By JAMEY KEATEN Associated Press

Even in a busy year of elections around the world, the next few days stand out.

Over the next week, voters go to the polls in fledgling democracies like Mauritania and Mongolia, the Islamic Republic of Iran and in stalwart democracies — former imperial powers — Britain and France.

While U.S. President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump were set Thursday to hold the first of two TV debates before their expected November standoff, other countries are facing hard choices.

The votes could reorient the world at a time of war in Europe, the Middle East and Africa; mutual suspicion among some big powers; and growing public anxiety over things like jobs, climate change, taxes, inflation and the rise of AI.

National elections are taking place in more than 50 countries this year. India, Mexico and South Africa ushered in political change or ballot-box surprises. Russia did not.

Here’s a look at the flurry of balloting over the next few days in countries that collectively hold some 225 million people in Europe, Africa and Asia:

IRAN

In Iran on Friday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is looking for a successor for his hard-line protégé, President Ebrahim Raisi, who died last month in a helicopter crash.

Two hard-liners — former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf — are among candidates that include Masoud Pezeshkian, a cardiac surgeon seen as a reformist who has lined up with supporters of relatively moderate former President Hassan Rouhani.

Amid signs of widespread voter apathy, Khamenei has called for maximum turnout and has issued a veiled warning to Pezeshkian and his allies about relying on the U.S.

Iran has faced economic woes in part due to international sanctions after Trump in 2018 shredded Iran’s nuclear accord struck three earlier with world powers. Iran has since ramped up enrichment of uranium and now has enough to be able to produce several nuclear weapons.

The Islamic Republic has sought to position itself as a leader of Muslim-world resentment against the West and Israel, which Iran directly attacked for the first time this year. For years, Iran has backed an array of militant groups, including the Palestinian Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels.

FRANCE

France wasn’t supposed to be holding national elections this year.

But a drubbing for his pro-business, moderate party in EU elections this month led President Emmanuel Macron to dissolve the National Assembly and call snap parliamentary elections, which will take place in two rounds on the next two Sundays.

The result could send the nuclear-armed nation into uncharted political territory at a turbulent time for Europe: A victory of the anti-immigration National Rally party could produce France’s first far-right government since the Nazi occupation in World War II.

National Rally placed first among French parties in the EU vote, and polls suggest it could reap the single largest bloc of seats in the Assembly. If it wins an outright majority, it could name 28-year-old party President Jordan Bardella as prime minister.

Macron, whose term ends in 2027, would retain his job but have to share power with a party with historical links to racism and antisemitism that is firmly opposed to many of his positions, including on military support for Ukraine.

The outcome of the French vote remains very uncertain because of the complex two-round system and alliances that parties could form between the two rounds.

THE UNITED KINGDOM

Western Europe’s other nuclear-armed power, Britain, will hold parliamentary elections on Thursday.

Like their cross-Channel neighbors in France, Britons appear ready to oust the ruling party: Polls suggest the Conservatives are headed for a historic defeat in the House of Commons after 14 years in power.

On Wednesday, Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Labour Party leader Keir Starmer struggled to get their messages across protesters drowned out their answers at the start of a heated TV debate. They traded zingers and barbs on issues of ethics, tax and migration.

Britain, under the Tories, has been one of the strongest supporters of Ukraine in its national defense against Russia and a possible Labour government isn’t expected to waver on such backing for Kyiv.

Starmer may be inclined to mend Britain’s relationship with the EU after Brexit more than four years ago, but he has been adamant that a Labour government would not seek to reverse the will of the people in the referendum.

MAURITANIA

Nearly 2 million people go to the polls Saturday in Mauritania, a vast desert nation in West Africa that positions itself as a strategic ally of the West but has been denounced for rights abuses.

President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, a former army chief who rose to power in the country’s first democratic transition in 2019, faces seven rivals. Among them are Biram Dah Abeid, an anti-slavery activist and third-time candidate, and several opposition party leaders as well as a neurosurgeon.

One of the most stable countries in Africa’s arid Sahel region, Mauritania has seen some of its neighbors shaken by military coups and jihadist violence.

The European Union this year announced funding to help Mauritania crack down on people smugglers and deter migrants from embarking on dangerous Atlantic crossings from West Africa to Europe — the number of which has been rising sharply — and patrol its border with restive Mali.

In the 1980s, Mauritania became the world’s last country to outlaw slavery. But nearly 150,000 people — in a country of under 5 million — remain affected by modern slavery, according to the 2023 Global Slavery Index.

MONGOLIA

Also on Friday is the vote for parliament in Mongolia, a country of 3.4 million people that emerged from some six decades of communist rule to become a democracy in 1990, and is wedged between two much larger authoritarian states: Russia and China.

Voters will choose representatives to a body that has been expanded to 126 seats, 50 more than in the current legislature.

The ruling Mongolian People’s Party, which ran the country during the communist era but has transformed into a left-leaning centrist one, is favored to win.

But other parties could make gains, possibly even enough to force the People’s Party to form a coalition government with the Democratic Party or the HUN Party, an emerging player in Mongolian politics.

Discontent with the government has been fueled by accusations of corruption and l arge protests broke out two years ago.

The Mongolian government has sought to maintain ties with China and Russia while also building new ones with the U.S. and its democratic allies — a delicate task since the two sides are increasingly at odds.

Associated Press writers Ken Moritsugu in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Monika Pronczuk in Dakar, Senegal; Angela Charlton in Paris and Danica Kirka in London contributed to this report.

By THOMAS BEAUMONT and LINLEY SANDERS

WASHINGTON (AP) — A solid majority of Americans say Supreme Court justices are more likely to be guided by their own ideology rather than serving as neutral arbiters of government authority, a new poll finds, as the high court is poised to rule on major cases involving former President Donald Trump and other divisive issues.

The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 7 in 10 Americans think the high court’s justices are more influenced by ideology, while only about 3 in 10 U.S. adults think the justices are more likely to provide an independent check on other branches of government by being fair and impartial.

The poll reflects the continued erosion of confidence in the Supreme Court, which enjoyed broader trust as recently as a decade ago. It underscores the challenge faced by the nine justices — six appointed by Republican presidents and three by Democrats — of being seen as something other than just another element of Washington’s hyper-partisanship.

The justices are expected to decide soon whether Trump is immune from criminal charges over his efforts to overturn his 2020 reelection defeat, but the poll suggests that many Americans are already uneasy about the justices’ ability to rule impartially.

“It’s very political. There’s no question about that,” said Jeff Weddell, a 67-year-old automotive technology sales representative from Macomb County, in presidential swing-state Michigan.

“The court’s decision-making is so polluted,” said Weddell, a political independent who plans to vote for Trump in November. “No matter what they say on President Trump’s immunity, this will be politically motivated.”

Confidence in the Supreme Court remains low. The poll of 1,088 adults found that 4 in 10 U.S. adults say they have hardly any confidence in the people running the Supreme Court, in line with an AP-NORC poll from October. As recently as early 2022, before the high-profile ruling that overturned the constitutional right to abortion, an AP-NORC poll found that only around one-quarter of Americans lacked confidence in the justices.

And although the Supreme Court’s conservative majority has handed down some historic victories for Republican policy priorities over the past few years, rank-and-file Republicans aren’t giving the justices a ringing endorsement.

It’s been two years since the court’s ruling on abortion rights. Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett — Trump nominees confirmed by a Republican Senate — were part of the majority that overturned the near-50-year abortion-rights precedent established in Roe v. Wade.

This year’s term, with a dozen cases still undecided, has already seen some major rulings. Earlier in June, the Supreme Court unanimously preserved access to the pharmaceutical drug mifepristone, a medication used in nearly two-thirds of all abortions in the U.S. last year. The same week, the court struck down a Trump-era gun restriction, a ban on rapid-fire gun accessories known as bump stocks, a win for gun-rights advocates.

Only about half of Republicans have a great deal or a moderate amount of confidence in the court’s handling of important issues, including gun policy, abortion, elections and voting, and presidential power and immunity, according to the new poll.

“I don’t have a lot of faith in the Supreme Court. And that’s unfortunate because that’s the final say-so, the final check and balance on our three-branch government,” said Matt Rogers, a 37-year-old Republican from Knoxville, Tennessee.

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Other Republicans share that mistrust, although the court’s current makeup is more conservative than any court in modern history. They are also split on whether the justices are more driven by personal ideology or impartiality, with about half of Republicans saying the justices are more likely to shape the law to fit their own ideology, and another half saying they are likelier to be an independent check on their co-equal branches.

“I think they are getting influenced and pressured by a lot of people and a lot of entities on the left,” said Rogers, a health and wellness trainer who plans to vote for Trump a third time this year. “Let’s be honest. It’s anything to crucify Trump.”

Some Republicans have less confidence in the court’s handling of specific issues than others. The poll found, for instance, that about 6 in 10 Republican women have little to no confidence in the court’s handling of presidential power and immunity, compared to 45% of Republican men.

Janette Majors, a Republican from Ridgefield, Washington, says it’s only natural for a justice to reflect the ideology of the president who nominated them.

But episodes outside the Supreme Court chambers have made her less confident in the people running the court.

“What you hear about Clarence Thomas, taking trips paid for by rich people, makes me think there are some individuals there that don’t sound like I should trust them,” Majors said, referring unprompted to reports that Thomas has for years received undisclosed expensive gifts, including travel, from GOP megadonor Harlan Crow.

Democrats and independents are even more skeptical of the court’s neutrality, according to the poll.

About 8 in 10 Democrats — and about 7 in 10 independents — say the justices are more likely to shape the law to fit their own ideology. A similar share has little or no confidence at all in the court’s handling of abortion, gun policy and presidential power and immunity.

Michigan Democrat Andie Near noticed that the court seemed to become a political tool in 2016, when then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refused to allow hearings on Democratic President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland.

McConnell quickly allowed hearings after Trump nominated Gorsuch within 10 days of taking office in 2017.

“I had thought the court, though maybe skewing left or right, was serving the whole body of the country,” the 42-year-old museum registrar from Holland, Michigan, said. “That’s when it brought to high relief that the Supreme Court is being used to skew the political environment we live in, and it’s only gotten worse.”

The poll of 1,088 adults was conducted June 20-24, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.

Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa.