Throat Cancer

FOLLOWING HER most recent arrest (this time for exiting an Escalade reeking of marijuana and shortly thereafter dropping a little bag of coke from a purse she claims wasn't hers), Paris Hilton was banned yesterday from two Wynn resorts on the Las Vegas Strip (Wynn Las Vegas and Encore). Presumably she is still welcome at the Las Vegas Hilton. Maybe even the Paris. And her boyfriend Cy Waits , who was also arrested in his pot-mobile, is now out of work. He was "separated" from his job after less than a week as top managing partner of two Wynn nightclubs, Wynn Resorts spokeswoman Jennifer Dunne said in a statement.

MIKE McLAUGHLIN was a determined man. Maybe it was his experience as a Marine, or just his tough Irish nature, but Mike wasn't going to let his impending death stop him from doing what he felt he had to do for his family. Suffering from throat cancer, Mike told his doctors they had to keep him alive until June 17. That was when he planned to settle on the sale of his former house and the purchase of his new home in Mechanicsburg. "The doctors told him he'd better move up the date," said his brother, Joseph P. McLaughlin.

Desperate for some offense, Phillies manager Jim Fregosi said last night he would play Pete Incaviglia in left field "for a few days to see if he can give us some pop. " And, last night, Inky did. Batting cleanup in a revamped lineup, he broke up Osvaldo Fernandez's no-hit bid with a two-out solo home run in the fourth, and he added a two-run single in the fifth. Incaviglia entered the game with five homers - and 22 strikeouts - in just 62 at-bats. "I know he'll strike out some, but we need someone who can drive in runs because we're not getting any offense," Fregosi said.

Lenny Dykstra without an achy back? Unlikely, but possible. The Dude without a huge chaw of tobacco in his cheek? As unthinkable as the Liberty Bell without its crack. If Phillies righthander Curt Schilling is to be believed, however, Dykstra will take the field sans his trademark wad of Red Man when he comes off the 15-day disabled list - he's eligible Tuesday in Chicago. Baseball's most familiar tobacco-chewer apparently has been scared straight by the throat cancer that has sidelined Los Angeles Dodgers centerfielder Brett Butler, who had not used smokeless tobacco in more than a decade.

The Bash Brothers are together again. Jose Canseco returned to the Oakland Athletics in a trade from Boston yesterday and will be reunited with Mark McGwire, with whom he formed one of the most explosive combos in baseball in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Last season, Canseco batted .289 with 28 homers and 82 RBI. Canseco, who left Oakland in a 1992 trade with Texas, was sent back to the A's for righthander John Wasdin, who was 8-7 with a 5.96 ERA last season in 25 games, 21 of them starts.

It's the hottest show in town, and you can't get a pair of tickets until the coldest day in the year next January. What to do? Well, one way is by calling your friendly scalper and paying him an extra 50 bucks per ticket - and possibly much more. Yesterday, a new-to-Philadelphia ticket service offered a better way. You still pay an extra $50 per ticket, but the money goes as a contribution to the Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Cancer Research Fund. So you get a tax deduction for your contribution, and you get the best seats in the house on or near the day you want them.

More members of the Kardashian Horde have exited the nest to begin feasting on the culture. USA Today says Kardashian matriarch Kris Jenner's youngest daughters, Kendall, 16, and Kylie, 14, are joining Kim, Kris, and Khloé's deadly takeover of the kollective konsciousness. The teens have landed jobs as, um, journalists. They've been named West Coast fashion contributors to Seventeen mag. "Kendall & Kylie's Fashion Journal" debuts in the June/July issue and features the latest fashion and beauty tips, the mag says.

Enough of this rebel shtick: Mick Jagger is considering sending son James, 11, to Eton, one of Britain's most exclusive schools, where Prince William goes. A Brit paper reported yesterday that the rocker and the Mrs., Jerry Hall, visited the school last week. So far, James has been tutored privately on the Caribbean isle of Mustique. COUPLES Yasir Arafat's wife, Suha, says she's not preggers again - yet - but suggests she might be soon, noting that her husband "is dreaming of another baby, whether it is a boy or a girl.

The bouquet of dry cleaning wafts up around Clarence Booker as he spreads a wool blouse on his press, lowers the machine's lid, and floors a foot-pedal to release a plume of steam through the fabric. Booker isn't as quick as he was when he started this job 21 years ago, when he was in his 80s. His hand shakes as he raises an arm. But then he somehow threads two little safety pins through the garment and a paper-covered hanger, summoning the manual dexterity of a Las Vegas card dealer.

You hear them long before you see them, the six pilgrims of Brian Friel's Wonderful Tennessee. "Happy days are here again," they sing, making up in gusto what they lack in cohesiveness. They're accompanied by the wheezing swells of an accordion, that much-maligned agent of sentimental yearning, that lubricator of memory and desire. The scene is a finger of Irish land jutting into the sea near Ballybeg, County Donegal. A seawall stretches the length of the stage. Behind it, an irregular crag with steep steps carved in its side pierces the sky; behind the crag, the sea reaches to infinity.