Morning Report : ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT REPORTS FROM THE TIMES, NEWS SERVICES AND THE NATION’S PRESS.

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

Wind Puffed From His Sails: Sean “Puffy” Combs may claim to be “Public Enemy No. 1” in his new song, but the rapper-entrepreneur takes a surprising back seat to teen newcomer Christina Aguilera on the nation’s new pop charts. After months of hype for Combs’ new Puff Daddy album, “Forever” debuted with tepid first-week sales of 205,000 (half of what some retailers had hoped it would sell) and lands at No. 2. The top spot belongs to 18-year-old Aguilera, whose self-titled album also debuted this week and features the hit single “Genie in a Bottle.” On the singles chart, LFO holds on to No. 1 with “Summer Girls” and Garth Brooks (in his role as faux pop singer Chris Gaines) jumps to No. 2 with “Lost in You.”

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‘New’ Mozart Work?: A Canadian musicologist has discovered what appears to be a long-lost work by Mozart. Dorothea Link found the passage, scored for strings and soprano, in Vienna’s Austrian National Library. The 35 bars precede the aria “Vado, ma dove?,” which Link believes Mozart wrote for singer Luisa Villeneuve in 1789. Although the new material is not in Mozart’s own hand, signs point almost conclusively to his authorship, Mozart experts say.

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Second Tenor Settles: Luciano Pavarotti has paid a six-figure sum to settle a German tax evasion probe, prosecutors in Manheim, Germany, said. Last week, Pavarotti’s Three Tenors partner Placido Domingo was also dropped from the probe after he agreed to pay an undisclosed sum. A case against the third tenor, Jose Carreras, remains open, prosecutors said. The investigation is in conjunction with a probe against German concert promoter Matthias Hoffmann, who was convicted in December of evading taxes on $8 million in income.

QUICK TAKES

ABC News’ Sam Donaldson is stepping down as the network’s lead White House correspondent. “Sam intends to leave the day-to-day coverage of the White House in the next couple of weeks, although he will still report from there on occasion,” an ABC News spokeswoman said. . . . Paula Zahn’s new Fox News Channel program, “The Edge With Paula Zahn,” will premiere Sept. 13 at 7 p.m., taking over the time slot vacated by “The Crier Report.” Also on Sept. 13, Shepard Smith will begin anchoring FNC’s evening newscast “The Fox Report,” which is currently anchored by Zahn. . . . A woman involved in the 1960s Selma civil rights movement has filed an $8-million suit against Disney’s TV division over the ABC movie “Selma, Lord, Selma,” contending it inaccurately portrayed her as a stereotypical “black Mammy” who mainly made religious utterances and sang spirituals. A Disney executive did not immediately return a call seeking comment on Amelia Boynton Robinson’s suit. . . . Amazon.com has posted on its Web site exclusive, never-before-seen footage shot for the hit movie “The Blair Witch Project.”