DETROIT - Caught in a lie that turned into felony charges and an eight-month scandal, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick repeatedly said the city hadn't missed a beat. The trash was still being picked up, snow was cleared, parks were open and the grass was cut, he liked to say.

DETROIT - Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to felony charges Thursday in a sex scandal and will step down after months of defiantly holding onto his job leading the nation's 11th-largest city. He was ordered jailed for four months and fined $1 million.

The Arizona Board of Education this week elected to formally revoke or accept the surrender of teaching certifications of three East Valley teachers accused of having inappropriate relationships with students.

PHOENIX - David Hans Schmidt made a career out of peddling photos and videos of celebrities, usually when they were naked. His deals included arranging nude pictures of two women at the center of sex scandals involving President Clinton.

WASHINGTON - A scandal involving sex, drugs and — uh, offshore oil drilling. It's a strange mix, and it couldn't have come at a worse time for those in Congress pressing to expand oil and gas development off America's beaches while trying to stave off an election-year rush by Democrats to impose new taxes and royalties on the oil industry

DETROIT - A series of often explicit text messages from Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's former chief of staff appear to show she had a long-term romantic relationship with the mayor and that he played a role in the firing of a police officer who sued the city.

Phoenix Bishop Thomas J. O'Brien said he signed an unprecedented agreement with prosecutors last month simply to end a yearlong grand jury inquiry into sexual misconduct in his diocese.

AIR FORCE ACADEMY, Colo. - As Air Force cadets return to classes this month, they are seeing a new system for handling rape allegations - reforms put in place throughout the military in response to the sex scandal that rocked this prestigious school more than two years ago.

NEW YORK - Pope Benedict XVI has taken the extraordinary step of ordering a Vatican investigation of the Legionaries of Christ, the influential, conservative religious order that has acknowledged that its founder fathered a child and molested seminarians.

WASHINGTON - House Speaker Dennis Hastert is getting backup from President Bush and other Republican Party luminaries after vowing not to resign over his handling of the unfolding page cybersex scandal.

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- The Tiger Woods sex scandal has been a boon for online publications, even though it hasn't generated the same amount of Internet traffic as Michael Jackson's death or President Barack Obama's inauguration.

After a year-long investigation, County Attorney Richard Romley has forced Thomas O'Brien, bishop of the Roman Catholic Church's Phoenix Diocese, to admit what he has steadfastly denied until now — that he covered up reports of sexual abuse of children by priests.

Mesa employees forwarded hundreds of e-mail images and jokes over the past year that included racial, ethnic and religious slurs, sexually explicit acts, violent photos and foul language.

Mesa employees forwarded hundreds of e-mail images and jokes over the past year that included racial, ethnic and religious slurs, sexually explicit acts, violent photos and foul language.

A retired Chandler police lieutenant who investigated a sexual conduct case against former Chandler and Scottsdale priest John Giandelone said he was asked by an attorney for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Phoenix to keep the case quiet.

Being a bit of a pack rat and one who prefers the independence of having his own material, I began keeping a number of files on work-related issues.

VATICAN CITY — Benedict XVI always cast himself as the reluctant pope, a shy bookworm who preferred solitary walks in the Alps to the public glare and the majesty of Vatican pageantry. And on Monday, the Vatican announced that the leader of the world's billion Roman Catholics was stepping down — the first pontiff to do so since 1415.

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE - Pope Benedict XVI said Tuesday he was "deeply ashamed" of the clergy sexual abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church and will work to keep pedophiles out of the priesthood, addressing the toughest issue facing the American church as he began his first papal trip to the United States.

A Mesa police union has accused the city of retaliating against officers who were involved in an e-mail scandal in 2006 by threatening to hand down more discipline if the union doesn’t agree to settle a lawsuit filed earlier this year, court records show.

You haven't seen foreplay until you've seen Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt beat the beautiful out of each other in “Mr. & Mrs. Smith,” a sly, comically serrated romantic thriller that uses deadly games of deceit and intrigue as a handy metaphor for marital infidelity.

A three-week postponement was granted Thursday for the start of the trial of Monsignor Dale Fushek, former pastor of St. Timothy's Catholic Community in Mesa, who is charged with seven misdemeanor sex-related crimes.