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LEGAL BRIEFS Call it probe, interrupted: a Beverly Hills judge granted prosecutors a month-long extension (through Feb. 8) before they must decide whether to press shoplifting and drug charges against Winona Ryder. Meanwhile, Ryder remains free on bond, as she has since her Dec. 12 arrest, when she was caught allegedly shoplifting $5,000 worth of goods from the Saks Fifth Avenue department store and possessing drugs without a prescription. Her lawyers insist she did have a prescription, and that the shoplifting charge results from a ''misunderstanding.''...

The Federal Communications Commission backed down from last summer's announcement that it would levy a $7,000 fine against a Colorado Springs, Colo., radio station that played the so-called ''clean'' edit of Eminem's ''The Real Slim Shady.'' The FCC's initial finding was that even the edited version of the song, as played by KKMG-FM (and thousands of other radio stations during the summer of 2000), violated obscenity guidelines. But an FCC review of the song, prompted by Citadel Broadcasting (the radio conglomerate that owns KKMG and many other stations nationwide), reversed that finding. No word from Eminem on whether being officially branded as not too offensive will hurt his reputation and sales.

HEALTH WATCH Former ''Law & Order'' star Michael Moriarty has been hospitalized in Vancouver after suffering a beating by several men that police said was unprovoked. Global TV British Columbia reported that Moriarty and a friend were leaving a motel bar when they were set upon by three to five men, who knocked the 60-year-old actor to the ground, injuring his eye, making his ears bleed, and breaking his wrist. Only one man has been arrested.

CURTAIN CALL The longest-running musical in history, and the longest-running play ever on an American stage, will close on Sunday. ''The Fantasticks,'' which has been playing at New York's Sullivan Street Playhouse since May, 1960, ends its 42-year-run this weekend after its 17,162nd performance. Dwindling ticket sales at the small (153-seat) theater, plus a new landlord looking to raise the rent, doomed the show. The simple boy-girl love story by Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt launched the song ''Try To Remember,'' about 11,000 regional and touring productions in 70 countries, a 1995 movie, and the careers of fledgling stars like Jerry Orbach (who was part of the original 1960 cast) and F. Murray Abraham.