"Senate"

WASHINGTON - The long march toward equal rights for gay, lesbian and transgender Americans - whose advocates have eyed major advances with complete Democratic control in Washington - has run into a wall of opposition in the U.S. Senate.

After Japan’s Ambassador Kazuya Nashida tested positive for Covid-19 on April 3, MPs and senators who had attended an award ceremony in the envoy’s residence on March 22 also had themselves tested.

WASHINGTON - The Senate approved a sweeping $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan on Saturday, putting Congress one step closer to fulfilling an electoral promise from President Joe Biden and his Democratic allies to shepherd a swift, equal recovery to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden intends to meet on Monday with 10 GOP senators who are calling on him to make a bipartisan deal instead of forging ahead with a party-line vote on his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan.

WASHINGTON - Ten Republican senators announced plans Sunday to release an approximately $600 billion coronavirus relief package as a counter-proposal to President Joe Biden's $1.9 trillion plan, posing a test for the new president who campaigned as a bipartisan deal-maker.

The Senate spent eight hours on Monday debating amendments to the Criminal Code sections 301 and 305, which would make it possible for women to terminate their pregnancy of up to 12 weeks, before approving the first, second and third readings.

WASHINGTON - The impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump will begin Feb. 9 under a deal reached Friday by top Senate leaders - delaying by two weeks the high-stakes proceedings over whether Trump incited the violent Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

WASHINGTON - Democrats claimed control of the Senate by the thinnest possible margin Wednesday as Vice President Kamala Harris swore in three new Democratic senators, bringing Republicans and Democrats to an even 50-50 split in the upper chamber.

With spray paint, fake blood and a pig's head, vandals defaced the homes of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., this week after Congress adjourned at the end of 2020 without the Senate passing a House bill approving $2,000 stimulus checks.

The two Georgia runoffs that will decide control of the U.S. Senate begin their final stretch, with President Donald Trump again putting himself in the middle of the campaign.

A group of reporters who cover parliamentary news dubbed the Senate, which has 250 senators appointed by the junta, as "parasite" in their year-end ritual of mocking politicians.

In public, President-elect Joe Biden is spending most of his time announcing Cabinet appointments, meeting with health experts and giving speeches on unity. Behind the scenes, though, he's grappling with a grittier challenge that could be critical to his presidency - dealing with an unruly Senate.