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Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry says the violent crackdown by Bashar Assad's regime in Syria shouldn't be tolerated, but the United States and the international community must respond "in a responsible way."...

In killing a Republican effort to let employers and insurance companies deny coverage for contraceptives because of religious objections, the Senate upheld the administration’s policy.

The Senate has approved a similar measure, but the lopsided votes concealed deep disagreements over the details of the legislation.

Barney Frank, a gay 16-term congressman from Massachusetts, plans to marry his partner, his office said on Thursday.

Despite support from virtually all Republicans, the Senate blocked an attempt to deny President Obama an increase in the debt ceiling, ensuring that the administration has the funds to pay the nation’s bills through the November election.

HSBC Holdings PLC is under investigation by a Senate panel in a money-laundering inquiry, the latest step in a long-running U.S. effort to halt shadowy money flows through global banks, according to people familiar with the situation and a company securities filing.

Sen. Mark Kirk was hospitalized with a stroke over the weekend and underwent surgery today at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, his office said.

A judge agrees to delay the campaign-finance trial of John Edwards after his attorney presented two letters detailing a life-threatening condition that will require surgery. A cardiologist for the 58-year-old ex-North Carolina Senator wrote two letters about his condition to Judge Catherine Eagles who talked about them Friday during a hearing to consider whether the trial would go on later this month. She delayed it until at least March 26.

The Senate passed a temporary extension of President Obama’s payroll tax cut, sending to the House a package that would preserve the $1,000 average tax break for 160 million working Americans – and inserting the issue squarely into the 2012 political campaign.

Senate Republicans have thwarted a quick vote sought Wednesday by Democrats on a House-passed GOP bill to extend the payroll tax cut. Democrats called for the ballot to prove that the measure doesn’t have the votes to pass the chamber they control. In seeking the vote, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid said that the Senate needed to kill the House bill, which was approved Tuesday, to negotiate a settlement to the protracted partisan fight.