Prince Edward

A shocker from Sheryl Crow: The singer-songwriter says she has a brain tumor. Luckily, it's benign, Crow tells the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Crow, 50, says she's been worried about recurrent memory loss for some time. (Just last month, she forgot the lyrics to "Soak Up the Sun" at a Florida show.) An MRI in November revealed that Crow has meningioma, which develops from the lining that protects the brain and spinal cord. She stayed mum. "I haven't really talked about it," she said in an understatement.

For the past three summers, my family has vacationed on Prince Edward Island, a crescent-shaped piece of land north of New Brunswick in the Canadian maritimes. It is an island of incredibly hospitable people and incredibly beautiful beaches, as well as a place with wonderful raw materials for meals - fresh fish, wild berries, acres of potatoes, clams we can dig ourselves and mussel farms. While we are there, we make chowders, grill fish and roast pounds of potatoes in campfires we build on the beach.

Winters are harsh on Prince Edward Island, and so, like many retired Canadians, Fred and Flo MacLean head south by late November. But it's not to a sunny realm of golf and sailboats and margaritas that these snowbirds migrate. Their 700-mile journey ends at a dingy corner on Kensington Avenue, where the El rumbles and shrieks overhead, addicts come and go from abandoned rowhouses, and hundreds of men, women, and children line up each day at the soup kitchen known as St. Francis Inn. For the last nine winters, the MacLeans have made this Philadelphia neighborhood their own, cooking and serving meals to "the least of these" while living among them.

After nine fans died in a frenzied crush during a Pearl Jam concert in Denmark, the Seattle band considered breaking up. "I think the thought crossed all of our minds, but it wouldn't have been a good way to end it all," guitarist Mike McCready told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on Thursday. McCready said the band was devastated after the events at the June 30 Roskilde Festival. Fans rushed the stage, crushing nine concertgoers to death and seriously injuring three others.

The instructions before this fight should be interesting. No hitting below the belt. . .no biting the ears. . . Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson's next fight will be against Andrew Golota Oct. 20 in the Palace at Auburn Hills, Mich., Showtime announced yesterday. Critics will use it as an example of the sad state of boxing; purists will be hoping for a fight and not a charade, and pro wrestling fans will be hoping Tyson and Golota will emulate Hulk Hogan or Bam Bam Bigelow.

HELLO ... ROSEANNE? ... YOU IN THERE? ... ROSEANNE? A Roseanne is a Roseanne is a Roseanne . . . The woman currently in charge of Roseanne Arnold's body tells Oprah Winfrey, in an interview to be broadcast Monday, that she suffers from "dissociative identity disorder. " 'They don't call it multiple personality anymore," she tells Winfrey. "I always was living several lives at once, that's kinda what it feels like. " Arnold says she recently woke up in Barstow, Calif.

Provincial premiers and other Canadian leaders agreed yesterday to a sweeping political-reform package designed to head off a secession referendum in French-speaking Quebec. "We do not have perfection tonight, but we do have fair and honorable compromise that will benefit Canada," Prime Minister Brian Mulroney said at the close of five days of talks involving the premiers and native and territorial leaders. The accord would overhaul the federal Parliament, allow self-government for Indians and Inuits, give provinces a veto over future changes in federal institutions and lower interprovincial trade barriers.

When Flyers coach Bill Dineen instructed his players on what to pack for training camp, he made sure to mention all the necessities. Sticks. Pucks. Golf clubs. Golf clubs? "We'll have our normal curfew and everything else," Dineen said about the Flyers' weeklong training camp, which will begin today in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island. "But we're at a resort up there, and there is a championship golf course. I know we're asking them to come to training camp and bring your golf clubs.

With the opening of training camp a little more than a month away, the Flyers are doing a bit of roster tinkering. General manager Russ Farwell said yesterday that the team has signed goalie Scott Lagrand, a 1988 fourth-round draft pick, and has bought out the final two years of veteran winger Brad Jones's contract. Lagrand, 22, played three seasons at Boston College. The signing is significant because the Flyers are thin and inexperienced in goal, after trading veterans Ken Wregget and Ron Hextall.

John Watson is 70 now, a veteran radio talk-show host at WILM-AM in Wilmington. When he was a high school junior in 1951 in Farmville, Va., he was a leader of the student strike that helped form the landmark Supreme Court desegregation decision in Brown v. Board of Education. And Barbara Johns, the quiet 16-year-old who made history by organizing the student walkout, settled in Philadelphia after graduating from Drexel University and worked as a librarian here until her death in 1991.