Murray explains golf cart incident

VENICE, Italy — Nobody worry about me, says Bill Murray. He was just dropping off people after a party when he was stopped in downtown Stockholm driving a golf cart.

The police "asked me to come over and they assumed that I was drunk and I explained to them that I was a golfer," Murray told reporters Monday at the Venice Film Festival.

Murray said he was in Stockholm last month to play in a pro-am golf tournament, and hitched a ride to a post-event party in a golf cart.

When no one wanted to drive home, he volunteered.

"I ended up stopping and dropping people off on the way like a bus," said Murray, who turns 57 on Sept. 21.

That's where police called him over.

Swedish police took a blood test after he refused a breath test. He could face drunken driving charges, though a Stockholm police official has said fines were more likely than a prison sentence.

Clarkson will play Paramount Nov. 12

NEW YORK — Kelly Clarkson, who scrapped an earlier tour this summer due to slow sales, is heading back on the road this fall.

The Grammy-winning singer announced Tuesday she would kick off a theater tour Oct. 14 at New York City's Beacon Theater. She'll stop at the Paramount Theatre in Seattle on Nov. 12.

The former "American Idol" champ had a rough summer, splitting with her manager amid friction with her record label over the direction of her third album, "My December." In July Clarkson canceled an arena tour due to slow ticket sales, (a July 13 show at KeyArena was scrapped) and organizers said that they planned to re-evaluate the size of the tour.

Whoopi stirs it up first day on the job

NEW YORK — So much for the sedate alternative to Rosie O'Donnell on "The View."

Whoopi Goldberg used her first day on the daytime chat show Tuesday to defend football star Michael Vick in his dogfighting case.

Goldberg said that "from where he comes from" in the South, dogfighting isn't that unusual.

"It's like cockfighting in Puerto Rico," she said. "There are certain things that are indicative to certain parts of the country."

The Atlanta Falcons quarterback pleaded guilty to federal dogfighting charges last week, admitting that he provided money for a dogfighting ring that operated on his Virginia property and helped kill six or eight pit bulls. Vick grew up in Newport News, Va.

Goldberg replaced O'Donnell, whose stormy tenure on the ABC program lasted less than a year.

In the Vick discussion, Goldberg served notice that she won't shy away from controversy.

Co-host Joy Behar looked horrified at Goldberg.

"How about dog torture and dog murdering?" Behar asked.

Bush draws barbs at film festival

VENICE, Italy — Richard Gere and Charlize Theron added their voices to a chorus of stars taking swipes at the Bush administration at the Venice Film Festival.

"How did we elect Bush twice?" Gere asked rhetorically while promoting his new film, "The Hunting Party."

In the film, Gere plays a reporter determined to track down Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic — who has been hiding for more than a decade and is charged with genocide and crimes against humanity for his role as an alleged architect of the Bosnian war.

"What's interesting to me is how do the bad people among us end up our leaders?" he said at a news conference Monday.

In "The Valley of Elah," Theron plays a detective drawn into the case of a U.S. soldier who disappears after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq.

"The decision-making process for going into Iraq was very hastily done, and I think the facts weren't there, and I just don't think you go to war for those reasons," she said.

George Clooney has said he made "Syriana" and "Good Night, and Good Luck" out of anger for being considered a traitor for questioning the decision to go to war. He told reporters at Venice last week that he believes Americans are now in the process of fixing the mistakes of the past few years.

Keyboard player dies in shooting

DALLAS — Jeffrey Carter Albrecht, a keyboard player for the band Edie Brickell & New Bohemians, was shot to death early Monday while trying to kick in the door of his girlfriend's neighbor, police said.

The neighbor, who was not immediately identified, was asleep in bed when he woke up around 4 a.m. to his wife screaming that someone was breaking into the house, according to a police report. The neighbor yelled through the door for Albrecht to leave and then fired his handgun through the door.

Albrecht was shot in the head and died at the scene, police said.

The neighbor believed a burglar was trying to break in and fired a shot through the door around 4 a.m., Dallas police spokesman Sgt. Gil Cerda said. The case is under investigation and no arrests have been made.

Albrecht, who went by his middle name, had been with the New Bohemians since 1999, according to the band's Web site.

Director says Wilson is "making us laugh"

VENICE, Italy — Owen Wilson is doing well as he recovers from an apparent suicide attempt, and is even making colleagues laugh, the director of his latest film said Monday.

"Obviously he has been through a lot this week," said Wes Anderson, who directed Wilson in "The Darjeeling Limited," one of the films in competition for the Venice Film Festival's top award.

"I can tell you he has been doing very well, he has been making us laugh," Anderson told a news conference to promote the film.

"When he is ready he's going to speak for himself much better than any of us could," the director said.

Wilson was taken by ambulance to a hospital last week after police responded to a call about a suicide attempt at his Santa Monica home.

In "Darjeeling," Wilson plays a distraught man — bandaged throughout the film — who other characters imply has attempted suicide.

After being hospitalized, Wilson dropped out of the upcoming DreamWorks movie, "Tropic Thunder," which was already in production in Hawaii.

The Associated Press