REPUBLICANS expanded their hold on US Congress in Tuesday's elections and Democrat Tom Daschle became the first senate leader in half a century to be voted out of office.

Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle will not run for US president, saying today his passion 'lies here in the Senate'.

The US Congress today voted solidly to give President George Bush the broad authority he sought to use military force to confront Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, handing him a crucial national security policy victory

US president George Bush gained important new Democratic support for his war resolution, bolstering his expected margin of victory in Congress for broad authority to use force against Iraq.

President George Bush, answering demands to know his intentions toward Iraq, has invited the congressional leadership to a White House briefing today.

White House budget director Mitchell Daniels said the dramatic decline in federal government revenues this year was mostly due to the bear market in stocks, while Senate Democrat majority leader Tom Daschle blamed the Bush adminstration's fiscal policy.

A suspicious letter was found today in the Washington office of Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, but police said an initial test on a powdery substance contained inside was negative.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has sent a hand-delivered letter to US President George Bush, appealing for more time to prove he is trying to halt terrorist violence against Israelis.

Tens of thousands of letters mailed around the US could have picked up trace amounts of anthrax while passing through a contaminated postal centre, the nation’s top anthrax investigator has said.

The investigation into the mystery death of a 94-year-old American woman from anthrax was being stepped up today.

Traces of anthrax bacteria have been found in the mailrooms of two more senators.

A letter to US Senator Patrick Leahy was laced with billions of anthrax spores, authorities said, as a suspected case of the most deadly form of the disease mysteriously appeared in Connecticut.

The FBI believes an anthrax-laced letter to US Senator Patrick Leahy, belatedly found last week, was written by the same person who sent a tainted letter to Senator Tom Daschle last month.

As lawmakers take a Thanksgiving holiday week break, two of the three Senate office buildings in Washington are set to reopen after being swept for anthrax contamination. The third will remain closed.

A civilian post office in the Pentagon complex has been closed after traces of anthrax were found.

A mail room in the Veterans Affairs Medical Centre is to be fumigated after testing positive for trace amounts of anthrax.

Anthrax sent to the US Senate was reportedly treated with a chemical only three nations, including Iraq, are thought to be capable of making.

Investigators say they have found anthrax in a second location in the Senate office building where the infected letter to Senate majority leader Tom Daschle was received and opened last week.

Three letters contaminated with anthrax all were dated September 11, the same day as the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, and contained anti-American and anti-Israel messages, US officials said.

Anthrax probably killed two US postal workers from a centre that delivers mail to Washington, officials have said.

More than 2,000 postal workers were tonight awaiting the results of anthrax tests after a colleague in Washington DC was diagnosed with the most serious form of the infection.

FBI detectives believe they have found the anthrax-laced letter which infected a worker at the New York Post newspaper, it was revealed today.

The anthrax strains surfacing with terrifying impact in Florida, New York and Washington are all similar, Bush administration said indicating a single source.

A New York Post employee has contracted skin anthrax, a television station affiliated with the newspaper reported today.

Thirty-one employees of the US Senate tested positive for exposure to a highly concentrated form of anthrax, officials said, prompting congressional leaders to order an unprecedented shutdown of some of their offices.