FIRST OFF . . .

The wife of popular pop-soul singer Lionel Richie was arrested Wednesday for allegedly hitting the pop singer and a young woman after Brenda Richie found the two of them together in the woman’s Beverly Hills apartment, police said. Brenda Richie, 35, was booked on suspicion of corporal injury to a spouse, resisting arrest and battery and released on $5,000 bail. Police were called to Diane Alexander’s apartment at about 2:35 a.m. by neighbors “who said they heard a woman screaming,” Beverly Hills Police Lt. Robert Curtis said, adding that police saw Brenda Richie “striking and kicking” Alexander. Police said the singer later said that he had been “kicked in the stomach area” by his wife. Both the singer and Alexander spurned medical attention from paramedics. . . . Lionel Richie had spent Tuesday denying reports that he plans to leave his longtime record label, Motown Records, for Capitol Records after the former’s sale to MCA Inc. for $61 million. Richie said he felt MCA could do a good job maintaining the status of the Motown label--for which Richie has two albums left in a multi-record contract.