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Goldman Sachs designed, marketed and sold collateralized debt obligations that misled investors and created conflicts of interest as the company built short positions before the U.S. housing market collapsed, a Senate panel said in its report on the financial crisis.

Although it lacks a 'do not track' provision, the bill's advocates say it would enact the first comprehensive protections for consumers' digital data transmitted from computers or other devices.Internet privacy is shaping up as the consumer issue of the year in Congress, as evidenced by new legislation introduced with bipartisan support from two former presidential candidates.

Congressman Dean Heller jumped into the Nevada Senate race today to succeed embattled Republican John Ensign, who announced last week that he will retire.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Gen. David Petraeus says the U.S. has stopped the Taliban's momentum in Afghanistan, but he warns that the gains are 'fragile and reversible' and that hard fighting still lies ahead. Key senators express confidence in the war effort.The U.S.

Senate leaders delayed until Wednesday consideration of a bill to fund the government through Sept. 30, as Democrats accused Republicans of reneging on an agreement to stage side-by-side votes on two competing plans to cut spending.

Wisconsin's Republican Gov. Scott Walker said on Monday that absent senate Democrats have 24 hours to return and vote on a measure to reduce the power of public sector unions or the state will miss out on opportunity to refinance its debt.

Major U.S. banks are about to get penalized for "critical deficiencies" and shortcomings in how they handled foreclosures, a top federal regulator said Thursday at a Senate Banking Committee hearing examining the Dodd-Frank Act six months after its congressional approval.

Democrats' chances of maintaining a majority in the Senate in 2012 take another hit as Virginia Sen. Jim Webb says won't seek reelection. He will return to working in the private sector.

The Republican-led House of Representatives passed legislation that would repeal President Barack Obama's landmark healthcare reform law on Wednesday in a mostly symbolic move likely to be scuttled in the Senate.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski was officially named the winner of Alaska's U.S. Senate race Thursday, following a legal battle that lasted longer than the write-in campaign she waged to keep her job.