Regis to fill in for Dick Clark

Regis Philbin will fill in as host of ABC’s “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve 2005” for Dick Clark, who suffered a mild stroke last week, the network announced Monday.

Philbin, co-host of the syndicated Regis & Kelly, has made subbing for ailing entertainers something of a specialty, coming to David Letterman’s aid when Letterman underwent heart bypass surgery in 2000 and recovered from an eye infection in 2003.

Clark remains hospitalized after his stroke, spokesman Paul Shefrin said, but is “getting better every day.”

‘Apprentice’ advice

New York — Donald Trump taught Kevin Allen and Sandy Ferreira, his oh-so-close firees on NBC’s “The Apprentice, a valuable lesson: go to school but don’t stay too long.

“Ultimately, I think I came to the table with an entrepreneurial spirit,” Ferreira, 28, told The Associated Press. “I just didn’t have the degree that Trump wanted. I couldn’t pull it out of the air.”

On the flip side, Trump called law student Allen, 29, overeducated and underexperienced before firing him — even though finalist Kelly Perdew has the same number of degrees and Jennifer Massey has a similar amount of business experience.

The choice wasn’t easy, Ferreira said.

“We had to leave the boardroom three times,” she said, “because Trump couldn’t make a decision.”

All that jazz

New Delhi — A group of popular American jazz artists will perform in India next month as part of a U.S. State Department-supported campaign to combat HIV, an embassy official said.

George Duke, Al Jarreau, Earl Klugh and Ravi Coltrane will have concerts in Bombay and New Delhi starting Jan. 13, said David Kennedy, U.S. embassy spokesman in New Delhi, on Monday.

India, with 1.06 billion people, has the world’s second largest HIV-infected population, totaling 5.1 million.