NEWS LITE : ACTRESS YOUNG CALLS BIRTH `EASY'.

Byline: Compiled from Daily News staff and wire reports

Actress Sean Young gave birth to a 10-pound, 3-ounce baby, but she says it was ``an exceptionally easy birth,'' her spokeswoman said.

``She says it's pretty amazing that a 38-year-old could shove out a 10-pound baby,'' spokeswoman Michelle Bega said Thursday. ``She told me it was an exceptionally easy birth.''

Young, 38, delivered the boy after six hours of labor Monday in Flagstaff, Ariz., Bega said.

Quinn Lee is Young's second child. She and her husband, actor Robert Lujan, 37, who live in Arizona, have another son, Rio, 3.

Young has appeared in movies such as ``Blade Runner,'' ``Even Cowgirls Get the Blues,'' and ``A Kiss Before Dying.'' Her latest project is an independent feature film, ``Men,'' about a woman's freedom of expression regarding her relationship with men, Bega said.

Fergie, Specter to vie in squash set benefit

It'll be the duchess vs. the senator on April 8.

Sarah Ferguson and Arlen Specter will face off in Pittsburgh for a squash game to raise money for a baseball team for inner-city youths.

The two met Thursday when the Duchess of York thanked the Republican from Pennsylvania for trying to obtain more federal money for breast cancer research.

Specter, 67, casually asked Ferguson, 38, whether she played and she agreed to a game on the same day she will be honored at the America-Ireland Fund dinner in Pittsburgh.

``We could have a good match,'' Ferguson said.

No more nice guys for former `Mr. Mom'

The affable guy in ``Mr. Mom'' and ``Beetlejuice'' has gotten ugly.

Michael Keaton, who once portrayed the caped crusader in ``Batman,'' is playing a psychopathic killer in the movie ``Desperate Measures,'' which opened nationwide Friday. The actor calls it a ``pretty thick pork chop'' role.

He expanded character Peter McCabe from just being a hyper, super-intelligent guy to someone physically powerful as well.

``It makes him more of a monster. If he doesn't outsmart you, he will destroy you,'' Keaton said in an interview last week.

``Desperate Measures'' features the life-and-death struggle of a San Francisco police officer searching for a compatible bone marrow donor for his gravely ill son. McCabe is the perfect DNA match, but he's serving a life sentence in a maximum security prison.

``It's just another thing to play,'' Keaton said. ``I guess I just like a nice big cafeteria, a smorgasbord. Yeah, I'll take a little of this, a little of that. And it's been to my detriment sometimes when I've done movies that aren't any good or I'm not good in them or they don't do very well.''

Keaton said nice-guy roles are easier to play.

``But this guy, he's scary. He's dangerous. Angry. Hurt. And it comes from deep pain.''

Terminator takes on paparazzi

Arnold Schwarzenegger testified Friday that his newly repaired heart was pounding and he felt frightened as he and his pregnant wife, Maria Shriver, tried desperately to elude two paparazzi last year.

The muscular actor appeared as a witness against photographers Giles Harrison and Andrew O'Brien, who are accused of misdemeanor false imprisonment, battery and reckless driving.

``I was feeling very vulnerable and very shaky,'' Schwarzenegger said when prosecutor David Armstrong asked about his state of mind during the May 1997 incident, a week after the actor underwent heart valve surgery.

Schwarzenegger testified that as his wife weaved through traffic, he was following doctors' orders by holding a pillow between himself and the seat belt. The couple's 3-year-old son, Patrick, was in the back seat.

At one point, the photographers allegedly boxed in the family's Mercedes-Benz, forcing the car to stop so they could take pictures and record video.

``I could die by raising my blood pressure, so I was telling myself, calm down,'' he said. ``What was going through my mind was, this is my last minute, because I was getting so angry.''

Shriver managed to drive on to her son's school. Outside, a United Parcel Service driver and a school official were allegedly shoved by O'Brien when they intervened to aid the family.

Lawyers for the photographers claim they broke no laws and that they didn't know there was a child in the car at the time. The defense introduced photographs and video of the pursuit to illustrate their case.

In a twist, Schwarzenegger also had a camera, and his pictures were also used as evidence. One showed a photographer shooting pictures through the couple's windshield.

Harrison and O'Brien each face a year in prison if convicted of false imprisonment, six months for battery and 90 days for reckless driving.

Shriver is scheduled to testify Monday.

OFFBEAT: Beef over dog bones resolved

Bethany Knight has a bone to pick with Vermont's meat inspectors.

Her mutts, Boy and Girl, like to chew on bones she regularly brings home from the general store. But when Knight stopped by Currier's Quality Market a few Sundays ago, she was told that a state Agriculture Department meat inspector had ordered the store to stop selling the bones because they hadn't been inspected and labeled as fit for human consumption.

``They feel they're protecting us because we're too stupid not to eat dog bones,'' said Knight, an author and consultant who complained in a letter to the editor of the local paper, the Barton Chronicle.

Last week, Carl Cushing, chief of Vermont's meat inspection program, said the order had been reversed and that the bones would be allowed back at Currier's as soon as the slaughterhouse had some to sell.

Cushing called the problem ``a simple misunderstanding'' and said the inspector should not have ordered the store to stop selling the bones altogether.

``What he probably should have said is, `If you want to sell bones, you should make sure they're properly labeled,' '' he said.

Slaughterhouse bones must be inspected and approved for human consumption in case people want to use them to make soup, for example, instead of feeding them to the dog.

The bones ``could have come from barrels that weren't clean. There may have been other contamination on them,'' Cushing said. ``If they don't come with a label on them, we can only assume they came from an unapproved source.''

The bones will soon be back for Boy and Girl, whose usual playthings are buried in snow.

``In the winter in Vermont, if you're a dog, there's not much to do out there,'' Knight said.

CAPTION(S):

2 Photos

PHOTO (1) Arnold Schwarzenegger smiles at photographers outside the courthouse Friday in Santa Monica.

Associated Press

(2) KEATON