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

TV & RADIO

KCAL Changes: KCAL-TV Channel 9, which for seven years has featured a prime-time block of three newscasts with separate themes and anchor teams each hour, will revamp its news operation in mid-October. Along with a new set and visuals, the newscasts will basically restart every half-hour--each with a new team of anchors. “We want a fresh, more energetic presentation so that viewers can join us for a fresh newscast,” said news director Dennis Herzig. The anchor teams will include Pat Harvey, Kerry Kilbride, Jane Velez-Mitchell, Terri Merriman and the newly hired Jerry Dunphy, but pairs and time slots have not yet been assigned.

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KCET Pledge Results: Trying to please viewers who had protested its lengthy on-air fund-raising drives, KCET-TV Channel 28 reduced its August campaign by 33% this year--from 1996’s 18 days to 12. Unfortunately, the public station reported Tuesday, its income also fell by almost a third. A total of $456,203 was pledged this month, compared to $632,104 the previous August--a decline of more than 27%. A KCET spokeswoman said the station now might lengthen the December fund-raising effort or add other pledge days during the year to try to make up the difference.

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Imus Suit: A New York judge filed a $50,000 libel suit against radio host Don Imus Monday claiming the shock jock embarrassed, ridiculed and disgraced him on the air last September. Imus had called Judge Harold J. Rothwax, 66, a “senile old dirt bag” after Rothwax ordered Imus’ wife to serve on a jury. Although Imus had apologized in May, he responded to the suit on his show Tuesday: “Let’s get it on, let’s go to court. . . . The judge is a public figure, and I believe what I said about him at the time.”

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Coming Up Electra: MTV, which took Jenny McCarthy from the pages of Playboy to television stardom, is aiming to follow the same track with Carmen Electra, who replaced McCarthy on the cable network’s dating series “Singled Out” when McCarthy segued to her own sketch comedy series for MTV. With McCarthy now starring in an NBC sitcom scheduled to premiere next month, MTV Productions has announced plans to develop a prime-time series for Electra that would be shopped to the networks. Electra is already co-starring on the syndicated series “Baywatch.”

POP/ROCK

Like a Rolling Pope: Bob Dylan will sing for a very special audience next month: Pope John Paul II. The concert will be in Bologna at the World Eucharistic Congress on Sept. 27. Monsignor Ernesto Vecchi, head of the organizational committee, called the concert “an occasion for the pope to meet young people.” Dylan, 56, recently resumed performances after being hospitalized this summer for a heart infection.

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Selling Out: The Rolling Stones--who announced plans for their Bridges to Babylon stadium tour last week--have already sold out their first three shows--Sept. 23 and 25 at Chicago’s Soldier Field and Sept. 24 at the Ohio Stadium in Columbus. The band--whose 1994 stadium trek was the year’s top-grossing tour--hopes to repeat that feat again this year. Tickets for the Stones’ L.A. date--Nov. 9 at Dodger Stadium--have not yet gone on sale.

MOVIES

Davis-Harlin Divorce: Actress Geena Davis filed for divorce Tuesday from director Renny Harlin after nearly four years of marriage. The couple had separated in April. Davis’ publicist said that she has also left the Forge, the production company she had jointly owned with Harlin, and has resurrected her own company, Genial Pictures. The couple had worked together on two box-office bombs, “Cutthroat Island” and “The Long Kiss Goodnight.”

QUICK TAKES

KNBC-TV Channel 4 won one of three Emmy Awards presented in New York Monday for community and public service. The award--in the community service program category--honored Channel 4’s weekly series, “Beating the Odds,” which features college-bound students who have overcome seemingly insurmountable hurdles. . . . CBS sportscaster Pat O’Brien has been named co-host of the syndicated “Access Hollywood,” replacing Larry Mendte, who is returning to his former job as a news anchor in Philadelphia. In addition to his sports duties, O’Brien previously served as a substitute anchor for one of “Access Hollywood’s” rivals, “Entertainment Tonight.” . . . Comics Lisa Kudrow, Julia Sweeney, Kathy Griffin and Patrick Bristow (“Ellen”) will be among those performing at their alma mater, the Groundling Theatre (7307 Melrose Ave., West Hollywood), tonight at 8, in a benefit to raise money for Groundling member Scott Chernoff, who was injured in a recent mugging. Tickets are $15. . . . Clint Eastwood has won more than $800,000 in a lawsuit against the National Enquirer after a San Francisco appeals court ruled that, in a December 1993 article, the tabloid “falsely suggested to the ordinary reader . . . that Eastwood had willingly chatted with someone from the Enquirer.”

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Quotable: “I have never seriously considered running for elective office nor have I ever participated in meetings to that end.”

--Actor Tom Selleck, in a letter to the Associated Press responding to a New York Times report that Republicans were trying to recruit him for the U.S. Senate race in California.