CAROLINE KENNEDY withdrew her senate bid because of a personal matter unrelated to her ill uncle, rejecting the governor’s attempt to get her to reconsider, a person who worked closely with her said yesterday.

The daughter of assassinated president John Kennedy confirmed today she has abandoned her bid for New York’s Senate seat.

ROD BLAGOJEVICH created a new distraction for his state by making an appointment to the US Senate even while he faces federal corruption charges for, in part, allegedly trying to sell the very seat he now is trying to fill.

A defiant Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich named a political trailblazer to Barack Obama’s Senate seat, a surprise move that put the governor’s opponents in the uncomfortable position of trying to block his choice from becoming the Senate’s only black member.

DEMOCRAT Joe Biden said he’s debated “an awful lot of tough, smart women” throughout his career and that next month’s vice presidential debate with Republican Sarah Palin will be no exception. But he’d like to know where she stands on issues.

VETERAN US politician Edward Kennedy was undergoing surgery yesterday on his cancerous brain tumour.

Veteran US politician Edward Kennedy was undergoing surgery today on his cancerous brain tumour.

Hillary Clinton apologised after citing the June 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in defending her decision to keep running for the Democratic presidential nomination despite increasingly long odds.

Barack Obama is stepping up his effort to correct the misconception that he is a Muslim now that the US presidential campaign has hit the Christian Bible Belt in the south of the country.

A United States Senate panel, following the House of Representatives' lead, has authorised subpoenas for White House political adviser Karl Rove and other top aides involved in the sacking of federal prosecutors.

There is no evidence deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein had a relationship with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his al-Qaida associates, according to a US Senate report on pre-war intelligence on Iraq.

President George Bush and newly-crowned Democratic standard-bearer John Kerry wasted no time blasting each other at the official start of the US general election campaign, trading identical criticisms that the other was short on accomplishments.

THE US has announced a $15 billion plan to tackle the global crisis of AIDS and has called on the rest of the world to follow its lead.

Bowing to pressure from his fellow senators and the White House, Republican Trent Lott resigned his position as US Senate majority leader today.

The US Senate yesterday sided with environmentalists over the Bush administration’s controversial plans to open up some of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration.