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

POP/ROCK

Back With Van Halen: Van Halen’s management confirmed Wednesday that Sammy Hagar has left the band, and that former lead singer David Lee Roth is working with the group on a new song for a greatest-hits album that will be released in October. An SRO Management spokeswoman wouldn’t speculate on Roth’s future with Van Halen, and had no comment on reports that the band had fired Hagar. Roth and Van Halen split bitterly 11 years ago, and the group went on to even greater success with Hagar. Industry sources say that Roth approached guitarist Eddie Van Halen recently about participating on new songs planned for the greatest-hits collection, and the two patched up their differences. At the same time, Hagar, whose wife recently had a baby, is said to have balked at the band’s rigorous rehearsal and recording schedule. In addition to the hits collection, Roth and Van Halen are reportedly writing material for a new album and are talking about a 1997 concert tour.

TV/RADIO

Amanpour’s First CBS Story?: CNN foreign correspondent Christiane Amanpour may already have her first assignment working for both CNN and CBS’ “60 Minutes.” With the terrorist attack on American troops in Saudi Arabia, “60 Minutes” is planning a breaking-news story on the attack for this Sunday’s broadcast. Amanpour was already in Saudi Arabia Wednesday, while other TV correspondents were in neighboring Bahrain waiting for visas. “60 Minutes” executive producer Don Hewitt told The Times Wednesday that “there’s a very good possibility” that both Amanpour and CBS foreign correspondent Bob Simon will report the “60 Minutes” story. Amanpour was signed this week to a highly unusual contract that allows her to do as many as five “60 Minutes” pieces a year while continuing her work at CNN.

Hall of Famers: The late comedian Gilda Radner, “20/20” co-anchor Hugh Downs, and Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner, producers of TV shows including “The Cosby Show” and “Roseanne,” are among the 1996 inductees into New York’s Broadcasting & Cable Hall of Fame. Other inductees, who will be honored during ceremonies in New York Nov. 11, include the late ABC sportscaster Howard Cosell; NBC President and CEO Robert C. Wright; former CBS president and current chairman of TELE-TV Howard Stringer; and the late Phillip H. Lord, producer of top radio shows including “Gang Busters” and “We the People.” Remaining inductees are Mel A. Karmazin, president and CEO of Infinity Broadcasting; Brian L. Roberts, president of Comcast Corp.; the late Carl Haverlin, former president of Broadcast Music Inc.; the late Robert E. Kinter, chairman of NBC in the 1960s; and the late Bill Leonard, a former president of CBS News. Honorees are nominated for their “outstanding work and contribution to the Fifth Estate.”

New HBO Series: Cable’s HBO, home of Garry Shandling’s critically acclaimed series “The Larry Sanders Show,” has ordered two new comedies for this year--”ARLI$$,” created by and starring actor-comedian Robert Wuhl, and “The High Life,” produced by David Letterman’s Worldwide Pants company. “ARLI$$,” which will debut in August, centers on a mega-sports agent and is being dubbed “the ‘Larry Sanders’ of the sports world,” since it will intermingle the show’s fictitious cast with real-life sports stars, including hoopsters Shaquille O’Neal and Scottie Pippen and football’s Jerry Jones and Warren Moon. “The High Life,” which will premiere in the fall, will be shot in black and white and revolve around the misadventures of two men in 1950s Pittsburgh (the show previously surfaced as a CBS pilot called “Emmett and Earl”).

Barney, Live: Children’s TV hero Barney is embarking on his first national musical stage show tour--a 60-city trek through the United States and Canada that kicks off Sept. 10 in Fort Worth. The purple dinosaur will be joined by dino pals Baby Bop and BJ as well as a cast of children in the 90-minute show, called “Barney’s Big Surprise.” A portion of tour proceeds benefit the Starbright Foundation, a nonprofit group that helps seriously ill children and is chaired by movie director Steven Spielberg. Local dates are Nov. 6-10 at Universal Amphitheatre and Nov. 12-17 at the Anaheim Convention Center.

Back to Square One: Radio station KLAC-AM (570) will keep its current program schedule and will not switch syndicators next week from Westwood One to the Music of Your Life Radio Network, as was announced last week. That leaves Music of Your Life’s programming--which includes such hosts as Gary Owens, Wink Martindale, Chuck Southcott and Johnny Magnus--without a Los Angeles outlet. The change will not affect the KLAC start for controversial New York radio host Don Imus, whose program will begin airing on the station on July 8, in the weekday 5-10 a.m. slot.

QUICK TAKES

A 30-bar segment of a recently discovered incomplete aria by Mozart fetched $134,600 at an auction at Christie’s in London Wednesday, more than three times the pre-sale estimate. . . . Thanks to interactive video technology, New Age music star Yanni will simultaneously teach music students in Tokyo, Sydney, Hong Kong, Chicago, Detroit and Los Angeles today when he conducts a music seminar at Northern Michigan’s Interlochen Center for the Arts. Local high schoolers will participate from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences headquarters in Santa Monica. The proceedings will be taped for a PBS “Back to School” special to air this fall. . . . The artist formerly known as Prince and his wife and backup singer, Mayte, will record eight children’s songs and develop three children’s short stories in anticipation of the birth of their first baby, due in November.