It’s a girl for ‘Spider-Man’

Los Angeles – “Spider-Man” star Tobey Maguire and his fiancee, Jennifer Meyer, are parents of a baby girl, according to magazine reports.

Meyer, a 29-year-old jewelry designer, gave birth Thursday in Los Angeles, Us Weekly and People magazines reported on their Web sites.

Maguire, 31, and Meyer have been together since 2003. They announced their engagement this year.

Maguire, whose latest “Spider-Man” installment, “Spider-Man 3,” is due next year, also has starred in such films as “Seabiscuit” and “Wonder Boys.”

Duran Duran’s power play

New York – Justin Timberlake is working on Duran Duran’s new album, along with superproducer Timbaland, who created recent smash hits for both Timberlake and Nelly Furtado, the British band said.

“We’ve got some good stuff happening,” said lead singer Simon LeBon. “We’ve done three tracks with Timbaland; we’ve collaborated in a writing and production manner on one of those tracks with Justin Timberlake. We’ve got a lot of really hot producers who are hotly interested in working with us at the moment. We are in a very good space.”

Guitarist Andy Taylor left the group late last month.

Bassist John Taylor, not related to Andy Taylor, likened the split to a divorce. He said, “There were many strong differences of feeling within the band for some time now.”

However, he said, Andy Taylor’s departure has been “empowering, quite freeing” for Duran Duran.

“We’ve been playing over the last few weeks around Europe and in the States, and we’re just putting it into the music,” he said.

Elton John bashes religion

London – Organized religion fuels anti-gay discrimination and other forms of bias, pop star Elton John said.

“I think religion has always tried to turn hatred toward gay people,” John said in the Observer newspaper’s Music Monthly Magazine in an interview published Saturday. “Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays.”

“But there are so many people I know who are gay and love their religion,” said the singer, who exchanged vows in December in a civil union ceremony with David Furnish. “From my point of view, I would ban religion completely. Organized religion doesn’t seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings, and it’s not really compassionate.”

John also criticized religious leaders for failing to do anything about conflicts around the world.

“Why aren’t they having a conclave? Why aren’t they coming together?”

John said those in his own field have been similarly lax.

“It’s like the peace movement in the ’60s. Musicians got through to people by getting out there and doing peace concerts, but we don’t seem to do them any more,” he said. “If John Lennon were alive today, he’d be leading it with a vengeance.”