ARTS AND ENTERTAINMENT REPORTS FROM THE TIMES, NEWS SERVICES AND THE NATION’S PRESS.

RADIO

‘All Things’ Co-Host to Return to Reporting

After 13 years as co-host of National Public Radio’s weekday afternoon newsmagazine “All Things Considered,” Linda Wertheimer will step down at the end of the month to become a full-time correspondent for the noncommercial network.

Wertheimer was a national political reporter for NPR for 15 years before moving into the host’s chair in 1989.

“Now she will be able to devote her energy to in-depth reporting, not only for ‘All Things Considered’ but for all NPR News shows,” Bruce Drake, vice president for news and information at NPR, said Monday. A replacement was not immediately named. Robert Siegel and Noah Adams continue as co-hosts.

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POP/ROCK

Lifetime Achievement Honors for Recordings

Joni Mitchell, Count Basie, Rosemary Clooney, Al Green and Perry Como have been selected to receive lifetime achievement awards from the Recording Academy, which praised them as “influential creators who have given us some of the most distinctive and seminal recordings of the last century.”

The honors will be presented in conjunction with the annual Grammy Awards in February.

Also selected for honors by the academy are engineer and producer Tom Dowd and radio deejay Alan Freed, each of whom will receive trustees awards.

Meanwhile, Garth Brooks has been named to receive a special award of merit at the American Music Awards on Jan. 9.

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Ramone’s Solo Album

to Be Released in February

The first solo album by the late Joey Ramone is due in stores on Feb. 19 from Sanctuary Records.

The lanky punk icon from the seminal band the Ramones died in April after a bout with cancer and had been working sporadically on the solo release since the band’s final show in 1996. The album, titled “Don’t Worry About Me,” includes cover versions of “What a Wonderful World,” famously recorded by Louis Armstrong, and the Stooges’ song “1969.”

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Serbian City Renames Street After Lennon

John Lennon Street is the newest road in Serbia’s second-largest city, Novi Sad. “His great music made John Lennon an important part of the history of the 20th century,” city elder Vladimir Vrgovic said at a ceremony to rename the street in honor of the late Beatle.

At the event Saturday, which included the songs “Twist and Shout” and “All You Need Is Love” played on a tape recorder, a small group of protesters questioned why the street was being named for a person who used illegal drugs.

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PEOPLE

Schwarzenegger Suffers Rib Fractures in Mishap

Action star Arnold Schwarzenegger was hospitalized in Santa Monica with several fractured ribs after a weekend motorcycle accident, his publicist, Jill Eisenstadt, said Monday. She said the 54-year-old actor was “in good spirits, feeling sore, but otherwise fine.”

Details of the accident, which also occurred in Santa Monica, were not immediately available.

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Masur Recovering Since Receiving Kidney

Kurt Masur, the music director of the New York Philharmonic, was recovering after undergoing a kidney transplant, a hospital in Leipzig, Germany, said Monday. The 74-year-old conductor suffered no complications during the operation performed Nov. 29, the University Clinic said in a statement.

Masur’s 11th and final season as the Philharmonic’s musical director began Sept. 20 with a performance, televised in the United States, of Brahms’ “German Requiem” in memory of the victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

He is scheduled to return to the Philharmonic on Feb. 7 for a performance of Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde.” Masur is to be replaced at the end of the season by Lorin Maazel, 71-year-old director of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Munich.

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TELEVISION

Cheadle to Narrate Series on Black Comedy

Don Cheadle will narrate a five-part documentary series, “The Heroes of Black Comedy,” that Comedy Central plans to show during Black History Month in February. Topics of the installments include Richard Pryor, Whoopi Goldberg, Chris Rock, “The Original Kings of Comedy” (Steve Harvey, Bernie Mac, D.L. Hughley and Cedric the Entertainer) and the influence of hip-hop comedy, with particular attention to Russell Simmons’ “Def Comedy Jam.”

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Mystery-Drama From Williamson Set for WB

Writer-producer Kevin Williamson, best known for the horror film “Scream” and the teen drama “Dawson’s Creek,” combines elements of both in a series called “Glory Days” that will premiere Jan. 16 on the WB network.

The new series is set in an island town and will offer a “scary murder mystery” each week, the network said Monday. With a cast that includes Eddie Cahill, Poppy Montgomery, Jay R. Ferguson and Frances Fisher, the show will air Wednesdays at 9 p.m. while “Felicity” is benched until April.

Also joining the WB lineup on Jan. 13 will be “The Jamie Kennedy Experiment,” a hidden camera-type show with host and colleagues engaged in what the network calls a “shameless quest to catch unsuspecting ‘marks’ in hilarious, embarrassing moments.” It will air Sundays at 8 p.m. in a revised schedule that will see back-to-back episodes of “The Steve Harvey Show” from 7 to 8 p.m., “Nikki” at 8:30, “Off Centre” at 9 and “For Your Love” returning at 9:30 in place of “Men, Women & Dogs.”

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QUICK TAKES

Singer Freddy Fender is scheduled to receive a kidney transplant from his daughter, Marla, at the University of Texas in San Antonio next month, his publicist says.... MTV Films is planning to make a feature-length documentary about hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur, with involvement from the late rapper’s mother, Afeni Shakur.... HBO has started production on the second season of its series “Six Feet Under,” to premiere in March.... Guest stars on “The Chris Isaak Show,” which starts its second season on Showtime on Jan. 6, will include Bridget Fonda, Shelby Lynne, Stephan Jenkins of Third Eye Blind and Art Alexakis of Everclear.... TV talk-show host Montel Williams will portray a judge on the ABC soap opera “All My Children” beginning Jan. 3.

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Lee Margulies