Washington - One day after congressional elections, four races in the Senate remained undecided Wednesday and the outcome in a handful of contests in the House of Representatives were still uncertain.
But it was clear that Democrats had widened their majorities in both chambers.
Democrats capitalized on the backlash against Republicans and President George W Bush to pick up seats. The Democrats won three Senate seats vacated by retiring Republicans in Virginia, New Mexico and Colorado, while Democratic challengers ousted two of their Republican opponents in New Hampshire and North Carolina.
Taipei - Chinese envoy Chen Yunlin, the highest level Chinese official to visit Taiwan in more than half a century, Thursday escaped a protest barricade that had pinned him down for six hours.
San Francisco - Wells Fargo, the biggest bank on the US west coast, said Wednesday it would issue 10 billion dollars in stock to help pay for the takeover of Wachovia Corp.
San Francisco - Networking giant Cisco Systems held quarterly profits stable at 2.2 billion, it said Wednesday. But the Silicon Valley bellwether warned that the challenging economy would drop fiscal second quarter revenues by between 5 and 10 per cent.
Sydney - A big fall on Wall Street saw Australian stocks droop on the opening bell Thursday.
Washington - Even in bitter defeat, Republicans joined Democrats in celebrating Barack Obama's historic achievement of becoming the first African American to become president of the United States.
