Democrat Jerry Brown was elected California governor on Tuesday in an extraordinary political encore, defeating billionaire Republican Meg Whitman and the $142 million she spent of her own fortune as he reclaimed the office he held a generation ago.

The 72-year-old state attorney general's victory leaves him with the enormous task of lifting the state out of a recession and joblessness.

"Jerry's certainly up to it. The people of California made a good choice," said his campaign spokesman, Sterling Clifford.

Several hundred Brown supporters who had gathered at the historic Fox Theater in Oakland began chanting "Jerry, Jerry, Jerry" as television screens showed him as the winner.

Brown visited briefly with some VIPs at the theater, then ducked out a side door. He was expected to return later

Whitman's campaign chairman, former Gov. Pete Wilson, told supporters gathered in Los Angeles that she was not ready to concede the race.

Brown's victory over the former eBay chief executive brought the office back under Democratic control. Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's term will end in January after a little more than seven years in office.

Schwarzenegger congratulated Brown in a statement Tuesday night in which he pledged to work with him for a smooth transition.

The Supreme Court expressed doubts Tuesday about the constitutionality of a California law that seeks to ban the sale of violent videogames to minors.

During an hour-long oral argument, several justices suggested the law violated free-speech protections of the First Amendment.

Justice Antonin Scalia said California's logic in banning videogame sales to minors could also apply to a ban on the sale of violent movies or books to children.

"Some of the Grimm's Fairy Tales are quite grim," Justice Scalia told an attorney for California. "Are they OK? Are you going to ban them, too?"

"What about films? What about comic books?" asked Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. "Why are videogames special?"

The court also questioned how the state could determine when violence in videogames was excessive.

The case has considerable implications for the videogame industry. Games rated as "mature," such as Activision Blizzard Inc.'s "Call of Duty" and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.'s "Grand Theft Auto," are some of the industry's biggest sellers.

A panel of 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday blocked a U.S. district judge from demanding that the military enforce her order against the Pentagon's 'don't ask, don't tell' policy that bars gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military.

The immediate effect of the decision is to leave in place indefinitely a congressional ban that U.S. District Judge Virginia Phillips had found in September was unconstitutional because it infringed on the First Amendment rights of gay and lesbian soldiers, sailors and Marines. In October, she ordered the Pentagon to stop enforcing the ban, a ruling that briefly ended 'don't ask, don't tell,' the repeal of which has foundered in Congress, despite pledges by President Barack Obama to end it.

In its ruling, the panel said it had found "convincing" the government's arguments that suddenly ending the prohibition on gays and lesbians serving openly would have a deleterious effect on the military. "The public interest in ensuring orderly change of this magnitude in the military — if that is what is to happen — strongly militates in favor of a stay," the court said.

The panel also questioned whether Phillips' opinion would be upheld in the end.

"The district court's analysis and conclusions are arguably at odds with the decisions of at least four other circuit courts of appeals: the first, second, fourth and eighth," the panel said. The panel said the 9th Circuit was obligated by precedent not to interfere with the decisions of a "sister circuit" until it had undetaken a full hearing on the merits of the case.

An Ontario woman has pleaded guilty to keeping thousands of dollars in donations after faking terminal cancer.

Ashley Kirilow of Burlington was charged with six counts of fraud under $5,000 and one count of fraud over $5,000.

In a soft voice, Ms. Kirilow pleaded guilty to defrauding Donna Michalowski of close to $7,400 collected at a fundraiser held at a bar.

The other five charges will be addressed next year.

Police said the 23-year-old woman pretended to have cancer to raise money that she promised to give to charity, but kept the cash for herself.

Ms. Kirilow turned herself in to police on Aug. 6.

Her father has said she told him she shaved her head and eyebrows, and plucked her eyelashes to appear to have cancer.

When allegations surfaced against Ms. Kirilow, public outrage was swift.

Angry comments were splashed across the Facebook page set up for Ms. Kirilow's fake charity, Change for the Cure, with some even saying they hoped she got cancer.

One report published before Ms. Kirilow was charged had the young woman saying she was sorry for what she did.

The former technology chief for the City of New Orleans pleaded guilty Monday in a fraud scheme that prosecutors said brought him more than $860,000 in bribes and kickbacks, paid by a businessman to whom he allegedly steered $4 million in city contracts.

Greg Meffert, at a hearing before U.S. District Judge Eldon Fallon, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of filing a false tax return — two of the 63 counts in the indictment. Charges against his wife, Linda, also indicted in the case, will be dropped pending her participation in a pretrial diversion program.

Meffert faces up to eight years in prison.

The Mefferts were charged just over a year ago. The government alleged that Meffert took bribes and kickbacks from his former business partner, St. Pierre, to give St. Pierre's technology companies no-bid contracts at City Hall.

The Supreme Court is refusing to take up a constitutional challenge to provisions of the Patriot Act from a lawyer who was once wrongly suspected in deadly terrorist bombings in Spain.

The justices on Monday turned down an appeal from Brandon Mayfield, the Oregon lawyer who was arrested by federal agents after they mistakenly matched him to a fingerprint from the train bombings in Madrid in 2004.

It turned out the fingerprint didn't belong to Mayfield, who got an apology and $2 million from the federal government. But a federal appeals court blocked Mayfield's challenge to the Patriot Act, the post-9/11 law that was used to arrest him. The high court left the appeals court ruling in place.