Lisa Murkowski

A team of government lawyers prosecuting Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska never fully reviewed evidence that could have bolstered his defense, was inadequately supervised, and withheld information that would have "seriously damaged the testimony and credibility of the government's key witness," a special counsel said in a report released Thursday. But Washington lawyer Henry F. Schuelke III stopped short of urging criminal misconduct charges against the prosecutors because, he said, the judge in the case never specifically ordered prosecutors to turn over material helpful to the defense.

The U.S. Senate race in Alaska was turned on its head in August, when Tea Party Express-backed candidate Joe Miller upset incumbent Lisa Murkowski in the Republican primary. On Friday evening, Murkowski stunned the state again with a decision to mount a write-in campaign to hold on to her seat. "This is a statement we must make for Alaskans. Together we can do what they say cannot be done. Alaska is not fair game for outside extremists. We are smarter than that … and we will not be had," Murkowski said as cheering supporters in Anchorage shouted, "Run, Lisa, run!"

Sen. Lisa Murkowski fired the latest shot in a bitter political rivalry with the state's former governor, saying Sarah Palin doesn't have the "intellectual curiosity" needed to be president. It also was likely no coincidence that Murkowski's made the comment during an interview with " CBS Evening News" host Katie Couric, whose 2008 interviews with then-vice presidential nominee Palin did much to color the nation's perception. Murkowski said her relationship with Palin had been "very professional" during Palin's governorship but that they had rarely spoken since.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski's unusual write-in bid to hold on to her Alaska Senate seat appeared to be gaining steam in early returns Tuesday, but analysts warned the state could be in for a long, close ballot count whose official outcome may remain unknown for weeks. With just early-voted ballots and a few precincts tallied, write-in votes ? most of them presumably cast for Murkowski ? were leading with 39.44%. Tea Party Express-backed Republican Joe Miller was trailing with 34.15%, while Democrat Scott McAdams had 25.32%.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski claimed victory Wednesday night over defiant challenger Joe Miller after building a decisive lead in near-final vote tallies. The Republican incumbent persuaded more than 100,000 Alaskans to write in her name ? a highly unusual feat in a statewide race. If her victory holds up through a possible recount and court challenge, she would become the first senator elected by write-in since 1954. "I think we can say our miracle is here," she told about 50 cheering supporters in Anchorage as the state was completing its count of the last 700 absentee ballots.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski's unusual write-in bid to hold on to her Alaska Senate seat appeared to be gaining steam through early Wednesday, but analysts warned the state is almost certainly in for a long, close ballot count whose official outcome may remain unknown for weeks. With more than 78% of the precincts tallied, write-in votes ? most presumably cast for Murkowski ? were leading with 39.96%. Tea Party Express-backed Republican Joe Miller was trailing with 34.89%, while Democrat Scott McAdams had 24.15%.

The fight over whether Alaska voters will be offered lists of write-in candidates for U.S. Senate moved Saturday to federal court, where former conservative talk show host Eddie Burke and four other citizens said handing out the lists violates the federal Voting Rights Act. The lists could provide a crucial aid for incumbent Lisa Murkowski, who launched a write-in campaign to hold on to her seat after Tea Party Express-backed candidate Joe Miller...

With Alaska’s senatorial race having turned into a mess for voters, candidates and, above all, prognosticators, Democrats have geared up to make a race of what had been a sure Republican seat, though who exactly is going to sit in it has been unclear. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has sent more than $160,000 to its candidate, Scott McAdams, once a solid third in the unconventional three-way race for the seat now held by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican who lost her party’s nomination to a “tea party” movement favorite, Joe Miller.

Joe Miller, the surprise leader in Alaska's unresolved Republican Senate primary, said Sunday that the growing national debt requires a "belt tightening" that should include cutting back on federal dollars that his state receives. Miller's position, which he articulated throughout his campaign against incumbent GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski, comes despite Alaska's historic reliance on federal resources to develop the state's vast territory. "The government is going bankrupt. I don't think anybody can deny it," he said Sunday on CBS' "Face The Nation.

The defeat of incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska's Republican primary is another notch in the belt for the Sacramento-based Tea Party Express, a project of Republican consultant Sal Russo. FOR THE RECORD: Tea Party Express: An article in Thursday's Section A on the role of the Tea Party Express in the defeat of Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska's Republican primary and its activities in other races misstated the name of the firm of consultant Sal Russo. The firm is Russo, Marsh and Rogers, not Russo, March and Associates.