Acclaimed Italian director and actor Roberto Benigni is about to begin work on a comedy movie set against the backdrop of war-torn Iraq. The Oscar-winning star hopes La Tigre E La Neve will do for the war in Iraq what his Life Is Beautiful did for the Holocaust. In the film Benigni will take the lead role of a poet who gets caught up in events in Iraq in March 2003 when the US launched its attack on Saddam Hussein's regime. He tells Italian radio. "War naturally is the background of the film and my character is directly involved in it after this poet ends up in Iraq by pure chance. What is extraordinary is his vision of the world. This is one person representing all the people in the world." Benigni also makes a veiled attack on the West's role in Iraq: "Westerners are running the show, all of those doing these things have studied in the West, it is not the Easterners. We know how many dreams the East gives, and how grateful we are to the East and love all its beautiful things."

The woman accused of stalking Catherine Zeta-Jones will plead not guilty when she appears in court in two weeks time. Dawnette Knight is due to stand trial on November 10 on one charge of stalking and 24 charges of making criminal threats to the Chicago actress. Knight is currently being held in police custody, but her lawyers are appealing for bail, claiming she is only facing criminal proceedings because the case involves celebrities. Her lawyer Richard Herman says, "I'm afraid that we've gone much too far in something that's just greatly overblown. She's been in long enough. We all know that she's no threat to anyone." Welsh-born star Zeta-Jones, 35, who is married to actor Michael Douglas, said the "satanic threats" - which she received while she was filming Ocean's Twelve in Amsterdam last year - left her on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

Leonardo DiCaprio has been cleared of long-running charges that he incited a group of friends to attack a love rival outside a Manhattan restaurant. Actor and screenwriter Roger Wilson filed a $45 million lawsuit against the Gangs Of New York star and two of his friends after the alleged incident in 1998. Wilson accused DiCaprio of telling his friend Todd Healy to beat him up after an argument over Wilson's then girlfriend, actress Elizabeth Berkley. Judge Paula Omansky ruled that Healy did not hear the 29-year-old actor's alleged remark, "Go out there and kick his a**!" The judge also ruled that only a restaurant security guard heard DiCaprio's say it, so the actor could not have aided and abetted Healy in his assault on Wilson. The case against Healy, who has admitted to punching Wilson in self-defense, continues.

Actress Jennifer Garner has taken her new beau Ben Affleck to her hometown of Charleston, West Virginia, to meet her parents. The Daredevil co-stars recently spent a few days in Garner's old stomping ground, where they enjoyed a trip to the local Park Place Stadium Cinema on 21 September to see Garden State. A source says, "They were trying to be casual." When an employee recognized them, they reportedly offered autographs in exchange for her keeping it quiet. The next day, the couple headed to a nearby airfield and took a private jet to Washington, DC, to co-host a fundraiser for the A-T Children's Project.

Destiny Child's planned comeback has been postponed after Beyonce Knowles badly injured her leg during rehearsals. The singer was rehearsing with band mates Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams when she tore her right hamstring while practicing in Los Angeles for an upcoming TV special. Columbia Records spokesperson Yvette Noel-schure says, "We're all keeping our fingers crossed that, because she's young and healthy, it heals fast. There are a lot of things in place that we may have to shift. Not the album (Destiny Fulfilled), which is finished, but appearances. We'll know more after a week." This is the star's second injury in just six weeks - after her bodyguard broke her toe by treading on her foot.

Hit cartoon series The Simpsons is pushing for gay marriage rights in America with a shocking episode featuring chain-smoking twin Patty wedding another woman. Animated father Homer is ordained as a minister and marries Marge's sister to her dream woman in the eagerly-awaited show, which criticizes American President George W Bush's refusal to allow homosexual marriage. The sitcom will create further controversy later this year when Marge delivers a Christmas speech to the British public, which will rival monarch Queen Elizabeth II's traditional festive message.

Hollywood heart-throb Joaquin Phoenix got more than he bargained for when he appeared on American chat show Thursday morning - a wrestling challenge from his female interviewer. The actor appeared on daytime chat show Live With Regis & Kelly to promote his new movie Ladder 49, when bubbly host Kelly Ripa began boasting about beating him in a thumb-wrestling match when he visited the set two years ago. She then presented him with a new challenge - a leg wrestle. As Phoenix looked on in bemusement, Ripa laid flat on her back on the studio floor, and asked him to get down and join her. After he reluctantly complied, Ripa demonstrated the game, and flipped the actor over with her leg in the process. When Ripa asked if he was ready to play after the demonstration, he shot back, "I thought we just did it for real! Time out... I'm holding on... I'm totally scared."

A University of California professor has won a major case against the FBI after they refused to let him read their secret files on John Lennon. Jonathan Wiener has spent the past 20 years trying to get access to the files, but was told that some pages would never be released because they might pose a national security risk - because a foreign government secretly provided the information. However, on Tuesday, Us District Judge Robert Takasugi rejected government arguments and ordered FBI officials to turn over their complete files for Wiener's studies. Professor Wiener originally sued the government for the documents in 1983 under the Freedom of Information Act. The files, which were gathered from 1971 to 1972, reportedly contain no allegations Lennon was involved in planning or committing illegal acts. Wiener has written two Lennon books, Come Together: John Lennon In His Time and Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files.

A host of musical stars paid tribute to the late Ray Charles at a special concert in California Wednesday night. Artists including Stevie Wonder and Michael McDonald performed the blues singer's hits at the tribute show hosted by legendary comedian Bill Cosby. Cosby quipped to the audience which included Quincy Jones and Travis Tritt that Charles, "lived more lives than any 900 hundred of you." He also shared some of his memories of the star, including an occasion when the blind musician appeared at a jazz festival backed by an all white band. Cosby said, "I said to Ray, 'Your band is all white'. He said, 'That's funny. They don't sound white'." Charles passed away aged 73 when his liver failed earlier this year. All proceeds from the tribute concert will go to the Morehouse College Centre in Atlanta, to which Charles donated $2 million during his lifetime.

Pop queen Madonna is so frustrated she sacrificed her education for pop music - she's allegedly enrolled at Britain's prestigious Oxford University for a degree in English Literature. The Material Girl rekindled her love of books after writing popular children's series The English Roses, and is looking forward to studying for a Bachelor of Arts qualification from home, with the celebrated institution which counts four British Kings, 47 Nobel prize-winners, 25 British Prime Ministers and six saints as past students. An insider tells Britain's The Sun newspaper, "Madonna was always irritated about giving up her schooling when her career took off. She is fiercely intelligent and incredibly well read and has always taken a keen interest in literature. She is determined to get a qualification. She sets herself new challenges all the time and the Oxford University course is her latest. It's an illustrious place to study and she was delighted to be accepted and will make the most of the opportunity."