America's 250th birthday party is underway, though it comes with warnings about pollution, weather, and the future of democracy. In small towns to major cities, parades, historical reenactments, and air shows rolled out Saturday despite stifling heat along much of the East Coast, where triple-digit temperatures forced the cancellation of the National Independence Day Parade in Washington, DC, the New York Times reports. Bells rang across Philadelphia at noon to mark the Continental Congress' 1776 vote, Revolutionary War reenactors took over Independence Mall, and a tall-ship flotilla sailed up New York's Hudson River, including one vessel carrying a 1776 Boston Gazette printing of the Declaration of Independence.
In Virginia, 75 people from around the world took the oath of citizenship at Monticello, while Los Angeles prepared for an all-weekend celebration. In Louisville, people used a Sharpie equipped with a feather to scribble their signatures on a copy of the Declaration of Independence, per the AP. The main spectacle was scheduled for Washington, where crowds in red, white, and blue streamed onto the National Mall for an evening concert by the Joint Armed Forces Orchestra and what President Trump promised to be a "really long speech," as well as a fireworks show the White House is billing as the largest ever—some 850,000 shells over 40 minutes. The National Park Service warns the display could leave hazardous levels of pollution hanging over downtown for hours.
Among the groups parading in the capital was one wearing the symbols of Patriot Front, a White supremacist organization, per USA Today. Other groups, including left-wing organizations, also marched, per the Washington Post. On the Mall, Diane Riggs said she was also there to celebrate the nation's 200th anniversary as a 6-year-old, per the Post. She was celebratory on Saturday. "That was the establishment of the greatest country in the world—the one that decided to take a stand and end slavery, and did it, followed through, who decided to put a man on the moon and did it, followed through," she said. "I'm allowed to say things like this… allowed to be Jewish, Buddhist, Presbyterian, whatever I want. … Very few other countries have those."
- Four former presidents assessed the state of the union at 250, suggesting Americans do the work to preserve democracy.
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