Democrat Biden plans to drop White House bid

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democratic U.S. presidential long-shot Joe Biden plans to drop his bid for the White House after placing a distant fifth in the Iowa caucuses on Thursday, a source close to the senator said.

The U.S. senator from Delaware, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and was making his second run for the White House, had said earlier on Thursday he planned to stay in the race until at least the end of January.

(Reporting by Thomas Ferraro and Jeremy Pelofsky, editing by Stuart Grudgings)