While on her national tour, Alicia Keys was able to raise money for the Keep A Child Alive Foundation through her fans by launching the first-ever text message donation campaign in the U.S. During each stop on her As I Am tour, Keys showed clips from her documentary Alicia Keys In Africa and encouraged audience members to donate $5 via text message.

Thanks to this mobile giving campaign, close to 8,000 fans donated more than $40,000 to combat the African AIDS Pandemic.

"Texting can provide a way to give at that instant when we are moved, rather than later when life takes over," said Alicia Keys.

Meanwhile, Keys heads back to Europe and Asia for the next leg of her international tour to support As I Am. The album's hit single "No One" earned Keys two Grammy Awards at February's 50th anniversary ceremony.

The singer explained that the music on As I Am benefited from her time off caring for family and traveling before going into the recording studio. She explained: "That's how I felt when I came back. I felt rebellious, I felt strong, I felt self-determined, I felt liberated, I felt honest. I felt like, anybody ask me anything and I can tell you exactly what I mean, precisely. And I felt like I wasn't going to let anybody else but myself guide me to where I know I needed to be. And that's when I started making the music."

A British tabloid is reporting that Lindsay Lohan and singer Lily Allen are recording a song together. OK! magazine's U.K. edition reports that the hard-partying pair has been making visits to a Los Angeles studio recently, in hopes of putting together a track for Allen's sophomore album. The proposed song is an electro-pop number, called "Wherever You Go."

Lohan and Allen met in June when they were introduced by Lohan's rumored girlfriend, DJ Samantha Ronson. Ronson's brother Mark is reportedly Lily's favorite producer.

Lohan is currently working on her third studio album, Spirit in the Dark, which is expected to be released on November 4th. A fansite, LindsayLohanFan.org, recently revealed that Lohan's first single, "Playground" will hit radio in September.

Pharrell, Snoop Dogg and Ne-Yo will be featured on Lohan's disc.

Gym Class Heroes frontman Travis McCoy was arrested on assault charges Tuesday (July 1st) after a Vans Warped Tour performance in Maryland Heights, Missouri. According to RollingStone.com, the incident began during the group's performance with a racial slur from a man who called McCoy a "fu***** ignorant nigger" from the crowd. The comment upset McCoy, who asked the man, "What did you just call me?" Security jumped in to escort the man out of the show, but not before McCoy reached down and broke his microphone over the man's head.

McCoy immediately apologized for his reaction and said it wasn't representative of him as a person. "I'm sorry. But when someone calls you something that ignorant and that offensive, you have to bash their head in with a microphone."

After the band finished the set, police arrested McCoy, who was released the next day on $500 bond. His manager tried to clear up the incident, saying, "Somebody in the crowd was taunting Travis with racial slurs. Travis invited him onstage with the intent of calling him out in front of the crowd, with absolutely no intention of a physical altercation. When he tried to help him onstage, the guy hit Travis in the knee area, forcing Travis to defend himself. At this point, a scuffle broke out."

The band's manager added, "This whole incident is unfortunate. Travis McCoy and Gym Class Heroes are anything but violent. Their message is about racial unity and having a good time."

Gym Class Heroes will release their third album, The Quilt, on September 9th.

The Vans Warped Tour stops in Dallas, Texas tonight (Thursday, July 3rd).

Coldplay's new album, Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends, topped the Billboard album chart for the second straight week on Wednesday (July 2nd), selling another 249,000 copies since its release two weeks ago. That pushed the record to just under one million copies sold despite a 66 percent drop in sales from its first week. Meanwhile, Motley Crue's first new album in eight years, Saints of Los Angeles, entered the chart at Number Four with sales of 99,000 copies. The week's other major rock release, Shinedown's The Sound of Madness, landed at Number Eight with sales of 50,000, the group's best numbers yet.

Shinedown has built a steady following over the course of three albums and frontman Brent Smith told us they're to thank for the band's success: "You know, I tell people I have one boss, and it's everybody in the audience. They're the reason that we're here. At the end of the day, if you don't have them, you have absolutely nothing. So I always tell them they're the boss, and they should always remember that, no matter what band they see. They're the reason why, you know, you keep this thing called rock 'n' roll alive."

The chart's other Top 10 rock album was Disturbed's Indestructible, which sold 50,000 copies in its fourth week on shelves to hang on at Number Nine.

Overall album sales were down more than seven and a half percent from last week, and down 13 percent from the same time last year.

A painting owned by U2 fetched the British equivalent of $10.1 million at an auction held in London on Tuesday (July 1st), according to the BBC. The painting by late New York artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, called "Untitled (Pecho/Oreja)," was purchased by the band in 1989 and hung in their Dublin studio until recently. Basquiat painted it at the age of 22, five years before his death from a drug overdose in 1988. The band bought it after bassist Adam Clayton saw it in a New York gallery.

A spokesman for Sotheby's, which held the auction, said the painting sold to a European private buyer.

The auction did not top the record for a Basquiat work, which stands at $14.6 million.

Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie stepped out to dinner together in New York City on Tuesday (July 1st) amid rampant rumors of their demise as a couple. Earlier in the day, Madonna's rep issued a statement denying that the pair was headed towards divorce and brushing off a rumor that her client was having an affair with New York Yankees third-baseman Alex Rodriguez.

"They looked like a normal couple that just wanted to have a nice dinner out," a onlooker told People magazine of Ritchie and Madonna's date. "They looked very unassuming. Not like they were looking for attention."

Madonna's rep labeled her relationship with Rodriguez as professional. "Madonna and Alex have the same manager, Guy Oseary," she said in Tuesday's statement. "They have met. They know each other and Madonna took her kids to a Yankees game last week. There's really not anything to comment on beyond that."

Us magazine, meanwhile, is reporting that Rodriguez frequently visits Madonna at her New York City apartment and often stays late into the night. One source claims that the famed third baseman dropped in on her the night his wife gave birth to their second daughter.

In other news, PerezHilton.com reported on Wednesday (July 2nd) that Rodriguez's wife Cynthia has left him for singer Lenny Kravitz.

Rumors of a rift between Madonna and Ritchie have been ongoing, with sources recently confirming to the British media that each had consulted legal counsel to prepare for the impending divorce.