A CBS News employee is accused of trying to extort $2 million from David Letterman, forcing the late-night host to admit in an extraordinary monologue before millions of viewers that he had sexual relationships with female employees.

Movies are a great source of style inspiration: they can capture the look of an era or create a style that just begs to be taken to the streets.

NEW YORK (AP) — It was the nation’s best idea, Ken Burns, says: the national parks system.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A year after its least-watched telecast ever, the Emmy Awards plaintively acknowledged TV’s changing role in the Internet age, bringing a collective sense of reckoning to the revamped show with everything from scripted jokes about the decline of networks to unemployed stars openly job-seeking.

NEW YORK (AP) — Friday marked the final flicker of CBS’ “Guiding Light,“ as that venerable daytime drama logged its farewell hour after 72 years on the air.

By spring, Harry Potter fans will be able to visit a replica of Hogwarts Castle, sip on pumpkin juice at the Hog’s Head Pub and munch on Bertie Bott’s Every-Flavour Beans at a candy shop – all within the The Wizarding World of Harry Potter attraction in the Universal Orlando Resort.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Henry Gibson, the veteran comic character actor best known for his role reciting offbeat poetry on “Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In,“ has died. He was 73.

Mary Travers, one-third of the popular 1960s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary who were perhaps best known for their hit “Puff (The Magic Dragon),“ died in a Connecticut hospital after battling leukemia for several years. She was 72.

Patrick Swayze has died after a nearly two-year battle with pancreatic cancer.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Will Kanye West get his Hugh Grant moment on Jay Leno’s new show?

Winfrey is still the queen of daytime television, but the aura of invincibility is gone. The average viewership for “The Oprah Winfrey Show” slipped under 7 million last season, down 7 percent from the year before.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ellen DeGeneres is known for being nice. But the new “American Idol” judge says she’s tough enough to be honest with the show’s contestants.

With the economy still trying to climb out of the cellar, the new broadcast television season will be leaner – but not meaner.

Richmond’s police chief says his department is prepared to put Chris Brown to work performing manual labor such as graffiti removal and picking up trash as part of a sentence imposed by a California judge.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Actress Lauren Bacall, producer-director Roger Corman and cinematographer Gordon Willis are the first Oscar winners of the season.

NEW YORK (AP) — Author Dominick Dunne, who told stories of shocking crimes among the rich and famous through his magazine articles and best-selling books including “Another City, Not My Own,“ about O.J. Simpson’s murder trial, died Wednesday in his home at age 83.

Ellie Greenwich, who co-wrote some of pop music’s most enduring songs, including “Chapel of Love,“ “Be My Baby” and “Leader of the Pack,“ died Wednesday, according to her niece. She was 68.

LOS ANGELES — Eva Longoria Parker and George Lopez will host September’s ALMA Awards celebrating Latino achievement in entertainment.

Miss Venezuela was the fairest of them all once again, winning the 2009 Miss Universe crown for the second year straight and the sixth time since the pageant’s creation.

A Seattle woman has sued magician David Copperfield, contending he sexually assaulted and threatened her while she was a guest on his private island in the Bahamas.

When comic book store owner Dave Luebke heard that after 67 years, the carrot-topped everyman of the comic world, Archie, was proposing to va-va-voomy rich girl Veronica instead of girl-next-door Betty, he decided to protest by selling his copy of the series’ rare first issue.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — Les Paul, the guitarist and inventor who changed the course of music with the electric guitar and multitrack recording and had a string of hits, many with wife Mary Ford, died on Thursday. He was 94.

LOS ANGELES — “A Perfect Getaway” is essentially one big red herring, flopping around on an idyllic Hawaiian beach, desperately trying to call attention to itself.

When Don Fraser saw Santana on TV recently, he laughed and thought to himself, “That guy was at Woodstock!“

NEW YORK (AP) — The actors made famous by writer-director John Hughes are extolling his talents after his death, calling him influential and “one of the giants” for capturing the youth market in the 1980s and ‘90s with such favorites as “The Breakfast Club,“ ‘'Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” and “Home Alone.“

Couch Potato Casey Gillis writes about the new seasons of “Monk” and “Psych,“ which are airing Friday on USA. Also, check out a review of “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra,“  starring Dennis Quaid.

CBS is bringing back the game show “Let’s Make a Deal” on Oct 5. It will replace the canceled “Guiding Light,“ which is ending on Sept. 18 after a 50-year run.

PASADENA, California (AP) — Emmy host Neil Patrick Harris said he hopes industry resistance to streamlining the television awards show next month will ease when the plan is made clear.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It’s the biggest movie of the summer that practically no one has seen.

If you haven’t already gone online to watch a few TV shows or movies, welcome to a shrinking minority.