3 Doors Down opens doors to hurricane victims

Gulf Coast natives 3 Doors Down have been trying to give Hurricane Katrina victims in Mississippi a “better life” for the past two years.

The Escatawpa band has raised $800,000 through its charity, the Better Life Foundation.

“It is the right thing to do, pretty much the only thing to do,” lead guitarist Matt Roberts told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from Orlando, Fla., where the band is working on its follow-up CD to 2005's “Seventeen Days.”

Last July, the multi-platinum selling group did the first concert since Hurricane Katrina at the Mississippi Coast Coliseum. On Thursday, it's playing another opening event as the inaugural performers at the new Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Resort Biloxi.

The Better Life Foundation began as a charity for underprivileged children in 2004. Since then it has raised $1.2 million.

Drama school gets heftydonation from Newman

Ypsilanti High School drama teacher Michelle Peet checked her mailbox Monday and discovered the color of money.

Paul Newman, once a budding actor himself, had donated $5,000 to the school's drama club as part of its ongoing fundraising effort.

Inside an envelope delivered to the Michigan home, was a check that will help defray costs associated with the drama club's upcoming trip to the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Club members are scheduled to perform a 90-minute show there.

A brief note accompanied Newman's check: “The enclosed contribution is sent with every good wish for continued success in your worthy endeavors.”

“I'm so excited,” Peet told The Ann Arbor News for a Tuesday story.

Since January, the club has been soliciting donations via a mass letter-writing campaign that included Newman and other celebrities.

Rowling declares Harry Potter saga reaches end

J.K. Rowling said she was sad, but relieved, to have completed the final “Harry Potter” book as she greeted fans at the European premiere of the latest movie in the young wizard saga.

Hundreds of fans - dozens of whom had camped overnight to secure a spot in front of a London cinema - waved flags, placards and scarves as Rowling and the film's stars arrived at London's Leicester Square.

Rowling's “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” the seventh and final volume in the series, will be published July 21.

“Finishing it was very, very emotional. It was a combination of relief and sadness really,” she said.

- From wire reports