Spielberg rescues Oscar

Los Angeles — Steven Spielberg has rescued another Oscar from the auction block.

The director-producer paid $180,000, not including fees and taxes, to buy Bette Davis’ best actress Oscar for the 1935 movie “Dangerous.”

Spielberg will donate the Oscar to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Spielberg, himself a multiple Academy Award winner, bought and donated two other Oscars that were being sold privately. He paid $578,000 last year for Davis’ Oscar for the 1938 movie “Jezebel,” and $607,500 in 1996 for Clark Gable’s best-actor Oscar for 1934’s “It Happened One Night.”

Shakira gets into shoe business

Bogota, Colombia — Colombian singer Shakira returned to her hometown of Barranquilla to donate 10,000 pairs of tennis shoes to impoverished children.

The Latin pop star sang for the children Thursday night and urged them to take part in sports.

Shakira said she remembered “seeing many children in the streets playing soccer without shoes” in Barranquilla, a city on Colombia’s Caribbean coast 435 miles north of Bogota.

The donation was made through the Barefoot Foundation, named after one of Shakira’s discs, called “Pies Descalzos” in Spanish.

Musical tribute to Mandela

Johannesburg, South Africa — Veteran rock stars Bono, Dave Stewart and Joe Strummer have written a song in tribute to former South African President Nelson Mandela.

“48864” is the number Mandela wore as a prisoner of the apartheid regime. The three entertainers will play the song at a Feb. 2 AIDS benefit concert on Robben Island, where Mandela was held prisoner.

Mandela, 84, emerged from prison to become South Africa’s first democratic president in 1994. He stepped down in 1999 and since has become a vocal activist in the fight against AIDS.

The “Mandela SOS” concert will be broadcast live on the Internet, and TV rights to a two-hour concert special are being negotiated, he said. Money from those sales and sponsorships will benefit AIDS charities.

Performers at the daylong concert will include Queen, Macy Gray, Nelly Furtado, Shaggy and Jimmy Cliff.

Wright at home in Indiana

Millville, Ind. — Preservationists at the birthplace of Wilbur Wright are planning a monument and other events to commemorate next year’s 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers’ first flight.

Wilbur Wright, who developed an early airplane with younger brother Orville, was born April 16, 1867, at the site in Millville, about 50 miles east of Indianapolis.

Preservationists plan to dedicate the monument at a Centennial of Flight festival in June.

The monument, which will include Wilbur Wright’s picture and a quote written by his father, is being made from a slab of limestone set into place at the site in 1953 on the 50th anniversary of the first flight.