LEGAL FILE

Band Settles Suit: Guns N’ Roses settled out of court with ex-drummer Steven Adler for $2.5 million a few hours before the case would have gone to the jury. Adler was dismissed from the band in 1989 due to a heroin addiction, according to testimony in Los Angeles Superior Court. Adler argued that his share of the band should have been bought out when they fired him.

More Problems for Abdul: A civil suit against singer Paula Abdul has been filed in Orange County Superior Court. The suit seeks $25,000 in damages from the singer stemming from a December, 1990, accident in which Abdul’s car rear-ended another vehicle, which then hit the plaintiff’s car. Abdul’s publicist declined to comment on the suit.

POP/ROCK

Dr. Dre Update: Promotional problems and uneven ticket sales were apparently not the only reasons that rap star Dr. Dre pulled the plug on his hugely hyped hip-hop caravan this week. Attorneys representing the Los Angeles rapper said Friday that the tour was canceled because Dre and his controversial sidekick, Snoop Doggy Dogg, were not paid more than $100,000 in performance fees by United Entertainment Corp., the Baltimore promotion firm that organized the event. A United spokesman disagreed Friday, saying, “There are various differences of opinion as to what our relationship is at this time.”

TELEVISION

MTV News: As the second season of its documentary soap opera continues to unfold each Thursday night, MTV has decided to produce a third season of “The Real World” in San Francisco. The series, which throws seven ethnically and politically diverse young people into a house for several months and captures their ups and downs as roommates, was previously cast and shot in New York and Los Angeles. Casting for the new season will take place in the coming months. . . . Daisy Fuentes has been tapped as the host of “Top 20 MTV” for the cable channel’s new MTV Latino service, being launched Oct. 1. Fuentes will also continue in her weekly spot on “MTV Internacional.”

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South Africa Talks: Both sides in the historic power-sharing agreement forged in South Africa will talk to CNN. President F. W. de Klerk was to appear on Larry King last night; Nelson Mandela talks to Jesse Jackson tonight at 6 on Jackson’s show, “Both Sides.”

Murphy’s Dream: All of the “60 Minutes” correspondents--Ed Bradley, Steve Kroft, Morley Safer, Lesley Stahl and Mike Wallace--plus Charles Kuralt, Linda Ellerbee and talk-show host Sally Jessy Raphael will be part of a nightmare on an upcoming “Murphy Brown” episode in which the fictional journalist (Candice Bergen) imagines what they might say about her life and career after she agrees to have a biography written about her. Murphy’s dream also includes appearances by Republican senators Robert Dole of Kansas, Orrin Hatch of Utah and Alan Simpson of Wyoming.

ART

Getty Bids for ‘Graces’: The J. Paul Getty Museum has renewed a 3-year-old effort to purchase the 19th-Century neoclassical sculpture, “The Three Graces” by Antonio Canova, from an anonymous private collector in Britain. The Getty originally tried to buy the renowned sculpture in 1989, but British authorities deferred the necessary export license and effectively changed their export policy in an attempt to prevent the artwork from leaving the country. Since then, the marble sculpture has languished in storage. An appeal for public funds was unsuccessful. Arguing that it is better for the Getty to take proper care of the Canova and display it to millions of visitors in California than for the artwork to remain in storage, the museum has announced a new agreement to buy the sculpture at an undisclosed price. Once again, the purchase depends on the grant of an export license.

QUICK TAKES

Nina Totenberg will join ABC’s “Nightline” as a contributing correspondent, in addition to her day job with National Public Radio. . . . A poster for the 1931 film “Frankenstein,” which starred Boris Karloff, is expected to set a new record when it goes to auction Oct. 17 at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel. The old record was held by a poster from 1931’s “Dracula” with Bela Lugosi that went for $70,000; the “Frankenstein” poster is expected to go for between $75,000 and $100,000. . . . Mariel Hemingway hosts CNN’s “Earth Matters” preview of the nominees for the Environmental Media Awards Sunday at 2:30 p.m. The ceremony itself, which will not be telecast, will be hosted the next evening by Paula Poundstone, who will be getting plenty of such experience in the upcoming weeks; she’ll host and comment on several “ABC Saturday Night Movie” episodes beginning tonight . . . KLSX (97.1 FM) program director Andy Bloom has been promoted to vice president of programming at the station’s parent company, Greater Media Radio Group. Bloom--who was instrumental in bringing Howard Stern’s top-rated radio show to Los Angeles--will move to the company’s New Jersey headquarters as soon as his successor at KLSX is named.