Running with the devils

Van Halen jumped into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame yesterday, along with Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five -- the first rap act to be inducted into the hall -- and R.E.M., the Ronettes, and Patti Smith.

A panel of 600 industry figures selected the five acts to be inducted at the annual ceremony on March 12 in New York. To be eligible, artists must have issued a first single or album at least 25 years before nomination.

"R.E.M. and myself in particular are really terrible at looking backward," R.E.M.'s lead singer, Michael Stipe, said in an interview from London. "I'm just really honored that they thought of us."

Van Halen was the 1980s hard rock quartet led by guitarist Eddie Van Halen, outrageous lead vocalist David Lee Roth, and later, Sammy Hagar, that put out such hits as "Jump," "Running With the Devil," and "Dreams." Eddie Van Halen stood out with his blistering guitar solos; his feud with Roth led to Hagar's run with the band, which produced hits into the '90s.

R.E.M. (Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Stipe) was the quintessential indie rock band until breaking through to mass success in the early 1990s, with songs like "Losing My Religion." The unique sound of their first album, 1983's "Murmur," was the beginning of the multiplatinum band's emergence as leader of the US alternative scene of the '80s and '90s.

Punk rock poet Smith, known as the Godmother of Punk, came out of lower Manhattan in the early 1970s to create a blend of cerebral, raggedly emotional music.

Stipe said he got a congratulatory call yesterday from Smith, a good friend.

Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five (Kid Creole, Cowboy, Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel, Mr. Ness, Raheim) led the most innovative act in hip-hop's formative era in the late 1970s, and the song "The Message" was like a letter from urban America. Grandmaster Flash was considered a pioneer in many DJ techniques.

With beehive hairdos and dark eyeliner, the 1960s girl group the Ronettes (Estelle Bennett, Ronnie Spector, Nedra Talley) achieved their greatest success with producer Phil Spector.

The Hall will also honor Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Rosie O'Donnell says Donald Trump is a man obsessed. "It's the way I look. He can't resist. I love when people say you're fat like you don't know," O'Donnell joked yesterday on ABC's "The View." ". . .It's always the first comment of someone who disagrees with you if you happen to be on the plus side." Trump has been hurling insults at O'Donnell since she criticized his news conference with Miss USA Tara Conner last month. "Boy, did I hit a nerve with that guy," O'Donnell said yesterday, calling Trump a "comb-over bunny." Trump, in a statement, said O'Donnell had gotten it wrong. "I used the word 'slob,' I used the word 'degenerate,' and I used the words 'not very smart.' The word 'fat' played a very small role, if any, in my description of her," he said.

Thirteen months after being seriously wounded by a roadside bomb in Iraq, ABC News journalist Bob Woodruff will tell his story in a prime-time special on Feb. 27. It is expected to be Woodruff's first on-camera appearance since his injuries . Woodruff will interview eyewitnesses to the explosion and the medical team that saved his life on Jan. 29, 2006, ABC said. The special, tentatively titled "To Iraq and Back: Bob Woodruff Reports," will also focus on the military's medical recovery teams and how they are helping injured soldiers and their families.

Angelina Jolie has said she was shocked by attacks on Madonna over her adoption of a Malawian boy, but said she would only adopt a child from a country where the rules on adoption are clearly defined. Madonna's adoption of the boy last year led some rights groups in Malawi to question whether the American pop star had used her celebrity to bypass laws governing the adoption of Malawians by foreigners -- an argument denied by her lawyers. "I was horrified by the attacks against her," Jolie, who has two adopted children herself, told French magazine Gala. But Jolie added that she would have steered clear of adoption from a country like Malawi. "Madonna knew the situation in Malawi. . . . In this country, there is not really a legal framework for adopting. Personally, I prefer staying on the right side of the law. I would never bring back a child from a country where adoption is illegal." Yesterday, Jolie said in a statement issued in New York: "The article included many falsehoods. I said many positive things that were omitted. "

More wisdom from Drew Barrymore

'Laugh, laugh, laugh. Life is like high school and it's small and everybody talks about everybody, so just laugh . . .' the actress being her typically dippy self in the February issue of Harper's Bazaar magazine.

FROM WIRE REPORTS