Debt ceiling victories and challenges for US politicians.

House Republicans passed a debt bill despite the thinnest of narrow margins, but Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s fiscal standoff with President Joe Biden remains as deadlocked as ever. The GOP is demanding steep spending cuts in exchange for lifting the nation’s borrowing limit to stop a dangerous debt default. The impasse might not ease until one or both parties start feeling more pressure to bend as Congress veers closer to the edge of fiscal calamity later this spring.