NEWS LITE : EVANGELIST FACES MORE LEGAL FIRE AND BRIMSTONE.

The Rev. Robert Schuller is being sued for $5 million by the United Airlines flight attendant he tangled with on a coast-to-coast flight June 28. Khaled Elabiad, 33, citing physical and psychic injuries incurred in the encounter, said the TV preacher drank alcohol on the plane, argued with him and other workers and repeatedly called him ``a liar'' in a dispute over grapes served in first class. Elabiad quoted Schuller as telling him: ``Don't you know who I am? I am the powerful Reverend Robert Schuller.'' Elabiad said he responded: ``If you are a man of religion, you wouldn't be insulting us. . . . You have treated me without respect.''

At a hearing into the incident last week, Schuller, 70, pleaded not guilty to one federal misdemeanor count, but agreed to have the U.S. Attorney's Office monitor his behavior for six months. He also paid a $1,100 fine and apologized to Elabiad for touching him, although he denied shaking him. Federal investigators concluded that Schuller grabbed the flight attendant and shook him vigorously.

After the hearing, Schuller went on national radio and accused the attendant of an insult he wouldn't repeat. Schuller's lawyer said the evangelist sometimes takes a glass of wine at dinner. He claimed that the incident ``allows (Elabiad) to take a lottery ticket in our court system and see if he can win 125 years' worth of salary. . . . We won't pay him one dime.''

Drinking up the college scene

Party animals avoid Caltech's laboratories

Brainiacs at California Institute of Technology may not know how to roll a quarter off their noses into a pint of beer. But they probably could calculate the rate of descent down the proboscis.

Caltech was named the nation's worst party school by the Princeton Review, which ranked top party schools and top ``stone cold sober schools.''

If you'd rather hit the bars instead of the books, enroll at West Virginia University, which rated No. 1 in the survey.

``If you don't want to party, you're in the wrong place,'' marketing junior Jake Jacobsen said as he hoisted a brew a few blocks from campus Sunday night, the night before the first day of classes.

Last year's top party school, Florida State University, dropped to sixth this year in the annual survey, behind WVU, the University of Wisconsin at Madison, State University of New York at Albany, the University of Colorado at Boulder and Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

Caltech's last-place rating only makes officials proud of their students.

``We've got good well-rounded kids,'' said spokesman Max Benavidez. ``They have to work hard.''

That's paid off in a more prestigious ranking: The $18,800-a-year school with about 900 undergraduates was No. 1 last week in the Money magazine list of best-value colleges.

Milk blob does Mir

man good

OFFBEAT

One small drop of milk, one giant leap for TV commercials.

When he wasn't scrambling to fix his accident-prone space station, Mir cosmonaut Vasily Tsibliyev was busy making a television commercial for an Israeli brand of long-life milk.

The commercial - broadcast Wednesday on Israel's Channel 2 television - shows Tsibliyev swallowing a floating blob of Tnuva milk.

``It's the first time milk's been in space,'' joked a spokeswoman for Gitam/BBDO, the Israeli advertising agency that produced the commercial.

In fact, powdered milk has flown in space since the Apollo missions, but the liquid kind apparently has never made it aboard a U.S. flight, NASA said.

The 90-second spot was filmed July 25 on Mir - a month after the space station's collision with a cargo ship. Flight engineer Alexander Lazutkin used the camera while Israeli directors radioed instructions from the Mir control station.

Rimes' voice nurses girl

Now, we're not claiming that a miracle - medical or otherwise - has occurred, but LeAnn Rimes has been involved in something unusual.

According to the mother of a 7-year-old car-crash victim, the little girl began to emerge from a coma soon after Rimes personally serenaded her with a lullaby version of the hit song ``Blue.''

Tamra Diehl's family had hoped that hearing the 14-year-old country superstar might rouse her. During Rimes' Aug. 6 visit to the family's Reno, Nev., home, Tamra stirred and her eyelids fluttered as Rimes softly sang.

The girl doesn't remember the visit from her idol but has seen pictures of Rimes kneeling at her bedside, said her mom, Debra Diehl.

``She started coming out of the coma ever since that day LeAnn Rimes came here. We are very thankful to her,'' Diehl said.

Bump into Busey causes turbulence

For actor Gary Busey, the question may be: What's the difference between a push or a hit?

A United Airlines flight attendant said an ailing Busey hit her after she accidentally bumped his head Monday on a plane from Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

Busey, who is battling cancer, said she startled him and he pushed her in reaction to pain.

The flight attendant wasn't injured and no charges have been filed. Busey was nearly asleep and leaning into the aisle in first class as the pilots were preparing for takeoff and the flight attendant was giving her safety presentation, police Sgt. Will Minor said.

She backed into Busey's head, and ``it turned into a verbal confrontation from there,'' Minor said.

Eisner's book shelved for now

Random House has taken the unusual step of announcing the postponement of Michael Eisner's autobiography, which had been scheduled for release this fall.

Eisner, the chairman of Walt Disney Co., had been working on his autobiography with Tony Schwartz.

Harold Evans, the chairman of Random House, which is a unit of Advance Publications, said in a statement Tuesday that ``the writing of the book is on track,'' and a Disney spokesman said that the book was ``a work in progress.'' Neither gave a new date for the release of the autobiography.

There has been speculation that the decision was prompted by a bitter battle between Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, the former president of Walt Disney Productions. Katzenberg has sued the company, contending that he is entitled to a percentage of the profits from a string of movie hits released during his decadelong tenure at Disney.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1) Jody Buckhannon, left, and Scott Alderman enjoy the top party school, West Virginia University.

Associated Press

(2) RIMES 

(3) BUSEY