NEWS LITE : ONETIME SPICE HAS NEW ANTHEM.

Forget Girl Power. The future belongs to Woman Power, says ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwell.

The former Ginger Spice, who left the British supergroup nearly a year ago, wants to take the Spice catch phrase to a new level in her solo career.

``I think woman power is important now. It's about being real with one another,'' Halliwell said Thursday in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Halliwell was in Rio to promote her first solo single, ``Look at Me.'' She said she waited to release her first solo effort to let the Spice Girl fame subside a little.

``I didn't want to bring out a record right after I left the group and ride on the back of my departure,'' she said.

Country singer gets bill for bridge crash

George Jones was released from the hospital Friday and billed almost $2,500 by the state of Tennessee to fix the bridge he smashed with his sport-utility vehicle.

It's standard procedure to bill someone who is responsible for damaging state property, said a spokeswoman in the Transportation Department.

``We just work up the prices and then forward the bill to whomever, in this case Mr. George Jones,'' she said Thursday.

The 67-year-old country star was released from Vanderbilt University Medical Center. He arrived Tuesday for treatment of an irregular heartbeat, his second stay since the March 6 crash.

Jones suffered a lacerated liver and a collapsed lung in the accident.

Friends said Jones was distracted while talking on a cellular phone. But a half-empty bottle of vodka was found in the wreckage, and two people reported seeing Jones' vehicle weaving shortly before the crash.

Attack of hepatitis weakens Knievel

A week ago, Evel Knievel was in a posh Las Vegas Strip resort, talking about his liver transplant giving him a new lease on life. Friday he was back in the hospital, talking about the liver possibly being rejected and what fate might have in store for him.

Later Friday, though, a hospital spokeswoman said doctors determined the liver had not been rejected but Knievel's body was ``just being attacked by hepatitis.''

He was released from the hospital late in the day.

Sans dog, Taylor journeys to Britain

Elizabeth Taylor had to leave her Sugar behind on her first trip to Britain in seven years.

The actress arrived Friday without her Maltese terrier because of Britain's strict law requiring a six-month quarantine for visiting U.S. pets.

She noted that ``a rat could hitch a ride on a taxi or a truck'' and make its way into the country via ferry, but not pets.

Taylor was in town for Sunday's British Academy of Films and Television Art awards. She will receive a special award for outstanding contributions to film.

Log may help solve Miller mystery

A military logbook that sheds light on the mysterious disappearance of American bandleader Glenn Miller during World War II will be up for auction this week, offering bidders a chance to own a clue to one of aviation's most captivating puzzles.

Miller was en route to France to organize concerts for Allied troops when his plane disappeared over the English Channel on a foggy December day in 1944. No trace has ever been found of the single-engine aircraft or its passengers.

Bad weather had been blamed until the flight log was produced. It suggests a more haunting theory, now largely accepted: Miller's plane was blasted out of the sky by bombs jettisoned by a Royal Air Force squadron returning from an aborted raid.

The logbook, which belonged to the late RAF navigator Fred Shaw, will be auctioned by Sotheby's on Tuesday, along with a letter from Britain's defense ministry bolstering the theory, a bundle of newspaper clippings and other materials.

It wasn't until the mid-1980s that Shaw, after seeing a film about Miller, dug out his logbook and noted an entry: ``Ops. Siegen Canceled. Jettison Southern Area.'' It confirmed what he suspected: Miller's plane disappeared on the same day Shaw's squadron aborted a bombing raid on Siegen, Germany, and let loose its 4,000-pound bombs over the English Channel.

The bombs had to be discarded before the bombers could land safely.

Bands to rock 'stock

Woodstock '99 will be busting with bands appealing to an audience not even born when the original concert took place 30 years ago.

The Dave Matthews Band, Jewel, Metallica and Alanis Morissette are among those who will appear at the three-day Woodstock '99 festival in New York.

Organizers expect about 250,000 people.

``Three more days of mud, noise and logistical nightmares?'' said Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich. ``Wouldn't miss it for the world.''

The festival is scheduled for July 23-25 at Griffiss Park, an abandoned Air Force base about 50 miles west of Albany. Ticket sales will begin April 18.

The show also will feature Korn, Limp Bizkit, Fatboy Slim, Sugar Ray, Creed, Counting Crows, Rage Against the Machine, Rusted Root, the Brian Setzer Orchestra, George Clinton and Willie Nelson.

None of the acts that played the original Woodstock, held in Bethel in 1969, are among the scheduled performers for the latest show.

Six acts that played the 25-year anniversary concert, which drew an estimated 350,000 people to Saugerties, N.Y., are coming back: Metallica, Aerosmith, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sheryl Crow, Live and Collective Soul.

Organizers also promise better security than at the first two Woodstocks, which were overrun by gate-crashers.

``This place is a fortress,'' said promoter John Scher of Metropolitan Entertainment. ``It's about as hard to get into as it is to get out of a prison.''

News Lite is compiled from Daily News staff and wire reports.

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos

PHOTO (1) A navigator's log may help shed light on the 1944 disappearance of bandleader Glenn Miller.

Sotheby's

(2) Getting the cold shoulder

This bull might want to be a social butterfly, but he'll be waiting a long time for a response from this gaggle of concrete lawn ornaments at Southern Exposure Farms near Battle Creek, Mich.

Kevin Hare/Battle Creek Enquirer 

(3) HALLIWELL

(4) TAYLOR