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

RADIO

Handel Issues Apology: KFI-AM (640) host Bill Handel, pressured by several Asian American advocacy groups, apologized on the air Friday for remarks he made last month about U.S. figure skaters Kristi Yamaguchi and Michelle Kwan. Reading from a letter that was faxed Thursday to representatives of the skaters and was signed by Handel and Howard Neal, vice president and general manager of KFI, Handel explained that he had been speaking sarcastically last month and apologized for “any pain caused by what we said. Please know that it was not our intention to demean or belittle you in any way.” Handel’s March 26 comments came during a routine in which Handel was making fun of banished skater Tonya Harding’s wish to resume her skating career. Talking to a caller who said that Harding should be given another chance, Handel said that when he looks at a Wheaties box, “I don’t want eyes that are all slanted and like Oriental and almond shaped. I want to see American eyes looking at me.”

POP/ROCK

Tax Time: Deborah Harry doesn’t mind that tax collectors in New Jersey are using one of her hits in a TV commercial to promote a tax amnesty plan. The rock singer--who has had tax troubles in New York--thinks her former band Blondie’s 1978 hit “One Way or Another” is appropriate as a warning to deadbeat taxpayers. The commercial features her chorus: “One way or another . . . I’m gonna find you, I’m gonna getcha, getcha, getcha, getcha.” “As far as creating an amnesty for people with back taxes, I think it’s a pretty nice thing,” Harry said in Thursday’s editions of the Record of Hackensack, N.J. EMI/Chrysalis, which controls rights to the song, sold it to the state for a reported $30,000 without Harry’s knowledge, the Record said.

Free STP: The Stone Temple Pilots--whose new album “Tiny Music . . . Songs From the Vatican Gift Shop” is No. 5 on this week’s Billboard sales chart--will play a free concert May 3 at the Wiltern Theatre. Tickets for each show will be available to the public through a series of radio and retail contests.

TELEVISION

Horowitz Out: Consumer expert David Horowitz, who has been doing consumer reports for KCBS-TV Channel 2 for the last 3 1/2 years, has left the station. Horowitz said that station management did not renew his contract, leaving him out of the station’s revamped format that began last Monday. Horowitz, best known for his “Fight Back! With David Horowitz” series, said he was pursuing national and local television opportunities.

Program Notes: Because of its morning news programming, Los Angeles’ Fox affiliate, KTTV-TV Channel 11, will not follow the network’s schedule for new children’s programming that was announced this week. Beginning next Saturday, the new “Power Rangers Zeo” will be seen on KTTV on Saturdays at 8 a.m. and Mondays-Thursdays at 5 p.m. “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” will be shown Saturdays at 8:30 a.m., and “Jim Henson’s Animal Show” will be shown weekdays at 2 p.m.

MUSIC

L.A. Philharmonic to Record Film Scores: Conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen and the L.A. Philharmonic are making their first recording of the classic film scores of Bernard Herrmann, including excerpts from his scores for the thrillers of Alfred Hitchcock. An extended suite from “Psycho” will be featured.

STAGE

Taymor Coming to La Jolla: The experimental theater artist Julie Taymor, who is working on a stage adaptation of “The Lion King” for Disney, will direct and co-design her newest work “The Green Bird” at La Jolla Playhouse, July 28-Aug. 25. Based on a 1765 comic fable by Carlo Gozzi with original music by Elliot B. Goldenthal, “The Green Bird” played in New York earlier this year. The final show announced for the coming La Jolla season is “Honeymoon China,” Theatre de la Jeune Lune’s adaptation of Feydeau’s “Tailor for Women” (Sept. 25-Oct. 20). One previously announced show, “A Little Heart Attack,” has undergone a title change to “2.5 Minute Ride” (Sept. 29-Oct. 27).

QUICK TAKES

Stacy Keach will star in “An Inspector Calls” at the Ahmanson Theatre, May 15-June 30, along with Kenneth Cranham of the original London and Broadway casts in the title role. . . . Actor-director Forest Whitaker and actress Beverly Todd (“Lean On Me”) will be honored at the 14th annual Black American Cinema Society Independent Filmmakers Awards, on Sunday at the Palace in Hollywood. . . . Bill Monroe, the 84-year-old father of bluegrass music, has been hospitalized in Nashville for about three weeks undergoing tests for circulatory problems, his manager said. . . . Warner Bros. has moved up the release of “Twister” one week to May 10, launching the summer box-office season. It is a thriller about tornado chasers from Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment. The decision gives Warner Bros. nearly two weeks of box office before another potential blockbuster hits the nation’s theaters--Paramount’s “Mission: Impossible” starring Tom Cruise.