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

LEGAL FILE

Drug Case Updates: A trio of celebrity drug defendants appeared in court Friday, and all received good news. Depeche Mode singer David Gahan, who overdosed in May at a West Hollywood hotel, was placed in a diversion program by a Beverly Hills Superior Court judge and is expected to rejoin the band in London next month to continue work on an upcoming album. Charges against Gahan will be dropped next February if the singer, who has been in rehab since May, successfully completes the treatment program. . . . Actor Gary Busey, appearing in Malibu Municipal Court, admitted to “belligerent and nasty” behavior and apologized to the film industry for his conduct prior to overdosing on cocaine in May 1995. Judge Lawrence J. Mira, saying he was “moved” by Busey’s comments, dropped the charges against the actor and released him from an outpatient drug treatment program that he had entered after the overdose. . . . In a separate hearing, Judge Mira said that he was also pleased with actor Robert Downey Jr.’s progress in a live-in drug treatment program, and agreed to give counselors there more flexibility in handling Downey. Downey was arrested three times this summer for separate drug-related offenses, and has spent nearly a month at the secure-treatment facility.

THE ARTS

New NEA Advisors: The U.S. Congress has confirmed nine new members of the presidentially appointed National Council on the Arts, a 26-member body that advises the federally funded National Endowment for the Arts. The new members, to be sworn in by NEA Chairwoman Jane Alexander in Washington Sept. 6, include two Californians--movie/stage director and El Teatro Campesino founder Luis Valdez (“Zoot Suit,” “La Bamba”) and television producer Patrick Davidson (“Disney’s ‘Sing Me a Story With Belle’ ”). Other new members are Seattle Opera General Director Speight Jenkins; Townsend D. Wolfe III, director and chief curator of the Arkansas Arts Center; photographer Terry Evans; arts patrons Ronnie Feuerstein Heyman and Richard J. Stern; poet Wallace D. McRae; and William P. Foster, chairman of the music department and director of bands at Florida A&M; University.

TV and RADIO

Remembering Stevie Ray: Cable’s VH1 will mark the sixth anniversary of the death of late bluesman Stevie Ray Vaughan on Monday, when it airs two back-to-back specials from 7 to 9 p.m.: “Stevie Ray Vaughan: Live at El Mocambo,” featuring Vaughan in a 1983 concert taped in Toronto, and “Stevie Ray Vaughan: A Tribute,” a 1995 concert remembrance of Vaughan’s songs by fellow blues artists including B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, Bonnie Raitt, Aaron Neville and Robert Cray, as well as brother Jimmy Vaughan. Vaughan died in a 1990 helicopter crash following a Wisconsin music festival.

Shift Changes: “Uncle” Joe Benson, who has been handling weekend shifts at KLSX-FM (97.1) for the last couple of years, returns to his longtime home at KLOS-FM (95.5) this weekend. As in the past, Benson will host “The Seventh Day,” featuring three to four rock albums played in their entirety--along with inside information about the featured artist--every Sunday from 5 to 9 p.m. . . . KSCA-FM’s (101.9) Nicole Sandler will move from the morning drive slot to the midday shift (replacing Merilee Kelly) as of Sept. 1, when she will also become KSCA’s music director. Meanwhile, KSCA has begun a nationwide search for a new morning host to team up with morning newsman Chuck Moshontz. . . . Sean Valentine, formerly with Dallas radio station KISS-FM, has joined Los Angeles’ KIIS-FM (102.7), manning the weekday 7 p.m.-midnight shift.

POP/ROCK

Beatles Hoax: After the Atlanta-based Beatlefan magazine claimed that it had obtained a copy of a new Beatles reunion recording, the publication’s editor announced Thursday that it had been the victim of a hoax. The track, the publication initially believed, was a remake of the group’s 1962 instrumental “Cry for a Shadow.” Not true, editor William P. King now says. “A source at [the Beatles’] Apple Corps Ltd. said that this was the three surviving Beatles jamming in June 1995,” he said. “In fact . . . it was done in 1983 by a West Coast group called Translator. We thought it was the real thing.” King had been playing the alleged Beatle recording on Beatlefan’s answering machine as “the new Fab Three mystery track.” Note: The Pop Eye column that appears in Sunday’s Calendar reports the magazine’s original claim. Unfortunately, the sections were already printed before King announced that the recording was a hoax.

QUICK TAKES

The 39th annual Grammy Awards will return to New York next year and take place at the event’s biggest venue ever, Madison Square Garden, on Feb. 26. . . . KomicKazi, a new “situation comedy” on the Internet featuring regular “cast members” including comics Judy Tenuta, Bruce Baum and Diana Jordan, plus guest stars including Dana Carvey, debuts Monday at 5 p.m. at www.komickazi.com. The interactive program, featuring daily diaries from the comedians’ “characters,” was created by comedian Vic Dunlop. . . . New Line Cinema is moving ahead with its movie adaptation of the classic 1960s TV series “Lost in Space,” with a scheduled Feb. 1 start date. Stephen Hopkins (“Blown Away”) will direct.