super Bad James Dynomite" comic is coming to the big screen starring Marlon Wayans. ...

All creeped out by rumors that the love scene in Marilyn Manson's "Heart-Shaped Glasses" was all real? Well you can chase that thought from your mind, according to New York Daily News' "Rush & Molloy." The gossip column reports that they checked in with co-star Evan Rachel Wood's rep, who denies the report that the real couple got too real in front of the camera. "It's called acting." ...

Sylvester Stallone pleaded guilty Tuesday (May 15) to bringing human-growth hormone into Australia, where it is a banned substance. Reuters reports that the actor apologized, calling the incident a "strange and truly unfortunate occurrence," and explained that he did not know that HGH was illegal in Australia. Stallone will be sentenced Monday. ...

An arrest warrant filed against Richard Gere in India has been suspended ... temporarily, The Associated Press reports. India's Supreme Court has halted all legal proceedings against Gere and actress Shilpa Shetty, who were accused of violating public decency laws with an onstage kiss at an event in New Delhi last month, until the case's jurisdiction is determined. ...

And officials from eight states -- Connecticut, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Pennsylvania -- asked MySpace on Monday to turn over information on registered sex offenders using the site, AP reports. Software that aims to identify and remove sex offenders from the site was launched early this month, MySpace said in a statement.