Marilyn Chambers, the Ivory Snow Porn Star, Dead at 56

People in the ’70s knew two things about Marilyn Chambers: that she had appeared as a model on an Ivory Snow box, fondly holding an infant under the corporate slogan “99 and 44/100% Pure”; and that she starred in Behind the Green Door, one of the first, weirdest and most popular hard-core movies in that brief period of the ’70s known as Porno Chic. These two factettes, with their colliding irony, made the blond, willowy Chambers the pin-up princess of XXX cinema, a notoriety she parlayed into a career in soft- and hard-core sex films that lasted from 1972 until..

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Out-of-wedlock births hit record high

Had she been born a generation earlier, Kim Hoffman might have had a shotgun wedding. As it turned out, she and Steve Miller took the time to plan their dream nuptials — outdoors, on an organic farm, and with their 10-month-old daughter in tow. A pre-marriage birth certainly wasn’t what her father wanted for his only daughter, said Hoffman, of Oakland, California.

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Dumping on Dubai: Have Hard Times Hit the Emirates?

Over the last few months, Dubai’s glittering skyscrapers have been diminished by the alarms about the emirate’s economic woes. The news has not been easy to take for the showpiece city-state, the most populous among the seven sheikdoms that make up the United Arab Emirates

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Eerie figure haunts Scottish castle

The figure peers down silently from an upper floor of the ruins of a Scottish castle, wearing what looks like an outfit from the Middle Ages. Could this be a long-dead Scottish earl, or just a random, modern-day visitor? The eerie image is captured in a photograph taken by tourist Christopher Aitchison in May 2008 at Tantallon Castle, which sits on a rocky outcrop along the Scottish coast, east of Edinburgh.

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‘Battlestar Galactica’ to air final episode

"Battlestar Galactica," the TV series that has held up a mirror to post-9/11 politics and paranoia for the past four seasons, comes to an end Friday. The show’s legions of fans may be in mourning, but executive producer David Eick finds the looming finale bittersweet. “It’s a combination of deep sadness and a little bit of relief,” he told CNN by phone from Los Angeles

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Analysis: Obama’s ‘blame me’ means ‘move on’

President Obama topped a town hall appearance Wednesday by claiming responsibility for the bonuses paid out to executives at the bailed-out insurance giant American International Group, saying, "I’m outraged, too." Cushioned by high approval ratings, analysts said Obama can emerge from this controversy relatively unscathed, but there’s only so many times he can get away with saying, “Blame me.” AIG accepted more than $170 billion in federal assistance in the past six months. It was revealed this week that since accepting those funds, the company doled out more than $165 million in bonuses.

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The top looks on the Oscars red carpet

While the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has been celebrating film’s best and brightest for more than 80 years, the glamour we associate with the Oscars truly started in the 1950s, when stars such as Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly and Janet Leigh brought high style to the ceremony. Since then, the red carpet has been a can’t-miss staple of the evening, and Hollywood’s hottest stars work with fashion designers, wardrobe stylists, jewelers, hairstylists and makeup artists to create looks they hope will go down in fashion history. This year’s show was no exception, and high-wattage stars such as Anne Hathaway, Kate Winslet and Natalie Portman walked the red carpet in stunning couture gowns

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