'Oprah' audience members each go home with a car

'Oprah' audience memberseach go home with a car
CHICAGO -- In addition to advice, encouragement and inspiration, Oprah Winfrey had a special gift for every member of her audience -- a $28,000 car.
The syndicated talk-show host handed out car keys to all 276 people in the audience who had come for the taping of the premiere of the 19th season of "The Oprah Winfrey Show."
The cars, which retail for $28,400 fully loaded with options, were donated by Pontiac.
In other segments on the show, Winfrey surprised a 20-year-old girl who had spent years in foster care and homeless shelters with a four-year college scholarship, a makeover and $10,000 in clothes. And a family with eight foster children who were going to be kicked out of the house they were renting were given $130,000 to buy and repair the home.
Reports: Kutcher's Dolcewas burglarized twice
NEW YORK -- Ashton Kutcher's exclusive Los Angeles restaurant, Dolce, was burglarized twice over Labor Day weekend, syndicated entertainment show "Access Hollywood" reports.
The upscale restaurant is also owned by Kutcher's co-stars from "That '70s Show": Wilmer Valderrama and Danny Masterson. Also co-owners are actors Jamie Kennedy, Masterson's brother Chris and 15 other investors.
"Access" reports that the LAPD says the restaurant was robbed of money and checks from a small safe Sept. 4, and again Sept. 6, this time taking cash and several bottles of wine.
Kutcher is the host of the MTV show "Punk'd," in which celebrities are pranked.
Charges against Givensare dismissed in court
MIAMI -- Charges were dismissed Monday against actress Robin Givens after three police officers failed to show up for her traffic court trial for running over an elderly pedestrian's leg.
Givens, a star of the 1980s TV comedy "Head of the Class" and the ex-wife of boxer Mike Tyson, struck Maria Antonia Alcover as she was about to step onto the sidewalk after crossing a busy city street Jan. 28, police said.
After stopping at a red light, Givens turned the corner and hit the 89-year-old woman, sending her into a backward fall, police said. The back wheel of Givens' Mercedes-Benz SUV ran over Alcover's right leg.
Givens was ticketed for failing to use due care with a pedestrian in the crosswalk, an offense carrying a fine of less than $70. The charge was dropped when the officers didn't come to court.
Alcover filed a civil suit against Givens in June.
Notable death
PHILADELPHIA -- Author and newspaper reporter Rose DeWolf, whose journalism career spanned 48 years, died Sunday of bone cancer. She was 70.
DeWolf died at Pennsylvania Hospital, reported the Philadelphia Daily News, where she had worked since the 1980s. She also worked at several other newspapers, including The Philadelphia Inquirer and the now-defunct Evening Bulletin.
DeWolf wrote a popular column for the Inquirer in the 1960s, once posing as a hippie in 1967 to research a column about how park guards and police were harassing long-haired young people in the city's tony Rittenhouse Square.
More recently, she wrote about a philanthropist who gave a kidney to a stranger, interviewed Phillies pitcher Tug McGraw weeks before he died, and co-wrote an award-winning series that led to improvements to a dangerous city thoroughfare.
Today's birthdays
Actress Zoe Caldwell is 71. Actor Harve Presnell is 71. Feminist author Kate Millett is 70. Actor Walter Koenig is 68. Actor Nicol Williamson is 66. Singer-actress Joey Heatherton is 60. Actor Sam Neill is 57. Singer Jon "Bowser" Bauman (Sha Na Na) is 57. Singer Barry Cowsill is 50. Rock musician Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) is 49. Country singer-songwriter Beth Nielsen Chapman is 48. Actress Mary Crosby is 45. Singer Morten Harket (a-ha) is 45. Country singer John Berry is 45. Actress Faith Ford is 40. Actor Dan Cortese is 36. Rock musician Craig Montoya (Tri Polar) is 34. Actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley is 33. Rapper Nas is 31. Actor Adam Lamberg is 20.