Bahamas

Just what we needed to take our mind off Whitney Houston's troubles: Her hubbo Bobby Brown is back in jail. Bobby has been keeping a low profile in recent months, as the buzz was all about the erratic behavior and health problems of wife Whitney. But a warrant has been out for Bobby's arrest since June - he'd been accused of violating terms of his probation, more on that in a sec - and Wednesday, customs officials at Newark International Airport jumped on the star when he passed through on his way home from a Bahamas holiday.

QUOTE "To be perfectly honest, every time I saw a poster of Madonna, I felt like I was looking at myself. " - Singer SHERYL CROW, telling E! Online why she cut her hair Whitney Houston, still desperately, unconvincingly, longing to be a bad girl, says she doesn't let volatile hubbo Bobby Brown hit her - oh, no. She slaps him around. "Contrary to belief, I do the hitting, he doesn't. He has never put his hands on me. He is not a woman-beater," the diva told the May Redbook magazine.

Costa Rica and Nicaragua have offered asylum to Cuban pitcher Orlando "El Duque" Hernandez and six others who defected with him, baseball agent Joe Cubas said yesterday. Bahamian officials said that Hernandez and another defecting player, catcher Alberto Hernandez, would have to leave Nassau by today. The two players, who are not related, have been there since they fled Cuba two weeks ago. The United States had offered Hernandez, his common-law wife and the other player humanitarian visas.

Dallas Stars owner Tom Hicks is leading a group bidding to purchase baseball's Texas Rangers, a spokeswomen for the businessman confirmed last night. Talks regarding the prospective deal have been ongoing for some time, said Hicks spokeswoman Lisa LeMaster. "The only thing I can say is to confirm that discussions have been under way for some months," she told the Associated Press. Asked if a deal to buy the Rangers was imminent, LeMaster said she could not speculate. Dallas television station WFAA first reported the talks last night, citing a spokesperson for Hicks and a current investor in the team.

Penn State's wrestling team, ranked 10th, stunned second-ranked Iowa, 25-17, in a dual meet yesterday in Iowa City, ruining the home debut of Iowa's acting coach and handing the Hawkeyes just their second loss ever at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Iowa's other loss at the arena, where it now has a 98-2 record, was a 19-18 defeat by Penn State on Feb. 6, 1988. The Nittany Lions (6-1) led for the entire meet and secured the victory in the final match, when heavyweight Mark Janus pinned Wes Hand in 3 minutes, 23 seconds.

To grow up and play big-league baseball. Still an American Dream. And a dream for boys from the other Americas, South and Central, and from other countries, the Dominican Republic and Cuba among them. It surely filled the reveries of Orlando Hernandez, a Cuban pitcher, whose 129-47 lifetime record made his the best arm on Fidel Castro's island, a hotbed of baseball talent. Last Sunday, Hernandez, 28, became more than a righthander with a lively fastball. He became a refugee, a humanitarian cause, when he and seven other Cubans sailed to the Bahamas on a raft, a freedom flotilla of one 20-foot raft and eight souls seeking a better life.

Orlando Hernandez, the half-brother of World Series Most Valuable Player Livan Hernandez, has arrived in the Bahamas after fleeing Cuba, a spokesperson for the Cuban American National Foundation said yesterday. Spokesperson Mariela Ferretti said the foundation was in touch with U.S. authorities to ask that a visa to enter the United States be issued to Hernandez, known as El Duque and also a talented pitcher. Ferretti said Hernandez had reached Nassau with his wife and about six other people.

When friends invited us to join them for 10 days on Eleuthera, we rushed to get out our atlas. Once spotting the place on a map - and discovering it's one of the Bahamas "out islands" - we hastened to accept the invitation. So, early one Thursday morning, we picked up Bill and Sue Andrews at their 250-year-old farmhouse in Chester County and drove to Philadelphia International Airport. A few hours and a couple of flights later, we stepped off a prop job at the airport at Governor's Harbour, about 200 miles due east of Miami.

Sidney Poitier took over as the ambassador to Japan for the Bahamas yesterday in a Tokyo ceremony presided over by Emperor Akihito. "It's exhilarating," said the Oscar-winning actor, who holds dual U.S. and Bahamas citizenship. Noting that he won't be living in Japan, Poitier, 70, said: "There will be times when I will make films. . . . There will be no time when I'm not available to fulfill my duties as an ambassador. " He added: "I was raised in the Bahamas. My roots are there.

"Oh my God. I'm so, like, nervous. This is, like, bad. " - Songstress Fiona Apple, age 19, in concert Sunday in New York Fergie, Duchess of York, debuted her new, syndicated column yesterday, and several papers in Europe, Canada and South Africa have arranged to carry it. In the states, she'll appear in the Chicago Sun-Times, The Denver Post and St. Petersburg Times. For her first outing, Fergie (and a ghostwriting assistant) waxed nostalgic about Argentina, where her late stepfather lived.