DAVID HERSZENHORN

Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, played host to Judge Merrick B. Garland, President Barack Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, in the Senate dining room on Tuesday. Yogurt parfait was not the point. But what was?

Trying to kill any prospect for a Supreme Court nomination by President Obama, Senate Republicans said they would not meet with anyone whom the president puts forward.

The Senate will not confirm any Supreme Court nominee put forward by President Barack Obama before the November election, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, stated unequivocally Tuesday, as he urged the president to reconsider even submitting a name.

Republican and Democratic negotiators in the U.S. House clinched a deal late Tuesday on a $1.1 trillion spending bill and a huge package of tax breaks.

The Senate approved a crucial bipartisan budget agreement early Friday that would avert a government default and stands to end nearly five years of pitched battles between congressional Republicans and the Obama administration over fiscal policy.

Ryan now confronts a fundamental question: Will his new post provide a platform to pursue his bold visions for a renewed America, or will those big ideas weigh him down in an era defined by confrontation and small-bore compromises?

As a result of the accord, officials said, congressional Republicans and the White House can return to the more conventional policy battles with stakes decidedly lower than a default or shutdown that could upend the global economy.

Congressional leaders and the Obama administration are close to a crucial budget deal that would modestly increase domestic spending over the next two years and raise the federal borrowing limit.

A strong majority of anti-establishment lawmakers in the House Freedom Caucus voted Wednesday night to support Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin for House speaker, effectively delivering the Republican Party unity that he had sought as a condition for accepting the post.

Rep. Paul D. Ryan, the powerful chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, signaled that he was headed home to Wisconsin to reconsider his repeatedly stated position that he does not want the job.

House Republicans, struggling to regroup and reunify their conference in the face of a leadership crisis, achieved no new clarity Friday about who might step forward to claim the speaker’s gavel as attention remained focused on Rep. Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, who has said repeatedly he does not want the job.

After days of obstruction, Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine reached an agreement with Malaysia on Monday to surrender the flight recorder boxes of the Malaysia Airlines jetliner downed by a surface-to-air missile last week, and to allow the bodies of the victims to be evacuated by train.

Past Russian military actions have often showcased an army suffering from a poor state of discipline and supply, its ranks filled mostly with the conscripts who had not managed to buy deferments or otherwise evade military service. Public drunkenness was common, as were tactical indecisiveness and soldiers who often looked as if they could not run a mile, much less swiftly. Not so in Crimea.