Bloomberg donates $60 million

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is funneling a set of grants worth $60 million to hundreds of arts and social-services groups through the Carnegie Corp., spreading them over the next two years as he begins establishing his own philanthropic foundation. Since 2002, he has given away about $175 million to groups in the city through the Carnegie Corp.

Lucky girl

BreAnna Helsel, 16, of Blanchard, Mich., has a new appreciation of the term "striking it lucky." She survived being struck by lightning June 6 and went on to win $20 in the lottery the next day. Helsel was at her home in Blanchard, about 50 miles northeast of Grand Rapids, when she noticed rain entering an open kitchen window. "She went to close the window and the lightning came through and hit her," said her mother, Linda Johnson. At the hospital, the only signs of the lightning strike were some darkened fingertips on her right hand and a shaking arm from damaged muscles that will require therapy. Hospital employees suggested Helsel was on such a lucky streak, she should play the lottery. She's too young, so her mother bought a Michigan lottery ticket for her the next day and won the $20.

Sold!

D.B. dollars hot

Fifteen tattered $20 bills recovered from the 1971 D.B. Cooper skyjacking sold Friday for more than 120 times their face value at a Dallas auction. Heritage Auction Galleries said the bills sold for a total of more than $37,000. Cooper, claiming he had a bomb, skyjacked a flight from Portland to Seattle. He released the passengers in Seattle for $200,000, four parachutes and a flight to Mexico. On that flight, he jumped out with a parachute near the Oregon-Washington line. He never was found.

People

Dobbs: I'm not running

CNN host Lou Dobbs, 62, said Friday that he won't run for New Jersey governor. "I'm just the wrong personality type," he said. Rumors of a possible Dobbs run had been circulating for days. His denial was first reported on The Star-Ledger of Newark's Web site.

Waters shuns Honfest

Filmmaker John Waters is done with Honfest, an annual celebration in Baltimore of beehive hairdos, cat's-eye glasses and other kitschy fashions, because "it's used up." Participants are known as "Hons" in honor of the ubiquitous Baltimore term of endearment. But Waters and some residents of the city's Hampden neighborhood, where the festival takes place, said Honfest has lost its charm. "It's condescending now," Waters said. The two-day festival, expected to draw 50,000 people, begins today.

Witherspoon split final

Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe's divorce was finalized Friday. The star-crossed lovers split up in 2006.

Spacey to teach at Oxford

Kevin Spacey already has two Academy Awards and heads London's Old Vic theater. Now he can add a new title — Oxford University professor. The Hollywood star has been named Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theater at Oxford's St. Catherine's College, officials there announced Friday.

Passages

Stewart Mott, 70, a philanthropist whose gifts to progressive and sometimes offbeat causes were often upstaged by his eccentricities, died Thursday night at a hospital in Mount Kisco, N.Y. He had cancer.

Today in History

1777: The Continental Congress in Philadelphia adopted the Stars and Stripes as the national flag.

1940: In German-occupied Poland, the Nazis opened their concentration camp at Auschwitz; the same day, German troops entered Paris.

2007: Reputed Klansman James Ford Seale was convicted of kidnapping Charles Eddie Moore and Henry Hezekiah Dee, two black teens who were deliberately drowned in Mississippi in 1964.

Today's Birthdays

Actress Marla Gibbs, 77. Writer Peter Mayle, 69. Actor Jack Bannon, 68. Real-estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump, 62. Actor Will Patton, 54. Singer Boy George, 47. Actress Yasmine Bleeth, 40. Tennis player Steffi Graf, 39. Actress Traylor Howard, 37. Oscar-winning screenwriter Diablo Cody ("Juno"), 30.

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