Katie Couric, queen of morning television as co-anchor of NBC’s high-flying Today show in New York, has agreed to a new four-year contract that reportedly will more than triple her salary to $7 million.

“We’re thrilled that she’s going to stay with NBC,” news division spokeswoman Kassie Canter said Sunday.

Couric has been making just over $2 million a year, Newsweek reported in its June 29 issue. Canter would not comment on the terms of the deal.

Prince impressed by Lisbon bridge

Prince Charles marveled at a new 10-mile suspension bridge over Lisbon’s River Tagus during a royal visit to Portugal.

The sleek, white bridge, named Vasco da Gama as part of this year’s 500th anniversary celebrations of the Portuguese adventurer’s discovery of a sea route to India, was designed by the British company Trafalgar House.

The prince’s motorcade stopped halfway across the bridge on Saturday to take in the panoramic view of Lisbon. He also visited a refurbished Roman Catholic church in the riverside town of Alcochete, where he was greeted by the town band and children with flowers.

Ronald Reagan _ ever the charmer

Ronald Reagan, suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, doesn’t do much entertaining anymore. Still, he turned on the charm for a visiting 10-year-old named after him.

Reagan Gillespie, a boy from Appleton, Wis., who sent Reagan a framed photograph of himself, was invited to meet the former president, 87. Not speaking much, Reagan still offered a handshake “like a grandfather would give,” the boy told The Post-Crescent of Appleton.

The photograph that sparked the invitation for three generations of Gillespie men was accompanied by a passage from the Book of Proverbs: “There is honor in a great name.”

“He still has a twinkle in his eye, and he is so genuinely warm inside, I think that will be with him forever,” said Steve Gillespie, the boy’s father.

John Gillespie said his grandson was “awe-struck” by the meeting in California on Friday.

“He shook his hands, and he almost had tears in his eyes,” the elder Gillespie said. “He said: ‘Mr. President, it is an honor to meet you. I am thrilled.’ Then he said: ‘Oh, you have a fish aquarium. I have one just like it, except smaller.’ “

John Gillespie said Reagan cocked his head, grinned and said, “Well, thank you very much.”

Winning the fight against cancer

Ex-Beatle George Harrison disclosed Sunday that he has been battling throat cancer since last summer _ and is winning.

“I’m not going to die on you folks just yet. I am very lucky,” the singer, 54, was quoted as telling the News of the World in London.

Harrison told the Sunday tabloid that he first noticed a lump on his neck last July while he was gardening at his 200-room mansion in Henley, 35 miles west of London. He shares the home with his wife, Olivia, 47, and their son, Dhani, 19.

He had surgery in August to remove the lump. That was followed by two courses of radiation therapy at the Royal Marsden Hospital, Britain’s leading cancer treatment center.

“I got it purely from smoking. I gave up cigarettes many years ago but had started again for a while and then stopped in 1997,” Harrison was quoted as telling the paper. “Luckily for me, they found that this nodule was more of a warning than anything else. There are many different types of cancerous cells, and this was a very basic type.”

ALMANAC

It’s the 180th day of the year; 185 days are left in 1998. On this day:

* In 1966, the United States bombed fuel storage facilities near the North Vietnamese cities of Hanoi and Haiphong.

* In 1972, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the death penalty, as it was being meted out, could constitute “cruel and unusual punishment.”

* In 1995, a department store in Seoul, South Korea, collapsed, killing more than 500 people. Thought for today: “One of the sources of pride in being a human being is the ability to bear present frustrations in the interests of longer purposes.” _ Sociologist-educator Helen Merrell Lynd (1896-1982)

Today’s birthdays: Actor Gary Busey, 54; former Love Boat co-star and ex-U.S. Rep. Fred Grandy (R-Iowa), 50; actress Amanda Donohoe, 36.