Dianne Feinstein, Senate | featured news

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.

The senator leading the charge to revive a assault weapons ban conceded on Sunday, just days before hearings on gun control open, that winning Senate passage will be tough but said she has been assured she will have the chance to bring it up for a vote.

A trio of Senate leaders have condemned the Kathryn Bigelow movie "Zero Dark Thirty," calling elements of its dramatization of the Osama bin Laden manhunt “grossly inaccurate and misleading.”