Estefan

There's an awful lot of fluff in tonight's prime-time lineup, so tread carefully.* "Baywatch" (6 p.m.-7 p.m., WNUV, Channel 54) -- Mary Lou Retton helps the gang organize a Special Olympics event. I bet she smiles a lot and is perky as all get out.* "Stars in the Making" (9 p.m.-10 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- As fluff, I suppose this is entertaining enough, and it's fun seeing Jodie Foster, Jane Seymour, Candice Bergen, Nicholas Cage, Kurt Russell and others in their formative stages. My recommendation: rent "Fast Times at Ridgemont High."

Let's start with AC, or Adult Contemporary. At the moment, this is radio's most popular format, reeling in more listeners than anything else on the dial.AC is big on soft rock, song-oriented R&B, perky dance pop and ballads of any sort, with typical fare including Phil Collins, Gloria Estefan, Michael Bolton and Whitney Houston; in Baltimore, we're talking WLIF-FM and Variety 104 (WVRT-FM).Then there's Urban, which is radio code for "black music." Theoretically, this means anything too funky for AC, but in practice it has less to do with hard-core rap and Southern soul than with the slick, new-jack sound of Silk, Shai, SWV, H-Town and Janet Jackson.

A movie that changed my life, a chance to chart the career of Courteney Cox, ice-skating nannies and a lifetime achievement award for Mr. Rourke of "Fantasy Island." For the week between Christmas and New Year's, a week that's usually the deadest of the year, this isn't a bad lineup at all.* "Disney's Hits on Ice" (8 p.m.-10 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- Katarina Witt as Mary Poppins? I knew Great Britain's most famous nanny could fly, but ice skate? Now that's talent. CBS.* "Friends" (8 p.m.-8:30 p.m., WBAL, Channel 11)

Just because the concert calendars at Merriweather Post Pavilion and Pier Six Pavilion seem to be filling up, don't believe that we've seen the end of the summer concert announcements.There are still several heavyweight tours pending.Due to escalating ticket prices and the loss of money by promoters and bands, fans are expected to get more music for the money by way of big rock package tours before September.The most highly touted is "Lollapalooza," a barnstorm tour featuring Jane's Addiction, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Living Colour, Nine Inch Nails, Ice-T and The Butthole Surfers.

For the past few days, Gloria Estefan, Nelly, John Rich and Joe Jonas have been in Baltimore, preparing contestants to compete in a new TV show. Called "The Next: Fame is at Your Doorstep," the CW's singing competition partners the four stars with local, unsigned singers. The four contestants compete on stage, and the audience votes on who they want to represent their city at a live show in Los Angeles. The Baltimore taping is at 8 p.m. tonight at the Hippodrome Theatre. The winner gets a recording contract with Atlantic Records.

WASHINGTON - Who says there are "no second acts in American lives"? Well OK, F. Scott Fitzgerald did. But he didn't know about so-called reality television shows. In recent months, we have seen has-been pop stars as diverse as Erik Estrada, Flava Flav, Tammy Faye Bakker Messner and Vanilla Ice re-emerge in the unblinking eye of roving mini-cams. Now watch for Martha Stewart, fresh from a prison release that received more coverage than any since South Africa's Nelson Mandela ended 27 years of political imprisonment in 1989.

MIAMI - President Bush lashed out at Fidel Castro yesterday, saying he would not lift a trade embargo against Cuba without substantial reforms, and was greeted by roars of approval from thousands of Cuban-Americans during the speech in a state critical to the president's re-election campaign in 2004. "Nearly a half-century ago, Cuba's independence and the hopes for democracy were hijacked by a brutal dictator who cares everything for his own power and nada for the Cuban people," Bush said.

Celebrities have long endorsed sodas, breakfast cereal and clothes, so is it surprising that they are weighing in on angioplasty?Increasingly, celebrities are lending their names to hospitals and medical programs, often as an expression of gratitude for helping them through a personal medical crisis.Present and past Orioles Eric Davis and Boog Powell have urged self-testing for colon cancer in a promotional campaign sponsored by the University of Maryland Medical Center, WJZ-TV Channel 13 and Giant Pharmacies.

Latin music in the United States has gone through many changes in the last six decades, as its sound evolved from Cubop to mambo, from cha-cha to salsa, and from Latin rock to the latest tropical beats. Numerous stars appeared along the way, but only one seemed to stay the course: Tito Puente. No more. Some 63 years after he began drumming professionally, the great "Mambo King" has laid down his sticks for good. Wednesday evening, Puente died in a New York hospital from complications experienced during heart surgery.

It's been heartbreaking to see what has happened to Muhammad Ali.The greatest boxer of our time, a figure of almost magical charisma, he now drifts through the days like a ghost haunting his own life. Too many blows to the head have resulted in Parkinson's disease.In the June Esquire, Pete Hamill describes a dinner party of prizefighters and celebrities at which "everybody tried to avoid looking" at Ali. But Hamill could not tear his eyes away: He saw the 54-year-old Ali unable to move a piece of chicken 2 inches to his mouth, "the once lithe and powerful body sagging all of him shaking with the Parkinson's disease, with the damage caused by the fierce trade he once honored."