Sutherland arrested in misdemeanor DUI case

Los Angeles – Kiefer Sutherland had a bad 24 hours. The dashing star of the TV drama “24” was arrested for investigation of misdemeanor drunken driving early Tuesday while still on probation from a similar 2004 conviction.

Sutherland, 40, failed a field sobriety test after he was stopped for making an illegal U-turn in West Los Angeles shortly after 1 a.m., police Officer Kevin Maiberger said.

Sutherland tested over the state’s legal blood alcohol limit of .08 percent, Officer Karen Smith said. Police declined to reveal the level.

He was booked for investigation of driving under the influence of alcohol and spent about three hours in jail before he posted $25,000 bail and was released.

Sutherland was scheduled to appear in court Oct. 16, Maiberger said.

Cracked rib doesn’t keep Clooney off red carpet

New York – George Clooney didn’t let a motorcycle accident keep him off the red carpet at the premiere of his new film, “Michael Clayton.”

Clooney arrived with his girlfriend, Sarah Larson, who also was injured in Friday’s accident in New Jersey.

“I’m doing fine, yeah – good, good, good,” Clooney told Associated Press Television at Monday night’s event. “I’m just, you know, dinged up a little bit.”

Clooney, 46, and Larson were injured when their motorcycle and a car collided on a narrow road in Weehawken, across the Hudson River from New York. Larson was a passenger on the vehicle. Both were wearing helmets.

British official to meet with Angelina Jolie

Bournemouth, England – Foreign Secretary David Miliband will meet Angelina Jolie in New York this week to discuss global diplomacy, British officials said Tuesday.

Miliband, the youthful British foreign policy chief, is seeking to soften the tone of global relations after Britain became involved in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“He will meet Angelina Jolie in New York for talks,” a Miliband spokeswoman said while speaking on condition of anonymity in line with ministry policy.

Further details on the planned content of the discussion weren’t immediately available.

Royal movie screening of ‘Brick Lane’ canceled

London – A meeting between the monarchy and multicultural Britain has ended in a mess.

For only the second time in more than 60 years, the annual tradition known as the Royal Film Performance has been canceled.

Organizers said an Oct. 29 gala screening of “Brick Lane,” which was to have been attended by Prince Charles, had been scrapped. The film has attracted protests from some British Bengalis.

“The date no longer fits in the royal diary,” said Peter Hore, chief executive officer of the Cinema and Television Benevolent Fund, a performers’ charity that organizes the event, Tuesday. “We very much regret there will be no Royal Film Performance 2007.”

Prince Charles’ Clarence House office said the date and title of the royal screening had never been officially announced. A spokesman said several proposals had been studied, but “we couldn’t find the right film at the right date.”

He said officials hoped to have two royal screenings next year.

Watchdog group points out O’Reilly comments

New York – After eating dinner at a famed Harlem restaurant recently, Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly told a radio audience he “couldn’t get over the fact” that there was no difference between the black-run Sylvia’s and other restaurants.

“It was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun,” he said. “And there wasn’t any kind of craziness at all.”

O’Reilly said his fellow patrons were tremendously respectful as he ate dinner with civil rights activist Al Sharpton.

The comments were made during O’Reilly’s nationally syndicated radio broadcast last week. The liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America called attention to them by distributing a transcript and audio clip on the Internet.

O’Reilly spoke during a general discussion about racial relations with Fox News analyst Juan Williams. O’Reilly said he believed black Americans were “starting to think more and more for themselves” and backing away from a race-based culture encouraged by Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

Silverman discusses controversy over jokes

New York – Sarah Silverman still is responding to the negative reaction to her Britney Spears jokes at the MTV Video Music Awards.

“The joke that everyone was upset about – me calling the kids ‘adorable mistakes’ – was the most innocuous joke,” the 36-year-old comedian tells Us Weekly magazine in the issue that comes out Friday. “It never occurred to me that would be deemed hurtful or over the line.”

Says Silverman: “I don’t want to get into feuds with girls half my age. I’m in it to be funny and not for the drama. It’s embarrassing.”

Silverman, known for her deadpan delivery and winsome depravity, drew criticism earlier this month when she followed Spears’ much-panned VMA performance with an off-color monologue taking aim at the troubled singer and her two sons with ex-husband Kevin Federline.

“They are the most adorable mistakes you will ever see,” Silverman said of Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1.

Silverman also joked that Spears, at 25, had already accomplished in her life everything she ever will.