Another nine House Democrats on Friday threatened opposition to the bid by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to become speaker of the House when the new Congress is sworn in this January.

Members of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus demanded Pelosi support a set of rule changes intended to avoid congressional gridlock. Without the change, they argue, "small pockets of extreme ideologues will continue to block the will of the commonsense majority."

This comes after another 16 Democratic House members and members-elect pledged to oppose Pelosi's speakership earlier this month. Pending final election determinations, Democrats will hold a majority of about 34 seats in the House next session, meaning Pelosi likely has enough support to regain the speakership even with this intra-party resistance. Bonnie Kristian

President Biden is urging all employers to give workers time off to get vaccinated against COVID-19, and his administration is rolling out a tax credit for small businesses that do so.

Biden on Wednesday again urged Americans to get their COVID-19 vaccine now that adults are eligible to receive one in every U.S. state. But he also addressed concerns from some Americans who say they can't afford to take time off from work to get vaccinated or recover from the vaccine's possible side effects.

"I'm calling on every employer, large and small, in every state, to give employees the time off they need with pay to get vaccinated, and any time they need, with pay, to recover if they're feeling under the weather after the shot," Biden said. "No working American should lose a single dollar from their paycheck because they chose to fulfill their patriotic duty of getting vaccinated."

To ensure small and medium-sized businesses can do so, Biden said businesses with fewer than 500 employees will be able to get reimbursed for the cost of giving workers paid leave to get vaccinated. These businesses will be eligible for refundable tax credits under the American Rescue Plan, according to the IRS. This credit "ensures that no small businesses or non-profits will lose a single dollar by providing such paid leave to workers receiving a vaccination," the White House said.

Biden on Wednesday also celebrated the fact that the administration has met his goal of administering 200 million COVID-19 vaccine doses in his first 100 days in office. He said during his remarks that the U.S. is still "on track" for looking "much closer" to normal by the Fourth of July, but that "we still have more to do in the months of May and June." Brendan Morrow

Wait for it...

Hulu has ordered a How I Met Your Mother sequel series called How I Met Your Father, which is set to star Hilary Duff in the lead role, according to Variety. Similar to the premise of the original CBS sitcom, Duff will play Sophie, a woman who, in the future, tells her son the story of how she met his father beginning in the year 2021.

If the idea of a How I Met Your Mother spin-off sounds familiar, that's because CBS actually ordered a pilot for one all the way back in 2013. At that point, the spin-off was called How I Met Your Dad, and it was to star Greta Gerwig. This series never ended up happening, but now the idea is being brought back all these years later with a new star and streaming home.

For Duff, this also comes after a planned Disney+ revival of her hit show Lizzie McGuire didn't move forward, reportedly due to creative differences as Duff and creator Terri Minsky hoped to tackle more adult themes than Disney was looking for. This Is Us co-showrunners Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger will reportedly write and executive produce How I Met Your Father, and How I Met Your Mother creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas will also return as executive producers. Duff will serve as a producer, as well.

Of course, the original How I Met Your Mother series famously concluded its run in 2014 with one of the most controversial TV endings in recent history, so it remains to be seen whether this one can ultimately wrap in a way that's legendary in a good way. Brendan Morrow

Vanita Gupta was never really in danger of being blocked from serving as associate attorney general (the Justice Department's no. 3 position), so long as she had the backing of all 50 Senate Democrats. But the upper chamber's GOP still put up a fierce fight by trying to paint the Biden nominee as a "radical" who would weaken law enforcement, as Politico reported earlier this week.

In the end, though, Gupta's confirmation is set to move forward, and Vice President Kamala Harris won't be needed to cast a tie-breaking vote. Instead, Sen. Lisa Murkowksi (R-Alaska) will cross the aisle. On Wednesday, Murkowski joined Democrats in voting to advance Gupta's confirmation, and she said she'll stay the course when the final vote comes around.

Murkowski explained that after looking at Gupta's record and sitting down with her, she was convinced by the "passion that she carries with the work she performs" as well as her determination to serve in the post despite the contentious nomination process. "I am going to give the benefit of the doubt to a woman who I believe has demonstrated through her professional career to be deeply, deeply committed to matters of justice," Murkowski said on the Senate floor. Tim O'Donnell

When it comes to the Best Actor race at this year's Oscars, a posthumous win for Chadwick Boseman has seemed all but guaranteed for months. But could a massive upset actually be in the cards?

Boseman has long been considered the Best Actor frontrunner for his performance in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, the final film he completed prior to his death, and the late actor has already won at the Golden Globe Awards, the Critics' Choice Awards, and the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

But also in the mix is Anthony Hopkins, whose performance in The Father was hailed as one of the best of his career, and Hopkins recently won over Boseman in an upset at the British Academy Film Awards. Pundits generally chalked that up to the BAFTAs, the British equivalent of the Oscars, simply favoring a celebrated British actor, and most experts are still predicting Boseman will win the Academy Award.

But days ahead of the big night, Variety reports that based on conversations with some Academy voters, the Best Actor race "may not be as clear as it once seemed." Indeed, the report quotes one voting member as saying that even though they believe Boseman will win, they personally voted for Hopkins. That's a sentiment that Variety's Clayton Davis writes has been expressed by "multiple voters over the past few days." Might voters perceive Boseman's win as such a slam dunk that they think backing Hopkins won't make a difference, only for this to tip the scales?

A Hopkins upset would call to mind Olivia Colman's shock Best Actress victory over frontrunner Glenn Close at the 2019 Oscars, though this situation is clearly much different given this will be the Academy's last chance to award Boseman an Oscar following his tragic death. Ultimately, Boseman's win is still quite likely, but for a race that has appeared all locked up, there might be a bit of unexpected suspense involved after all. Brendan Morrow

In a memo obtained by Forbes on Wednesday, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) laid out why he believes Washington. D.C., should not become a state.

One of the reasons he used to back his argument is the city's crime rate, including a rising number of annual murders and carjackings. The local government "has failed to provide for the safety and well-being of its citizens," Scalise wrote. "Why should the District of Columbia be granted statehood when it can't even perform basic government duties like protecting governments from criminals?"

Scalise's choice to focus on crime may not have registered quite how he hoped, instead prompting observers to point out that Louisiana, his home state, has long reported the nation's highest murder rate, while New Orleans, parts of which Scalise represents, has also seen an uptick in crime. Tim O'Donnell

President Biden's plan to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan by or before Sept. 11, 2021, has its critics among Republicans in the halls of Congress, but Republican voters are mostly on board.

A Morning Consult poll released Wednesday found that the strategy is widely popular in the United States (overwhelmingly so among Democrats), and that 52 percent of Republican voters are in favor of it, compared to just 33 percent who oppose.

The reason, it seems, is pretty simple: Americans just want troops to come home safely after two decades of conflict. The major counterargument to Biden's decision is that the absence of U.S. forces will allow the Taliban to regain control over Afghanistan, which, in turn, would provide an opening for terrorist groups to re-establish themselves, presenting a threat to the U.S. and its allies, both at home and abroad. But that stance doesn't appear to be resonating with Americans.

The Morning Consult poll was conducted between April 16-19 among 1,992 registered voters. The margin of error is 2 percentage points. Read more at Morning Consult. Tim O'Donnell