Arts and entertainment reports from The Times, national and international news services and the nation’s press.

POP/ROCK

More Discord: Amid widespread speculation in England that the band Oasis has broken up, the group pulled the plug on the four remaining dates of the current leg of its U.S. tour after canceling a concert Wednesday in Charlotte, N.C. Noel Gallagher, the group’s guitarist and creative force, flew home Thursday without his bandmates. He declined comment when greeted by a swarm of reporters upon arrival in London. Epic Records, the band’s U.S. label, shed no light on the group’s future plans. The stormy relationship between Gallagher and his younger brother, singer Liam Gallagher, has long threatened the future of the band, which has overcome the brothers’ bickering to attain its status as England’s most popular rock group since the Beatles. Oasis opened this leg of the U.S. tour without Liam, who stayed behind to go house-hunting before rejoining the band a few days later. The group is scheduled to play Nov. 4-5 at the Universal Amphitheatre, and tickets for the latter show are still set to go on sale Saturday.

Meanwhile . . . : The band Pulp scored a surprise victory over Oasis in London this week for the Mercury Music Prize Award. Pulp band members, in turn, immediately handed out their own “Pulp Music Award” to the British music industry’s Bosnian relief charity War Child, presenting organizers of War Child’s all-star fund-raising album “Help”--which was also a contender for the Mercury Prize--with both the award trophy and the $37,500 in prize money.

Jackson Watch: A powerful consortium of 50 South Korean Christian, civic and consumer groups that had been seeking to block Michael Jackson from performing in Seoul agreed Thursday to drop its campaign after concert promoters promised to limit ticket sales to those over 18. The groups had opposed the Oct. 11 and 13 concerts because of 1993 claims by a 13-year-old boy that Jackson had sex with him. Jackson was never charged in the matter, and settled out of court with the boy’s family in a civil suit. In a three-month campaign, the protesters had pressured Hyundai into withdrawing as co-sponsor of the concert, and swayed the nation’s largest security company to renege on promises to handle concert security.

Campbell Charged: Rapper Luther Campbell--the former front man of 2 Live Crew who now goes by the stage name Luke Skywalker--was charged with battery Wednesday in conjunction with a July 14 incident in which he allegedly held a woman down on stage while performing at a Louisiana nightclub and then picked her up and threw her into the crowd. The woman was knocked unconscious, Lafayette, La., police said.

TELEVISION

Hillary Klingon? First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton was announced Thursday as the honorary chair for “Star Trek: 30 Years and Beyond,” a live star-studded tribute to the series’ 30th anniversary that will be shown on the UPN network on Oct. 6. Other event chairs announced Thursday include Ethel Kennedy, entertainers Quincy Jones and Ted Danson, entertainment executives Sherry Lansing and Kerry McCluggage, and Majel Barrett Roddenberry, widow of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry. Proceeds from the event, which will be held at a Paramount Pictures sound stage, will go to the Permanent Charities of the Entertainment Industries, the American Oceans Campaign, Cities in Schools and the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights. Tickets are $500.

And the Nominees Are: Episodes of the dramas “Baywatch,” “Space: Above and Beyond,” “Star Trek: Voyager” and “The X-Files,” and the comedies “Coach,” “Ellen,” “Home Improvement” and “The Simpsons” are this year’s series nominees for the sixth annual Environmental Media Awards, which honor programs that “increase public awareness of environmental problems and inspire personal action on these problems.” Feature film nominees for the EMAs, which will be handed out Oct. 14 at the Beverly Hilton, are “The Amazing Panda Adventure,” “Free Willy II,” “Magic in the Water” and “12 Monkeys.” . . . Series nominees for the 12th annual Nancy Susan Reynolds Awards, which honor “outstanding portrayals of family planning, sexuality and reproductive health,” are “Coach,” “Friends,” “Home Improvement,” “Moesha” and “The Parent ‘Hood” (comedies), and “Chicago Hope,” “ER,” “Homicide: Life on the Street” and “Second Noah” (dramas). The Reynolds awards--which will also include a special Writers Award to the series “Party of Five”--take place Oct. 23 at West Hollywood’s Pacific Design Center.

QUICK TAKES

KNBC-TV Channel 4 will co-produce a nationally syndicated hourlong daily talk show to be hosted by Channel 4 sports reporter Fred Roggin and Arthel Neville, former “Extra” co-host. A fall 1997 launch is scheduled. . . . Actress-dancer Juliet Prowse, who turns 60 on Sept. 25, is losing her battle with pancreatic cancer, her longtime manager said Thursday. The cancer was in remission a year ago but returned and spread in the last few months, the manager said. . . . The Dave Matthews Band canceled a Wednesday night concert in Nashville because of the death of the 3-week-old daughter of bassist Stefan Lessard. The baby, named Asian, died Wednesday morning in Woodstock, N.Y. The cause of death was not clear. . . . A former script coordinator of Fox’s “The X-Files” has filed a sexual harassment suit against series creator Chris Carter and co-executive producer Howard Gordon. 20th Century Fox, also named in Judith A. Fairly’s suit, called the claims “grandstanding” and “wholly without merit.” . . . Singer Mel Torme turns 71 today and his spokesman says the singer’s medical condition continues to improve in the wake of his Aug. 8 stroke. Radio station KLAC-AM (570) will send Torme birthday greetings throughout the day with on-air tributes from celebrities including Helen Reddy, Steve Lawrence, Eydie Gorme, Roger Williams and Joe Williams. . . .