Quick Takes: Adele cancels U.S. tour

British singer Adele, whose “21” album has spent nine weeks in the No. 1 slot on the national sales chart, canceled the rest of her North American tour Friday — including her scheduled appearances Monday at the Greek Theatre and Thursday at the Hollywood Palladium — citing “ongoing illness.”

The 23-year-old singer is suffering from laryngitis and was ordered by doctors to “absolute voice rest” until she fully recovers, according to a statement issued by her label, Columbia Records.

She had recently canceled five shows because of voice problems but had planned to resume the tour Saturday in San Francisco. An examination by an otolaryngologist in Los Angeles determined she should continue to rest for several more weeks, forcing the cancellation of the next 10 stops on her current trek stateside.

Local promoters encouraged fans to hold on to their tickets for now in hopes that the concerts would be rescheduled.

— Randy Lewis

Italy’s ‘Venus’ heads to D.C.

One of the best preserved sculptures from Roman antiquity, the “Capitoline Venus,” has left Italy for the first time in nearly 200 years for a special display at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

The installation goes on public view Saturday through early September, the museum announced Thursday. The full-scale female nude statue has only left Rome one other time: when it was seized by Napoleon and taken to France in 1797. It was returned to Rome’s Capitoline Museum in 1816 after Napoleon fell from power.

— Associated Press

HBO up for a new miniseries

From “Band of Brothers” to “The Pacific,” HBO knows its epic battles, and the network said Friday it would continue that focus with “Parade’s End,” a five-part miniseries set during World War I, written by Tom Stoppard and starring British actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Rebecca Hall.

Directed by Susanna White, who got an Emmy nomination for another HBO war drama, “Generation Kill,” the series is based on four books by novelist Ford Madox Ford that were published during the 1920s.

The story follows a love triangle among a conservative English aristocrat, his wife and a young suffragette.

Production is scheduled to begin in the fall.

— Melissa Maerz

An ‘interesting’ honorary degree

Urging graduates to repair “the public conversation” and rescue society from “grim careerists and ideologues,” playwright Tony Kushner on Friday accepted the honorary degree that had briefly been withheld by the City University of New York after a trustee accused him of being anti-Israel. Alluding to the controversy, Kushner said that the honorary doctorate would remain “the most interesting one I had to work hardest to get” and praised the forces that led to his receiving the honor.

The Board of Trustees of the City University of New York voted last month to deny the degree at the urging of trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, who denounced the playwright’s views on Israel.

Kushner said Wiesenfeld had distorted his position and objected that he was given no chance to present his own views. Amid an onslaught of criticism, CUNY reversed the decision

— Associated Press

2 bookstores in SoCal to close

Two Southern California independent bookstores — Village Books in Pacific Palisades and Latitude 33 in Laguna Beach — said this week that they’ll be closing their doors.

Village Books, which opened in 1997, will close on June 30. The 15-year-old Latitude 33 may stay open longer but plans to be closed before the end of August.

Katie O’Laughlin, owner of Village Books, explained in a letter to the Palisadian-Post that the store wasn’t able to keep up with changes in the book business.

Though O’Laughlin may search for a way to continue on as a bookseller, Tom Ahern, the owner of Latitude 33, will not. He said he had tried unsuccessfully to find a buyer for the business and now, with the lease expiring, he wants to retire.

— Carolyn Kellogg

A Noise Within to play up exit

A Noise Within will bid farewell to its Glendale home this weekend with a benefit show featuring scenes from plays that the classical repertory company staged there during its first two decades.

“A Noise Within: A Retrospective,” running through Sunday, is the troupe’s final production in the ‘20s-era former Masonic Temple that it has occupied on Brand Boulevard. The company will open its 2011-12 season this fall in a theater complex it is building in Pasadena.

— Karen Wada

Finally

Revival: “Fear Factor,” the stunt reality series that puts contestants’ fears and stomachs at risk, will be revived by NBC next season. It previously ran 2001-06.