WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is returning to a new term to take up some familiar topics — guns and abortion — and concerns about ethics swirling around the justices.

The year also will have a heavy focus on social media and how free speech protections apply online.

A big unknown is whether the court will be asked to weigh in on any aspect of the criminal cases against former President Donald Trump and others.

Lower-profile but vitally important, several cases in the term that begins Monday ask the justices to constrict the power of regulatory agencies.

One of those cases, to be argued Tuesday, threatens the ability of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to function. Unlike most agencies, the bureau is not dependent on annual appropriations from Congress, but instead gets its funding directly from the Federal Reserve. The idea when the agency was created following the recession in 2007-08 was to shield it from politics.

But the federal appeals court in New Orleans struck down the funding mechanism. The ruling would cause “profound disruption by calling into question virtually every action the CFPB has taken” since its creation, the Biden administration said in a court filing.

The abortion case likely to be heard by the justices also would be the court’s first word on the topic since it reversed Roe v. Wade last year. The new case stems from a ruling to limit the availability of mifepristone, a medication used in the most common method of abortion in the United States.

The assortment of cases from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals could offer Chief Justice John Roberts more opportunities to forge alliances in major cases that cross ideological lines. In those cases, the conservative-dominated appeals court, which includes six Trump appointees, took aggressive legal positions, said Irv Gornstein, executive director of the Georgetown law school’s Supreme Court Institute.

“The 5th Circuit is ready to adopt the politically most conservative position on almost any issue, no matter how implausible or how much defiling of precedent it takes,” Gornstein said.