NEWS LITE : MATERIAL GIRL GOING GEISHA.

Madonna's turning Japanese. In case anyone forgot her skill at reinventing her image at the drop of a hat, the quick-change artist serves up a new one. The singer unveils her Japanese look on the cover of February's Harper's Bazaar, perfectly made up and bedecked in a Japanese-inspired confection. Inside she's featured in a series of portraits by Patrick Demarchelier in a spread titled ``Like a Geisha.''

She talks about her fascination with the lives of Japanese courtesans in the 1930s, as described by Arthur Golden in ``Memoirs of a Geisha.'' ``Sometimes I think that what I do is like being a modern-day geisha,'' she says. The look in her next video, ``Nothing Really Matters,'' will recall Golden's geisha character Hatsumomo.

Bertolucci lauded at Indian festival

A chorus of Hindu chants echoed as Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci was honored Friday with the first lifetime achievement award at India's annual film festival.

Bertolucci, 58, whose work includes ``The Last Emperor'' and ``Last Tango in Paris,'' received a gold medal and certificate from India's information minister. A screening of Bertolucci's new film, ``Besieged,'' followed.

Bertolucci was honored for ``enriching world cinema as a master craftsman, an incisive social analyst and chronicler of our times.''

``While making films, I was exposed to different cultures, which always fascinate me,'' Bertolucci said. ``This endeavor is a search of pleasure for me.''

Dissatisfied actress exits `NYPD Blue'

Complaining that ``NYPD Blue'' producers didn't deliver on their promise of ``juicy'' story lines for her character, Sharon Lawrence, who plays Detective Andy Sipowicz's wife and Assistant D.A. Sylvia Costas, has left ABC's hit drama. Lawrence made her last appearance Tuesday. Her absence will not be explained in the story line.

Grammy contender gets call to serve

Singer Jack Jones has a scheduling conflict Feb. 24, when he'll learn the outcome from one jury but has to serve on another.

The problem arrived in a single day's mail - when Jones learned both that his latest CD is being considered by a Grammy Awards jury and he was ordered to serve on a court jury the day of the presentations.

``It's a conflict I never would have expected,'' said Jones.

The 61-year-old classic pop singer has been nominated for a Grammy for the album ``Jack Jones Paints a Tribute to Tony Bennett.'' The singers have been friends since the late 1960s.

Jones has recorded more than 50 albums over more than four decades. Six have been nominated for a Grammy, and two have won.

This year's Grammy Awards will take place Feb. 24 at the Shrine Auditorium.

Carter, grandchild bond as `outcasts'

Former President Carter says he and his Peace Corps grandson share a common bond: Both are members of outcast generations in a world run by the middle-aged.

Carter, 74, and Jason Carter, 23, are both heading back to Africa in the next few days - the grandfather to Nigeria on one of his election monitoring trips, the grandson to return to his post as a Peace Corps volunteer in Lochiel, four hours drive east of Johannesburg, South Africa.

They were in Washington this week for a Global Meeting of Generations, an international forum aimed at getting the old and young together to address world problems.

Jason Carter loves speaking Zulu and living as the only white man in a rural South African neighborhood, but things have changed since ``Miss Lillian'' had a similar role in India three decades ago. ``It's not my great-grandmother's Peace Corps,'' he said.

The 23-year-old volunteer has running water and communicates regularly with grandpa Jimmy Carter by e-mail. That is something Lillian Carter could not do when she joined the Peace Corps in 1966 as her son was losing a race for Georgia governor.

In conversation at the generations forum Thursday night, the two, despite a half-century age difference, found agreement on everything.

``My generation and Jason's are kind of the outcasts,'' said the elder Carter, ``because it's the generation between us that really controls government and controls finances and controls policy.''

He proposed ``a kind of partnership between my generation and Jason's, where we look for inspiration and idealism and activism from Jason and he looks for advice from people like me.''

``And money,'' his grandson added.

``And money from my generation,'' the grandfather agreed.

Jason says most of his South African friends have no idea he is the grandson of a U.S. president, but it takes him places not all volunteers go, such as back to Washington for a few days in the middle of his two-year stint. And his grandfather visited during his in-country training a year ago and introduced him to South African President Nelson Mandela.

Twins give birth just hours apart

Identical twins Yaney Rosario and Quelia Nova have shared most things in life - even the same delivery room for their babies.

The 29-year-old Bronx, N.Y., sisters, using the same midwife, gave birth less than three hours apart Tuesday.

``It was God, no doubt about it,'' Nova said.

Six-pound, 14-ounce Juan Rosario Jr. was the first to debut - at 8:16 p.m. At 10:55 p.m., his 6-pound, 6-ounce cousin, Keidy Salcedo, was born.

Rosario said she started having contractions Tuesday morning and went to the hospital around 6 p.m. When Nova arrived at the hospital, midwife Anne Jacobson - who herself is a twin - did a double-take.

``I said, `God, she looks familiar. Didn't I just deliver her?' '' Jacobson said.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

PHOTO (1) HEMMED-IN HARES

These two rabbits, one of which looks like he is trying to chew his way to freedom, are caged at the Nueces County Livestock Show and Sale in Robstown, Texas.

David Pellerin/Associated Press

(2) Former President Carter, left, shares a laugh with Charlene Hunter Gault and his grandson, Jason Carter, at a Washington event.

Tyler Mallory/Associated Press

(3) no caption (Cover of February 1999 `Harper's Bazaar' featuring Madonna)