Will the arrival of Kris and James'' baby heal the couple''s rift?

He was born a week earlier than expected but nobody''s complaining. Kris Aquino gave to Baby boy James via a Caesarian section at the Makati Medical Center on Thursday, catching everyone by surprise.

His celebrity mom had just come for a scheduled check-up, but the doctors found that her amniotic fluid level was already alarmingly low.

The baby had to be placed in an incubator because he had ingested waste during his last few hours in the womb.

The new daddy, James Yap Jr., was of course overwhelmed by the experience. "I was in the delivery room. I was nervous. But I''m happy she safely gave birth to our son," he said.

The big question is: Will the baby''s arrival heal the rift between Kris and James?

Kris had practically driven James out of their house after he confessed to infidelity on national television last February. No names were mentioned, but the tabloids and talks shows identified the other woman as Hope Centeno, a receptionist in Vicky Belo''s clinic.

James claimed that Hope had been stalking her, but she presented camera phone snapshots and text messages as evidence of their supposed year-long affair.

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Rock Da Vote: A Night at the Museum had the audience practically rolling in the aisles in laughter. The show really tickled the funnybone. Pooh was simply superb as Manny Pacquiao. He captured the nuances of the boxing idol and exaggerated them to elicit a lot of laughs. Jon Santos was perfect as Vilma Santos. John Lapus, on the other hand, was convincing as Kris. And why not? John is a close friend of Kris, so he must have absorbed a lot of her mannerisms. Equally funny were Candy Pangilinan and Chocoleit. Joining the cast during final night were Tessie Tomas and Pokwang.

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Mother Lily has "adopted" Manny Villar as a Regal Baby. Mother has given her blessings to Villar who is running for the Senate once again. She and Manny got acquainted through Lolit Solis. Mother must have been impressed by Villar, the former Senate president, who has promised to help the movie industry if he is reelected.

I do believe Villar has one of the most touching campaign commercials on TV. It features his mom, Nanay Curing, who still looks after her store despite her being 83 years old and the family''s being well off. Nanay Curing wants to impart the virtue of hard work which had inspired her son.

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Optical Media Board chief Edu Manzano got a big boost in his campaign against video piracy from Lucky and Flo. The two are Labradors trained to sniff out pirated optical discs. During OMB raids at shopping malls in Makati and Mandaluyong last week the two dogs detected even fake discs that were hidden under cartons of clothing.

How do they do it? Lucky and Flo who come from Northern Ireland, were trained to distinguish the polycarbonate and other chemicals used in producing the discs.

The two had a successful sting in Malaysia before they were brought over to the Philippines.

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A hug and a kiss have gotten Hollywood hunk Richard Gere and Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty into legal trouble.

Gere showered Getty with kisses and gave her a light hug during an AIDS awareness event in New Delhi. That touched off protest rallies across India, where kissing in public is still a big no-no. Demonstrators burned effigies of Gere and two complaints of obscenity were filed in court.

One complaint claimed that the two stars committed "an obscene act" in a public place, while the second targeted private TV channels for showing videos of the embrace, accusing them of "indecent representation of women."

If found guilty, Gere and Shetty could face two years in prison plus a fine.

"Such a public display is not part of Indian tradition," said a spokesman for the opposition Hindu nationalist BJP party, Prakash Javadekar.

The irony is that Gere has long been actively campaigning for AIDS awareness campaigner since a friend of his died of the disease.

India has the largest number of HIV-AIDS cases in the world, with 5.7 million people infected, according to UNAIDS.