Chuck Grassley: Senior Republican senator gets coronavirus

The US senator who is third in the line of presidential succession has announced he has tested positive for coronavirus.

Chuck Grassley, the longest-serving Republican in the upper chamber, said he would remain in quarantine.

The 87-year-old Iowan's illness caused him to skip a vote in the Senate on Tuesday for the first time in 27 years.

Mr Grassley is the sixth US senator known to have contracted the disease. The other five all recovered.

Coronavirus is surging in the US where it has infected more than 11 million Americans and killed nearly 250,000. The country saw almost 150,000 new cases on Tuesday alone, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

"This morning, I learned that I had been exposed to the coronavirus," Mr Grassley said in a statement.

"I received a COVID-19 test and immediately began to quarantine.

"While I still feel fine, the test came back positive for the coronavirus. I am continuing to follow my doctors' orders and CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] guidelines."

Mr Grassley - first elected to the Senate in 1980 - was last in the chamber on Monday.

In his role as president pro tempore of the Senate, Mr Grassley is behind only the House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi and US Vice-President Mike Pence in the order of succession to the US presidency.

On Tuesday, a top Democratic Senator, Dianne Feinstein, also 87, was spotted walking around the Capitol corridors without a mask. The Californian has previously called for congressional coronavirus aid to be made conditional on states having mask mandates in place.

Last week, Alaska congressman Don Young, who is also 87, tested positive for Covid-19. Mr Young, a Republican who is currently the longest-serving member of the House, said he was working from home in Alaska.