
WASHINGTON (AP) — The coronavirus reached further into Republican ranks on Saturday, forcing the Senate to call off lawmaking as a third GOP senator tested positive for COVID-19. Even so, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared he would push President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee toward confirmation in the shadow of the November election. Trump and Senate Republicans had hoped the confirmation hearings of Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s would make the final case to voters of the party’s commitment to remake the court with a muscular conservative majority. But the hospitalization of Trump, and the infection of a trio of GOP senators, shattered any notion of changing the subject entirely from the virus that’s killed more than 205,000 Americans. So great was the threat posed by COVID-19 that McConnell called off floor proceedings but not Barrett’s hearings, slated to begin Oct. 12. The Kentucky Republican, who is battling to save the GOP majority and running for reelection himself, was not about to give them up.