Some donors who intended to give money to a bipartisan effort to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary were, instead, steered to a White House-backed initiative under false pretenses, House Democrats allege in a report released Thursday morning, citing whistleblower interviews and newly obtained documents.
The donors meant to give money to America250, a congressionally chartered initiative to celebrate the nation’s semiquincentennial, according to Democrats on the House Natural Resources Committee. They instead were given routing and account numbers that directed their funds to Freedom 250, which President Donald Trump established last year to organize anniversary events, the report says.
The report does not identify the donors. In interviews, Democrats said they needed to protect the identity of whistleblowers who worked with the panel. But they said their report — which includes other allegations of Freedom 250 officials and allies explicitly steering money away from America250 and toward projects shaped by Trump — shows how the president transformed a bipartisan celebration of the nation’s anniversary into an initiative that benefited him and his allies.
“I’m a lawyer, and I know better than to pronounce that a crime has been committed,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D., Calif.), who oversaw the report as the committee’s top Democrat. “But I do know the elements of fraud, and there is evidence of all those elements here.”
The White House referred questions to Freedom 250, which denied that donors had been misled by its fundraising activities and criticized Democrats for the timing of their report.
“This so-called ‘report’ is nothing more than a partisan smear from politicians who would rather manufacture division than celebrate America’s 250th birthday alongside the rest of the country,” Freedom 250 spokesperson Danielle Alvarez said in a statement.
Alvarez also criticized America250, saying that the bipartisan organization — which Congress established in 2016 — “had nothing to show” for its 10 years of planning and spending.
“Freedom 250 was created because the American people deserved better,” Alvarez said.
America250 declined to comment on the specific allegations in Democrats’ report.
“America250 will continue to focus on the values-based programming approved by our bipartisan Commission at the local, state, national and international levels, including once-in-a-lifetime celebratory moments during the 4th of July weekend,” Rosie Rios, who chairs America250, said in a statement. “We are supportive of the many other organizations planning events for the 250th at the federal, state and local level, so all Americans have ample opportunities to join in the celebration.”
Trump has extolled Freedom 250 in public remarks, saying that the initiative has organized multiple special events. The public-private partnership, which the White House launched in December, has overseen a flurry of high-profile announcements, including some from the Oval Office.
“We’ll have a Freedom 250 Grand Prix right here in Washington around the Capitol,” the president said last week in remarks kicking off the Great American State Fair on the National Mall — another Freedom 250-backed event.
The Trump-backed initiative has overtaken some efforts led by America250, which is directed by a bipartisan board created by Congress a decade ago.
America250 originally applied for and received a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services for so-called Freedom Trucks, mobile museums inspired by the American Freedom Train that crisscrossed the country from 1975-1976. The institute is a federal agency that provides financial support for museums and libraries.
Officials have said the grant was later voluntarily transferred to Freedom 250, which is now operating Freedom Trucks that provide a sanitized version of the nation’s founding, according to administration critics.
America250 officials have said they reoriented their initiative to organize events outside Washington, while Freedom 250 focuses on events in the nation’s capital. But the dueling organizations and approaches have confused some corporate leaders and lawmakers, and tensions between the groups have grown, the Washington Post reported earlier this year.
The Democratic lawmakers’ report offers further examples of how the two groups have come into conflict.
Some donors and sponsors interested in donating to America250 were told by the Trump administration that they lacked a “green light” to do so, according to the Democrats. The report also claims that administration officials pressured donors to redirect donations from the bipartisan effort to Freedom 250, with the Trump-backed group conducting outreach to America250 sponsors with donation requests.
Some corporate executives did not understand the difference between the two organizations and were confused by this process, the report says.
Freedom 250 officials also worked to deprive America250 of money, the Democrats charge, citing new examples of Trump allies pressuring donors to reallocate funds away from the bipartisan initiative. They also allege that Trump allies worked to shift public financial support away from America250, including $75 million of congressionally allocated funds that America250 leaders were expecting to receive. The remaining funds are likely to be kept by the White House, the report says.
The reduced funding posed challenges for America250 to execute planned programming, according to the report, including grants, educational initiatives, and volunteer programs. Redirected federal funding created “significant headwinds” for this programming, the Democrats said, though the group still sought to execute all planned events through additional private fundraising.
Though America250 is still organizing anniversary celebrations in large cities across the country, its programming has been overshadowed by that of Freedom 250. The Trump-backed group helped organize last month’s UFC fight on the White House lawn, this week’s opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota, and a Trump rally and fireworks show scheduled for the evening of Independence Day.
Freedom 250 also employs many former U.S. DOGE Service officials and harvested users’ data for political purposes, according to the report.
Huffman said that if Democrats retake the House this fall — and obtain the power to issue subpoenas — they will open broader investigations into Freedom 250.
“If and when we have more tools at our disposal to do investigation and oversight, perhaps in the next Congress you will see a lot more information on this, I’m sure,” he said.
Abington School District wants feedback on design plans for a middle school set to open as early as 2029.
The new school, designed to house 2,200 students, will be built on existing district land. The current building, meanwhile, is slated for demolition, and sports fields will be rebuilt in a $285 million project that taxpayers approved in a rare, successful referendum last May.
The plan, as seen ina June presentation, includes more parking spaces, layouts for easier monitoring of classrooms and bathrooms, a class “pod” design, and flexible room sizes.
Abington has extended the deadline for a community survey on the plan to July 10, district spokesperson Allie Artur said. The district will use the feedback to further refine the design.
Abington School District shared design plans for a new middle school set to open as soon as 2029.Schraeder Group
Design for new Abington middle school
The academic areas of the school would be divided into sets of classrooms and bathrooms to give students a home base within the larger building, said Ryan Murphy, a project manager from ICS, the facility planning consulting firm leading the design effort.
Those classrooms would have windows that allow adults to look in from the hallway, but are too high to distract students sitting at desks.
The planned bathrooms would have fully private stalls, with shared sink areas equipped with cameras.
Several classrooms, along with the cafeteria and auditorium, would have partition options for changing the room sizes.
Initial renderings for Abington’s new middle school show pods of classrooms and bathrooms organized around a central cafeteria, shown in peach.Schraeder Group
New middle school adds parking, moves sports
The design adds 79 more parking spaces than the current middle school has, Murphy said. The plans also retain a track around the football field.
The new school is to be built on the current site of the tennis courts beside the district administration building.
While some athletic spaces, including the soccer fields, won’t be touched during construction, the tennis courts won’t be rebuilt until the old school is demolished during the 2029–2030 school year, according to the project timeline.
The district is working with the township on a plan to use Alverthorpe Park and other venues for tennis in the meantime, Artur said.
The new building would also give spectators access to bathrooms during games, while keeping the rest of the school blocked off.
Initial renderings for Abington’s middle school project show the planned site of the new building and athletic spaces.Schraeder Group
Abington takes feedback on school design
Murphy emphasized during the June presentation that the renderings are not the final product, as the district continues to seek feedback on the project.
A district survey last winter found that residents wanted a safe, inclusive, and cost-effective middle school filled with natural light.
The new survey on the initial building renderings asks residents for feedback on specific design elements, including safety features, the pickup and drop-off line, and parking.
Residents had to approve the extra spending for the demolition and construction project, which will eventually cost the average taxpayer about $54 per month.
The successful 2025 referendum — unusual in Pennsylvania — drew 17,579 voters and passed by a 411-vote margin.
Opponents of the project argued that $285 million is too steep, and called for a slower process to allow residents more input in the renovation and construction options.
Advocates said renovating the existing building would cost an estimated $206 million anyway, and that needed repairs alone would cost around $100 million and require debt.
A tax calculator that allows property owners to estimate how much the project will add to their bill has been viewed more than 27,000 times, according to the website.
This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer’s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org/supporters.
CATIA LA MAR, Venezuela — Rescuers pulled a 43-year-old security guard alive from a collapsed basement early Thursday, ending a grueling dayslong operation that became a symbol of hope after the devastation of twin earthquakes that struck Venezuela eight days earlier.
Hernán Alberto Gil Flores emerged to safety atop a stretcher surrounded by helmet-clad rescue workers after being trapped since June 24 under rubble in the basement of the Galerías Playa Grande shopping center in the coastal town in La Guaira.
Rescuers, who initially made contact with him over the weekend, worked for more than 100 hours to free him — navigating a highly unstable structure, torrential rain, and persistent aftershocks to tunnel down to the survivor.
Teams carrying flags from around the world cheered as rescuers carried Gil Flores, wearing an oxygen mask and covered in an orange tarp, through throngs of people to an ambulance.
One Chilean rescuer carrying his stretcher pumped his fist in joy. A group of men in red Costa Rican Red Cross uniforms embraced and laughed in relief. Others broke out into applause.
“When we found him, he asked us not to tell his wife that he was alive, just in case he wouldn’t make it,” Costa Rican Red Cross rescuer Minyar Collado told the Associated Press, but she added “We were never going to leave him here.”
The rescue was considered a small miracle cutting through a week of tragedy. By supplying Gil Flores with food and water while they excavated the concrete, rescue teams were able to keep him alive far longer than the 48- to 72-hour threshold most operations give to find survivors in disasters.
Gil Flores, who worked as a night-shift security guard at the complex, was inside his small security cabin when the first violent tremor struck. While the surrounding concrete structure collapsed around him, his cabin held ground, shielding him from crushing debris and creating a vital pocket of air.
A specialized team from the Costa Rican Red Cross first detected signs of life and established contact with him Sunday.
His wife, Gusbimar González, told the AP that she grappled with despair for days before hearing that rescuers made contact.
“When I learned he was alive, I saw a ray of light in the darkness,” she said. The couple has two children, ages 8 and 10.
The operation was coordinated by an urban search and rescue team of Chilean firefighters, who worked around the clock with specialized teams from the United States, Portugal, Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Venezuela.
Acting Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez celebrated the rescue on social media at a time that her government has come under fire for what many Venezuelans say has been an inadequate crisis response.
“We celebrate the greatness of humanity, when it is united for a single purpose: to save another. Thank you to our rescuers and to the support of the international rescuers,” she wrote on a post on X.
Teams used a telescopic camera to help maintain constant contact with Gil Flores, passing water and liquid nutrients through a narrow shaft to keep him hydrated during the final three days of the rescue.
María Paz Campos, a veteran firefighter from Chile, talked him through the entire operation and kept him calm during the final excruciating hours Thursday.
In a video published by Chilean firefighters in the hours before the rescue, Gil Flores is seen drawing, seemingly to pass the time. Campos then gently tells him to look at the camera and to wear protective goggles.
“I need you to keep the goggles on, for the small particles that are falling, to avoid them getting into your eye,” Campos told the Venezuelan survivor.
The collapse of the building was triggered by two back-to-back earthquakes on June 24 that registered magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5, respectively. The shallow, violent tremors damaged or destroyed tens of thousands of buildings across northern Venezuela, killing more than 2,200 people, injuring over 11,000 and leaving La Guaira state as the hardest-hit region in the country.
Jahylin Melchur, 21, is wanted in connection with two homicides and the shooting near the large North Philadelphia park, according to police.
He is accused of killing 45-year-old Martin Higgins in the park on June 20. Officers found Higgins on the bleachers of the baseball field around 10 p.m. that evening suffering from a gunshot wound to the torso, police said. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Less than a week later, police said, Melchur shot and killed 29-year-old Sharef Holman not far from where Higgins was killed.
Officers responded there on June 26 just before 11 p.m. and found Holman suffering from multiple gunshot wounds near the basketball courts. He was taken to Temple University Hospital, where he died a short time later.
And on May 29, investigators said, Melchur shot a 55-year-old man in Juniata Park, about two miles from the recreation center. The victim told police Melchur had attempted to rob him before shooting him in the elbow and torso.
Police are seeking the public’s help in finding Melchur, who they say is considered armed and dangerous and whose image, captured on surveillance footage at a Broad Street Line station, was circulated widely last week in an effort to locate him.
Law enforcement sources said the victims were found partially clothed, and that they were looking into whether they had met the suspect through a dating app.
Deputy Police Commissioner Frank Vanore declined to address that aspect of the investigation in a news conference last week and said police were looking into whether the incidents were related to robberies.
Who were the victims?
Sharef Holman’s loved ones said the 29-year-old lived a life of faith and compassion, and that he was the life of any party he attended.
His mother, Danielle, said her son was beloved on both sides of his large family.
“He was tall in stature, and the children in our family loved to climb him,” she said. “The reason why I start there is because Sharef had a heart for the youth.”
Sharef Holman, a 29-year-old man who was shot and killed near the Hunting Park Recreation Center in June.Danielle Holman
Holman, who was born in Philadelphia and graduated from Samuel Fels High School in Crescentville, loved playing the saxophone and dancing, his mother said. He excelled in his school’s musical theater program, and once played Ebenezer Scrooge, the lead role in A Christmas Carol.
He had most recently worked at The Belvedere nursing home in Chester, where he assisted residents with recreational programs, and he tutored schoolchildren with the Greenhouse Project, a nearby Christian nonprofit.
For a time, his mother said, Holman struggled with drug addiction, and she remembers the pride she felt when he graduated from a rehab program two years ago.
“He had been fighting addiction for some years, and this last one was the one where he was the most successful,” she said, adding that her son’s progress allowed him to get an apartment of his own.
Danielle Holman said she and her family are planning a celebration of her son’s life this weekend. As they prepare to honor and remember him, she said, they hope police will find and bring their son’s killer to justice.
The family of Martin Higgins, who was shot and killed days before Holman, declined to be interviewed as they deal with their loss.
Higgins, 45, was a graduate of Temple University’s business school and worked as an inspector for the city’s Community Life Improvement Program, according to his obituary.
He had a “kind heart, generous spirit, and unwavering support for those he loved,” the obituary said, and he “was the person who showed up when someone needed him, always making time for family and friends no matter what was going on in his own life.”
Police ask that anyone with information about Melchur contact the homicide unit at 215-686-3334 or submit an anonymous tip by calling 215-686-TIPS (8477).
In the grand casino of the atmosphere, scheduling outdoor events on July Fourth in the Philly region is almost always going to be a rolling of the bones.
And on the day Philadelphia and the rest of the nation are holding a mass 250th birthday party, the odds may be dicier than usual, with thunderstorms and accompanying lightning possible Saturday afternoon and night, forecasters say.
The National Weather Service on Thursday listed a 50-50 chance of storms Saturday night, and the federal Storm Prediction Center, in Norman, Okla., bumped up the probability of severe storms — those with winds up to 60 mph — to 15%.
July happens to be the peak month for lightning-bearing thunderstorms in Philadelphia, occurring every five days on average, and who doesn’t want to be outside on the Fourth?
As if record-challenging heat and an atmosphere that feels like syrup weren’t enough.
Lightning injuries and fatalities are rare — on average in the last decade, 20 people have been killed annually by lightning in the United States, according to the National Weather Service. But among outdoor events with large crowds across the country, Philly’s July Fourth concert would be among the riskiest for lightning, according to Stephen Strader, disaster specialist at Villanova University.
“It’s way up there, a lot higher than I thought it was,” he said.
The city is well aware of the atmosphere’s capriciousness, the potential risks in July, and the potential effects on the Parkway celebration and the World Cup match in South Philly and has developed safety protocols, said Jeffery Kolakowski, communications director for the Office of Emergency Management.
Unfortunately, for attendees and planners, predicting the when and where for thunderstorms remains elusive.
“There’s uncertainty of the when and where of the storms,” said Rich Thompson, branch chief and lead forecaster at the federal Storm Prediction Center, in Norman, Okla., the source of those severe storm and tornado watches. “It’s still one of the great frontiers of meteorology. It’s incredibly difficult.”
‘Ring of Fire’ fireworks and the weekend forecasts
Readings soared to 97 on Wednesday, and the heat index shot past 105 in Philly as the atmosphere thickened in a hurry.
And it’s about to get thicker. The heat is forecast to peak Thursday and Friday with highs surpassing 100. It could cool down all the way to 99 on Saturday, said Matt Benz, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather Inc. Unfortunately that would indicate increasing volatility in the atmosphere.
High pressure though the atmosphere, the so-called heat dome phenomenon, has put a lid on convective storms, “but that starts to come off Friday into Saturday,” he said. That could lead to “ring of fire” thunderstorms, so named because they form on heat-dome edges. They can be especially nasty.
“We’re worried that something is going to be blowing up,” he said.
The storms could come in one bunch in the early evening and yield to a peaceful night, but they also could come in waves over a period of hours.
Even without strong storms — or storms not in the immediate vicinity of the festivities — lightning strikes are possible.
“Unfortunately that could be the biggest concern that day you’ve got lighting and people outdoors,” said Benz.
The lightning threat
The chances of being struck by lightning are remote, about one in a million in a given year, according to the weather service.
But they do happen: They’re what Strader calls “low probability events” with “high consequences.” In 2019, several people were injured when lightning struck at a PGA tournament in Georgia.
In 2014, a severe thunderstorm forced thousands of concertgoers at Philadelphia’s Made in America Music Festival to evacuate the Parkway for a short time that Sunday evening.
But for the most part, Fourth of July fireworks have been confined to the manmade kind.
In his analysis, Strader looked at thousands of outdoor events attended by 10,000 or more people, what he called “large outdoor public gatherings,” to calculate which ones would expose the most people to cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, taking into account location and time of year.
He found that both the Parkway and World Cup events in Philly this year would rank among the top 6%, using his criteria. The Parkway would be particularly problematic given the lack of shelter options.
All during the events the City’s Emergency Operations Center will be operating with a “play by play” from a National Weather Service forecaster, said Kolakowski.
In the event of lightning he said, “an evacuation of the area could be issued and people would be asked to leave the event ground in a safe manner and seek shelter.”
He said weather messages would be broadcast on screens, loudspeakers, social media, and text alert.
He added that people can get free event or safety alerts by texting CUPPHL or AMERICA to 888-777.
John Adams wanted ‘pomp and parade’ to mark July 2. For the 250th, Philly tried, despite the heat.
Participants gather to create the Living Liberty Bell, gathering 250 people to form the shape of the famous bell on Independence Mall (with the backdrop of Independence Hall) adorned in red, white, and blue, at Independence Hall, July 2, 2026.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
As the mercury climbed above 100 degrees in the Philadelphia region two days before the nation’s 250th birthday, it was, it seemed, too hot for liberty as originally planned.
Thursday marked the start of the Red White & Blue To-Do — Philadelphia’s third-annual celebration of the day the Second Continental Congress voted to adopt a resolution of independence here on July 2, 1776. Though many events honoring that anniversary were planned, several highly anticipated gatherings were canceled or postponed due to the heat.
And yet, despite the oppressive temperatures on a particularly toasty July day in the cradle of the nation’s founding, the celebration started early Thursday.
At 7 a.m., some 250 revelers, clad in red, white, and blue clothing, gathered at Independence Mall to make a living Liberty Bell — a representation of a symbol that has defined Philadelphia for centuries, and a touchstone for Americans nationwide. The human formation even captured the bell’s signature crack through an outline of participants wearing blue.
Drone show still set for 10 p.m. tonight over National Constitution Center
While other events have been canceled because of the heat, the Independence Illumination Drone Show is still scheduled for 10 p.m. Thursday over the National Constitution Center and is viewable from Independence Mall.
Photos: Union Pacific’s legendary ‘Big Boy’ locomotive heading to Philly
Union Pacific’s Big Boy No. 4014 will arrive in Philadelphia on Saturday in time for Fourth of July celebrations, completing its journey from the West Coast. The legendary locomotive has drawn thousands of spectators as it has traveled across Pennsylvania.
The Big Boy is headed to Intrepid Avenue and League Island Boulevard at the Navy Yard, where the Port of Philadelphia will host a public viewing from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday and again on Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. before heading west. Admission is free.
Earlier on Thursday, over-heated train fans gathered near Reading to see Big Boy required medical attention because of the scorching temperatures.
“Preliminary estimates indicate that more than 100 patients required medical evaluation and care throughout the incident,” the Blandon Fire Department, one of the numerous responding agencies, posted on Facebook.
The official high reached 103 Thursday in Philly, tying a record perhaps fittingly set in 1901 when the nation was marking its 125th birthday, halfway to the Semiquincentennial.
The bar is a shade higher Friday when the record is 104, and Saturday’s would be 103, both set during a sizzling heat wave in 1966.
Relief-bearing showers are unlikely Friday, said Patrick O’Hara, meteorologist with the National Weather Service Office in Mount Holly, N.J.
However, the 50-50 chance remains for Saturday night, coinciding with the climax of the city’s Welcome America celebration on a World Cup game.
Severe storms are possible, the federal Storm Prediction Center says.
Sunday, the highs might not get past 90, or the low 80s on Monday.
Salute to Service, featuring Queen Latifah, has been canceled because of extreme heat
A man working the event (right) tells folks that the Wawa Welcome America’s Salute to Service featuring the United States Army Field Band and Soldiers’ Chorus on Independence Mall with superstar Queen Latifah has been cancelled because of the excessive heat on Thursday, July 2, 2026.Elizabeth Robertson / Staff Photographer
The Wawa Welcome America Salute to Service concert has been canceled because of the extreme heat, organizers announced via social media just after 5 p.m. Thursday.
The concert was to feature Queen Latifah and the United States Army Field Band & Soldiers’ Chorus performing at Independence National Historical Park. It was intended to be a “rousing performance honoring our soldiers and veterans,” according to a description of the event online.
It was set to begin at 8 p.m., but is now among a list of several other events that have been canceled or rescheduled due to the heat blanketing the Philadelphia region. Temperatures topped 100 degrees in the city Thursday afternoon, and the heat is expected to continue into Friday.
Sign announcing the cancellation of Thursday night’s Salute to Service concert featuring Queen Latifah and the U.S. Army field Band and Soldiers’ Chorus at Independence National Historical Park due to a declared heat emergency with 100-plus temperatures.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Artists perform music, poetry at historic locations across Old City
More than two dozen Philadelphia artists filled 11 historic spaces across Old City Thursday afternoon with music, poetry, and powerful vibes as part of WXPN Welcomes the Red, White & Blue To-Do Music Series.
The audience seats, however, were not all filled as crowds remained light and foot traffic across the historic district was much sparser than an average Thursday.
Legendary Philly poet and recording artist Ursula Rucker performed with Miles Orion on guitar at the Arch Street Meetinghouse for a crowd of about a dozen people. She gave moving renditions of her poems — like “Philadelphia Child” and “Fear or Freedom” — and ended her set on “L.O.V.E.”
“Love soft, love hard, just love,” she said, encouraging the small crowd to repeat one of the most powerful words in the English language with her – love.
Over at Mother Bethel AME Church, 21 members of the Mass choir accompanied by an organist and drummer performed gospel music for a crowd of about just as many spectators. The floorboards of the church’s social hall vibrated, hands clapped, and feet tapped as the choir beautifully performed songs like “Battlefield” and “Yes, God is real.”
“They just about blew the roof off!” said Dolly Marshall, who frequents the church.
Marshall, a historic preservation specialist for the city of Camden, is a “Bicentennial baby” who’s celebrating both the country’s birth and her own milestone birthday this year. She’s also a descendent of James Forten, who was a Revolutionary Philadelphia sailmaker, abolitionist, and Black patriot.
“I wanted to be a part of the festivities today. Seeing people come together, we should carry this spirit all year long. You’ve seen the evidence with FIFA and the World Cup too, people coming together from different denominations and different cultures. That’s the beauty of celebrations like these,” she said. “Of course, this coincides with other things that are going on in the country, some that aren’t so pleasant. We’re divided in many ways, so these times also shed light on the work that still needs to be done.”
Rev. Carolyn C. Cavaness, pastor of Mother Bethel AME, said she wanted to open the church’s doors for the Red, White & Blue To-Do because it sits on the oldest parcel of land continuously owned by African-Americans in the country, dating back to 1791.
“I’ve been reflecting, here we’re celebrating the birthday of America but there are people who are not invited to the party. There are people who are still left out. So how do we, in this generation, show that all men and women are created equal?” she said. “And not only in word and ideal but in deed and thought and how we legislate and how we live and embrace each other.”
Mother Bethel AME Mass choir performing as part of @wxpnfm.bsky.social Red, White & Blue music series in Philly today.
At Independence Hall, Hakeem Jeffries said it was important to speak about the history of slavery in America
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries during a news conference at the Capitol in Washington in May.J. Scott Applewhite
During his speech Thursday afternoon at Independence Hall, Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries underscored the country’s history of slavery that coexisted during the nation’s founding. He also emphasized that Americans have no king and should never obey one. He said it was important to speak to those themes to remind people of the founders’ ideals.
“The Declaration of Independence was pretty clear as a defiant document in breaking away from King George III and establishing a country where there would be representative democracy based on the consent of the government, where there are no subjects, only citizens,” he said.
The city of Philadelphia and President Donald Trump’s administration have been embroiled in a battle over language that references George Washington, who enslaved people as the country gained its independence.
Jeffries said he has not had a chance to see the updated language yet.
“But I think it’s important for us to embrace the fact that America was not born as a perfect country, but the framers and the founders of our great republic were able to set us on a path toward always marching to a more perfect union,” he said.
Only a few Republicans, including U.S. Reps. Glenn Thompson and Rob Aderholt, attended Thursday’s session. No members of Republican leadership in Congress attended.
“Speaker Johnson, I didn’t get an opportunity to talk about why he wasn’t present here today, but I’m thankful that I was here, and it’s a very special day that I will,” he said, referring to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.).
Thompson, a Republican who represents Pennsylvania, said he was proud to attend Thursday’s event: “Oh, who would not want to be a part of celebrating the actual 250th anniversary of our independence?”
Several speeches during the special Congressional session emphasized the need for Congress to remain an independent branch and exercise its authority to check power on the executive. To Thompson, the remarks seemed ”a little political,” he said, “but it is an excellent observation, whenever we don’t have a king, we can thank George Washington for that.”
Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries says “there are no kings in America” in his speech during the special Congressional session in Philadelphia. pic.twitter.com/KFi7d3WVw1
Philly performances by Jill Scott, The Roots will be featured on CBS primetime special July 4th
Fil photo of Jill Scott performing at The Met on March 16, 2023.Charles Fox / Staff Photographer
CBS will highlight performances in Philadelphia by Jill Scott and The Roots during a three-hour “primetime” televised special July 4th, the network announced Thursday.
CBS will broadcast from 8 to 11 p.m. Saturday The Great American Block Party 250 from 8 to 11 p.m. hosted from the nation’s capital by CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil and Entertainment Tonight co-host Nischelle Turner, the network said.
The special, which will be streamed on Paramount+ and CBS News 24/7, will feature musical performance from across the country, “grill sessions” with Washington chef Rock Harper, and a big fireworks show.
The performances by Jill Scott and The Roots are part of the scheduled One Philly Unity Concert for America in Philadelphia.
Jarquiza Ayers, on the staff of U.S. Rep. Watson Coleman, uses a handheld fan to cool off U.S. Rep. Dwight Evans, seated In Congress Hall at Independence Hall on Thursday before some 30-40 members of the House of Representatives gathered for a ceremonial event to mark the 250th anniversary of the day the Second Continental Congress voted for independence.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Members of the U.S. Congress lined up Thursday to enter Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the site where, 250 years ago, the Second Continental Congress gathered to declare independence from Great Britain. Rep. Glenn Thompson (R., Pa.) opened the ceremonial event, saying “the origins of our republic trace back to Pennsylvania.”
In speeches, Gov. Josh Shapiro and Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries reminded attendees of the history of the founders’ goals that America has no king, and that what would become the legislative branch is separate from the executive and acts as a check on power.
Members of both parties attended, wearing suits and waving fans — a sign of the 100-degree heat outside the Hall in Philadelphia.
Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Democrat whose district includes Independence Hall, had worked for two years to convene a special Congressional ceremonial event to mark the 250th anniversary of the vote to declare independence.
He motioned to pass into the Congressional record that reads: “The members of Congress present on this day come together in the spirit of unity and celebration … to reflect on the best of our nation’s founding ideals.”
About 30 members of Congress attended the special meeting.
Following a benediction from Rep. Robert Menendez (D., N.J.), the special session adjourned.
Extreme heat leads to canceled and postponed July 4 plans across South Jersey
Countless parades, fireworks, drone shows, and more are scheduled for this weekend to celebrate the Fourth of July and the nation’s 250th birthday across South Jersey, but extreme heat is complicating plans.
With temperatures forecast to exceed 100 degrees through Independence Day, some South Jersey towns are taking steps to keep residents out of the heat — even if it means canceling their annual holiday events.
Others that haven’t taken any major steps yet are advising residents to stay hydrated and out of the direct sunlight as much as possible over the weekend.
Essentials carted in ahead of ceremonial Congressional event
The seal of the U.S. House of Representatives waits outside Independence Hall Thursday, July 2, before some 30 to 40 members of Congress gather for a ceremonial event to mark the 250th anniversary of the day the Second Continental Congress voted for independence.Tom Gralish / Staff Photographer
Visitors to the Liberty Bell, in Philadelphia, July 2, 2026.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
For the 63rd time in records dating to 1874, the temperature reached 100 degrees on Thursday afternoon, officially in Philadelphia, and the heat index jumped to 109 at 1 p.m.
The forecast high, 103, would match a record for a July 2, set back in 1901 when the nation was marking its 125th birthday,
While summers have become warmer in Philadelphia, 100-degree readings have been relatively scarce this century.
On average, temperatures of 100 or higher have occurred every four years in Philly, but when it reached 100 last summer, that was the first time in 13 years, the longest 100-less stretch on record.
It had reached 100 in three consecutive summers ending in 2012, and five consecutive years ending in 1955.
Things may change tomorrow; it might get a little warmer.
More than 100 mayors learn about historical significance of July 2nd, 1776, at Museum of the American Revolution
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker interacts with visiting mayors on July 2.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
More than 100 mayors, some with families in tow, gathered in a small auditorium in the Museum of the American Revolution and learned about the historical significance of this day 250 years ago.
On July 2, 1776, 12 of the 13 colonies voted in favor of independence from Great Britain, explained Tom Cochran, U.S. Conference of Mayors CEO and executive director. Only New York cast a no vote until a few days later, when it got on board as well.
“We talk about the Declaration, we talk about the Constitution, it was on that day, July 2nd … that we broke,” Cochran said.
He put the work that political leaders executed on that day two and a half centuries ago in terms the modern-day U.S. mayors would understand.
The resolution the officials voted on in 1776 “didn’t have 35 whereas clauses,” Cochran explained, as are common in modern-day resolutions reviewed in local government chambers. This resolution, he explained, only had one clause.
“Resolved, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states,” Cochran said, quoting the resolution.
It was only in coming together and sharing ideas that the representatives from across the colonies accomplished an extraordinary thing. Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker urged the mayors at the symposium to do the same at this meeting.
“May today’s conversations strengthen old friendships, spark new ideas, and renew our shared commitment to public service,” Parker said. “Welcome to Philadelphia, everyone. Let’s roll up our sleeves and continue the hard work together.”
Floats, dance, and a lot of sun: Pomp & Parade winds through historic district
A member of Gente de Venezuela Philly marches through Independence Mall during the Red, White, & Blue To-Do Pomp & Parade event on Thursday, July 2, 2026, in Philadelphia.Aidan Gallo / Staff Photographer
Performers from neighborhoods across Philadelphia and nations around the world weren’t slowed down by oppressive temperatures Thursday as they marched, stepped, and danced their way down Independence Mall in the Red, White & Blue To-Do Pomp & Parade.
The extreme heat did seem to have an effect on attendance, though. Crowds were relatively light along the parade route this year, particularly in areas without shade, of which there are many along the mall.
The parade featured cultural groups like Gente de Venezuela Philly, whose members waved Venezuelan and American flags; Banda Escolar de Guayanilla, a marching band from Puerto Rico; the Indiana County Fife & Drum Corps, who brought the history in tricorn hats, and the West Powelton Steppers & Drum Squad, who brought the beat in the heat.
Participants pulled wagons featuring small floats of Independence Hall, the LOVE sculpture, and the Liberty Bell, and a historical interpreter portraying John Adams brought up the rear of the procession.
Despite its name, the parade was a living illustration that this country’s true colors aren’t just red, white, and blue — this nation is a diverse tapestry of vibrant, beautiful hues.
Pastor Funmi Obilana of RCCG Church in West Philly stopped to watch the parade with two other members of her congregation on their way to the President’s House Site. The three women were doing a walking tour of their own city Thursday, stopping at places where their ancestors were once enslaved in advance of Independence Day.
“We are here to pray for this city and this nation,” Obilana said. “Two-hundred-and-fifty years is a big number and it should be a new beginning, not only for Philadelphia, but for the nation.”
Christian Greene, 14, and fellow members of the Indiana County Fife and Drum Corps, a music group for 6th-12th grade students in Indiana County, Pennsylvania, wait for their bus back home after the parade ends in front of the YO statue on Thursday, July 2, 2026, in Philadelphia.Aidan Gallo / Staff Photographer
Lori Morgan and her three daughters traveled from Seattle to celebrate the Red, White & Blue To-Do in Philly before heading to Boston for July 4th.
“We knew we wanted to do something historic for the 250th so we thought ‘Let’s go to Philadelphia on July 2, since this is where it all happened,” she said.
The family toured Independence Hall Wednesday, and Morgan said it gave them a new perspective on the days and people that led to the founding of our nation.
“We really thought about how when they did the Declaration it was a hot summer and this weather is helping us empathize with what they went through. It was difficult for them with the heat and tempers and they had to pull it together,” Morgan said. “I just think about those men and they all had different ideas, just like we do today, but they knew they couldn’t fail and they had to come together, and they did.”
Dance4Life from Claymont, Del, in Philly’s Red, White & Blue To-Do parade today
Behind Independence Hall Thursday, where the shade was plentiful, National Park Service rangers, colonial reenactors, and independent guides led several large groups on tours and gave information talks.
Lines for both Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell snaked down the sides of their respective buildings. Directly in front of Independence Hall on the mall, FOX Sports appeared to be setting up a large broadcast booth that an employee said will be used for coverage of the July 4th World Cup game in the city.
Philadelphians also got their side hustle on around the mall, selling everything from 250th flags to homemade buttons that read “Make America humane again” and “Deport ICE.”
What state candidates for governor are doing on Independence Day
(use as desired) Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro shakes hand of Stacy Garrity, 78th State Treasurer, Forum Auditorium, Harrisburg, PA, Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025. Day of her swearing in.Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer
Treasurer Stacy Garrity, the Republican candidate for Pennsylvania governor, will be spending her July Fourth marching in the Susquehanna County parade Saturday, a spokesperson told The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Her Democratic opponent, Gov. Josh Shapiro, meanwhile, will appear from sunup to sundown at events throughout the city — as well as frequent television hits.
Shapiro has repeatedly raised concern that President Donald Trump has led the nation astray from its founders’ design and initially announced that Pennsylvania would not take part in Trump’s Great American State Fair, before Pennsylvania’s U.S. senators, Republican Dave McCormick and Democrat John Fetterman, made a push to fill the state’s empty exhibit. Garrity, in a statement, said Shapiro is the “only career politician who has politicized America 250.”
March featuring mayors from across the country heads through Historic District
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker leads bipartisan mayors from communities across the nation in a Historic March of America’s Mayors through the birthplace of American democracy, and past Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, July 2, 2026.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
In the sweltering shadeless heat of Independence Mall, more than 100 mayors from small towns and big cities across the country disembarked from coach buses donning large white sashes reading “mayor” and styling various patriotic yet professional sundresses and suits.
After a quick photo opp, the crowd of local leaders made its way down Market Street and turned at Sixth Street at the President’s House.
“Hit the music!” someone from the group joked.
Despite no accompaniment, scorching temperatures, and differing political alignments, the mayors quickly befriended one another, many bonding over a shared connection of a city or state.
“There’s so many Michigan mayors here,” one said. “It’s great to be in the city of brotherly love,” someone else from the group shouted to the spectators.
Visitors along the mall, some beating the heat with portable fans or umbrellas for shade, waved and welcomed them while one man followed them juggling.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle L. Parker led the charge from the President’s House site to Independence Hall to a collective sigh of relief when the sweat-laden group entered the Museum of the American Revolution for a symposium.
“At a time when too much in our country pulls people apart, mayors have a different responsibility starting with bringing people together,” Parker said. “We share the same mission to serve our people, solve problems and strengthen the communities we are privileged to lead. We fully believe there is no better place for that reminder than Philadelphia because this city tells America’s whole story, no matter how imperfect it may be.”
The National Weather Service sees a 50-50 chance of thunderstorms Saturday night, and some of them may become quite strong.
On Thursday, the federal Severe Storm Prediction Center, in Norman, Okla., increased the probability of severe storms — those with wind gusts up to 60 mph — to 15%.
Forecasters warned that predicting the timing, location, and ferocity of storms would be impossible two days out.
On average, thunderstorms occur every five days in July in Philadelphia, the peak month of the year.
Advocates to host Black Independence Day gathering on Independence Mall on July 4
Avenging The Ancestors Coalition, the advocacy group that pushed to create and maintain the President’s House exhibit memorializing the nine people enslaved by George Washington in his Philadelphia home, will host a Black Independence Day gathering on Independence Mall on July 4.
The event is slated to include reflections on freedom and independence, and an update on the legal battle surrounding the slavery memorial, and a call to action.
As the country celebrates the Founding Fathers’ “righteous battle” against tyranny, it’s important to also acknowledge slavery, said Michael Coard, a coalition founding member.
“You can’t truly love something unless you truly know it,” Coard said. “Until Americans acknowledge and address that bad and especially that ugly, they will never know, and therefore can never love, America.”
The group will meet at the grassy area adjacent to the memorial, which is on the corner of Sixth and Market Streets, at 1 p.m. Saturday.
Philadelphia shipwrights handbuilt a replica of the boat Washington used to cross the Delaware. It’s on display now.
The team at the Seaport Boat Shop at Independence Seaport Museum has built a full-scale replica of the Durham boat — the model of boat George Washington used to cross the Delaware with his Patriot troops on Christmas in 1776.
The boat got its name because it was used to transport iron from Durham Ironworks in Bucks County to Philadelphia. It is on display in Washington Crossing Historic Park.
Two hundred and fifty participants gather to create the Living Liberty Bell to form the shape of the famous bell on Independence Mall adorned in red, white, and blue, at Independence Hall.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
Kicking off Red, White & Blue To-Do at 7 a.m. Thursday, 250 people gathered at Liberty Mall to make a “living Liberty Bell.”
(Left to right) McKenzie Kerry, Kate Dimmett, and Reagan Earlywine, stand with other participants who gathered to create the Living Liberty Bell.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
Participants wore red, white, and blue (naturally) and included Tess Ferm, Miss America’s Teen from South Carolina, and former city representative Sheila Hess.
Participants gather to create the Living Liberty Bell.Jessica Griffin / Staff Photographer
The human formation even captured the bell’s signature crack through an outline of participants wearing blue.
A little later and just down the road, bells rang out at the Betsy Ross House and the official flags rose to signal the beginning of a day’s worth of festivities.
Thursday events include a parade, concert, and drone show
Locals and tourists alike are set to brave 100-degree-plus temperatures to attend the Red, White & Blue To-Do — Philadelphia’s third-annual celebration of the day the Second Continental Congress voted here on July 2, 1776, to adopt a resolution of independence from Great Britain — all day Thursday.
Founding Father John Adams believed July 2 would be celebrated for generations to come with “Pomp and Parade,” but July 4, when Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, got all of the glory and became the day we mark the founding of our country.
Adams’ prognostication in a letter to his wife, Abigail, didn’t come to fruition until 2024, when the Philadelphia Historic District Partners — a coalition of more than 30 institutions, museums, and attractions — heeded his call and created a packed day of festivities across Old City in advance of this year’s Semiquincentennial.
Thursday’s events begin at 7 a.m. with 250 people forming the outline of a “Living Liberty Bell” on Independence Mall and will conclude at 10 p.m. with the “Independence Illumination Drone Show” over the mall.
Highlights include the Red, White & Blue To-Do Pomp & Parade, which begins at 11 a.m. at the National Constitution Center and passes by Independence Hall, and the 8 p.m. Wawa Welcome America Salute to Service concert with Queen Latifah and the United States Army Field Band and Soldiers’ Chorus.
In between, attendees can stop in and cool off at attractions across the city that will host events, like colonial chocolate making at the Betsy Ross House and a scavenger hunt at the Independence Seaport Museum. From 2 to 5 p.m., more than two dozen Philadelphia musicians will perform at 11 locations across the city as part of WXPN Welcomes the Red, White & Blue To-Do Music Series.
Congress to mark 250th anniversary of vote for independence
Historic Interpreter, Lane Norris, as Alexander Hamilton, outside Independence Hall earlier this month.Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer
Members of Congress will gather Thursday at Independence Hall for a ceremonial event to mark the 250th anniversary of the day the Second Continental Congress voted for independence.
U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle, a Philadelphia Democrat whose district includes the historic site, had worked for years to set up a joint session of Congress — an extremely rare occurrence outside Washington, D.C., since 1800 — on the anniversary.
Thursday’s event will not be a formal joint session. But members of both parties will come together in Congress Hall, the room where the legislative branch convened before relocating to Washington.
First, they’ll proceed into the room with lawmakers from the original 13 states entering first, Boyle said in an interview with the Washington-based streaming network 535. Lawmakers will also tour the Liberty Bell and the time capsule set to be buried on July 4, Boyle said.
“It’s no secret that our politics are more polarized today than at any moment in our lifetime. The way the House has been operating in recent years completely reflects that,” Boyle told The Inquirer in a recent interview. “So for us as members of Congress from both parties to come together, put partisanship aside and focus on national unity, I think that’s something that is incredibly positive.”
Organizers are not publicly releasing details about the Congressional gathering, like timing or who’s expected to attend, citing security concerns.
Lightning injuries are rare, but an expert says the Parkway is an especially risky venue on July 4
In the grand casino of the atmosphere, scheduling outdoor events on July Fourth in the Philly region is almost always going to be a rolling of the bones.
And on the day Philadelphia and the rest of the national are holding a mass 250th birthday party, the odds may be dicier than usual, with thunderstorms and accompanying lightning possible Saturday afternoon and night, forecasters say.
July happens to be the peak month for lightning-bearing thunderstorms in Philadelphia, occurring every five days on average, and who doesn’t want to be outside on the Fourth?
As if record-challenging heat and an atmosphere that feels like syrup weren’t enough.
Lightning injuries and fatalities are rare — on average in the last decade, 20 people have been killed annually by lightning in the United States, according to the National Weather Service. But among outdoor events with large crowds across the country, Philly’s July Fourth concert would be among the riskiest for lightning, according to Stephen Strader, disaster specialist at Villanova University.
“It’s way up there, a lot higher than I thought it was,” he said.
Mayor Parker defends decision to host July 4th Parkway concert despite dangerous heat and high price tag
Mayor of Philadelphia Cherelle Parker speaks during a news conference about the July 4 concert.Jose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer
Mayor Cherelle L. Parker on Wednesday defended the city’s upcoming July Fourth concert, a seven-hour outdoor spectacle featuring performances from Christina Aguilera, Jill Scott and The Roots, amid concerns over the nearly 100-degree forecast and revelations that the event will cost taxpayers millions more than in years past.
The city has dealt with high temperatures before and has battle-tested personnel and protocols prepared for the evening, Parker told reporters at a news conference in front of the stage at the foot of the Philadelphia Museum of Art steps.
She also addressed the detractors head on.
“I do not apologize to anyone about making sure that the city of Philadelphia, as the sixth largest city in the nation, the birthplace of democracy, we were going to have a celebration that is fitting to and for our historical significance and prominence,” Parker said. “One that could be seen, respected and honored not just in our city and commonwealth and nation but in the world.”
Parker described the concert as the largest July Fourth concert in the city’s history. For an occasion as momentous as the nation’s 250th anniversary in the city that bills itself the birthplace of America, Parker said Philadelphia must rise to the occasion and prove it can achieve ambitious undertakings.
Parker said her administration scaled up the experience including moving the stage back to accommodate an estimated 300,000 concertgoers, and made the stage larger.
“We won’t get a second chance to do this over again, Philadelphia,” Parker said. “We only turn 250 years old once in a lifetime.”
Though much has changed since America’s last notable birthday in 1976, there are many echoes of the Bicentennial’s circumstances and its opportunities in 2026. In yet another time of uncertainty and pessimism, this 250th birthday, like the Bicentennial 50 years ago, offers Americans an opportunity to reconsider their connection to the past and their vision for the future.
Following one of the most fractious decades in American history, the years approaching the Bicentennial were marked by upheaval. In 1973, the OAPEC oil embargo created a gas crisis that contributed to a global recession and inflation as high as 12%. American lost confidence in their leaders, especially after Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency in August 1974, following two years of fallout over the Watergate scandal. The rights revolution of the previous decade brought issues such as race, gender, and sexuality into mainstream media. Countless laws and social norms changed, sparking backlash among conservatives.
These circumstances caused many Americans to wonder what was worth celebrating in 1976. Many marginalized groups questioned whether they should celebrate the Bicentennial at all. A broad array of social and civil rights movements seized on the Bicentennial as an opportunity to challenge the triumphal narrative familiar to so many Americans. Their efforts brought into stark relief the paradoxical relationship between the rhetoric surrounding the nation’s founding and its history of oppression. And the conversations that emerged around confronting this more complicated history shaped the Bicentennial’s commemoration and its longer-term impact.
The circumstances surrounding America’s 250th anniversary are strikingly similar. Political scandals have threatened to engulf the current administration, as the nation has again found itself mired in an unpopular foreign war and a gas crisis, with prices nearly doubling in the last year. Years of inflation have led to a cost-of-living crisis for many Americans. And the last twenty-five years have produced an even greater distrust of institutions such as the government, the media, and the church. A recent Pew Research Center poll shows that nearly 60% of Americans think the nation’s best years are behind us. As during the Bicentennial in 1976, many Americans are again wondering what about the nation’s past and present is worth celebrating.
Challenging circumstances, however, are not unique to the last two anniversaries. In 1876, Americans commemorated the Centennial in the wake of an economic panic in 1873, increased immigration, the end of Reconstruction and the rise of Jim Crow, and a constitutional crisis brought about that year by one of the most fiercely contested presidential elections in the nation’s history. In such circumstances, the 1876 commemorations looked toward the future. They were marked by a growing sense of the United States being poised as an industrial power to take its place on the world stage, and by the efforts of African Americans and suffragists to realize a future of equal citizenship and rights.
In contrast, there was much less enthusiasm during America’s 150th in 1926. With the economy booming, many Americans of the roaring 20s did not need the anniversary. In other words, anniversaries of the Revolution have mattered most during the nation’s most trying times. When the American experiment seems closest to failure, we have used our anniversaries to engage in conversations about the meaning of the past and the future we want to create.
Federal funding also impacts how these anniversaries are celebrated, and in that regard, the Bicentennial and the 250th could not be more different. In the 1970s, the American Revolution Bicentennial Administration gave countless grants to small groups, institutions, and projects across the country. Those grants helped fund local programs, the preservation of local historical sites, and the creation of new sites and museums. In the years leading up to 250, however, there has been a rapid change in the federal funding landscape for historical sites and projects.
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Significant cuts to the National Endowment for the Humanities and other agencies have meant fewer grants and resources to support similar local and historical projects like in the years leading up to 1976. As a result, institutions, historical sites, and museums—large and small—have had to take it upon themselves to both produce and fund meaningful programming for the public. From larger institutions like the Museum of the American Revolution to countless institutions in small towns and counties across the country, Americans have been forced to take responsibility for commemorating 250 for themselves and their fellow citizens. But following the model of 1976, they are working to foster conversations about the complexity of the past alongside visions of the future. And as with the Bicentennial, the greatest opportunities for reconnecting with the nation will come from the work done at the local level.
Ultimately, the 250th is not just a historical anniversary; it is a civic opportunity. And that opportunity is not limited to July 4, 2026. Revolutionary anniversaries will continue on the national and local levels for more than a decade, eventually culminating with the bicentennials of the Constitution in 2037 and the Bill of Rights in 2039. And like the bicentennials for those events, these 250th commemorations will provide a platform for Americans to reconsider what the revolution and its ideals mean to them in the present moment. The work done by independent and local institutions and organizations across the country will again give Americans the tools and the impetus to engage with the past in meaningful ways. When we seize those opportunities, we become part of the nation’s long tradition of using our anniversaries of the Revolution to imagine a new and better future.
The “Road to 250” series is an initiative of Historians for 2026, a group of early American academics, public historians, archivists, and educators devoted to shaping an accurate, inclusive, and just public memory of the American Founding for the 250th anniversary.
Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of The Inquirer.
VERBANIA, Italy — The Vatican on Thursday excommunicated all formal followers of a breakaway conservative faction of the Roman Catholic Church, a day after its leaders defied a personal plea from Pope Leo XIV and consecrated four new bishops without his permission.
The Vatican announced in a decree that the group, the Society of St. Pius X, was in schism with the Church. In an explanatory note about the decree, it also said the society was barred from officiating marriages and hearing confessions, and it warned the society’s followers to stop attending its Masses and participating in its events.
The Vatican’s note added that all formal followers of the society “are to be considered schismatics and excommunicated” after its leaders consecrated the bishops in a ceremony in Switzerland on Wednesday “against the will of the Holy Father and in open violation of canon law.”
The society did not immediately comment on the excommunication.
The schism is the biggest internal crisis of Leo’s young papacy, and a blow to his stated efforts to bridge divisions between Catholics who want to modernize the church, including by ordaining female priests, and conservatives, like followers of the Society of St. Pius X, who hold fast to tradition.
The Vatican’s decision heightened a decades-long standoff between the Church’s leadership and the society, which is widely known by the acronym SSPX.
The society was founded in 1970 by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in protest against the Church’s efforts to modernize after the Second Vatican Council, held in the 1960s, including by allowing priests to hold services in vernacular languages instead of only in Latin. The society also objects to the council’s efforts to soothe tensions between Catholicism and other Christian faiths, and to take part in interreligious dialogue. And it insists on the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church even as it accuses the modern leaders of heresy.
Those tensions peaked in 1988, when the society first consecrated four bishops without the permission of Pope John Paul II, who swiftly excommunicated them and Lefebvre.
Relations thawed somewhat in 2009, under Pope Benedict XVI, who lifted the excommunications of the surviving bishops in a gesture of outreach to all Catholics still attached to celebrating the traditional Latin Mass. But one bishop had provoked outrage by denying the Holocaust.
That rapprochement ended on Wednesday, after the society defied Leo by proceeding with a consecration ceremony that the group said had brought some 17,000 worshipers to Écône, a small village in Switzerland where the society installed its first seminary in 1970.
The Vatican’s sanctions on Thursday were even harsher than those imposed in 1988 under John Paul II, when the Vatican only excommunicated its five senior prelates.
This time, the excommunication applies to all of the society’s priests and formal followers. The Vatican added that the sacraments administered by the society’s priests, including confession and matrimony, were invalid, reversing concessions that Pope Francis had made to the society in recent years.
The Vatican’s decree left open the possibility of reconciliation for those who renounced the society, saying that “the Church, as a caring mother, will welcome with sincere affection and lively solicitude all those who wish to return to full communion.”
The Rev. Ian Andrew Palko, an SSPX priest in Texas, said he did not expect the excommunication to lead to many defections. “There may be some who are uncomfortable with” excommunication, he said. But, he added, if the faithful “were worried, it would have already pushed them away.”
And the Rev. Paul Robinson, the society’s prior in Denver, said he expected communication with Rome would continue, as it did after the 1988 excommunications. “There were plenty of conversations that took place” even after the fact, he said. “So I think there will still be contact with Rome.”
JERUSALEM — It was the deadliest reported strike in the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. Most of the victims were children.
In almost any other conflict, these haunting truths would be seared into national memory. Yet more than 120 days since at least one U.S. missile struck an Iranian primary school, there remains no final accounting of what happened.
The Trump administration has yet to directly accept the blame or formally release findings of a Pentagon investigation into the bombing, even though the military possessed evidence almost immediately that the site of the school had been struck, a U.S. official with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss an ongoing investigation, told the Associated Press.
The AP has reconstructed the story of the attack, beginning in the schoolyard on the morning of Feb. 28, drawing from open-source information, video footage, human rights reports, and interviews with researchers and civilians inside and outside Iran to reveal previously unreported details about the bombing in Minab, including the diversity of children killed.
Still, many details about the blast remain elusive, as a lack of information from the Pentagon and politicization of the attack by Iran’s theocracy have complicated independent reporting efforts. That has created an accountability vacuum, leaving the families of the victims without resolution. Among the mysteries remaining are the number of munitions that hit the school and a complete list of the dead.
When asked last week about the incident, President Donald Trump said he hadn’t read the Pentagon’s report and had seen nothing to make him believe the U.S. had carried out the attack.
“I don’t know that they’re ever going to solve that problem in terms of whose fault was it, because there were missiles flying all over the place,” he said. “I don’t think it was us.”
Iran’s mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment from the AP.
Video evidence, interviews and other sources yield a fuller picture
The reconstruction draws from interviews with U.S. officials, Iranian human rights workers, a resident of Minab, an international representative of the Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Union, and researchers from major international rights groups.
Several people who spoke to the AP were in direct contact with the families of victims and rescuers who rushed to the scene. Most requested anonymity for fear of retribution against them and those with whom they spoke.
Parents called to pick up their kids, then bomb fell
Skies over the city of Minab, located in southeastern Iran about 16 miles from the Strait of Hormuz, were clear and bright on the morning of Saturday, Feb. 28, a school day in Iran. It was Ramadan.
Students of the Shajareh Tayyebeh school, Farsi for “Good Tree,” jostled past the colorful murals lining the schoolyard and into the building. Boys and girls filtered into separate spaces with brightly painted desks.
The school they entered was one of over 30 with the same name established to serve children from families closely tied to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard or other state institutions, said Shiva Amelirad, the international union representative who also worked as a teacher in Iran for 18 years and has been in contact with people in Minab.
Though most schools in Iran operate within guidelines proscribed by the Islamic Republic, the Shejareh Tayyebeh schools were more explicitly oriented toward reproducing and reinforcing the Guard’s worldview, she said, adding that children are civilians regardless of their family backgrounds, and “any attack targeting a school is unequivocally condemnable.”
The school lay within the same walled compound as a Guard base, according to an AP assessment of satellite imagery and open-source mapping. It was once part of that neighboring base, before it was fenced off and converted over a decade ago.
Though some of its pupils were the children of Guard officers working on the nearby base, others were local children from Minab, which is populated predominantly by people of the majority-Sunni Baluch ethnic minority who often face repression from the Iranian government, said the Balochistan Human Rights Documentation Network.
Hundreds of students are believed to have been inside the building by the time teachers and administrators received the news that bombs had begun falling on Tehran around 9:40 a.m.
Teachers and administrators thought it prudent to send the children home. They called parents on landline phones, summoning them for an early pickup, two people told the AP. A recently released report by Airwars, a London-based independent group that tracks recent conflicts, also found that parents were called to pick up their children.
At 10:15 a.m., Iran’s state media sent out an advisory, closing schools across the country.
One father, who lived a short distance away, went immediately to pick up his 10-year-old son, said a resident of Minab, who relayed the stories of several families to the AP. The AP verified details of the residents’ stories against available lists of the dead and rights groups’ chronologies of the day’s events.
The father noticed his 6- and 7-year-old relatives among the students waiting for their parents, said the resident. He asked them if they’d like a ride home and they said no, that their own father was on the way.
He left with his child and headed to the supermarket. Ten minutes later, he heard the explosions.
Multiple munitions pummeled the compound, striking at least five buildings, according to an AP analysis of satellite imagery. Hundreds of pounds of explosives collapsed the school.
A tiny arm, suspended in the rubble
The father raced back to a scene of chaos, where onlookers gathered, screaming, as men pawed through smoking rubble to dig out bodies, according to video of the aftermath circulated by Iranian state media.
Eventually, the father made out two burned figures he believes were those of his relatives, but he couldn’t be sure.
People kept coming. One man from a nearby Sunni village arrived to search for his nephew after receiving a panicked call from the boy’s mother. In the rubble, he found her dead son.
Rescuers found small backpacks and children’s drawings, colored pencils and worksheets. Gently suspended, a tiny arm lay in the wreckage.
Men carried disfigured limbs and torsos to the local hospital, said the Balochistan Human Rights Documentation Network, whose staff spoke with two families of those killed. The AP has not been able to verify how many munitions specifically hit the school, but the attack had left flesh so mutilated that many body parts were unrecognizable.
By the end of the day, doctors at the hospital estimated they had at least 108 bodies, but cautioned that it was likely an undercount, said the resident of Minab.
By the next day, state media was saying around 150 had been killed. Soon, it was reporting a death toll of 168.
“They called the kids martyrs”
Three days after the bombing, state TV showed thousands of Iranians packing a Minab roundabout, where the crowds faced a podium and a large portrait of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the late founder of the Islamic Republic.
The gathering might have been mistaken for a demonstration, if it were not a funeral. All the parents of victims, regardless of ethnicity or religion, had to participate, said the Minab resident. Most women in the crowd wore the black chador garment customary to the Islamic Republic, even though it’s not typically worn by Baluch people at funerals.
Parents were told they’d be permitted to take their children’s bodies back to their villages and conduct their own observances, said the resident. In the end, though, many decided to bury their children together.
In footage captured by drone cameras and circulated by state media, workers broke ground on an earthen lot, creating a grid of tiny, identical, unmarked graves.
“The state media advocated a narrative based on IRGC interest,” said Amelirad. “You can tell because they called the kids martyrs.”
The story grows harder to tell
Strikes continued to ravage Iran, targeting more sites in the opening days than the start of recent U.S. or Israeli military campaigns, including in Gaza, an Airwars analysis found.
Racing to document the ongoing bombardment, journalists and rights groups struggled to verify details from Minab. They had no access to the target site. Government restrictions in Iran prevented most foreign journalists from entering the country. The opening day of the war, Iran shut down the internet, making it nearly impossible to hear from ordinary civilians.
As the war progressed and the Strait of Hormuz became a major battlefield, the situation in the province grew more tense, said the resident. All branches of the military were deployed heavily in the area. Families of the victims feared retribution for speaking out. People were reportedly being detained for trying to communicate with foreign media.
That left Iran’s government in control of the messaging around the strike.
Iran’s soccer team wore golden “#168” pins on their jackets upon their arrival at the FIFA World Cup.
The Iranian team negotiating for a pause to the war with the U.S. named itself “Minab 168.”
The children were depicted as animated Lego figures in viral videos made by pro-Iran groups trolling the U.S.
“In the aftermath of the attack, Iranian authorities … exploited the suffering of victims’ families and surviving children for propaganda purposes,” wrote Amnesty International in a March report investigating the deaths.
Through it all, there remained no public list of the names of the dead.
The Pentagon finds clues in archive
Locked out of Iran, researchers focused on the question of responsibility.
Iran blamed the U.S. Trump cast doubt on American culpability and pointed the finger at Iran. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said only that the Pentagon was investigating.
Internally, the U.S. military knew more than it initially let on. The clues were buried in their archives.
When the news first surfaced, the U.S. military knew they had conducted strikes in the vicinity — though it took the military time to verify the Iranian claims that a school was struck and begin a formal investigation, said a U.S. official with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing inquiry.
It appears that while the building housing the school was identified as such by one analyst as early as seven years ago, that discovery was not sufficiently made known across different intelligence and military staffs and agencies, the U.S. official said.
Ultimately, the building was not known among target developers as a school, revealing potential systematic shortfalls in the target analysis and review process, they said.
One former Pentagon official, similarly speaking on condition of anonymity, said the bombing came as a natural result of changes made by the Trump administration to reduce staff to mitigate civilian harm and Hegseth’s emphasis on lethality.
When Hegseth took charge, he slashed the size of an office called the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, created at the direction of Congress in late 2022. That stopped the office’s work on updating “no-strike lists,” which are lists of protected sites such as hospitals, schools, churches, and mosques, that the Pentagon keeps, said Wes Bryant, who began working at the office in 2024 as the branch chief of Civil Harm Assessments.
When he was working at the Pentagon, it was well known that the list was out-of-date, he said.
The search for more answers from Minab
In the last weeks, researchers have made some progress. Airwars, the conflict research group, spent months combing through open-source information to verify the identity of victims. The group determined the names and identities of 157 of the dead, including 123 children, all 13 or younger, and 34 adults. Among the adults are 26 school staff members (one of whom was pregnant) and five parents — each of whom lost at least one child.
The group puts the death toll between 157 and 168 and says between 95 and 111 people were injured.
It’s unclear when the formal results of the military’s Minab investigation will be published. Much of the investigative work has been completed, but the U.S. military’s Central Command, which commissioned the investigation, is currently reviewing the findings.
Hegseth said last week the report would be divulged “when the appropriate time is right.”
Findings from similar past investigations have been more timely. When a Hellfire missile killed 10 civilians in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Aug. 29, 2021, the Defense Department claimed responsibility and gave details on its operations in less than a month.
Some members of Congress still push for transparency.
In a recent interview, Sen. Mike Rounds, a Republican from South Dakota and a member of the Armed Services and Intelligence committees, said Congress has not gotten enough information on the bombing and expected a full report.
NEW YORK — A couple known for scaling tall buildings climbed to the top of the needle of the Empire State Building on Wednesday and unfurled a large black banner that flapped in the breeze, about 1,450 feet above the city.
The couple, Angela Nikolau, 33, and Ivan Beerkus, 32, were taken into custody after the stunt, according to a law enforcement official. Nikolau, according to a police document, was charged with burglary — defined in New York state as unlawfully entering a building with the intent to commit a crime. It was not immediately clear whether Beerkus was also charged.
Late Wednesday morning, Nikolau posted a video on her Instagram account that showed a vertiginous view from a narrow platform and that was captioned “Currently at the Empire State Building.”
The message on the banner read: “When the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace.”
As they stood atop the skyscraper, Beerkus proposed to Nikolau, the law enforcement official said. A photo Nikolau posted to Instagram shows Beerkus getting down on one knee.
The law enforcement official gave Nikolau’s first name as Angelina and Beerkus’ surname as Kuznetsov, which appears to be his birth surname.
The couple were the subjects of a 2024 documentary, “Skywalkers: A Love Story,” about their romance and quest for thrills and fame. In 2022, they climbed Merdeka 118 in Malaysia, which is more than 2,000 feet tall.
The Empire State Building’s needle, which houses communications equipment and a very tall antenna, rises about 200 feet above the top floor of the building.
Climbers with a banner atop the spire of the Empire State Building in Manhattan, on Wednesday, July 1, 2026. After making the ascent, the man proposed to the woman on a tiny platform, 1,450 feet above the city. (Dave Sanders/The New York Times)DAVE SANDERS
It is a surface that is not frequently scaled. In 1994, the French climber Alain Robert did so, according to the Guinness World Records website.
New York City’s skyscrapers and monuments, however, have long been magnets for climbers.
Their attempts have ranged from the modest to the truly harrowing.
In 1918, Harry Gardiner, nicknamed “the Human Fly,” climbed the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Memorial Arch at Grand Army Plaza in Brooklyn; it is all of 80 feet high.
Philippe Petit walked a tightrope between the towers of the World Trade Center in 1974.
In 2008, after three people — one of whom was Robert — climbed the New York Times Building in a matter of weeks, the Times removed some of the horizontal rods that climbers had used to scale it.
In 2014, a teenager from New Jersey climbed to the spire of the Freedom Tower, which was built on the site of the twin towers.
Jason Barr, an economics professor at Rutgers University who has studied skyscrapers, said that the initial plans for the Empire State Building did not include a spire or antenna, but after the construction of the Chrysler Building, with its distinctive crown, the building was redesigned to include a mooring mast that would stretch into the sky.
“These spires are designed partly for aesthetic reasons but also partly for advertising reasons, like, ‘Look at the top of my building’,” Barr said.
In recent years, artists and exhibitionists have called their unsecured and usually illegal ascents “rooftopping,” documenting the climbs on social media. Aside from structures in New York and Malaysia, Nikolau and Beerkus, have ascended buildings and constructions sites in China and Europe, sometimes with legal repercussions.
But there have been sanctioned climbs of skyscrapers, too. In 2023, actor Jared Leto scaled 18 floors of the Empire State Building, from the 86th floor to the 104th floor, with permission, to promote a world tour for his band Thirty Seconds to Mars.
He performed one of the band’s songs from the 104th floor, an unofficial landing off limits to the public.
