Former California Gov. Pete Wilson endorsed GOP presidential front-runner Mitt Romney today and will serve as the candidate's honorary chairman in California, the Romney campaign announced
.

In a statement, Romney called Wilson "one of California's most accomplished leaders." Wilson, governor from 1991 to 1999, said Romney "is an enthusiastic believer in American exceptionalism and has been a spectacular example of it: Mitt has been a success in creating American private sector jobs, a success as the rescuer of the Salt Lake City Olympic games, and as a public chief executive as the Republican governor in the challenging environment of heavily Democratic Massachusetts."

Wilson critics immediately trashed the choice. Eliseo Medina, international secretary treasurer of the Service Employees International Union, said Romney's association with Wilson will hurt him with Latino voters.

"Mitt Romney can't leave well enough alone," Medina said in a statement. "Romney can't seem to stop himself from digging deeper and deeper into his hole with Latino voters. Here is what Pete Wilson accomplished: He turned Latino voters against the GOP brand."

Wilson championed Proposition 187 in 1994, a measure -- later overturned by the courts -- that restricted state services to undocumented immigrants.

Source:  sacbee.com

Hamilton County jurors returned the verdict against Secretary of State Charlie White about 1:30 a.m. Saturday after deliberating for nearly 13 hours.

White was accused of lying about where he lived when he registered to vote in the May 2010 Republican primary. Prosecutors said he used his ex-wife's address instead of a condo he had with his fiancDee to keep his $1,000-per-month Fishers Town Council salary despite moving out of his council district.

He faced seven felony charges.

State law bars anyone convicted of a felony from remaining in office. It wasn't immediately clear how quickly White could be replaced or who might succeed him.

The case against Lance Armstrong is closed. His legacy as a seven-time Tour de France champion endures.

Federal prosecutors dropped their investigation of Armstrong on Friday, ending a nearly two-year effort aimed at determining whether the world's most famous cyclist and his teammates joined in a doping program during his greatest years.

Armstrong steadfastly has denied he doped during his unparalleled career, but the possibility of criminal charges threatened to stain not only his accomplishments, but his cancer charity work as well. Instead, another attempt to prove a star athlete used performance-enhancing drugs has fallen short, despite years of evidence gathering across two continents.

"I am gratified to learn that the U.S. Attorney's Office is closing its investigation," Armstrong said in a statement. "It is the right decision and I commend them for reaching it. I look forward to continuing my life as a father, a competitor, and an advocate in the fight against cancer without this distraction."

The probe, anchored in Los Angeles where a grand jury was presented evidence by federal prosecutors and heard testimony from Armstrong's former teammates and associates, began with a separate investigation of Rock Racing, a cycling team owned by fashion entrepreneur Michael Ball.

U.S. Attorney Andre Birotte Jr. announced in a press release that his office "is closing an investigation into allegations of federal criminal conduct by members and associates of a professional bicycle racing team owned in part by Lance Armstrong."

He didn't disclose the reason for the decision, though Birotte has used discretion in pursing high-profile criminal cases before. Last February, his office closed an investigation of mortgage giant Countrywide Financial Corp.

The pronouncement comes after a pair of less-than-successful cases against top sports figures accused of doping. Home run king Barry Bonds was found guilty of obstruction of justice and sentenced in December to 30 days' home detention - a conviction he's appealing - but prosecutors were unable to convince a jury he lied about using steroids. Roger Clemens' steroid trial is slated for April 17 after a judge declared a mistrial last summer when prosecutors showed jurors inadmissible evidence.

Investigators looked at whether a doping program was established for Armstrong's team while, at least part of the time, it received government sponsorship from the U.S. Postal Service. Authorities also examined whether Armstrong encouraged or facilitated doping on the team. He won the Tour de France every year from 1999-2005.

The hurdle for prosecutors wasn't so much to prove whether any particular cyclist used drugs, but to determine if Armstrong and other team members violated federal conspiracy, fraud or racketeering charges. Unlike Bonds and Clemens, who testified before a federal grand jury and Congress, respectively, and were accused of lying under oath, Armstrong was not questioned in front of the grand jury.

Betsy Andreu, who with her husband and former Armstrong teammate, Frank, accused the cycling champion of doping, said she was shocked by Birotte's decision.

"Our legal system failed us," she said. "This is what happens when you have a lot of money and you can buy attorneys who have people in high places in the Department of Justice."

Led by federal agent Jeff Novitzky, who also investigated Bonds and Clemens, U.S. authorities sought assistance overseas, requesting urine samples of U.S. Postal riders from France's anti-doping agency and also meeting with officials from Belgium, Spain and Italy.

Prosecutors also subpoenaed Armstrong supporters and ex-teammates to testify in Los Angeles. Among them were Ukrainian cyclist Yaroslav Popovych, who rode on three Armstrong teams dating back to 2005; Allen Lim, an exercise physiologist for Team Radioshack; and longtime Armstrong friend Stephanie McIlvain.

The investigation began after Novitzky was told about a cache of PEDs found by a landlord in the vacated apartment of Kyle Leogrande, a cyclist who rode for Rock Racing and had a doping ban, according to several people familiar with the case.

The case also was spurred by disgraced cyclist Floyd Landis, who claims Armstrong had a long-running doping system in place while they were teammates. Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title for drug use, acknowledged in 2010 he used performance-enhancing drugs after years of denying he cheated.

One of the most serious accusations came during a "60 Minutes" interview last May when former teammate Tyler Hamilton said he saw Armstrong use EPO during the 1999 Tour de France and in preparation for the 2000 and 2001 tours.

The report also said Armstrong loyalist George Hincapie, another ex-teammate, told federal authorities that he and Armstrong supplied each other with PEDs and discussed them. Hincapie released a statement after the segment aired, saying he did not speak with the show and didn't know where it got its information.

U.S. anti-doping officials said Friday they will not be dissuaded by the government's decision to close the Armstrong probe.

"Unlike the U.S. Attorney, USADA's job is to protect clean sport rather than enforce specific criminal laws," said Travis Tygart, chief executive officer of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency. "Our investigation into doping in the sport of cycling is continuing and we look forward to obtaining the information developed during the federal investigation."

As the investigation progressed, Armstrong assembled a legal team, hired a spokesman and briefly created a website to address any of the allegations reported by the media.

Frustrated by a slew of news articles about the investigation, Armstrong's attorneys filed a motion in July, asking a judge to order federal agents to testify about their contacts with reporters.

Armstrong consciously maintained a high profile throughout the investigation, raising money for his cancer charity, Livestrong, and racing in events such as off-road triathlons. He had no reason to hide, he said.

A spokeswoman for Livestrong, Katherine McLane, said the group was "very glad to hear this news." She called Armstrong an inspiration to millions of cancer survivors.

That could have played a role in prosecutors' decision, one expert said.

"The government always has a tremendous amount of prosecutorial discretion regarding whether or not to bring an indictment. In this case it appears that they have acted judiciously and likely considered all of the good works of Lance Armstrong and his foundation," said Mathew Rosengart, a former federal prosecutor who is not involved in the case.

Source:  ap

The Senate has added to the pressure on the Susan G. Komen foundation.

Twenty-six Democratic senators today sent a letter to Nancy Brinker, the group's founder and CEO, urging it to reconsider the decision to cut funding from Planned Parenthood for breast cancer screenings for the poor.

"It would be tragic if any woman - let alone thousands of women - lost access to these potentially life-saving screenings because of a politically motivated attack," the letter reads. "We earnestly hope that you will put women's health before partisan politics and reconsider this decision for the sake of the women who depend on both your organizations for access to the health care they need."

Susan G. Komen for the Cure abruptly severed its alliance with Planned Parenthood Tuesday when Komen officials said would halt a grant program used to pay for breast cancer screenings and educational programs.

The organization argued that the move was spurred by a new criteria that bars it from giving money to organizations that are under investigation.

But the decision set off a firestorm, with Planned Parenthood blaming the decision on political influences, foremost among them Komen's recently ascended vice president, Karen Handel, a Sarah Palin favorite who had run for governor in Georgia two years ago on a fierce anti-abortion platform.

"This troubling decision threatens to reduce access to necessary, life-saving services. We urge Komen to reconsider its decision," the senator's letter says.

The letter sent today to the Komen foundation is signed by Sens. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., Patty Murray, D-Was., Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., Robert Menendez, D-N.J., Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., Mark Begich, D-Alaska, Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Jon Tester, D-Mont., Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Max Baucus, D-Mont., Ben Cardin, D-Md., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Al Franken, D-Minn, John Kerry, D-Mass., Claire McCaskill,D-MO., Debbie Stabenow, D-MI., Chris Coons, D-DE., and Jeff Bingaman D-NM.

The full text of the letter follows:

"Dear Ambassador Brinker,

We write to express our disappointment with Susan G. Komen for the Cure's decision to cut funding for breast cancer prevention, screening, and education at Planned Parenthood health centers. This troubling decision threatens to reduce access to necessary, life-saving services. We urge Komen to reconsider its decision.

Planned Parenthood is a trusted provider of health care for women and men. More than 90 percent of the services provided by Planned Parenthood are primary and preventative including wellness exams and cancers screenings that save lives. Each year, Planned Parenthood health clinics provide 750,000 breast exams, 770,000 pap tests and nearly 4 million tests and treatments for sexually transmitted diseases. Twenty percent of all women in the U.S. have visited a Planned Parenthood health center.

For the past five years, grants to local affiliates of Planned Parenthood have been an important part of Planned Parenthood's work to protect women from breast cancer. Komen funding for Planned Parenthood has provided nearly 170,000 clinical breast exams and resulted in 6,400 referrals for mammograms. In 2011 alone, grants from Komen provided Planned Parenthood with roughly $650,000 in funding for breast cancer prevention, screening, and education. According to a recent statement by Komen, "In some areas of the U.S., our affiliates have determined a Planned Parenthood clinic to be the best or only local place where women can receive breast health care."

It would be tragic if any woman -let alone thousands of women - lost access to these potentially life-saving screenings because of a politically motivated attack.

We earnestly hope that you will put women's health before partisan politics and reconsider this decision for the sake of the women who depend on both your organizations for access to the health care they need."

Source:  abcnews.com

You've probably heard that Paula Abdul, Nicole Scherzinger and Steve Jones have been booted from "The X Factor," but that's yesterday's news. The big question is, who should replace them?

We're hearing rumblings that Simon Cowell would love to lure his old "American Idol" sidekick Ryan Seacrest to replace Jones as host, or maybe Victoria Beckham. But according to reports, he's focusing on hiring new judges first, to replace Abdul (who has been billed as "too soft") and Scherzinger (who "didn't connect" with fans).

SODAHEAD SLIDESHOW: Who should be the next 'X Factor' judge?

Word on the street is that Cowell wants bigger star power for his show -- much bigger. In fact, we're hearing that he's courting Beyonce, Mariah Carey and Fergie (easier said than done!). But here's someone who is definitely available, interested and relatively cheap: Perez Hilton. The celebrity blogger has posted an "open letter" (which is really a video) to Simon Cowell, explaining why he's the right man for the job.

"Most importantly I am a huge music lover and I bring with me a lot of experience and expertise in the world of music. I have been a huge champion and early supporter of such artists as Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Adele and Amy Winehouse," he claims.

PHOTOS: See the latest celebrity pictures to hit the Internet.

And of course, Perez would bring a little 'tude to the table. "I'm just going to be me and I'm so fabulous -- in case you couldn't tell -- and fun and self-deprecating!" he promises. That might be true, but we still think Cowell could do a bit better ... from Perez to Beyonce to Mariah, let us know: Who should be the next "X Factor" judge?

Demi Moore surrounds herself with young people and eats next to nothing in a desperate effort to "stay young and skinny," sources tell People magazine.

In this week's cover story, the celebrity weekly says Moore was on a party binge when friends called 911 on January 23 saying the actress was having convulsions after smoking an unidentified substance.

TMZ later reported Moore was inhaling nitrous oxide whip-its, a recreational drug most commonly linked to young teens.

Moore's six-year marriage to the much younger Ashton Kutcher -- she's 49, he's 33 -- ended about a month ago amid rampant reports of Kutcher's infidelities. According to People, Moore had been trying hard to keep the marriage going.

"As Demi got older, she convinced herself that she needed to stay young and skinny to remain attractive to her husband," a source said. "She needed reassurance all the time that she was hot and sexy."

Another source said Moore "was always fixated on being young. And the only thing that tied her to that, as she got older, was her marriage to a younger guy and hanging around young people."

Moore is reportedly recuperating at home after her brief hospitalization. Earlier this week, her friend, the director Patty Jenkins, said: “I just saw her and she’s doing great... much better than it’s made out to be. Demi is awesome and so strong. She’s great."

Moore's rep told Fox411 earlier this week that Moore is working on getting healthy.

"Because of the stresses in her life right now, Demi has chosen to seek professional assistance to treat her exhaustion and improve her overall health," her rep said. "She looks forward to getting well and is grateful for the support of her family and friends."