FIRST LOOK: The News in Brief, December 2, 2002

BABY ONE MORE TIME: Britney Spears turns 21 today. The ex-Mouseketeer is said to be celebrating in private with friends and family.

POTTER REDUX: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets was back in first place at the box office over the holiday weekend, slightly ahead of last week's chart-topper, Die Another Day.

LOST IN SPACE: Few among the holiday crowd seemed curious to view George Clooney's new movie, Solaris. The sci-fi love story earned just $6.8 million in seventh place over the weekend.

DIAPER DUTY: Rosie O'Donnell's partner, Kelli Carpenter, giving birth to a baby girl in New York. The infant, named Vivienne after the main character in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, weighed 6 pounds, 6 ounces and is 19 inches long. She is O'Donnell's fourth child.

BABY ON BOARD: Jane Kaczmarek and Bradley Whitford welcoming a baby girl, Mary Louisa, last week in Los Angeles. The tyke weighed 10 pounds, 3 ounces and measured 21 inches.

ON THE MEND: Zsa Zsa Gabor upgraded to fair condition followng a car accident last week. She's expected to spend several more days in the hospital.

PLAY IT AGAIN, LIAM: Liam Gallagher and three Oasis bandmates briefly detained by Munich police Sunday after a brawl at a posh hotel. The group's Sunday night concert was canceled. Reports said Liam had several teeth knocked out.

DON'T LOOK BACK IN ANGER: The founding drummer of Oasis has lost his bid to sue over his ejection from the band before it hit the big time. London's High Court tossed Anthony McCarroll's claim because he filed after the statute of limitations expired.

SMASHING: Sony Pictures' has tallied a whopping $2.75 billion in worldwide ticket sales so far this year, breaking the all-time one-year box-office record. The studio's total surpasses the old mark of $2.68 billion set back in 1998 by 20th Century Fox.

VYING FOR OSCAR: A record 54 countries submitting films to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for Best Foreign-Language Film consideration at the 2003 Oscars. The statuettes will be handed out March 23.

GREATEST GIG OF ALL: Whitney Houston set to perform three songs in the plaza at Lincoln Center in New York on December 8 at 3 p.m. to promote her upcoming album, Just Whitney, due in stores December 10. The diva's interview on a special edition of ABC's Primetime will air at 9 p.m. on December 4.

THE DOCTOR IS IN: Keanu Reeves joining Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton in an untitled comedy. He'll play a doctor who battles with Nicholson for the attention of Keaton.

GOODFELLA: Robert De Niro to screen his Analyze That to 1,500 troops at Tampa's MacDill Air Force Base on Wednesday, two days before the movie opens in theaters.

COME TOGETHER: Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr reuniting Friday night at at London's Royal Albert Hall in a tribute concert to mark the one-year anniversary of the death of George Harrison. Eric Clapton, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne also performed, with proceeds going to charity.

PAGING THE TAXMAN: Meanwhile, court documents released over the weekend showing that Harrison left almost $155 million in his will. Details of the beneficiaries and the division of the money was not made public.

STROKED: Spin naming the Strokes the magazine's Band of the Year in its January issue. Eminem and the White Stripes also receiving year-end accolades.

A JACKO ATTACKO: Los Angeles attorney and gadfly Gloria Allred calling for state investigators to look into Michael Jackson's baby-dangling incident last week in Germany. California officials had previously said they would not because the incident happened outside their jurisdiction.

CELEB COURTHOUSE: A Los Angeles judge setting an April 2 trial date in the wrongful-death civil case against Tommy Lee. Lee was sued by the parents of a four-year-old who drowned in the rocker's pool in 2001.

GOLDEN OLDIES: Simon & Garfunkel, Etta James, Johnny Mathis to receive lifetime achievement awards at the Grammys on February 23. Glenn Miller and Tito Puente will receive posthumous awards and folklorist Alan Lomax and the New York Philharmonic will be honored with Trustees Awards.

BACK ON THE STREETS: Super-publicist Lizzie Grubman sprung from a New York jail Friday, getting out early from her 60-day sentence for good behavior. Grubman had been locked up after copping a plea to slamming her SUV into a crowd outside a Hamptons nightclub last year.

FOX-Y LADY: Vivica A. Fox developing a cop drama series for the USA Network that the Hollywood Reporter says will be in the vein of the '70s blaxploitation classic Foxy Brown and the old TV series Get Christie Love.