Ayesha Rascoe

The White House says a new offer on an infrastructure package from Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia is insufficient as the search for middle ground between President Biden and Republicans remains elusive.

Biden and Capito spoke on the phone Friday, the latest in a series of talks between the two. Capito is leading the group of GOP senators working with the White House on a potential agreement, and is tasked by her leaders to head the negotiations.

President Biden says the "incredible intensity" of focus behind recent Republican state voting laws is an "unprecedented assault" on U.S. democracy, rallying voting rights groups to redouble their efforts to register voters and urging the U.S. Senate to pass new legislation.

Signaling the importance he puts on voting rights, Biden is putting Vice President Harris in charge of the administration's campaign.

President Biden traveled to Oklahoma on Tuesday to mark the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre amid a renewed reckoning over a long-overlooked attack that left as many as 300 people dead in a community once known as Black Wall Street.

When Karine Jean-Pierre stepped behind the lectern to take reporters' questions in the briefing room Wednesday, she was the first Black woman to speak for the White House in that capacity in three decades.

When President Biden hosts South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Friday, the new White House approach to North Korea will likely be top of the agenda.

Biden is the latest United States president forced to contend with a nuclear-armed North Korea that is bombastic and hostile toward the U.S. and its allies in the region.

On Wednesday night, President Biden will propose a plan for billions of dollars of new spending for childcare, education and paid leave, and he'll ask Congress to help pay for it by raising taxes on the wealthiest Americans when they sell stocks and other types of investments.

The proposal, which is certain to face resistance from Republicans and even some Democrats, calls for hiking capital gains taxes for those who make more than $1 million a year to fund what the White House is calling the American Families Plan.

When President Biden welcomes Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga to the White House on Friday, concerns about the competition posed by China will be front and center in the talks.

It is Biden's first in-person visit with a foreign leader at the White House since he took office, and it sends a signal about how Biden plans to work through alliances to counter China.

The U.S. economy added more than 900,000 jobs last month. For most White House officials, that would be considered a banner number. For Janelle Jones, the top economist at the Labor Department, there is much more work for the Biden administration to do.

Jones, the first Black woman to ever hold her position, says it would take a year of similar jobs reports just to get back to where the economy was before the pandemic. But even then, she says, getting back to the status quo is not enough.

Updated at 8:38 p.m. ET

President Biden said on Wednesday that states like Texas and Mississippi are making a big mistake by ending mandates to wear masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 at a time when the nation is making a push to boost vaccinations.

"The last thing — the last thing — we need is the Neanderthal thinking that in the meantime, everything's fine, take off your mask. Forget it. It still matters," Biden told reporters as he met with a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the Oval Office.

Updated at 7:15 p.m. ET

President Biden welcomed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and a delegation of Canadian officials to the White House virtually on Tuesday – saying the U.S. has "no closer friend" than its neighbor to the north.

There was no handshake between leaders or stroll down the White House colonnade during the session that was virtual due to COVID-19 constraints. But, the White House attempted to recreate some of the ceremonial flourishes of an in-person visit to Washington.

The federal government plans to release new guidance next week about how to safely reopen schools in the midst of the pandemic — guidelines that could add new grist to a debate over whether schools should wait until teachers are vaccinated before requiring their return to the classroom.

As the United States has struggled to get the spread of the coronavirus under control, many schools have turned to virtual learning. President Biden has pledged to get most students back to in-person learning by the end of April, but there are questions about how to do so safely.

Updated at 5:03 p.m. ET

President Biden signed an executive action on Monday that administration officials say will close loopholes in "Buy American" policies for the federal government.

The measure is part of Biden's promised push to boost U.S. manufacturing and continues his efforts to sign a slew of executive actions, covering an array of issues, during his first days in office.

Updated at 3:36 p.m. ET

President Biden signed a series of orders and directives on his second day in office to take charge of stopping the spread of the coronavirus — steps that he and his advisers say will start to boost testing, vaccinations, supplies and treatments.