Black Lawmakers to Speak at Second Day of Senate Hearings

 A group of black lawmakers will speak out against Donald Trump's pick for attorney general, Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, in the second day of Senate confirmation hearings. They include New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, who will take the rare step of testifying against a current Senate colleague. Booker's scheduled testimony underscores Democratic unease with the Alabama Republican, who was rejected for a federal judgeship by the Senate Judiciary Committee three decades ago amid accusations of racial impropriety. Sessions on Tuesday called those accusations "damnably false." Sessions has solid support from the Senate's Republican majority and from some Democrats in conservative-leaning states, and is expected to easily win confirmation. Still, he faces a challenge persuading skeptical Democrats that he'll be fair and committed to civil rights as attorney general.