Next Academy Awards will be Feb. 27, 2011

Oscars’ next date set

The Academy Awards are moving back to February.

Awards organizers said Thursday that next year’s Oscar ceremony is scheduled for Sunday, Feb. 27. That’s about a week earlier than this year’s award show, which was held March 7 to avoid conflicting with the Winter Olympics.

Though the show used to be held in late March, the Oscars have been staged in late February in most recent years to shorten the long Hollywood awards season.

Nominations for the 83rd annual Oscars will be announced Jan. 25.

-- associated press Booker’s ‘lost’ novels get due

Six writers have a second shot at literary glory, 40 years after they missed out on Britain’s top book prize.

Finalists were announced Thursday for the “lost” Booker Prize. They are Patrick White’s “The Vivisector,” J.G. Farrell’s “Troubles,” Mary Renault’s “Fire From Heaven,” Nina Bawden’s “The Birds on the Trees,” Shirley Hazzard’s “The Bay of Noon” and Muriel Spark’s “The Driver’s Seat.”

The Booker was originally awarded for books published the previous year. But in 1971, it became a prize for the best novel published that year -- omitting novels from 1970.

The Lost Man Booker Prize is an attempt to remedy the oversight. Of the finalists, only Hazzard and Bawden are still alive, but all the books are still in print. The winner will be announced May 19.

-- associated press Stolen artwork is recovered

A Henry Moore sculpture stolen from a New York City gallery in 2001 has been recovered.

The $80,000 abstract sculpture of a reclining figure was found at Miriam Shiell Fine Art in Toronto on Wednesday. Shiell said a man brought it in last week and she searched the Art Loss Register.

The recovery came days after a Paul Klee painting was found in a Montreal art gallery. The executive director of the London-based Art Loss Register said the fact that both pieces were recovered in Canada within days of each other is a coincidence.

-- associated press ‘Hills’ reality: cancellation

“The Hills,” which made celebrity magazine stars out of Lauren Conrad, Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt, is coming to an end.

The network said Thursday that the sixth and last season of the popular reality soap will begin April 27. Twelve new episodes will be aired before “The Hills” calls it quits.

Conrad, her fashion magazine intern friend Whitney Port, and several of the other original stars have already left the show, which started in 2006. It quickly became MTV’s biggest hit, but viewership has fallen in the last two years by about 30%.

-- from wire reports Stroking Simon’s ego

“American Idol” judge Simon Cowell will receive an international Emmy Award for having “reshaped 21st century television and music around the world,” the International Academy of Television Arts and Sciences said Thursday.

Cowell, 50, is best known for his roles as a brutally honest judge on TV talent shows “The X Factor” and “American Idol.” But he also owns a music publishing house, Syco, developed the “Got Talent” TV format in Britain, the United States and Europe, managed the operatic pop group Il Divo and signed frumpy Scottish singing sensation Susan Boyle.

-- reuters Leno beats Letterman

Jay Leno maintained his lead over David Letterman in the third week of their revived late-night ratings competition, figures from the Nielsen Co. revealed Thursday.

Leno’s “Tonight Show” on NBC averaged 4.6 million viewers last week, compared with 3.6 million for Letterman’s “Late Show” on CBS.

Letterman had been winning the time slot when Conan O’Brien was hosting “The Tonight Show.”

-- Lee Margulies Finally

Remembering Ryan: Elton John will headline a celebration of the life of Indiana AIDS victim Ryan White, who died in 1990 at 18, in an April 28 event benefiting the Indianapolis Children’s Museum and the singer’s AIDS foundation.