Lohan channels Monroe for magazine cover

New York – Lindsay Lohan is following in the footsteps of the most famous blond bombshell of them all – Marilyn Monroe.

In the issue of New York magazine on sale Monday, the 21-year-old star of “Mean Girls” and “Freaky Friday” poses nude for photographer Bert Stern in a recreation of one of Monroe’s most famous photo shoots, done shortly before she died.

Stern photographed Monroe in 1962 at the Hotel Bel-Air in California, six weeks before she was found dead from an overdose of barbiturates. Those images for Vogue magazine feature Monroe in next to nothing, posing nude with some scarves and jewelry as her accessories and sipping champagne.

Stern recreated those images with Lohan this month, at the same hotel, with Lohan wearing a blond wig and not much else.

In the essay accompanying the photos, Lohan, who admitted to a serious interest in Monroe, said deciding to do the photo shoot was easy.

“I didn’t have to put much thought into it. I mean, Bert Stern? Doing a Marilyn shoot? When is that ever going to come up? It’s really an honor,” she told the magazine.

Lohan described Monroe’s suicide as “tragic” and said it, along with the Jan. 22 death of actor Heath Ledger from an accidental overdose of prescription drugs, “are both prime examples of what this industry can do to someone.”

The actress, who has been in and out of rehab after two arrests last year on drunken driving and cocaine charges, said she didn’t know why the industry wreaked such havoc on some stars, adding, “I sure as hell wouldn’t let it happen to me.”

Spice Girls’ driver aids in carjacking arrest

Burton, Mich. – The driver of a tour bus for the Spice Girls has helped police in Michigan arrest a man suspected in a carjacking.

Police say the bus driver called 911 to report a possible drunk driver weaving in and out of traffic on Interstate 75 in the Detroit area on Saturday. The Spice Girls were performing that night at The Palace of Auburn Hills northwest of Detroit.

Police said they arrested a motorist and turned him over to police in the town of Burton in connection with a carjacking at a gas station.

The motorist was being held in the Genesee County Jail awaiting arraignment.

Police did not immediately identify the Spice Girls’ bus driver or the man who was arrested.

Crikey! Croc hunter’s son unfazed by bite

New York – Like father, like son?

The 4-year-old son of “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin wasn’t at all alarmed when he was recently bitten by a baby boa constrictor, according to his mother.

“He picked one of them up and it bit him on the finger, and he was so proud to have copped his first hit,” Irwin’s widow, Terri, said Monday at an appearance at FAO Schwarz with her two children to promote a new line of toys.

“He said, ‘I hope it wasn’t venomous,’ so I assured Robert I wouldn’t actually let him play with venomous snakes,” she added.

Terri Irwin said the couple’s 9-year-old daughter, Bindi, was first bitten by a snake when she was 18 months old.

The girl, who is featured in the Discovery Kids Channel show “Bindi the Jungle Girl,” posed for cameras with a new action figure in her likeness.

“It’s every little girl’s dream to have an exact look-alike doll. It’s amazing,” said Bindi, who was signing action figure toys of her late father.

Sharon Stone laments US policies on Iraq

Cairo, Egypt – Sharon Stone believes the Sept. 11 attacks should not have been used as a pretext for the United States to launch wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, according to her comments published Monday in a pan-Arab newspaper.

In her interview with Al Hayat, the actress also bemoaned what she called Americans’ decision to ignore the deaths of so many Iraqis.

“I feel at great pain when the spotlight is on the death of 4,000 American soldiers, while 600,000 Iraqi deaths are ignored,” she said. “War is not a movie, it is a tragedy of dead bodies, victims, the disabled, orphans, widows and the displaced.”

Stone spoke in English and her comments were translated and published in Arabic. An English transcript of the interview was not available.

Supermodel says Spears can come live with her

Hamburg, Germany – Heidi Klum wants to help Britney Spears.

The 34-year-old model says she’d be willing to open her home to Spears while the troubled pop singer puts her life back together.

“She can call me and come live in our house with us for a couple of months,” said Klum, a mother of three who is married to the singer Seal and lives in Beverly Hills, Calif. “I would help set her straight.”

“I am sorry when a young person gets thrown so off track,” Klum said, according to a transcript of an interview aired Monday night by the German broadcaster ARD. “She has, of course, lived an extremely wild life.”

After more than a year of bizarre behavior and two stints in a psychiatric hospital this year, Spears was placed under a conservatorship by the Los Angeles County Superior Court commissioner at the beginning of February. Conservatorships are established when a court determines that someone cannot take care of themselves or their affairs.