Democrats are zeroing in on a deal to lower prescription drug prices that the party hopes it could add to President Joe Biden’s $1.75 trillion social spending bill as soon as Monday, according to sources familiar with the effort.

The conversations involve a group of Senate Democrats, including Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, House leadership and rank-and-file, as well as the White House. Prescription drug reform was left out of last week’s draft proposal due to ongoing disagreements between moderates like Sinema and House Democrats like Energy and Commerce Chair Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), who is hoping for a more expansive effort to lower drug prices.

Yet after that omission, Democrats have redoubled their efforts. Leaving out prescription drug reform from Biden’s climate and social spending bill would be a massive loss for Democrats, who have campaigned on lowering drug prices for several years.

“Much progress was made on a compromise agreement on prescription drugs that would involve some amount of negotiation” between Medicare and the drug companies, said a source familiar with the talks. There’s “optimism that something can be added before House votes” on Biden’s package early this week.

If McAuliffe, a former governor who wants his old job back, loses in this state that President Biden won by 10 points a year ago — and that’s looking like a distinct possibility — the collective shoulder shrug of Crestwood Drive will be one clue about what happened. The story of an increasingly large and diverse state can be understood in part by the story of one small suburban block.

That’s because this stretch of Crestwood Drive is not just any block. One of the houses is owned by former Trump administration acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf. A year ago, his disapproving neighbors set the street ablaze in a gaudily colorful display of progressive activism. Many houses were festooned with multiple large signs — for Joe Biden, for Black Lives Matter, and for a host of liberal causes.

There was a community parade and rally outside Wolf’s house, to protest Trump and the Homeland Security’s efforts to suppress civil unrest in Portland, Ore. Political street theater in a neighborhood normally more concerned with elementary school theater was novel enough to prompt a story in the Washington Post (no easy feat given the Post’s depleted and generally inattentive Metro coverage).

Twelve months later, there is scant evidence that McAuliffe’s attempt to revive the agitated emotions of 2020 and to cast Youngkin as a Donald Trump proxy is working. What seems evident is that many residents are feeling drained and ready to return to a time when politics wasn’t all-consuming.

“Everyone exhausted themselves with the presidential election. And I think there was such a sense of fear that Trump would be reelected, that when thank God he wasn’t, you know, people tend to [say] ‘That crisis has been averted. I can go back to other priorities in my life,’” said Tony Sanchez, a 57-year-old Democrat who works for a defense contractor.

Negotiations on the infrastructure and social program bills have consumed Capitol Hill for months. Still, a new ABC News/Ipsos poll out Sunday finds Democrats are failing to sell the legislation to the public, who are broadly unaware of what is in the spending packages or skeptical they would help people like themselves, or the economy, if signed into law.

President Joe Biden was unable to secure a legislative win before departing on his second foreign trip since taking office, even after he laid out a framework for the package focused on social programs and climate change around which he believes Democrats can rally. He pitched that package, which no longer includes paid family and medical leave or free community college, as a "historic economic" opportunity on Thursday, but this poll reflects the continued confusion and intraparty mistrust over these bills.

Although a majority (55%) of the public is following news about the negotiations at least somewhat closely, about 7 in 10 (69%) Americans said they know just some or little to nothing about what's in both bills. Fewer than half (31%) said they know a great deal or good amount. Despite Republicans having sat on the sidelines while the White House works exclusively with congressional Democrats to get both bills to the president's desk, the lack of knowledge extends across all parties.

Americans also do not feel like these bills would help them or the U.S. economy if they become law.

WASHINGTON — A majority of Americans now disapprove of President Joe Biden's job performance, while half give him low marks for competence and uniting the country, according to results from the latest national NBC News poll.

What's more, the survey finds that 7 in 10 adults, including almost half of Democrats, believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction, as well as nearly 60 percent who view Biden's stewardship of the economy negatively just nine months into his presidency.

One year before next year's midterm elections and less than a week before Virginia's closely watched race for governor, Biden's lower standing has also taken a toll on his party: Democrats trail Republicans on which party better handles the economy, inflation and immigration, while they’ve lost ground on issues like education and the coronavirus.

“Democrats face a country whose opinion of President Biden has turned sharply to the negative since April,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.

A half-dozen on-duty city firefighters, answering their own unhinged 911 call inside an FDNY truck, stormed a Brooklyn state senator’s office Friday over City Hall’s looming deadline for vaccines.

The six smoke-eaters were instantly suspended for four weeks after commandeering the vehicle, with its emergency lights flashing, before four of the fuming firefighters headed inside to declare the city mandate meant “blood would be on (the) hands” of State Sen. Zellnor Myrie — who had nothing to do with the order for city workers to get vaccinated or get sent home without pay.

Other vaccine-protesting firefighters called in sick Friday, putting some firehouses temporarily out of service, a Fire Department official said.

The exact number of firefighters claiming sick leave was not known — but there were enough of them that Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro blasted them in a statement.

“We’ve made no bones about we want to attract some new fans and new teams, and that starts with the car,” said John Probst, NASCAR’s senior vice president for racing innovation.

But to attract that young, diverse audience, NASCAR must reckon with its past. It’s an open question how much a car can do to assuage a troubling history of discrimination. “NASCAR is doing some things, but they need to do more,” said Bill Lester, who in 1999 became one of the few African-American drivers in NASCAR, and said he was still uncomfortable at some tracks: “At Talladega? Shoot. At Martinsville, Virginia? I was sweating.”

The league is in a difficult position. Its economic clout grew out of its appeal to white working-class fans. For decades, it fostered an outlaw image true to its roots of good ol’ boy moonshiners outrunning the law in hopped-up coupes. By the 1990s, the largely white, right-leaning audience became an economic and political force known as “NASCAR Nation,” valued as the most brand-loyal consumers in sports. But fans warmly nostalgic for Old Dixie are aging out. The young, diverse spectators whom sponsors now want don’t get misty-eyed at the raising of the Confederate flag, which the league banned last year.

NASCAR’s challenge is to appeal to a new audience without alienating an old one, even as it seeks to distance itself from some of what that old audience held dear. The league’s strategy is all rolled up into Next Gen — to pay homage to the past and outrun it at the same time. Honoring the past, it looks like a stock vehicle to “put the ‘stock’ back in stockcar,” as NASCAR likes to say. Anticipating for the future, it can be converted to electric power.

Billions ride on the plan. NASCAR is due to enter negotiations for its broadcast rights, which previously brought an estimated $8 billion over 10 years. Delivering diverse viewers becomes a multibillion-dollar marketing imperative.