10 things you need to know today: February 25, 2014

Congress' longest-serving member ever announces his retirement, Venezuela's uprising heats up, and more

John Dingell
(Image credit: (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite))

1. The longest-serving member of Congress ever decides to retire

Rep. John Dingell, the longest-serving member of Congress ever, announced Monday that he will not run for election this November as he wraps up his 29th full term. Dingell (D-Mich.) is 87, and has served for 20,997 days. Dingell said partisan acrimony had made serving in the House "obnoxious." He also said it was simply time to go. "I don't want people to say I stayed too long," he said. [The New York Times, The Washington Post]

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.