Former Vice President Mike Pence will officially launch his widely expected campaign for the Republican nomination for president in Iowa next week. That adds another candidate to the growing GOP field and puts Pence in direct competition with his former boss, Donald Trump. Pence will hold a kickoff event in Des Moines on June 7, the date of his 64th birthday, according to two people familiar with his plans who spoke on condition of anonymity to share details ahead of the official announcement. He’ll also release a video message as part of the launch.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has entered the 2024 presidential race with an announcement plagued by technical glitches. He’s stepping into a crowded Republican primary contest that will test his national appeal as an outspoken cultural conservative and the party’s willingness to move on from former President Donald Trump. DeSantis tried to announce his bid in a special Twitter feed that turned disastrous. Listeners could hear almost nothing distinguishable for nearly half an hour. He never mentioned Trump in the session that lasted about an hour but said he was ready to fight. “Buckle up when I get in there,” he said.

Democratic Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware says he will not seek reelection to a fifth term in the U.S. Senate. Carper announced Monday that he will retire when his current term expires in 2024. His announcement paves the way for a wide-open contest for the seat he has held since 2001 in heavily blue Delaware. He is the fourth Democratic senator to announce plans to retire in this coming cycle. Carper served five terms in the U.S. House and two terms as governor before being elected to the Senate in 2000. In the Senate, Carper built a reputation as a moderate lawmaker and a champion of environmental protection and the U.S. Postal Service.

Mutual supporters of Sen. Tim Scott and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley are in a conundrum now that the two South Carolina natives are both candidates for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. The two have a long history: They worked alongside each other in the state House, and then-Gov. Haley appointed Scott to a Senate seat in 2012. For his part, Scott has dismissed any awkwardness, saying they will remain friends. Haley has declined to comment on Scott when asked by The Associated Press.

A special prosecutor has ended his four-year investigation into possible FBI misconduct in its probe of ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The report Monday from special counsel John Durham offers withering criticism of the bureau but a meager court record that fell far short of the former president’s prediction he would uncover the “crime of the century.” It represents the long-awaited culmination of an investigation that Trump and allies had claimed would expose massive wrongdoing by law enforcement and intelligence officials. Instead, Durham’s investigation delivered underwhelming results, with prosecutors securing a guilty plea from a little-known FBI employee but losing the only two criminal cases they took to trial.

The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether South Carolina’s congressional districts need to be redrawn because they discriminate against Black voters. The justices said Monday they would review a lower-court ruling that found a coastal district running from Charleston to Hilton Head was intentionally redrawn to reduce the number of Black Democratic-leaning voters to make it more likely Republican candidates would win. The case probably will be argued in the fall, and decided in the run up to the 2024 elections, when all the seats in the closely divided House of Representatives, now under Republican control, will be on the ballot.

The seditious conspiracy convictions of former Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and three lieutenants bolsters the Justice Department’s high-profile wins in its historic prosecution of the Capitol attack. The verdict handed down Thursday could further embolden the Justice Department and special counsel Jack Smith as his team investigates efforts by former President Donald Trump and his allies to undo President Joe Biden’s victory. Smith’s work is now proceeding rapidly. Just last week, a federal grand jury heard hours of testimony from former Vice President Mike Pence. Trump loomed large over the monthslong Proud Boys trial at the U.S. Courthouse in Washington, where the Capitol can be seen in the distance from the windows.

The day Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took office, he vowed to pursue an agenda that would heal the state’s political divisions. On Friday, four years later, DeSantis concluded a legislative session establishing him as perhaps the most accomplished conservative governor in the nation’s culture wars. The leading rival to former President Donald Trump in the 2024 Republican presidential campaign has pushed the limits of divisive cultural battles and in most cases has won — backed by Republican supermajorities in Florida’s legislature. The moves position DeSantis well among primary voters but spark concerns among others in the party who fear his dogged pursuit of conservative cultural priorities may further divide the nation.

Republican members of the Oregon Senate have extended their boycott into a second day, delaying bills on gun safety, abortion rights and gender-affirming health care. The stayaway prevented a quorum, a tactic that minority Republican lawmakers have used in the past. But this time — if they continue to stay away — they’ll be testing a new law that was passed overwhelmingly by Oregonians in a ballot measure last November. That law bans lawmakers who have 10 or more unexcused absences from running for reelection. The boycott comes as several statehouses around the nation have been battlegrounds between conservatives and liberals.