Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation’s press.

THE ARTS

Republicans Vote to End NEA: Republicans cleared a hurdle Tuesday in their battle to effectively eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts, with a House Appropriations subcommittee voting 6-5, along party lines, to give the NEA just $10 million next year--the amount NEA officials say they would need to close down. “Today’s action reflects the House Republican leadership’s misguided effort to shut down an agency that richly serves our communities,” NEA Chairwoman Jane Alexander said. “This is just the first round in a battle that once again puts politics above the will of the American people.” Democrats argued Tuesday against killing the agency, which has come under fire for grants that many conservatives have found objectionable. However, Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz.) showed the strength of party lines when he said that although he supports the NEA, he would vote to eliminate it to support Republican leaders. The panel did accept, without objection, an amendment by Rep. Sidney Yates (D-Ill.) that deleted language from the bill that called for the NEA’s “orderly closure.” But Rep. James Moran (D-Va.) said: “The fact that we took out the language doesn’t mean we took out the meaning.” The issue is expected to reach the House floor in a few weeks. Republicans have tried before to kill the agency, which distributes grants to artists nationwide. A 1995 effort caused a split within the GOP, and the endowment managed to survive with reduced funding. It received $99.5 million this year.

TELEVISION

An ‘Embarrassing’ Mistake: “Home Improvement” star Tim Allen has been placed on a year’s probation and fined $500 for driving while impaired. Allen, who pleaded guilty to the charge on Monday, released a statement saying: “My inexcusable lapse in judgment is a mistake that is embarrassing to myself, my family and my associates. I have learned from this experience, and I am fortunate that my family and associates have forgiven me.” He called his sentence “fair.” Allen was stopped for speeding May 24 in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills and was arrested after failing field sobriety tests. His blood-alcohol level was tested at 0.15%, over Michigan’s legal limit of 0.10%.

More on ‘Ellen’: The fallout from the coming out of the title character in ABC’s “Ellen” (and of its star, Ellen DeGeneres) continues as some 15,000 Southern Baptists began a three-day convention in Dallas Tuesday with a major agenda item being a vote on whether to boycott the Walt Disney Co. because of its “gay-friendly environment.” Disney, which owns ABC, declined to comment, but company officials have said previously that earlier condemnations by the Southern Baptists have not hurt business.

POP/ROCK

Trouble in Jerusalem: Citing death threats, controversial Irish singer Sinead O’Connor has canceled a planned June 21 concert in Jerusalem that had been aimed at promoting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. In a statement, O’Connor said: “I am the mother of two young children; I will not do anything that could jeopardize their future, my own safety and the safety of the musicians and crew that work with me.” The death threats reportedly were made to the Irish and British embassies in Tel Aviv. Police said they were not investigating because they had received no official complaints; however, the Irish Embassy said it had filed such a complaint. About 20 Israeli peace activists protested in downtown Jerusalem on Monday, carrying posters advertising O’Connor’s concert with a red X painted over the singer’s mouth. Some gagged themselves with black tape. Meanwhile, a militant Jewish activist, Itamar Ben-Gvir of the Ideological Front (an offshoot of the outlawed anti-Arab Kach movement), told Israel Radio that it was his group that caused O’Connor to withdraw.

MOVIES

Japanese Won’t ‘Scream’: The Japanese premiere of the hit horror movie “Scream,” which had been scheduled to open at 50 theaters across the country on Saturday, has been delayed because of the recent beheading of an 11-year-old boy in the city of Kobe. The movie depicts a series of killings of high school students in California. The slain Japanese boy’s head was found near a junior high school, and a note stuck in his mouth boasted that the killer enjoyed nothing more than seeing people die.

QUICK TAKES

Mauricio Abaroa, the former business and personal manager for singer Luis Miguel, has been named executive director of the newly created Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences. Michael Greene, president of the National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, said LARAS will operate in a similar fashion to NARAS, and will eventually create a Latin American Grammy Awards. . . . For the first time, the prestigious Venice Biennale has honored living artists with its top award, the Golden Lion, for contributions to the history of contemporary art. Honored Sunday were Canadian-born Minimalist painter Agnes Martin, a member of the New York movement that took contemporary art from Abstract Expressionism to Minimalism beginning in the late 1950s, and Italian artist Emilio Vedova. . . . Additional MacArthur Foundation “genius grant” recipients not mentioned in Tuesday’s front-page story in The Times include playwright Lee Breuer, 60, of New York ($355,000); painter Vija Celmins, 58, of New York ($345,000); dancer choreographer Elizabeth Streb, 47, of New York ($290,000); painter Kerry Marshall, 41, of Chicago ($260,000); and painter Kara Walker, 27, of Providence, R.I. ($190,000). . . . The Christian Science church will cease broadcasting its Monitor Radio, which is heard on more than 200 public radio stations including local outlets KCRW-FM and KPCC-FM, on June 27. The church said in April it would sell or discontinue the radio network by the end of June to concentrate financial resources on other projects, and a last-minute purchase bid fell through.