ST. PAUL, Minn. — A liberal campaign organization dedicated to the late Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone is pushing out the senator's two sons over differences in how the organization should run.

Wellstone Action informed David and Mark Wellstone on Wednesday that they would be voted off the governing board in the coming days, following what group leaders described as months of friction. They said the Wellstones have pushed repeatedly to shift focus from training progressive candidates and campaigns to more aggressive issue advocacy following Donald Trump's election as president.

David Wellstone did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment on his ouster. A working phone listing could not be found for Mark Wellstone.

Co-founder and board member Jeff Blodgett, who was Paul Wellstone's campaign manager, told The Associated Press the "necessary but sad step" of removing the brothers from the board comes after months of tension. He said the brothers have asked that the group no longer use the family name.

U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan said Friday that he will not run for re-election when his term ends in 2018.

"Now is the time for me to pass the baton to the next generation," Nolan said in a statement announcing his retirement.

Nolan, 74, has won two tough re-election battles in his northeastern Minnesota district since his election in 2012.

After a months-long dalliance with a run for governor in 2018, Nolan announced last summer that he would run for re-election in the Eighth Congressional District.

In a one-page statement issued Friday, he promised to "finish strong" the remaining months of his term.

U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan said Friday that he will not run for re-election when his term ends in 2018.

"Now is the time for me to pass the baton to the next generation," Nolan said in a statement announcing his retirement.

Nolan, 74, has won two tough re-election battles in his northeastern Minnesota district since his election in 2012.

After a months-long dalliance with a run for governor in 2018, Nolan announced last summer that he would run for re-election in the Eighth Congressional District.

In a one-page statement issued Friday, he promised to "finish strong" the remaining months of his term.

MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY administrators have long claimed, to the federal government and public, that they have handled sexual assault, violence, and gender discrimination complaints properly.

But an Outside the Lines investigation has found a pattern of widespread denial, inaction and information suppression of such allegations by officials ranging from campus police to the Spartan athletic department, whose top leader, Mark Hollis, announced his retirement on Friday. The actions go well beyond the highly publicized case of former MSU athletic physician Larry Nassar.

Over the past three years, MSU has three times fought in court -- unsuccessfully -- to withhold names of athletes in campus police records. The school has also deleted so much information from some incident reports that they were nearly unreadable. In circumstances in which administrators have commissioned internal examinations to review how they have handled certain sexual violence complaints, officials have been selective in releasing information publicly. In one case, a university-hired outside investigator claimed to have not even generated a written report at the conclusion of his work. And attorneys who have represented accusers and the accused agree on this: University officials have not always been transparent, and often put the school's reputation above the need to give fair treatment to those reporting sexual violence and to the alleged perpetrators.

Even MSU's most-recognizable figures, football coach Mark Dantonio and basketball coach Tom Izzo, have had incidents involving their programs, Outside the Lines has found.

LANSING, Mich. -- A former Michigan sports doctor who parlayed his reputation and personal charm into years of sexual abuse of Olympic gymnasts and other young women was sentenced Wednesday following the riveting statements of more than 150 victims, including one of his first public accusers. Judge Rosemarie Aquilina sentenced Larry Nassar to 40 to 75 years in prison Wednesday -- the seventh day of a remarkable hearing that has given the girls, young women and their parents a chance to confront Nassar in court.

Aquilina said Nassar will "be in darkness the rest of his life."

"I find that you don't get it -- that you're a danger. You remain a danger," she said to Nassar.

The last witness to speak at Nassar's sentencing hearing was Rachael Denhollander, a Kentucky lawyer and one of the first women to publicly identify herself as one of Nassar's young victims. Denhollander contacted Michigan State University police in 2016 after reading reports about how USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympians, mishandled complaints of sexual misconduct. Nassar worked at Michigan State and also was the national gymnastics squad's doctor.

When Minnesota Public Radio abruptly severed ties with Garrison Keillor in November, the sole explanation offered by the company was "inappropriate behavior" with a female colleague.

For his part, the creator and longtime host of A Prairie Home Companion described his offense as nothing more than having placed his hand on a woman's back to console her.

An investigation by MPR News, however, has learned of a years-long pattern of behavior that left several women who worked for Keillor feeling mistreated, sexualized or belittled. None of those incidents figure in the "inappropriate behavior" cited by MPR when it severed business ties.

Nor do they have anything to do with Keillor's story about putting a hand on a woman's back:

After nine days of deliberations, jurors have acquitted the three former Montreal, Maine and Atlantic (MMA) railway employees charged with criminal negligence causing death in the 2013 Lac-Mégantic rail disaster.

Locomotive engineer Tom Harding, 56, rail traffic controller Richard Labrie, 59, and operations manager Jean Demaître, 53, were all charged after the derailment of a runaway fuel train early on July 6, 2013. Several tankers, carrying highly volatile crude oil exploded, turning downtown Lac-Mégantic into an inferno and killing 47 people.​

There was an audible gasp in the courtroom and the family of Labrie cried when the verdict was delivered early Friday afternoon.

Through tears, Labrie described his relief. He said his thoughts were always with and continue to be with the community of Lac-Mégantic.

"I would like to say the people of Lac-Mégantic, what they went through, they showed a huge amount of courage," he said.