Speaker Nancy Pelosi has arrived at a crossroads.

President Joe Biden is set to mark his second Fourth of July since taking office, and he's finding a far different political atmosphere today than a year ago.

President Joe Biden and three former presidents have paid tribute to late Veterans Administration chief and U.S. senator Max Cleland, who lost limbs while serving in Vietnam.

Divisions in a rapidly changing Republican Party are evident in the divergent responses to the tensions in Ukraine.

With the November elections creeping up and Republicans imposing new restrictions on ballot access, President Biden has no easy options for safeguarding voting rights despite rising pressure from frustrated activists.

Republicans’ faith in science is falling as Democrats rely on it even more, with a trust gap in science and medicine widening substantially during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the past week, Republican Rep. Paul Gosar tweeted a video showing a character with his face killing a figure with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s face.

A new White House task force is looking back at instances when politics interfered with science and trying to come up with ways to prevent that from happening again.

Former President Donald Trump insists he’s enjoying his life off Twitter.

President Joe Biden speaks about the COVID-19 pandemic during a prime-time address from the East Room of the White House, Thursday, March 11, 2021, in Washington. “While it was different for everyone, we all lost something," Biden said of the sacrifices of the yearlong-and-counting pandemic. In his Thursday night address, Biden said that as vaccine supplies continue to increase, he will direct states and territories to make all adults eligible for vaccination by May 1. Biden had originally planned to sign the bill on Friday, but it arrived at the White House more quickly than anticipated. Almost exactly one year ago, President Donald Trump addressed the nation to mark the WHO’s declaration of a global pandemic.

President Joe Biden speaks about the COVID-19 pandemic during a prime-time address from the East Room of the White House, Thursday, March 11, 2021, in Washington. “While it was different for everyone, we all lost something," Biden said of the sacrifices of the yearlong-and-counting pandemic. In his Thursday night address, Biden said that as vaccine supplies continue to increase, he will direct states and territories to make all adults eligible for vaccination by May 1. Biden had originally planned to sign the bill on Friday, but it arrived at the White House more quickly than anticipated. Trump, it was later revealed, acknowledged that he had been deliberately “playing down” the threat of the virus.

FILE - In this March 22, 2020, file photo a plaque depicting the White House is posted behind a podium in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington. Biden had campaigned as a rebuke to President Donald Trump, a singular figure whose political power was fueled by discord and grievance. The Democrat framed his election as one to “heal the soul” of the nation and repair the presidency, restoring the White House image as a symbol of stability and credibility. Biden, as much an institutionalist as Trump has been a disruptor, will look to change the tone and priorities of the office. Offering the White House as a symbol of stability to global capitals won’t be easy for Biden as Trump’s shadow looms.

(AP Photo, File)NEW YORK – When Joe Biden addresses the country for the first time as president, his inaugural speech is likely to echo calls for unity that predecessors have invoked since the first time George Washington was sworn in. Unity has since been a theme, and an anxiety, for many incoming presidents, who have faced economic and social crises and moments when the very future of the U.S. was in doubt. “Unity has always been an aspiration," says presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. But when we have domestic turmoil we use the word unity.”The United States was forged through compromise among factions that disagreed profoundly on slavery, regional influence and the relative powers of state and federal government. “A president often claims the country is ‘united’ behind a belief when it’s more wishful thinking than reality,” Widmer says.

This combination photo shows Pulitzer-Prize winning authors, from left, Ron Chernow, Garry Wills and Jon Meacham, who are among hundreds of historians who have signed an open letter calling for President Donald Trump to be removed from office. The letter comes after last weeks siege of the U.S. Capitol by his supporters. (AP Photo)NEW YORK – Pulitzer-Prize winners Garry Wills, Ron Chernow, Jon Meacham and Stacy Schiff are among hundreds of historians who have signed an open letter calling for President Donald Trump to be removed from office after last week's siege of the U.S. Capitol by his supporters. Others endorsing it include Douglas Brinkley, David Blight, Mary Beth Norton, Rick Atkinson, Diane McWhorter and Rick Perlstein. With days left in Trump’s presidency, the Democratic-led House of Representatives is preparing to impeach Trump this week.

John Adams and John Quincy Adams also opted not to participate in a tradition that began with George Washington. The White House Historical Association points out that John Adams was never formally invited by his successor, Thomas Jefferson, to the event and perhaps didn’t want to impose. He did not call on Adams, nor did Adams invite Jackson to the White House. Some four decades later, President-elect Ulysses S. Grant refused to ride with President Andrew Johnson from the White House to the Capitol for the ceremony. Rather, Ford was administered the oath of office in the White House East Room shortly after Nixon had tendered his resignation to avoid impeachment.

As one Trump court case after another falls by the wayside, Trump is doubling down on efforts to disrupt the election outcome. He summoned Michigan state lawmakers to the White House on Friday after personally reaching out to GOP officials ahead of next week's deadline to certify election results. With their silence, the Republican lawmakers are falling in one step deeper with the president they have spent four years trying to appease. The Republican lawmakers will soon be forced into a moment of truth with key upcoming deadlines. States are expected to certify election results by Dec. 6, and Republican lawmakers have been eyeing the Dec. 14 Electoral College deadline as their own offramp from Trump’s presidency.

As President Donald Trump faces an uncertain future, so too does a fixture of the American political scene over the last five years: the Trump campaign rally, a phenomenon that has spawned friendships, businesses and a way of life for Trump’s most dedicated supporters. She has been to nearly 20 Trump events, from rallies to Fourth of July celebrations on the National Mall. Indeed, the Trump campaign estimates the events have generated tens of millions of dollars a week in free television coverage. George Gigicos, who ran Trump’s 2016 advance operation, said the rallies "were hugely important” to Trump's campaigns and presidency. Sociologist Arlie Hochschild, who has been studying Trump supporters, agreed that he had tapped into religious imagery that secular liberals often missed.

Confirmation hearings are set to begin Monday for President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee giving Republicans one last chance to salvage their Senate majority by wresting attention away from the White House and its COVID-19 response and onto the GOP’s longtime goal of fashioning a conservative court. Only two GOP senators balked at quick confirmation. This time, it's much about securing his own legacy reshaping the judiciary into what allies call the “McConnell Court” as giving his majority a landing pad after a tumultuous four years with Trump. Having already bent Senate rules to allow 51-vote threshold to advance Supreme Court nominees, rather than 60 as was tradition, McConnell is now poised to usher a third Trump justice to confirmation. “It’s not going to be remembered as the McConnell Court,” said Stevens.

Crowds of people gathered shoulder to shoulder on the White House South Lawn. Instead, he flouted his own government’s guidelines and helped create a false sense of invulnerability in the White House, an approach that has now failed him as it did a nation where more than 200,000 people have died. And their use, while technically required, wasn’t enforced in the White House either. Even in the hours after the president’s diagnosis, senior White House staff, including chief of staff Mark Meadows and economic adviser Larry Kudlow, walked around the White House complex without wearing masks. The White House, even now, says the face coverings are a matter of “personal choice” for most staffers.

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – In close elections, it doesn't take much for third-party candidates to play an outsize role — as Democrats learned the hard way in 2016. A vital third-party candidate would likely help him tremendously.”But third-party candidates are facing hurdles that didn't exist four years ago, potentially weakening their impact. In a court decision last week, the Green Party candidate was barred from appearing on Pennsylvania’s ballot. “I saw last time, there’s no hope in a third-party candidate in this basically two-party system that we have. But the president’s team, which has denied playing a role in West’s bid, has done little game-planning for a third-party candidate.

WASHINGTON Republicans this week are focused squarely on their convention's star, President Donald Trump, and securing his reelection in November. Theres a lot happening behind the scenes already," said Republican strategist Alex Conant, who worked for the 2016 campaign of Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Also allotted time slots: Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Florida Sen. Rick Scott and Donald Trump Jr. "Theres others out there, but nobody else is even close in that stratosphere.Much will depend on whether Trump secures a second term. In her convention speech Monday night, Haley gave an unabashed endorsement of the president while spending time introducing herself to viewers.

Despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, delegates are holding an in-person meeting and roll-call vote in the ballroom of the Charlotte Convention Center before attention turns to prime-time programming. The GOP convention is a crucial moment for Trump, who is trailing in national and battleground state polls and under intense pressure to turn the race around. After the Charlotte kickoff, most of the GOP convention will take place in Washington, D.C., at and around the White House, as well as by video. But first comes the official business" in Charlotte, which the party selected in 2018 to host the convention. They're going to have a hard time garnering attention because weve lived with Trump for so long," Brinkley said.

NEW YORK Joyce Carol Oates, Douglas Brinkley and Lauren Groff are among more than 20 writers contributing essays for a book on the legacy of Henry David Thoreau. Princeton University Press announced Monday that Now Comes Good Sailing: On Henry David Thoreau and the Meaning of Life will be published in 2021. The book's title comes from words the celebrated nature writer and social commentator reportedly spoke as he neared his death, in 1862. Others writing about Thoreau for the new book include the best-selling novelist Amor Towles, Pulitzer Prize-winning nonfiction writer John McPhee, travel writer Pico Iyer, and the author and columnist Rafia Zakaria.

WASHINGTON Donald Trump isnt just changing the presidency during his first term in office. Republicans shrug it off as Trump being Trump, leaving Democrats almost alone to object. But typically presidents only go so far, knowing Congress is eyeing their every move, ready and willing to intervene. Trump rejects that model outright, treating the Congress as support staff to his presidency and relying on sheer force of personality to shape the government to his will. Congress is evolving, said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., once a Trump rival for the White House.

WASHINGTON Donald Trump isnt just changing the presidency during his first term in office. Republicans shrug it off as Trump being Trump, leaving Democrats almost alone to object. But typically presidents only go so far, knowing Congress is eyeing their every move, ready and willing to intervene. Trump rejects that model outright, treating the Congress as support staff to his presidency and relying on sheer force of personality to shape the government to his will. Congress is evolving, said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., once a Trump rival for the White House.

___THE BIG QUESTIONSIs the president's focus on (nonexistent) voter fraud already de-legitimizing the election? Last week in Arizona, he predicted that the November election would be the most corrupt election in the history of our country while spreading false claims about potential voter fraud. To be clear, there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud in the United States with or without mail balloting. His baseless charges of voter fraud and corruption are getting louder as his poll numbers sink. ___Catch up on the 2020 election campaign with AP experts on our weekly politics podcast, Ground Game.

This year, Trump has seized on efforts across the country to expand the ability of people to vote by mail. There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud through mail-in voting, even in states with all-mail votes. We can safely go to the polls and vote during COVID-19," he said in his Phoenix speech. This isnt a fight he picked," said Trump campaign political adviser and senior counsel Justin Clark. Imposing a new voting system in a hurried fashion ahead of November only exacerbates the real, underlying concerns about the security of voting by mail without the proper safeguards," said White House spokesperson Sarah Matthews.

Douglas Brinkley, a Rice University history professor and author whose works include books about the late civil rights icons Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., discusses differences between the 1960s civil rights protests and those of today. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)Douglas Brinkley, a Rice University history professor and author, whose works include books about the late civil rights icons Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., discusses differences between the 1960s civil rights protests and those of today:Then: Protests fueled by Christian credos with a soundtrack of gospel music and spirituals. King once was punched in the face on stage, took the blows, and urged that the white man not be charged. Then: Civil rights leaders felt the sympathy of Presidents Lyndon B. Johnson and John F. Kennedy. Now: Social media and cellphones provide quick calls for help; cell phone cameras can make police abuses go viral.