NEWS LITE : COCHRAN TO APPEAR BEFORE JUDGE JUDY.

Johnnie Cochran will come face to face with Judge Judy on the ``CHiPS'' reunion show airing 8 p.m. Oct. 27 on TNT. In the scene, the former O.J. Simpson lawyer pops up as a surprise witness in the judge's court in a dispute between two neighbors over the manners of a pet dog.

Cochran tells Judy, ``Your Honor, if they can't prove the poo, there's not much you can do.''

Rushdie said to be hidden by Bono

Author-on-the-run Salman Rushdie has spent the past five years as the guest of U2 rocker Bono at his estate in Killiney on Ireland's east coast. So reports society columnist Lorraine Keane of Ireland's well-respected newspaper the Sunday Independent.

She says Rushdie has been staying on the spread in a four-room guest house that Bono built in 1992, that he is routinely flown on and off the property by helicopter to Dublin Airport, and that the pop star installed high-tech security gear to protect the writer, who for 9-1/2 years has been under an Islamic death sentence and a recently increased reward of $2.8 million to the person who gets him. (The death sentence remains in effect among Islamic fundamentalists, despite President Mohammad Khatami's efforts to distance Iran's government from the bounty.)

TV writer passed for teen to counteract `age bias'

A 32-year-old woman who passed herself off as a teen-age writer and gained a lucrative Disney television deal raised eyebrows Thursday in an industry used to people fudging about their age to get work.

Riley Weston, who was until this week a staff writer on the new WB drama ``Felicity,'' was thought to be a 19-year-old Wunderkind. Then the TV show ``Entertainment Tonight'' learned of her background.

``In a business fraught with age bias, I did what I felt I had to do to succeed,'' Weston said in a statement Thursday. But she denied any purposeful deception.

Weston acted under another name, not immediately known, in ``Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit.''

It's an accepted practice for actresses to lie about their age, she said in her statement, adding that the decision to say she was a teen-ager was based on a lack of quality roles for her age group.

She said she did not anticipate becoming a writer.

``I could not be one age in the acting world and another in the writing world, so I chose to maintain the ruse,'' Weston said.

She was featured recently in Entertainment Weekly, which included Weston on its list of ``the 100 most creative people in entertainment.''

``In many ways, I am Felicity,'' Weston told the magazine. ``So I hope I portray this generation in a realistic light.''

The petite woman appeared to be a teen-ager and had a bubbly, youthful manner, according to one person who worked with her on ``Felicity.''

Two weeks ago, the trade paper Daily Variety reported that Walt Disney Co.'s Touchstone Television had signed a two-year, $500,000 agreement with Weston to develop and produce TV programs.

Touchstone, which co-produces ``Felicity'' with Imagine Television, had no comment Thursday, spokeswoman Heidi Trotta said. The WB network also had no comment.

DiCaprio entourage lords over eatery

Golly! Leonardo DiCaprio apparently is still behaving like a spoiled brat when he's out and about.

New York magazine reports that the ``Titanic'' star and rapper-turned-actor Mark Wahlberg were at the Big Apple restaurant Veruka last weekend when they decided just before closing time that the other patrons had to go. The mag says the eatery's co-owner shepherded everybody out - except for about 10 women and the DiCaprio crowd.

``It was unbelievable. They stood by the door, pointed to certain girls, and said, `Stay.' Some of them left the guys they were with right on the spot,'' according to an insider. Then the party really got going until 7 a.m., with Wahlberg and another pal bartending.

Donaldson sees Clinton quitting

TV journalist Sam Donaldson told the nation's editors on Thursday he expects President Clinton to resign from office if a House of Representatives probe finds that he committed crimes.

Although admitting he was ``just dumb'' to predict a Clinton resignation within days when the Monica Lewinsky scandal first broke last January, Donaldson said he's renewing the prediction on different terms.

``Certainly the president will continue to fight hard,'' Donaldson said. ``But at some point, if the evidence is there, I say he's going to resign.''

Donaldson made his remarks in an address to the Associated Press Managing Editors national conference in Anaheim.

``At some point, the American public will have to decide which is more important - if the president they like remains in office or if the rule of law is upheld. I believe it will be the rule of law.''

Donaldson said his TV commentator colleague George Stephanopolous, a former Clinton spokesman, believes the president will not resign even if he is impeached, but will fight all the way to the Senate vote on whether to remove him from office.

Mary Bono's pal is band drummer

Rep. Mary Bono, Sonny's widow, has found a new friend nine months after her husband died in a skiing accident. He's Brian Prout, 42, divorced drummer with the country band Diamond Rio. ``It's pretty overwhelming,'' said the California Republican. ``I feel like I'm in high school.'' Chimed in Prout: ``I'm levitating.'' He says she's ``stunningly beautiful'' and adds that he was taken ``by her strength, her sense of self . . . the independent attitude.''

They met in June at a Washington, D.C., GOP fund-raising event. They had a date last weekend and he sent her flowers her on Monday. Next week she'll be on his arm at a Country Music Association do.

As for not formally grieving the usual full year, Bono, 36, said: ``I believe with every bone in my body that Sonny would say, Pick yourself up and go on with your life.''

News Lite is compiled by Karen Duffy from Daily News staff and wire reports

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

PHOTO (1) Monkeying around

Month-old Kamba, whose name means ``shrimp'' in Swahili, peers out from under his mother's long black and white hair. He is the second colobus monkey born at the Philadelphia Zoo.

Chris Gardner/Associated Press

(2) DiCaprio

(3) Donaldson