NEWS LITE : DIANA'S AFFECTIONS SET OFF TEMPEST.

Princess Diana, who can't seem to avoid controversy, found herself knee-deep Monday after photos of her making nice with an Arab businessman were published in London.

In swimsuit and sarong, Di was shown aboard the yacht of Mohamed Al Fayed on the Riviera as she holidayed with her sons. Last weekend, Diana and Prince William, 15, and Prince Harry, 12, stayed at a St. Tropez villa next door to Al Fayed. In one pic, she had an arm around him.

Al Fayed, who owns Harrods department store, is despised by the Conservative Party, whose members blamed him for their loss of power in May's elections after he revealed that he paid members of Parliament to do his bidding. Though he's lived in Britain for 30 years, the Egyptian-born Al Fayed has repeatedly been denied British citizenship.

``Has she simply failed to realize it might cause difficulty or is it intended to cause difficulty?'' Member of Parliament David Wiltshite asked of Diana's behavior. Weighed in the Daily Telegraph: ``Mr. Fayed is not the sort of person in whose debt a public figure such as the princess should knowingly place herself and her sons.''

Injured spectator

sues stripper 

While other men pay to see Busty Heart's 88-inch chest, Bennie Casson says the stripper should pay him $200,000 for slamming her celebrated bosom into his neck and head.

Casson also claims that P.T.'s Show Club in Sauget, Ill., should have warned customers to watch out for Heart's breasts, which reportedly weigh 40 pounds each.

A personal injury lawsuit filed by Casson on Friday in St. Clair County Circuit Court accuses the club and its parent company of negligence and Heart of assault and battery during an April 29, 1996, performance by the traveling dancer.

When Heart - whose real name is Susan Sykes - first brought her act to the area in 1990, Sauget residents groused about traffic jams around the club.

A P.T.'s spokesman on Friday said Casson's lawsuit is not a publicity stunt.

``I'd love to say we were very creative and came up with this one, but I guess this guy really is claiming he suffered distress at the club,'' said James White, area director for Mississippi Restaurant Concept Inc., which owns four local clubs and five others nationwide.

Magical couple called an illusion

Claudia Schiffer and David Copperfield are denying a report in Paris Match that their relationship is a contractual arrangement designed to give the magic man a higher profile. The long-engaged duo, who've never set a wedding date, called the report ``100 percent false.''

Match says it was anonymously faxed a document saying the model agreed to act the part of Copperfield's squeeze. The mag says their apparently fateful meeting at a 1993 Berlin performance by Copperfield was actually a setup. It says Schiffer was given a first-class, round-trip ticket from Paris, provided with a Mercedes, a bodyguard and $20,000, plus a 20 percent agency fee to appear in the audience where Copperfield discovered her.

The contract, the mag says, specifies that Schiffer ``will remain in Berlin for 24 hours during which time she shall attend the 9 p.m. show and participate in the reception following the show.'' It also read: ``We kindly ask you not to disclose the terms of this agreement to anybody . . . other than the principals involved.'' Copperfield's publicist said he and Schiffer had contracts to do the 1993 show, but ``there is no contract that states Claudia is there as some sort of consort.''

Launching career off Springer-board

Harboring dislike and disdain for TV sensationalist Jerry Springer is not necessarily a bad career move.

Carol Marin, the Chicago anchorwoman who quit in protest when Springer was hired to do commentaries on her local news show, has found new, improved work.

CBS said Monday that it has signed Marin, 48, to a multiyear contract with Bryant Gumbel's new video magazine.

As part of the deal, Marin will head a special reporting unit at WBBM-TV, the local CBS affiliate.

Springer, of course, lasted less than a week at WMAQ-TV, an NBC affiliate that viewers abandoned in droves after Marin left in May. Marin called Springer ``the poster child for the worst television has to offer.''

C&W singers form matrimonial duet

The Grand Ole Opry has a new first couple - singers Marty Stuart and Connie Smith.

The pair were married July 8 in Pine Ridge, S.D., Stuart's management company said Monday.

Stuart, 38, is known for his flashy stage costumes and duet hits with Travis Tritt, such as ``The Whiskey Ain't Workin''' and ``Honky Tonkin's What I Do Best.'' Smith, 55, has a long string of hits to her credit beginning with ``Once a Day'' in 1964.

Smith has been married three previous times. Stuart is divorced from Cindy Cash, daughter of singer Johnny Cash.

`Maguire' grounded by airline for sex

An American Airlines executive who happened to be aboard a recent flight that showed the movie ``Jerry Maguire'' was ``appalled,'' says Entertainment Weekly, at the inclusion of a sex scene that contained some graphic images.

``We had been told that the scene would be cut,'' an airline representative told the magazine, ``and it was our impression that it was. Instead, it turned out to be modified but still in there.''

The movie was pulled from the main cabin (replaced by the scintillating ``Vegas Vacation'' with Chevy Chase) but is still offered as a ``cassette choice'' for business- and first-class travelers.

CAPTION(S):

4 Photos

Photo: (1) Schiffer

(2) Marin

(3 -- 4) Princess Di spend the weekend on the French Riviera in the company of an Arab businessman. Photos of the two together angered conservative members of Parliment.

Associated Press