GOLDSBY, Okla. (AP) – Actor and director Mel Gibson visited two Oklahoma towns this week to attend screenings of his new movie, “Apocalypto.”

Gibson did not make a public appearance during screenings held at the Riverwind Casino in Goldsby and Cameron University in Lawton. At the entrance of the casino – where the film was shown Friday to a mostly American Indian audience – reporters were kept behind partitions.

He arrived at Cameron on Thursday morning wearing a mask and wig so he wouldn’t be noticed, university spokeswoman Amber McNeil said.

Jhane Myers, an Oklahoma City-based publicist who escorted Gibson, issued a statement saying Gibson was “deeply touched by the warm reception he has received while in Oklahoma.”

Myers had said earlier in the week that Gibson had canceled the screenings planned for Oklahoma.

Gibson co-wrote and directed “Apocalypto,” which is billed as an action-adventure film set in the last days of the Mayan civilization in Mexico. It will be released Dec. 8.

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WOODSTOCK, N.Y. (AP) – The Dalai Lama took Woodstock by surprise, offering a speech on world peace to thousands who gathered on word of mouth alone.

Debbie Zimmer came to the artists’ colony in the Catskills to shop and wondered why she couldn’t find parking.

“I’m supposed to be here,” she said as she quickly changed her plans.

The spiritual leader to Buddhists worldwide squeezed in the visit Friday between scheduled appearances in Buffalo and New York City.

On the way to the speech, the peaceful crowd funneled past a white van, not realizing it contained an X-ray machine checking for weapons.

The Dalai Lama was scheduled to offer a private teaching session Saturday to 500 Buddhists at a nearby monastery. Town Supervisor Jeremy Wilber called the last-minute public appearance a “gift to the people of Woodstock.”

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LOS ANGELES (AP) – A Superior Court judge has rejected a motion to throw out comedian Dom DeLuise’s lawsuit claiming his former daughter-in-law caused him emotional and financial distress when she sued him for $2 million.

DeLuise is suing Brigitte DeLuise, her lawyer, Steven Zelig, and Zelig’s law firm for their suit claiming the comedian, his wife, Carol, and their money managers tried to cut off his former daughter-in-law financially.

Zelig asked a judge to dismiss the lawsuit, saying DeLuise gave no evidence for his claims of emotional distress and that his lawsuit violated a state law designed to prevent the silencing of critics by burdening them with legal costs. Judge Judith C. Chirlin disagreed Friday.

“I find that there were sufficient grounds for the lawsuit to have been filed,” she said. “There is a likelihood of it prevailing on the merits.”

Brigitte DeLuise dropped her lawsuit in January, but refiled it June 23. She divorced Dom DeLuise’s son David DeLuise in August 2003.

Calls to Zelig and to DeLuise’s attorney, Joseph Singleton, were not returned.

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KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – Patrick Crowe says he is having a blast promoting talk-show icon Oprah Winfrey for president. Winfrey’s lawyers are not.

Crowe has been unofficially campaigning for the first lady of daytime TV for years. The Kansas City man’s Web site, www.oprah08.net, comes complete with a campaign song and volunteer sign-up. He also sells “Oprah for President” T-shirts.

The retired math teacher’s unflappable support has recently drawn the ire of Winfrey’s lawyers, who sent Crowe a letter on Aug. 22 demanding that he remove her picture from the Web site and a book he is selling. The letter said Crowe’s zeal has crossed into copyright and trademark infringements.

But Crowe is persistent. The Web site remained up Saturday, and he has been fielding requests for radio interviews.

“It has become increasingly serious to me,” Crowe, who opposes the Bush administration and its foreign policy, told The Kansas City Star for a story Friday. “I know Oprah can do better than that.”

Crowe believes Winfrey could bridge partisan lines with her charm. He also noted Winfrey’s business acumen, widespread name recognition and reputation as a woman of compassion and determination.

A spokeswoman for Harpo said that Winfrey has said she has no political aspirations.

HONG KONG (AP) – Actor Jack Nicholson told a Hong Kong newspaper that he avoided watching the local crime thriller “Infernal Affairs” when he was shooting the Hollywood remake, “The Departed,” directed by Martin Scorsese.

“I wanted to concentrate on Scorsese’s movie, and what it was going to become as we went through the process,” Nicholson was quoted as saying in the Sunday edition of the South China Morning Post.

“We were reconceiving as we went and, from the beginning, that’s what made this different,” he said.

“Infernal Affairs,” which starred Cannes best actor winner Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Hong Kong heartthrob Andy Lau, is about a police officer who goes undercover in a Hong Kong gang and a local gangster who infiltrates the police.

Apart from Nicholson, the Hollywood remake also features Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Wahlberg, Martin Sheen and Alec Baldwin.

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PORT HENRY, N.Y. (AP) – Prim Sulu has become a barbarian.

With flowing hair and leather clothes, George Takei agreed to age 30 years for an Internet download episode of “Star Trek.” The 50-minute production by Trekkie enthusiasts is being filmed at an old car dealership in the Adirondacks.

The new episode, “World Enough and Time,” has Sulu being unexpectedly transported. “I find myself on another alien planet. I live 30 years of my life there. I have a child,” Takei said.

Then he returns to the starship Enterprise.

“It turns out to be only a minute or two that’s passed on the Enterprise. I’m a changed man.”

Standing in for William Shatner as Captain Kirk is the episode’s producer, James Cawley of nearby Ticonderoga, who has financed 15 years of such “Star Trek” episodes from his earnings as an Elvis impersonator.

Cawley said the episode will be released in March as a free Internet download from his Star Trek New Voyages Web site.

“It’s huge now,” Cawley said. “It started out as my friends and me getting together playing ‘Star Trek.’ Now it’s film crews donating their time. People take it seriously.”

Including Takei.

“My coming back is crucial to the existence of the Enterprise,” he said. “It’s classic drama, and it’s rip-snorting good.”

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MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) – Known for his paintings of cozy cottages, country gardens and churches, artist Thomas Kinkade has created a similar tranquil scene in his painting of Elvis Presley’s famous home.

Kinkade, who finished the oil painting in about three hours on Friday, said he wanted to paint Graceland as if it were a brisk autumn morning with a fire in the fireplace. Kinkade described his 401st painting set for release as a “sketchy painting,” a study that he will take to his California studio to refine it for a finished portrait to be released in March.

Prints of the study and the finished portrait will be for sale around the same time as part of the 50th anniversary celebration of Elvis’ purchase of Graceland, The Commercial Appeal reported.

Kinkade said his sister was an Elvis fan and that he seemed destined to paint the famous home: “When I was growing up, I had Elvis music in the house all the time.”

The artist told the newspaper that in the final work he envisions “a likeness of Elvis somewhere in the painting and Elvis’ Cadillac.”

A California native beloved by some but reviled by the art establishment, Kinkade claims to be the most widely collected living U.S. artist. Kinkade’s paintings typically include peaceful scenes of cottages, country gardens, churches, streams and lighthouses in dewy morning light. Many contain images from Bible passages.

Roughly 10 million Americans have a Kinkade painting at home. The wall hangings and spin-off products are said to fetch $100 million a year.

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DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) – A select few fans of Irish rock group U2 found what they were looking for when they won the right to have copies of U2’s new book signed by all four band members.

Interest in Saturday’s book signing by Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen proved so intense that organizers had to restrict access to 250 fans, who won tickets through a lottery on U2’s official Web site and via competitions on radio stations across Ireland.

All 250 were waiting inside Eason’s bookshop, the biggest in Ireland, when the famous four arrived to put their signatures to copies of “U2byU2,” a coffee-table book that went on international sale Thursday. Unusually, Bono made no formal comments and journalists were not admitted to the private signing, although photographers were allowed.

Outside in the rain, police and crash barriers kept about 1,000 fans at bay on O’Connell Street, the major thoroughfare in Dublin.

On Monday, U2 is scheduled to perform alongside Green Day in New Orleans’ Superdome, which is officially reopening following Hurricane Katrina for an NFL game between the New Orleans Saints and the Atlanta Falcons.