“The National Park Service plans to ignite more than 850,000 fireworks over Washington, DC, for the nation's 250th birthday—over 100 times last year's tally of 7,000—with internal NPS documents warning the show could push air pollution on and around the National Mall into hazardous territory.”

Imagine the biggest ever heavy metal laden smoke cloud being washed out of the air and into the Potomac and area soils. This could become a toxic environmental catastrophe — all because nobody in the administration dares to contradict Trump who demanded the biggest fireworks display in history.

Israeli human rights groups say leading Palestinian doctor, held in harsh conditions for purely political reasons, is now near death. "He struggled to breathe and speak and seemed close to losing consciousness several times, during a Thurs visit. He fears he will be killed in Israeli custody"

This month, local elections in Arizona have become referenda on how cities are responding to ICE, immigration detention centers, and rising homelessness. Learn what we’re watching in our elections guide:

In his July 4 message, the first American pontiff—formerly himself a registered Republican—had an unmistakable message for Donald Trump, JD Vance and other Republican leaders, and it was extremely tough. It was about their demonization and mistreatment of immigrants.

violence against women (and any gender nonconformity) is so baked into American culture that the whole political sphere is able to pretend that, for all intents and purposes, it doesn’t exist — from Epstein, to the WH, Supreme Court and probably a majority of Congress, to community organizing

It’s 100° and anyone with a brain is indoors. All these flyovers accomplish is drowning out conversations and TV speakers.

Humans. Today’s 250th celebration is a day to pause and reflect on how to make a more perfect union. There is much work to be done. Liberty and justice for ALL the people. 🌊🌊🇺🇸🇺🇸

En quoi la ville de Saint-Pétersbourg est-elle une cible privilégiée pour l'Ukraine? Selon les autorités locales, un terminal pétrolier a été touché et un drone s'est écrasé sur le complexe historique de Peterhof sans provoquer de dégâts.

Un homme escalade la tour Eiffel et accroche un drapeau américain

Quand les motards de la police de Philadelphie escortent les supporters français jusqu’au stade, avant le match des Bleus contre le Paraguay ! Ce samedi, les supporters des Bleus ont été escortés par la police américaine avant le match contre le Paraguay, à Philadelphie.

🚢 Strait of Hormuz tracker status No new transits detected in the last 10 minutes. Queued transit alerts: 0 Monitoring remains active. #StraitOfHormuz #Shipping #MaritimeTraffic

How Attorney General Phil Weiser bested one of Colorado's best known and liked career politicians: seems pretty clear that Bennet's "hands across the aisle" approach, including voting for most Trump nominees, did not play well with Colorado voters, who wanted someone younger, more vigorous—a fighter

Trump’s sons seem to be caught Red Handed with slices of the Reflecting Pool!!! He blamed this on a poor innocent sightseer.

I liked Christopher Webb's article about Major Jason Watson's act of civil disobedience. #MajorJasonWatson bsky.app/profile/cweb...

EN DIRECT, 4-Juillet et 250 ans des Etats-Unis : l’Organisation des historiens américains dénonce « l’assaut » de l’administration Trump contre l’histoire

pull down and pulverize that subaltern’s tower, and make a little heap of dust of it

While crowds have been sparse, hundreds of white supremacists marched through D.C. on Saturday.

Re-upping this thread on Thomas Paine since he seems to have entered the Bluesky chat on this July 4.

Paraguay and France are going to be playing on a field that‘s 110F. www.nytimes.com/athletic/742...

Today on the site Harrison Croft shares his experience at our Canadian History of the Environment Summer School - #CHESS2026 in PEI niche-canada.org/2026/07/04/s... #envhist #cdnhist #pei #climatehistory

I see sanewashing Trump is still very much a thing.

Favorite photo from this morning’s tall ships parade

Read our original investigation:

Allez les Bleus!

Under a normal administration, he’d be given a letter of reprimand and keep his career, but I imagine they’ll throw the book at this brave man. I hope he appeals any discharge under the next administration.

Bureau of Meteorology says city’s mean temperature reached 16.1C, surpassing the previous record of 15.7C set in 1991

That’s it. I’m moving to New York and voting for Mamdani.

in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as if imparting some special virtue of its own

Oh, hell no! Call 1199 right now! "A report from the Roosevelt Institute found that the staffing platforms now used by gig nurses in the US use algorithms to determine pay for individual shifts – resulting in nurses being paid different amounts for the same work within the same facility."

Hmm.

More women have nearly bled to death during miscarriage under Texas’ abortion ban. Experts say the trend paints a troubling picture of the harms of unnecessary delays in care. “This is striking,” one doctor said. “The trend is very clear.” (Published July 2025)

Andrew Johnson and Trump are certainly the 1-2 punch on worst presidents ever, but I don’t think any president makes me angrier than Reagan, probably on account of the fact that an entire generation saw him as some sort of good guy

If there is a hell Ronald Reagan is certainly burning in it for all eternity for his response to this, among hundreds of other things he did to inflict nothing but pain and misery

"Many people with Vibrio vulnificus infection get seriously ill and need intensive care or limb amputation. The risk of such public threats is mounting because climate change is expanding the territory of certain pathogens." kffhealthnews.org/public-healt...

The number ​of confirmed ‌Ebola cases in ​the Democratic ​Republic of Congo ⁠has ​increased to ​1,502, including 473 deaths. www.reuters.com/business/hea...

This happened in my family!

Funny thing is that I *think* (and @anthonymkreis.bsky.social can confirm) that this would probably already fall within the even more obscure exception to birthright citizenship for babies born on foreign-government-run ships operating within US territorial waters.

LFG! 💪💪💪

Do red states want money? Because if they wanna play this game I feel like blue states are gonna come out ok

Eastman Chemical Co. must face most claims brought by residents near its Longview, Tex., production facility who say the company’s ethylene oxide emissions led to their cancer diagnoses.

My Erdogan go the way of Viktor Orbán soon.

Every city and town wanting to make the case for Cape Verdeans to be their honorary members. Get in line, Philly. 😉 #CaboVerde 🤩😍💗

Messi’s not as dominant as in the last World Cup, but is still the greatest athlete I’ve seen. Every time he touches the ball it’s a scoring chance, and when he doesn’t, he’s still drawing players off other scorers.

Cape Verde made Argentina great today. That’s what great competition does. Trump will never understand great.

(These people couldn't accurately define communism if their life depended on it.)

This is how you do it. Right in the headline.