DR. PEPPER SWEETENS THE DEAL FOR ROSE

Before today, Dr. Pepper cola and Axl Rose, former lead singer of hair metal giants Guns N’ Roses, had only one thing in common: People either love them or hate them.

That changed yesterday when the soft drink company offered a free can of Dr. Pepper to every American — except for guitarists Slash and Buckethead, both of whom were excommunicated from Guns N’ Roses — if Mr. Rose finally releases his 15-years-in-the-making record, “Chinese Democracy,” before the end of the calendar year. Why Mr. Rose would care has yet to be determined.

“It took a little patience to perfect Dr. Pepper’s special mix of 23 ingredients, which our fans have come to know and love,” Dr. Pepper’s director of marketing, Jaxie Alt, said in a statement. “So we completely understand and empathize with Axl’s quest for perfection — for something more than the average album.”

“Chinese Democracy” was most recently scheduled for release on March 6, 2007, but promptly vanished from the schedule without a new date being set. It will be the first Guns N’ Roses album since the 1993 covers collection “The Spaghetti Incident.” In the ensuing years, the group — of which Mr. Rose is the sole original member — has burned through a reported $13 million in recording expenses.

Staff Reporter of the Sun

NATIONAL GALLERY: NO NEW ART

Nicholas Penny, the new director of London’s National Gallery, signaled that he will abandon efforts by his predecessor to display works of modern and contemporary art.

The gallery’s previous director, Charles Saumarez Smith, had disputed the 1900 cutoff date for the art it was allowed to show, and sought to offer more modern and contemporary works. Those works are commonly found at Tate Modern or Tate Britain.

“We do not want to concern ourselves seriously with any art of the 20th or 21st century without discussing the matter with our colleagues at Tate Modern or Tate Britain,” Mr. Penny said at a press breakfast. “I hope relations with Tate will be very good.”

Bloomberg News

SMOKING GUN CALLS L.A. TIMES ON TUPAC STORY

The Los Angeles Times will conduct an internal investigation concerning the authenticity of documents used in a story that implicated associates of Sean “Diddy” Combs in a 1994 assault on Tupac Shakur, the editor of the newspaper said Wednesday.

In a story posted on the newspaper’s Web site, Editor Russ Stanton said he ordered the review after the editor of the Web site the Smoking Gun told the newspaper he had reason to doubt the validity of the FBI records that were supposed to back up the story.

The Times has said its March 17 story was based on FBI records, interviews with people at the scene of the 1994 shooting, and statements to the FBI by an informant. None of the sources was named.

The Smoking Gun said the documents seemed phony because they appeared to be written on a typewriter instead of a computer, included blacked-out sections not typically found in such documents, and other reasons. The Smoking Gun story claims the documents were created by a convicted con man and music fan with a history of exaggerating his place in the rap music world.

The March 17 story and related features on latimes.com attracted nearly 1 million hits — more readers than any other story on latimes.com this year, the newspaper said.

Associated Press

A BIG HIRE FOR ART COLOGNE

Art Cologne has appointed Los Angeles gallery owner Daniel Hug to be its new director, part of a drive to boost attendance and win back top collectors and dealers.

Mr. Hug succeeds Gerard Goodrow, who left in January under pressure from Cologne dealers concerned about the future of the 40-year-old fair. Art Cologne drew just 60,000 visitors last year, 10,000 fewer than in 2006. In February, the fair announced it was scrapping a sister event on the Spanish island of Majorca.

Art Cologne is losing exhibitors and collectors to competing events in London, Basel, Berlin, and Miami. In November, a group of Cologne art dealers including Christian Nagel, Monika Sprueth, and Daniel Buchholz wrote an open letter complaining about Art Cologne’s “bitter loss of status.” The letter was one of the reasons for Mr. Goodrow’s departure.

Bloomberg News