James Frey writing teen science fiction novels

By ANDREW MEDICHINI (AP)

Italian officials on Thursday unveiled 14 artifacts spanning from antiquity to the Middle Ages that were looted or stolen from Italy and recently returned by The Cleveland Museum of Art.

Culture Ministry officials trumpeted Italy\'s latest victory in its campaign to recover antiquities they say were stolen or dug up by looters, smuggled out of the country and sold to prestigious museums and collectors across the world.

Under a November deal, the U.S. museum agreed to hand over the treasures in exchange for long-term loans of other artifacts and joint work on future...

By (AP)

Harve (HARHV) Presnell (prehs-NEHL\')), whose booming baritone graced such Broadway musicals as \"The Unsinkable Molly Brown\" and \"Annie,\" has died at the age of 75.

Presnell\'s agent Gregg Klein says the actor died Tuesday of pancreatic cancer at St. John\'s Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif.

Presnell also appeared in the film versions of \"Molly Brown\" and \"Paint Your Wagon\" as well as \"Fargo.\"

By Joan Marcus (AP)

Get ready for the return of \"Ragtime.\"

A revival of the musical adapted from E.L. Doctorow\'s epic novel of early 20th century America will open Nov. 15 on Broadway. Previews begin Oct. 23 at the Neil Simon Theatre in New York.

Producer Kevin McCollum says the $8 million production will feature a cast of nearly 40 actors and an orchestra of more than two dozen musicians. Casting will be announced.

The musical was first seen on Broadway in 1998. The revival was first done last spring at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington.

By CYNTHIA BOLL (AP)

The life work of Rembrandt _ all 317 known paintings, 285 etchings and more than 100 drawings _ go on display next week in full-sized digital reproductions that attempt to recreate the works as they emerged from the artist\'s studio rather than as they exist today.

In some ways, the high resolution images are more authentic than the real paintings, said Ernst van de Wetering, a leading Rembrandt scholar who supervised the project.

Employing computer wizardry, pieces of canvas or panel that were sliced off centuries ago have been patched back on. Colors are restored to the...

By Joan Marcus (AP)

\"The Little Mermaid\" is set for its final Broadway swim.

The lavish musical based on the Disney animated film will close Aug. 30 at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New York after a run of 685 performances.

Producer Thomas Schumacher (SHOE\'-mah-kur) says a national tour is planned for fall 2010. It will be followed by overseas productions.

\"The Little Mermaid\" opened in January 2008.

By Craig Schwartz (AP)

Julia Stiles will make her Broadway debut in a revival of David Mamet\'s (MAM\'-eht) \"Oleanna\" (OH\'-lee-anna), opening Oct. 11 at the Golden Theater in New York.

The 28-year-old Stiles will play a student and Bill Pullman will play a college professor in the production. Previews begin Sept. 29.

\"Oleanna\" (OH\'-lee-anna) is now on view at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles through July 12.

Mamet will be a busy man in New York this fall. Two one-act plays _ \"School\" and \"Keep Your Pantheon\" _ open Sept. 30 at off-Broadway\'s Atlantic Theater Company. Also on tap...

By Johan Persson (AP)

Jude Law will play Shakespeare\'s melancholy Dane on Broadway this fall.

The 36-year-old British actor will star in \"Hamlet,\" opening Oct. 6 at the Broadhurst Theatre in New York for a 12-week engagement. Previews begin Sept. 12.

The critically acclaimed production comes from London\'s Donmar Warehouse. Law will be joined by the rest of the British cast under the direction of Michael Grandage.

It will be Law\'s first Broadway appearance since 1995, when he appeared in \"Indiscretions\" with Kathleen Turner, Cynthia Nixon, Roger Rees and Eileen Atkins.

By Robert Azmitia (AP)

Michael Connelly headed back to the newsroom for this latest best-selling thriller.

The author best known for his Harry Bosch novels takes an occasional break from his grumpy Los Angeles police detective to recharge his batteries.

In \"The Scarecrow,\" Connelly revisits Jack McEvoy, the Los Angeles Times reporter at the center of his 1996 novel \"The Poet.\" In a sense, the book has been ripped from the headlines. McEvoy\'s just been forced to take a buyout to leave the struggling paper. He vows to leave behind his greatest work yet, and finds there\'s more to the story than...

By Chris Carlson (AP)

Jerry Lewis _ Broadway musical director?

The legendary comedian will direct a stage version of \"The Nutty Professor,\" the 1963 film he co-wrote and in which he starred as the nerdy title character.

The show will feature music by Marvin Hamlisch and a book and lyrics by Rupert Holmes. It is expected to land on Broadway during the 2010-2011 season.

The 83-year-old Lewis last appeared on Broadway in 1995 in a revival of \"Damn Yankees.\"

By Carol Rosegg (AP)

\"Avenue Q\" will reach the end of its Broadway road in September.

The musical about the hopeful twentysomething residents of a very particular New York street closes Sept. 13 after a six-year run and 2,534 performances.

\"Avenue Q,\" which features a cast of people and puppets with names such as Kate, Rod, Princeton, Lucy, Christmas Eve and Trekkie Monster, won the 2004 Tony for best musical.

Said producer Robyn Goodman: \"We will miss our furry friends on 45th Street but are very proud of their longevity.\"

By Gene Schiavone (AP)

Ballet fans tend to choose favorites among dancers, debating their attributes ad nauseam. But during Nina Ananiashvili\'s 16 years with American Ballet Theatre, there was little debate. She was at the top of nearly everyone\'s list.

At 46, with a young daughter and a ballet company to run back home in Tbilisi, Georgia, Ananiashvili had decided this season would be her last with ABT. So it was with excitement and melancholy that her many fans packed a sold-out Metropolitan Opera House on Saturday night for her final hurrah: one last \"Swan Lake.\"

The ballerina did not...

By Louis Lanzano (AP)

Bernard Madoff\'s lawyer says sentencing guidelines in the swindler\'s multibillion-dollar fraud case \"do not speak of vengeance and revenge.\"

Attorney Ira Sorkin said at the sentencing Monday that the 150 years in prison recommended by prosecutors or the 50 years recommended by the federal probation department are excessive.

Victims who lost millions of dollars earlier urged a stiff sentence for the 71-year-old former Nasdaq stock market chairman.

Madoff was arrested late last year after confessing to his sons that his secretive investment advisory business was a...

By Louis Lanzano (AP)

Victims who lost millions of dollars in the multibillion-dollar fraud perpetrated by Bernard Madoff described their ruined lives Monday to the judge sentencing the 71-year-old former Nasdaq stock market chairman.

Madoff, wearing a dark suit, white shirt and a tie, sat and listened as emotional witnesses described how he spoiled their security, and they urged U.S. District Judge Denny Chin to send him to prison for life.

\"Life has been a living hell. It feels like the nightmare we can\'t wake from,\" said Carla Hirshhorn.

\"He stole from the rich. He stole from the...

By Louis Lanzano (AP)

Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff has entered a New York courtroom just prior to his sentencing for a multibillion-dollar fraud scheme.

Madoff\'s lawyer has asked a judge to give his 71-year-old client 12 years behind bars. Prosecutors planned to seek a 150-year prison term Monday.

The former Nasdaq chairman was arrested late last year after confessing to his sons that his secretive investment advisory business was a \"big lie.\"

He pleaded guilty to securities fraud and other charges in March and has been jailed ever since.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check...

By Louis Lanzano (AP)

Several hundred spectators have arrived at federal court in New York to witness the sentencing of Bernard Madoff for a multibillion-dollar fraud scheme.

Dozens of victims of a fraud that lasted decades lined up outside the New York courthouse Monday along with scores of journalists in the hours before the sentencing.

The 71-year-old Madoff is likely to be sentenced to 12 years to 150 years in prison. His defense lawyer has said 12 years would be enough. Prosecutors have asked that he spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Judge Denny Chin will have the final say after...

By Louis Lanzano (AP)

Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff is due back in court today to hear his punishment for running a massive Ponzi scheme. Madoff\'s lawyer has asked a judge to give his 71-year-old client 12 years behind bars. Prosecutors plan to seek a 150-year prison term. Ten victims have sought permission to speak at Madoff\'s sentencing Monday in federal court in Manhattan. Madoff also is expected to speak.

The former Nasdaq chairman was arrested late last year after confessing to his sons that his secretive investment advisory business was a \"big lie.\" He pleaded guilty to securities fraud...

By Koji Sasahara (AP)

Mourning Michael Jackson fans around the world awaited word Monday on the possibility of a global memorial to the King of Pop.

Jackson died Thursday in Los Angeles, where his supporters discussed the possibility of holding such a memorial, but nothing had been decided as of Monday. Fans around Asia continued to mark the singer\'s death, while in Japan, a scholar reflected on the King of Pop\'s historic significance.

\"Which was the bigger step for mankind _ Apollo 11 or Michael\'s moonwalk?\" asked Yoshiaki Sato, who studies American fiction and music, in an opinion piece in...

By Koji Sasahara (AP)

Mourning Michael Jackson fans around the world awaited word Monday on the possibility of a global memorial to the King of Pop.

Jackson died Thursday in Los Angeles, where his supporters discussed the possibility of holding such a memorial, but nothing had been decided as of Monday. Fans around Asia continued to mark the singer\'s death, while in Japan, a scholar reflected on the King of Pop\'s historic significance.

\"Which was the bigger step for mankind _ Apollo 11 or Michael\'s moonwalk?\" asked Yoshiaki Sato, who studies American fiction and music, in an opinion piece in...

By Seth Wenig (AP)

Decades after a riot at a Greenwich Village bar sparked a movement for equal rights, gay New Yorkers celebrated their gains at Sunday\'s gay pride parade and lamented the state has not legalized same-sex marriage.

The annual march down Fifth Avenue commemorated the Stonewall rebellion of 40 years ago, when patrons at a gay bar resisted the police. The several days of disturbances that followed the uprising became one of the defining moments of the gay rights movement.

The celebration was tempered by the knowledge that other states, including Massachusetts, Connecticut and...

By Chris Lee (AP)

Before conductor Lorin Maazel even lifted his baton, the audience at the New York Philharmonic concert gave him a rousing ovation.

The pre-performance acclaim on Saturday fit the occasion: Maazel\'s last concert as the music director of America\'s oldest orchestra after seven years at the helm.

When he did raise his baton, Gustav Mahler\'s \"Symphony of a Thousand\" exploded with an E-flat major chord played by an organ and winds _ then the orchestra joining three choruses singing full thrall to the Latin words \"Veni, creator spiritus\" (\"Come, creator spirit\").

For...

By Gregg Sutter (AP)

Fresh out of college with an English degree in hand, Peter Leonard wrote a six-page short story he liked very much and asked a famous author for a few notes.

He got back a three-page critique that pointed out, among other problems, that Leonard\'s characters came across \"like strips of leather drying in the sun.\"

\"I didn\'t write another word of fiction for 27 years,\" Leonard says.

While it\'s not true that the critique knocked him out of the writing business, Leonard admits the it was hard to take. After all, it came from his father, Elmore Leonard, one of the...

By Jacquelyn Martin (AP)

During the first three centuries of American history _ from the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the new world, through the years that revolutionaries struggled for independence for the fledgling United States _ Spain was already one of the word\'s great empires.

Perhaps more than anything else, luxurious suits of armor were used to cultivate the image of Spanish royalty as all powerful. Kings and emperors commissioned portraits by masters _ Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony van Dyck, Diego Velazquez and others _ depicting them wearing armor made of silver and gold, intricately...

By Bela Szandelszky (AP)

European leaders marked the 20th anniversary of the symbolic fall of the Iron Curtain, often described as the first crack in the Berlin Wall and one of the key episodes leading to the end of communism in Eastern Europe, in Budapest on Saturday.

The presidents of Germany, Austria, Finland, Slovenia and Switzerland, as well as high-ranking officials from Poland, Britain and more than 20 other countries will participate in a commemorative session at the Hungarian parliament and a gala event at the Hungarian State Opera House.

On June 27, 1989, the then-foreign ministers of...