Senate, Congress | featured news

Actress Ashley Judd says she won't run for U.S. Senate in Kentucky against Republican Leader Mitch McConnell....

White House press secretary Jay Carney on Tuesday criticized three Senate Republicans who have threatened to filibuster Senate gun control legislation. Carney said a filibuster would be “unfortunate” and would send the wrong message to the families of gun violence victims.

The Senate approved legislation Wednesday to lock in $85 billion in widely decried spending cuts aimed at restraining soaring federal deficits — and to avoid a government shutdown just a week away. President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats rejected a call to reopen White House tours scrapped because of the tightened spending.

US lawmakers will dump a plan to ban assault weapons, all but killing off a key part of a gun control campaign galvanised by a recent school massacre.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul said Tuesday that illegal immigrants should be allowed to become U.S. taxpayers and ultimately get a shot at citizenship, a significant step for the Tea Party favorite amid growing Republican acceptance of the idea.

Republican U.S. Sen. Rob Portman is now supporting gay marriage and says his reversal on the issue began when he learned one of his sons is gay. Ohio's junior senator disclosed his change of heart in interviews with several Ohio newspapers and CNN. In an op-ed published Friday in The Columbus Dispatch, he said the decision came after a lot of thought.

A Senate panel has issued a scathing assessment of JPMorgan's $6.2 billion trading loss last year. The investigation found that bank officials ignored growing risks and hid losses from investors and federal regulators.

By a party line vote, a Senate panel has approved a ban on assault weapons, setting the legislation up for a vote next month in the full Senate. But the bill’s prospects are not bright, as the ban – authored by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein – faces strong opposition from the National Rifle Association and other groups who say it infringes on Second Amendment rights.

A divided Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday backed President Barack Obama's call to require criminal background checks for all gun buyers, yet it remained uncertain if it would become law.

The Senate on Thursday confirmed John Brennan as the Obama administration's next Central Intelligence Agency director, overcoming concerns expressed by Republicans and some Democrats about the administration's use of lethal drone strikes.