POP/ROCKShakur Pleads Innocent; Officer Also Charged: Controversial...

POP/ROCK

Shakur Pleads Innocent; Officer Also Charged: Controversial rapper and actor Tupac Shakur pleaded innocent Wednesday to charges he shot and wounded two off-duty police officers in Atlanta last month. Meanwhile, one of the officers, Mark Whitwell, has also been charged in the exchange of gunfire that erupted after an argument outside a hotel in the early morning hours of Nov. 1 and left him and his brother, Scott, wounded. Witnesses testified that Whitwell fired first, possibly at the ground, and Shakur returned fire. Shakur, who also faces sexual assault charges in New York, faces two counts of aggravated assault in the Atlanta case, which will now go to a grand jury. Whitwell faces charges of aggravated assault and making false statements to police officers.

TELEVISION

Switching From Channel 4 to 11?: John Beard, longtime anchor at KNBC Channel 4, is leaving the station to join KTTV Channel 11, informed sources said. Beard, who has anchored the news at KNBC for the past 12 1/2 years, was to make his last scheduled broadcast for the station Wednesday. His former partner on KNBC’s 4 p.m. newscast, Linda Alvarez, defected to KCBS Channel 2 earlier this month. Beginning today, KNBC morning anchors Kent Shocknek and Carla Aragon will fill in at 4 p.m. KTTV, whose general manager, Tom Capra, was once Beard’s boss at KNBC, had no comment, and it was unclear when Beard will begin work there. KTTV’s prime-time daily newscast is currently anchored by Bob Donley and Christine Devine. Beard follows in the footsteps of veteran KNBC reporter David Garcia, who also jumped to KTTV earlier this year.

‘George’ Enters Round Two: “George,” the seemingly on-again off-again sitcom starring George Foreman, will be on again Dec. 22. After announcing this week that the series would go on hiatus, ABC now says “George” will return to the air Dec. 22 in a new time slot, Wednesdays at 8:30 p.m., following “Thea.” At that time, the sitcom “Joe’s Life” will go on hiatus with no return date announced, the network said.

Reno Extends Anti-TV Violence Effort: The 3-year-old Television Violence Act, which exempted broadcast and cable networks from antitrust laws to allow cooperation in curbing TV violence, was set to run out Wednesday night, but U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno agreed to Sen. Paul Simon’s (D-Ill.) request to allow continued progress by the networks. Simon, who authored the TV Violence Act as part of an eight-year crusade against TV violence, is pushing the industry to set up an office to grade itself, in annual reports to the public, on the glamorized violence on both broadcast and cable TV. Reno’s action means such efforts could still go forward, even though the law has officially expired. “This leaves the ball in the industry’s court,” said Simon, who may write another bill proposing government-run monitoring if the networks take no such action.

PEOPLE WATCH

Whoopi in New Controversy: Actress Whoopi Goldberg is caught in another stereotyping controversy, this time over a joke recipe she contributed to in the “Cooking in Litchfield Hills” cookbook, sold to benefit an environmental center near her house in northwestern Connecticut. Her “Jewish American Princess Fried Chicken” recipe features directions such as: “Send a chauffeur to your favorite butcher shop for the chicken,” “Watch your nails” and “Have cook prepare rest of meal while you touch up your makeup.” “I don’t think it’s funny,” Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, told the New York Daily News. “It’s totally insensitive because it raises all the ugly anti-Semitic stereotypes.” A spokesman for Goldberg said: “Maybe (the critics) are not aware that Whoopi is Jewish, so she is certainly not anti-Semitic.” Goldberg was at the center of similar criticisms in October when her then-boyfriend Ted Danson saluted her with a skit in blackface at a New York Friars Club roast.

STAGE

All-Latino Cast for Taper: Jimmy Smits, Wanda De Jesus and Tomas Milian will appear in Chilean playwright Ariel Dorfman’s “Death and the Maiden” at the Mark Taper Forum, Jan. 16-March 13. Robert Egan will direct. The all-Latino cast--in a play with Spanish-surnamed characters living in Latin America--means the Taper will probably avert any revival of complaints filed by Actors’ Equity in 1992, when Glenn Close, Richard Dreyfuss and Gene Hackman were cast for the Broadway production.

QUICK TAKES

It’s official: Timothy Dalton will indeed play Rhett Butler opposite Joanne Whalley-Kilmer’s Scarlett O’Hara in “Scarlet,” the CBS miniseries based on Alexandra Ripley’s best-selling sequel to “Gone With the Wind.” Other cast members include Ann-Margret, John Gielgud, Julie Harris, Jean Smart and Esther Rolle. . . . Sitting justices on the United States Supreme Court rarely grant interviews, but Justice Harry Blackmun, 85, sits with Ted Koppel and Nina Totenberg for a two-part interview airing tonight and Friday on ABC’s “Nightline.”