Christian Bale being interviewed by Jill Dobson at the premiere of "The Dark Knight"

Christian Bale seems to be a man of few words. When I interviewed him at the world premiere of “The Dark Knight” last week, his answers were very brief… and he’s even more tight-lipped now that he’s been accused of assault by his mother and sister.

That accusation came Sunday. Today, Bale held a press conference in Barcelona to publicly address the allegations. But while he presumably called the presser to share his side of the story, he didn’t say much at all. In a nutshell, he asked for privacy. And that’s just about all he said. He did not answer questions from reporters about the alleged assault.

Click here for a full report on today’s press conference.

We know our viewers are interested to hear Bale’s side of the story on this one. The actor is certainly getting huge amounts of attention right now. He stars in the world’s biggest movie, “The Dark Knight,” and these assault allegations have become water cooler talk in the U.S., Europe and beyond.

We’ll have video from the press conference today on Fox News, so tune in to hear Bale’s statement (or lack thereof) for yourself. And click “comments” below to tell us what you think.

7/17 UPDATE:

The family of two American teenagers freed from a Pakistani madrassa have kept a low profile during the week since the boys returned home to Atlanta. But 17-year-old Noor Elahi Khan and his 16-year-old brother Mahboob are prominently featured in a new documentary about the Jamia Binoria madrassa and its alleged ties to radical Islamic groups.

Imran Raza, an American of Pakistani descent, produced and directed the film Karachi Kids. Click on the video to hear his comments.

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The filmmaker interviewed the Khan brothers in 2005. At that time, they described routine beatings at the madrassa and said they wanted to go back to America, the country in which they were born.

Their story prompted U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) to personally lobby Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf for the boys’ return.

But three years after that 2005 film interview, and four years after their father enrolled them in the school — allegedly against their will, the Khan brothers appear to have had a change of heart.

During the trip home, Raza said he asked Mahboob what he thought of the documentary and the 16-year-old replied, “I was very saddened because you were very mean to the madrassa.” Keep Reading …

"The Dark Knight" Movie Poster (AP)

The Dark Knight premiere is definitely the entertainment story of the week so far! Yesterday, I told you a little bit of what the stars had to say about the film.

Today, you can hear from Christian Bale, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Gary Oldman and Michael Caine for yourself! Go to www.foxnews.com/redcarpetrewind to see all my best interviews from the black carpet!

Oh, and I have to tell you that seeing the Batmobile up close was pretty wild. The thing looks like a smaller, uglier version of a tank. Like some movie stars, it was much better looking on the big screen than in real life! (I’m kidding… kinda.)

Also, I finally got to see the film! Entertainment producer extraordinaire, Ashley Dvorkin and I caught it on the big, big screen – IMAX – last night. I am happy to report that Ledger’s performance really did live up to the hype. It’s a good movie, but don’t take the kids – some scary sequences will definitely give them nightmares!

TUESDAY 3:20 PM

John Wimunc and fellow Marine Kyle Alden displayed no emotion during their first appearance in court, as the judge read the charges against them, and the possible sentences associated with those charges.

If Alden is convicted of all charges against him, he could, in theory, face up to 49 years in consecutive prison sentences. If Wimunc is convicted of first degree murder, he could face the death penalty or life without parole.

After the hearing, Wimunc’s attorney D.W. Bray walked up to the TV cameras gathered outside the detention center and made this statement:

My cleint is presumed to be innocent. We have soldiers that are fighting across the world to preserve that right. We don’t want this case tried in the media. We want it to be tried in a court of law, not under accusations, but under admissible, certifiable evidence. And until then, please remember he is presumed to be innocent.”

The hearing location was moved to the Cumberland County Detention Center for logistical purposes. This is where both defendants are being held until their next scheduled court appearance on August 5.

Holley Wimunc

TUESDAY 9:30

Now that investigators have finished recovering, what they believe are, the charred remains of Ft. Bragg Army nurse Holley Wimunc from a shallow grave near Camp Lejeune, the focus of the murder investigation shifts back to Fayetteville, NC — about 90 miles away.

That’s where the victim’s husband, 23-year-old Marine Cpl. John Wimunc, is scheduled for his first court appearance along with a fellow Camp Lejeune Marine, 22-year-old Lance Cpl. Kyle Alden.

John Wimunc is charged with first degree murder in connection with his wife’s death. Alden is charged with being an accessory after the fact to first degree murder.

Both men also face arson charges in connection with Thursday’s fire at Holley Wimunc’s Fayetteville apartment — which investigators believe was set in an unsuccessful attempt to hide evidence.

Alden’s mother told the Associated Press her son’s only involvement was giving a friend a ride to Fayetteville. “He had no idea what was going on,” she said.

On Saturday, John Wimunc’s parents tried to defend their son against speculation of any involvement in his wife’s disappearance and disputed the domestic violence allegations Holley Wimunc made against him in May. But John Wimunc’s parents have not commented on the most recent developments in the case.

The two Marines are scheduled to appear in Cumberland County District Court at 2 PM Eastern Time. Keep Reading …

Scene of the crash: I-75 in Atlanta, March 2, 2007.

“An accident that didn’t have to happen.” That’s how Chairman Mark Rosenker of the National Transportation Safety Board described the March 2, 2007 bus crash that killed seven people and injured 28 on an Atlanta interstate.

Today, the NTSB issued its final report on the incident. That report cites three major factors as probable causes of the fatal crash: insufficient road signs, driver error and inadequate passenger protection systems on board the bus.

NTSB investigators said Georgia highway officials changed the layout of signs on an I-75 exit ramp after construction crews had trouble mounting them. They said the changes deviated from federal placement guidelines, but not enough to amount to a violation of federal regulations, which allow for some variation.

“This accident demonstrates the need for clear and consistent highway signage and traffic devices across the U.S. interstate system,” Rosenker said.

NTSB investigators believe the bus driver mistook this I-75 exit ramp for an HOV through lane. The bus crashed through the wall at the far end of the ramp and fell onto the interstate below.

Investigators said the bus driver, 65-year-old Jerome Niemeyer, was partially at fault for failing to slow down as he went up the ramp, despite two signs notifying drivers of a stop ahead. Authorities believe Niemeyer thought he was still driving in a high occupancy vehicle (HOV) through lane instead of an HOV-only left exit ramp.

At highway speed, the bus passed a stop sign at the top of the ramp, crashed through a wall on the other side of the overpass (Northside Drive) and fell 19 feet onto the interstate below.

The crash killed the driver, his wife and five members of Ohio’s Bluffton University baseball team. Click on the video below to watch one of my earlier reports from March 9, 2007.

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Some of the victims’ parents appeared before the NTSB this morning to call for increased regulation of bus construction, driver training and mandatory seat belts. The NTSB has made similar recommendations over the past 40 years, following a head-on collision involving a Greyhound bus that killed 19 passengers near Baker, California in 1968.

But the bus industry has lobbied against such regulation, claiming it would impose prohibitive costs on one of the nation’s safest forms of transportation.

The Garden. Madison Square Garden. Pure magic for musicians for many reasons.

Aside from the historic sporting events that have taken place here, there have also been monumental rock shows that have brought the house down, including the legendary filming of “The Song Remains The Same” by Led Zeppelin in 1973, where Janis Joplin performed her last concert in 1969, and where Elvis performed the only shows he ever played in New York in 1972.

There really is an electricity you feel when you first walk in, and makes you catch your breath when you look up to the ceiling. This is where most every band wants to play someday.

MSG has a big fat lofty spaceship looking ceiling for great acoustics, plenty of space for roaring crowds, and an enormous circular room to fill with sound..

But what happens when a band rocks the place so hard, it blows the PA system??

If you’re Iron Maiden, you punt. Quite literally.

Our British Heavy Metal heros returned to the Big Apple last weekend and played to a sold out crowd that included our Fox News crew that did a story in March on the band, and in a bizarro celebrity sighting world, Lance Armstrong and Kate Hudson. As Maiden fans rocked and sang along to “Powerslave” suddenly the guitar strings and Bruce’s voice were silenced, as if someone had turned off a big power switch in the bowels of the building. Some bands might retire backstage and have a beer, throw a fit, or ask the sound man to put on some music to keep the fans occupied, but not these guys.

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The band turned to their second favorite activitiy … playing soccer. Die hard fans know that Steve Harris, bass player extraordinaire, is a die hard West Ham United fan. (I know, I know, they call it football, but for purposes of this blog, we’ll call it soccer due to the visuals). When the PA system blew, luckily, the house lights stayed on (can you imagine if the entire place went dark?) Someone busted out a ball, and the band started kicking it around on stage, much to the delight of the fans who were at first bummed about the power outage, then realized they were all a part of a very cool rock historic moment, THIS is definitely something you don’t see everyday!

Keep Reading …

By David Mac Dougall

“Sofa Talks” might sound like the old-school Saturday Night Live “Coffee Talk” sketch, but it’s arguably the single most important issue facing Iraq right now.

“Sofa” stands for Status of Forces Agreement – a deal between the US and Iraqi Government about what happens to tens of thousands of US troops stationed in Iraq, when a UN mandate to keep them here runs out at the end of December. The US Government wants to strike a deal by the end of July, but it’s such a complicated and controversial subject, the self-imposed deadline will not be easy to meet.

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The Iraqi Government is single-handily shaping the agenda and public perception on this story. The US Embassy here in Baghdad has said little on the subject. The sticking points in coming up with an agreement both sides can live with are many:

How many long-term bases will the US be allowed to keep on Iraqi soil?

How long will the bases be here for? Is there a “get-out” clause if either side changes their mind about the agreement?

What will US forces be allowed to do here? Arrest people? Carry out unilateral military operations? Launch attacks on other countries from bases inside Iraq?

What happens if US troops commit a crime – which country has jurisdiction?

There’s been some progress however: on what happens to thousands of Iraqi prisoners currently in US custody; and making US contractors working in Iraq answerable to an Iraqi court if they break the law.

But despite these few points which have been hammered out, this issue really is firing up Iraqi passions. Muqtada al-Sadr - no stranger to organizing anti-US or anti-Iraqi Government protests - has encouraged his followers to demonstrate against any sort of long-term US presence here. And a final agreement will have to be approved by the Iraqi Parliament - potentially with a two-thirds majority. As we’ve seen with past votes and legislation, the Parliament can be an extremely cumbersome place to do political business, and there are never any guarantees of success.

We went out in one Baghdad neighborhood to ask residents what they think about the issue – here’s a short video with a couple of good responses.

My first border story for Fox News six years or so ago brought our crew to this exact location. I still have a picture of us straddling the border while standing on a cattle crossing. The area has changed in recent months, a transition from a 4-string barbed wire fence, to a vehicle barrier which consists of metal pilings filled with cement. Both the Border Patrol and the Indian Nation agree that numbers have likely been cut in half, but that still leaves thousands of illegals and means thousands of pounds of drugs make it across here every day. Here is one of my live reports from today. We are streaming over our MAC computer to bring this live report. Can you tell?

And here are a couple of pictures I grabbed along this stretch of the border. It’s a tough find actually when heading from the north. We actually head south of Sells, Arizona and at a curve take a dirt road which heads to the cattle crossing and a legal/unguarded entry point into the United States. The area is rough and hot. The desert is unforgiving here as temperatures this time of the year seem to sear the skin. Triple digits are common, but water is not. I see tons of garbage that ruins the environment, almost all of it coming from illegal traffic. I have done that story several times before. While both sides of this issue, the Tohono O’odham and Customs and Border Protection sometimes disagree, they do admit that there is no simple solution. Here also is a picture of Keith hanging on to a truck to get a picture of one of our interviews in his element.

I walked into a city municipal garage and saw a sea of people, some shirtless, all sweaty, working in unison in the hot, muggy Iowa summer. It looked like a desperate factory, with some people shoveling dirt into bags, and others tying them off, still others part of a chain link of people, each passing a bag down the line and into a waiting bulldozer. At other times, a pick-up truck would pull in and instantly dozens of bags would be flying in the air and into the back of the truck.

These people might make the difference between their town being flooded or saved. Over in nearby Cedar Falls, volunteers are being credited with helping save the town. Water came within inches of topping the levee. Here in Waterloo, we are near a floodgate on a tributary of the Cedar River. The floodgate has been topped and water has spilled out into neaby streets, edging up dangerously close to homes. Those sandbags we just saw at the municipal building are being brought by the dozer-load here, in a frantic effort to save this town. The volunteers say they will work as long as they need to.  More raing is expected.

We are now down along the border south of Tucson for a couple of stories. I will expand on each story as we present it live, with the first one on cactus wranglers airing all day Wednesday. It is warm here per a normal June day and the desert is a arid and beautiful as ever. Meantime, I get a regular update from Customs and Border Protection Tucson Sector and they had a couple of interesting pictures from a recent rescue and bust. It seems marijuana smuggling is only getting bigger and I’ll ask agents about this on Thursday for our Friday live reports. This SUV was packed with 100-bundles of dope and the driver was caught as he attempted to take a back road and avoid a checkpoint. The rescue came as illegal immigrants try to cross the desert at the most dangerous time of the year. Temperatures here are consistently triple digits and the land is unforgiving. This man was carried out of a canyon by agents and then flown to a hospital. Both photos were taken by Agents in the Field and show some of the good work being done on our southern border.