[0] NEWS LITE : GORE, SON TAKE TOP-SECRET CLIMB.

A weary, unshaven Vice President Al Gore and his 16-year-old son successfully finished their climb of Mount Rainier on Friday night, striding out of a cold mist before sunset to shake hands with well-wishers.

With exhausted Secret Service agents leading the way off the mountain, the vice president summed up his climb as simply ``fantastic.''

``It's an unbelievable experience,'' a tired-looking Gore told reporters from beneath his mountain backpack. ``It was just great. And it's very hard.''

The two days Gore and his son, Albert Gore III, were on the 14,411-foot volcano were filled with terrible weather - hail, wind, fog and snow.

None of it stopped the Gore party. ``We were bound to do it,'' Gore said. As a father-son experience, reaching the summit of Mount Rainier ``couldn't have been better.''

Members of Gore's staff described the getaway by Gore and his son as so secret that even many senior White House staffers and presidential campaign aides were not informed of it.

DeNiro misses the compliment

Retaurateur Salli Pateman has worshipped Robert De Niro. She's even named her hip Yaletown, British Columbia, restaurant DeNiro's Supper Club in his honor.

A creaky black swivel chair in her office has been specially reserved for him in hopes he'll come in for a martini or maybe for Sunday brunch to sample the Vito Corleone or the Jake LaMotta or the Travis Bickle - eggs benedict variations named after characters De Niro played in ``Godfather II'', ``Raging Bull'' and ``Taxi Driver.''

Now her loyalty is being tested. Pateman says she has received a letter from De Niro's lawyer telling her to stop using his name. The letter threatened legal action against her if she doesn't, she said.

``This is definitely serious,'' said Pateman, who doesn't want to change the name of her restaurant. ``So much for him coming in to dine in his sacred chair.''

McDougal speaks for penal reform

During her nearly two-year incarceration on Whitewater-related charges, all she could think about was food. Now Susan McDougal says all she thinks about is justice.

``I never met a rich woman in jail,'' she said in an interview. ``And I'm not a brain surgeon but when I see poor, desperate young women who are so full of self-hatred that the only place they can be is jail, well that means the system is wrong. The system is failing these women.''

McDougal was in Denver this weekend to address a conference of the American Catholic Correctional Chaplains at Regis University. She said it gives her the chance to thank the clergy members who were often her only sources of comfort while incarcerated.

New dictionary brings world closer together

The first new English dictionary in 30 years is a tickety-boo venture.

Tickety-boo?

That's a British and Canadian word meaning ``perfectly fine,'' and it is found in the Encarta World English Dictionary, which is based on a global perception of English.

Encarta is the first full dictionary of the computer age, said Anne Soukhanov, the U.S. general editor of the dictionary, who also is the ``Word Watch'' columnist for The Atlantic Monthly.

There are eight versions of the dictionary - Britain and Ireland; United States; Canada; Caribbean; Africa; South Asia; East Asia; and Australia and New Zealand - and each contains many local usages.

``I think the dictionaries of the future will have to include words from around the world, given the way things have changed,'' Soukhanov said, referring to Internet use and wide international travel and commerce.

Some of those expressions are the Canadian ``slob ice,'' the slush that forms as snow melts on roadways; the Australian ``tall poppy syndrome,'' relating to public figures who loom large and the tendency by the media to want to knock them down; ``bangbelly,'' a piece of fried dough in Canada; and ``toenadering,'' a gathering of political parties in South Africa.

Poland stages its own groovy Woodstock

Consider it Poland's version of Max Yasgur's farm: 200,000 half-naked, dancing kids with sunflowers in flowing hair, wearing beads and headbands, all gathered Saturday at a dusty, abandoned airfield to re-create Woodstock.

That would be Woodstock 1969, not Woodstock '99, which recently ended in a riot. Organizer Jurek Owsiak made that clear.

``I care deeply with my heart, kids, so there will be no mess here,'' Owsiak, a chubby 46-year-old with cropped blond hair and pink glasses, yelled from the stage.

When he started the annual Station Woodstock, now in its fifth year, Owsiak wanted to emphasize the groovy spirit of the original Woodstock, held on Yasgur's property in Bethel, N.Y.

The theme of the three-day festival, which started Friday, said it all: ``Love, Friendship, Music, Stop Violence, Stop Drugs.''

More than 50 bands played folk, reggae, blues and rock at the old Zary airfield near the border with Germany.

The entrance was free, thanks to corporate sponsorships and the town of Zary. Vendors sold cheap sausages and corn. Alcohol was forbidden, except for beer.

While Owsiak wasn't at the first Woodstock, he closely followed TV reports of last month's Woodstock '99 in Rome, N.Y., where tickets cost $154 and mineral water $4.

News Lite is compiled from Daily News Staff and Wire Reports.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

PHOTO (1) Vice President Al Gore and his 16-year-old son, Albert, at the end of their Mt. Rainier excursion Friday.

(2) A couple listens to music at the Station Woodstock rock festival, held Saturday on a former airfield in Zary, Poland.

Associated Press

(3) Versace's villa goes on market

The palatial mansion that was home to fashion designer Gianni Versace before he was gunned down on its front steps is up for sale. Asking price for the 12-bedroom, 13-bath villa on Miami's trendy South Beach is $25 million. Survivors of the slain fashion mogul have owned the 13,250-square-foot Mediterranean-style palazzo across the street from the Atlantic Ocean since his death.

Gregory Smith/Associated Press