Newt: 19-year marriage null

Atlanta Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich is asking the Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta for an annulment of his second marriage, which ended in divorce after 19 years.

Gingrich’s second wife, Marianne Gingrich, said Thursday through her attorney that she learned of the request this week in a letter from the archdiocese.

The letter says the annulment request was based on Marianne Gingrich’s being previously married.

“We were married 19 years, and now he wants to say it didn’t exist,” Marianne Gingrich told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The couple were divorced in April 2000, nine months after Newt Gingrich filed for divorce and acknowledged a seven-year affair with Callista Bisek, whom he married in August 2000.

Gere fan to have stalking trial

New York A woman who allegedly has called Richard Gere as many as 1,000 times during the past year was found fit for trial and held on $5,000 bail after being charged with stalking the actor.

After undergoing a psychiatric examination, Ursula Reichert-Habbishaw, 51, of Kassell, Germany, was arraigned on charges of harassment, aggravated harassment and stalking.

On Thursday, Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Gregory Carro set Reichert-Habbishaw’s bail, issued a protection order for Gere, and ordered her return to court next Thursday.

Letterman leaves Connecticut

North Salem, N.Y. Forsaking his longtime Connecticut home, comedian David Letterman has moved into an 88-acre Westchester estate he bought eight years ago.

The main house, built in 1986, is 8,300 square feet and has six fireplaces, six bathrooms and an outdoor pool. It’s in North Salem, not far from the Bedford home of Letterman’s “Late Show” bandleader Paul Shaffer.

Letterman, who now earns $31 million a year from CBS, sold his 202-year-old New Canaan, Conn., house in October for $1.1 million.

Hendrix family seeks song rights

London The family of Jimi Hendrix is suing a recording company over the rights to recordings the rock guitarist made before he became famous.

Experience Hendrix, the family firm that controls the rights to all Hendrix’s work except some early recordings, is suing PPX Enterprises over recordings Hendrix made with a group called Curtis Knight and The Squires in PPX’s New York studios.

There was no comment from either party Thursday.