NEWS LITE : SINATRA IGNORING TABLOID HEARSAY.

Unrelenting Frank Sinatra deathbed rumors don't bother the reclusive entertainer, who is ``doing very well'' and spending his days soaking in the warmth of sun and family, his wife said Monday.

``I guess he's used to it. You just roll with the punches,'' Barbara Sinatra said during a telephone interview from the couple's Beverly Hills home.

The 82-year-old Sinatra hasn't been seen in public since before a January 1997 heart attack, which led to tabloid reports that Sinatra was gravely ill and had been given last rites by the Catholic church on several occasions.

``The rumors are just crazy. You can't believe it. He's doing very well,'' Sinatra's wife said during an interview to promote the coming Frank Sinatra Las Vegas Celebrity Classic charity golf tournament. ``He's strong and walking around. We're enjoying friends.''

Sinatra even soaks up the sun at his Beverly Hills and Malibu homes, his wife of 22 years said. ``He feels very strongly about his private life and his financial life being kept private.''

Next month's four-day team-scramble golf tournament has evolved into a citywide extravaganza celebrating Sinatra, his music and philanthropy.

The May 28-31 event at the Stallion Mountain Country Club will be broadcast on ESPN.

When he first performed in Las Vegas at the Desert Inn in 1951, reviewers predicted Ol' Blue Eyes had a ``good future.''

Barbara Sinatra and Wayne Newton are set to host the celebration, which will include appearances by Jack Lemmon, Gregory Peck, Dennis Franz, Angie Dickinson, astronaut Buzz Aldren and others.

The tournament benefits the Barbara Sinatra Children's Center at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage and the Las Vegas Opportunity Village.

Infant symbolizes hope in N. Ireland

Anne and Clive Patterson are the proud parents of the first baby born in Northern Ireland since Friday's peace agreement. According to London's Daily Record and Sunday Mail, Anne Patterson delivered the 8-pound, 2-ounce girl Saturday at Belfast's Royal Victoria Infirmary. They named her Hope. ``The idea that she could grow up in a country that doesn't tell the difference between religions would be wonderful,'' said the baby's mother.

Nicholson's status as good as it gets

Jack Nicholson and his sometimes girlfriend Rebecca Broussard were together recently in Rome promoting ``As Good As It Gets.'' The couple has two children, Lorraine, 7, and Raymond, 6, and coveys of marriage rumors wing about them when they're in the on-again mode. But even in the Eternal City, Nicholson remained noncommittal: ``I'm on a constant honeymoon with the mother of my children,'' he's quoted in US mag.

Raitt not worried about new sound

Bonnie Raitt experiments so much with her sound on her latest album that even one of her producers fretted she might lose some fans.

Mitchell Froom was surprised Raitt was willing to tinker with her bluesy sound on ``Fundamental,'' which incorporates African and Celtic elements for a more vintage sound.

``He said, `Are you going to alienate fans you finally got on board? Are they going to get it?' My answer is that the ones who actually do understand me will applaud that I'm stretching,'' the Grammy-award winner said in Monday's USA Today.

``If people don't get it, I don't think anybody is going to begrudge me,'' she said.

U.S. killed Lennon,

son says

Sean Lennon believes the U.S. government was behind the slaying of his father, John Lennon.

``He was a countercultural revolutionary, and the government takes that kind of (stuff) really seriously historically,'' the 22-year-old Lennon said in the latest New Yorker.

Mark Chapman is in prison after pleading guilty to shooting the ex-Beatle in front of his Manhattan apartment house in 1980.

Lennon, a singer himself, said anyone who believes Chapman was ``just some crazy guy who killed my dad for his personal interests is insane, I think, or very naive.''

Why would the government want his father dead?

``He was dangerous to the government. If he had said, Bomb the White House tomorrow, there would have been 10,000 people who would have done it,'' Lennon said. ``These pacifist revolutionaries are historically killed by the government.''

Merry mutant; California group spares pig from life as freak

Rudy, the pig with three eyes and two snouts - but only two ears - will not end up as a ham sandwich or a road show exhibit.

The freakish 8-month-old pig, whose Cyclops-like middle eye cannot see, will grow old frolicking on a 750-acre ranch east of Santa Barbara.

Pigs Without Partners, a Los Angeles-based animal rescue group, bought Rudy from Scott Vorwold of Marquette, Iowa, to make sure the rare porker never becomes a freak on display. The group changed his name to Ditto.

His new home will include a custom pig house, complete with a swimming pool and a customized care and feed regimen.

The Yorkshire-Duroc crossbreed has been featured on Leeza Gibbons' talk show and was a local celebrity when he was just a babe.

Experts think the pig actually has only one mouth-and-nose structure that just looks like two separate snouts.

News Lite is compiled by Karen Duffy from Daily News staff and wire reports

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

PHOTO (1) Ditto, the Iowa-born pig formerly known as Rudy, has three eyes and two snouts, but only two ears.

(2) Sinatra

(3) Lennon