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		</div><p>Alabama senator Jeff Sessions has been confirmed as the new US attorney general, despite fierce Democratic opposition over his record on civil rights and immigration.</p>
<p>The Senate&#8217;s virtually party-line 52-47 vote ended weeks of divisive battles over Alabama Republican Mr Sessions, an early supporter of President Donald Trump and one of the upper house&#8217;s most conservative members.</p>
<p>After the vote was announced, Mr Sessions&#8217; Republican colleagues applauded the outcome, as opposed to barely a handful of Democrats.</p>
<p>In a post-vote valedictory speech, Mr Sessions alluded to the bitter partisanship and wished for more unity.</p>
<p>&#8220;Denigrating people who disagree with us, I think, is not a healthy trend for our body,&#8221; he said.<br />
After Mr Trump nominated Mr Sessions, Democrats laid into the senator, casting him as too cosy with Mr Trump and too harsh on immigrants.</p>
<p>They said he would not do enough to protect voting rights of minorities, protections for gays and the legal right of women to obtain an abortion.</p>
<p>And they fear immigrants in the US illegally will not receive due process with Mr Sessions as the top law enforcement officer.</p>
<p>&#8220;His record raises doubts about whether he can be a champion for those who need this office most and it also raises doubts about whether he can curb unlawful overreach&#8221; by Trump, said Democratic senator Tim Kaine.<br />
Republicans say Mr Sessions has demonstrated over a long career in public service and two decades in the Senate that he possesses integrity and honesty and is committed to justice.</p>
<p>&#8220;He&#8217;s honest. He&#8217;s fair. He&#8217;s been a friend to many of us, on both sides of the aisle,&#8221; Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said.</p>
<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s been tough to watch all this good man has been put through in recent weeks.<br />
&#8220;This is a well-qualified colleague with a deep reverence for the law. He believes strongly in the equal application of it to everyone.&#8221;</p>
<p>Mr Sessions won unanimous backing from Senate Republicans but picked up the support of just one Democrat, Joe Manchin of West Virginia.</p>
<p>Alabama governor Robert Bentley is expected to name a Senate replacement for Mr Sessions as early as Thursday.</p>
<p>The Republican-controlled Senate vote came amid rising tension over delaying tactics by minority Democrats that have left fewer of Mr Trump&#8217;s picks in place than Barack Obama had eight years ago.<br />
Democrats no longer have filibuster power over cabinet picks, however, after changing Senate rules when they controlled the chamber in 2013.</p>
<p>Next up for the Senate is Republican congressman Tom Price of Georgia, Mr Trump&#8217;s pick for health secretary.</p>
<p>A final vote on Mr Price could come late on Thursday and success seems certain.<br />
Democrats have solidly opposed Mr Price, a staunch advocate of repealing Mr Obama&#8217;s health care overhaul and reshaping and scaling back the Medicare and Medicaid programmes that provide health care to older and low-income people.</p>
<p>But they have mostly accused Mr Price, a wealthy former orthopaedic surgeon, of conflicts of interest by acquiring stocks in health care companies and pushing legislation that could help those firms.</p>
<p>They have especially targeted his acquisition of shares in Innate Immunotherapeutics, an Australian biotech firm that has said Mr Price obtained a special insider&#8217;s deal.</p>
<p>Mr Price, who has said he learned of the opportunity from fellow congressman Chris Collins, of New York, told Congress that the shares were available to all investors.</p>
<p>&#8220;If I were a prosecutor, I&#8217;d say this case has real potential,&#8221; Senate minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.<br />
This week has featured overnight, round-the-clock Senate sessions as Republican leaders are grinding through a thicket of controversial picks.</p>
<p>Epitomising the sharp-edged partisanship surrounding confirmation of Mr Trump&#8217;s cabinet nominees, Senator Elizabeth Warren was given a rare rebuke on Tuesday for quoting Coretta Scott King, widow of the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King, in her 1986 criticism of Mr Sessions.</p>
<p>Mrs King wrote that as an acting federal prosecutor in Alabama, Mr Sessions used his power to &#8220;chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens&#8221;.</p>
<p>Mr McConnell said Massachusetts Democrat Ms Warren had run afoul of rules about impugning a fellow senator.<br />
Mr Sessions&#8217; nomination to a federal judgeship was rejected 30 years ago by the Senate Judiciary Committee after it was claimed that when he was a federal prosecutor he called a black lawyer &#8220;boy&#8221; and said organisations like the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP) and the American Civil Liberties Union were un-American.</p>
<p>At his hearing last month, Mr Sessions said he had never harboured racial animus.</p>
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