Barbara Sprunt

Rita Hart, the Iowa Democrat who lost a House race by just six votes, is withdrawing her challenge to Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks.

In a statement posted to Twitter on Wednesday, the former state senator said she made the decision "after many conversations with people I trust about the future of this contest."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tapped Maj. Gen. William Walker, the commander of the D.C. National Guard, as the next sergeant-at-arms for the House of Representatives.

Walker will be the 38^th person and first Black American to serve in that position, which Pelosi described in a statement as "foundational to the functioning of Congress [s]ince the earliest days of our Founding."

In the first news conference of his presidency, President Biden confirmed he plans to run for reelection in 2024.

"That is my expectation," he told reporters, noting the endeavor is several years away.

"I'm a great respecter of fate. I've never been able to plan 4 1/2, 3 1/2 years ahead for certain," he said.

"I set a goal that's in front of me to get things done for the people I care most about, which are hardworking decent American people."

Sen. Tammy Duckworth and the White House broke an impasse over the Illinois Democrat's pledge to block President Biden's nominees who aren't diverse candidates as a protest over a lack of Asian American representation in the new administration.

Under their deal announced late Tuesday, the White House will add a senior liaison to the community and, in exchange, Duckworth will support Biden's nominees.

Thirty years after Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton first introduced a bill for Washington, D.C., statehood, she returns to Capitol Hill to do it again — this time with the broadest support for the cause to date.

"We've gotten off of the wish list to an approach of a new reality," Norton, the district's nonvoting delegate, told NPR.

The U.S. Senate has confirmed Xavier Becerra to lead the Department of Health and Human Services by a narrow vote of 50-49.

Only one Republican — Sen. Susan Collins of Maine — joined her Democratic colleagues in supporting the California attorney general's confirmation. Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii did not vote.

House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy dubbed the surge in migrants showing up at the U.S. southern border, especially unaccompanied children, the "Biden border crisis" during a trip to Texas with a delegation of Republican lawmakers.

"It's more than a crisis. This is a human heartbreak," McCarthy said at a press conference on Monday after a tour of the El Paso Processing Center. "This crisis is created by the presidential policies of this new administration."

The Biden administration is mobilizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which is known for responding to natural disasters and other crises, to support an effort over the next 90 days to process the growing number of unaccompanied migrant children arriving at the U.S. southern border.

President Biden signed the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package on Thursday. The colossal bill, known as the American Rescue Plan, allocates money for vaccines, schools, small businesses and anti-poverty programs such as an expanded child tax credit that will mean new monthly payments to many parents.

Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt has announced he will not seek another term next year, making him the latest in a string of long-serving Senate Republicans to decline a reelection bid.

"There's still a lot to do and I look forward to every day this year and next year as I continue to work for you in the Senate," Blunt said in a video he shared on Twitter on Monday.