Stars fight poverty, light up Central Park

Updated: September 30, 2012 - 5:32 PM

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NEW YORK - Neil Young, the Black Keys, Foo Fighters and others wowed thousands who turned out Saturday night for a free concert in Central Park to call attention to poverty worldwide.

Dubbed the Global Citizen Festival, the concert also featured K'naan, John Legend and Band of Horses, with Young's performance capping off the evening. Video of the event was streamed worldwide as about 60,000 music fans crowded the park's Great Lawn, the midtown Manhattan skyline twinkling behind them.

Legend made a surprise appearance, playing one song "Imagine" at a piano on stage, a short walk from where the song's author, John Lennon, once lived. The five-hour show was a mix of tight sets from the bands, roughly an hour each, mixed with videos and information from guest speakers about global poverty-related problems like infant mortality and polio.

The concert was scheduled around the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York this month and organizers used an innovative approach to ticket distribution. Anyone wanting free tickets had to register at globalcitizen.org, which then required users to watch videos or read information about poverty-related issues. Each time material was consumed, users could earn points toward a drawing for tickets. Points were also accumulated by sharing information by way of Twitter or Facebook.

Naked princes are a different story

Royal officials say they won't complain to Britain's press watchdog about naked pictures of Prince Harry partying in Las Vegas that appeared in a British tabloid. The Sun newspaper ran the snapshots last month. The palace said a complaint would be a distraction from Harry's deployment in Afghanistan, where he is serving as a helicopter pilot.

MEANDERING MANATEE: Lil Joe, the wayfaring, celebrity manatee, was pulled out of the river where he had been trapped for weeks and taken into the care of rescuers last week. The 23-year-old Florida orphan, raised in zoos and aquariums for more than two decades, has now been rescued twice since being set free early last year along the St. Johns River in Volusia County, Fla.

DINNER COMES UP, SHOW GOES ON: Justin Bieber's "Believe" tour is off to a rocky start. TMZ obtained a video of the 18-year-old singer getting ill and throwing up while performing at the 18,000-seat Jobing Arena in Glendale, Ariz., on Saturday. The clip shows Bieber turning his back to the audience while singing "Out of Town Girl," then hunching over, vomiting and running to the side of the stage. When he returned, Bieber powered through the rest of his set.

FAMOUS BIRTHDAYS

Jimmy Carter, 88

Singer Julie Andrews, 77

Actress Stella Stevens, 74

Ex-Twin Rod Carew, 67

Actor Randy Quaid, 62

Baseball's Mark McGwire, 49

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