wrongdoing

Justice Department investigators looking into former Arizona representative Jim Kolbe's relationships with House pages found no wrongdoing and have closed their inquiry.

Facing untimely resignations, an unpopular war and a troubling 2008 election landscape, Senate Republicans did not need another headache this week. But they got one anyway when Sen. Larry Craig vowed Thursday to serve out the last 15 months of his term, despite a court ruling that left intact his guilty plea in a sex sting operation in an airport men's room. The Republican's decision gives his party colleagues two unpleasant choices. They can resume pressuring him to leave, and risk being seen as disloyal politicians who go harder on alleged homosexual misdeeds than on heterosexual wrongdoings.

A Minneapolis city panel recommended Tuesday that officials fire Bonnie Bleskachek, the nation's first openly lesbian big-city fire chief, in the wake of firefighter lawsuits accusing her of harassment and discrimination. Bleskachek had earlier agreed to step down, but the city's executive council unanimously rejected a negotiated deal after a closed-door meeting.