Independence

London, United Kingdom — On his fourth day as prime minister, Andy Burnham did not stay at Downing Street in London. Nor did he go to Manchester, the home of Number 10 North. He went to Glasgow.

Hours before King Charles and Queen Camilla opened the 2026 Commonwealth Games, Burnham held his first in-person meetings with Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney and Wales’ First Minister Rhun ap Iorwerth. The talks were meant to demonstrate, in Burnham’s own words, that growth is needed “in every postcode across the whole of the UK”. A meeting with Northern Ireland’s First and Deputy First Ministers, Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly, is pencilled in for a wider UK tour in August.

Notably absent from the agenda, at Burnham’s insistence, was any discussion of a second Scottish independence referendum.

Just days after being appointed prime minister, Burnham is testing a proposition that will define his premiership. He’s selling a vision that the office itself can be partly relocated out of London to Manchester, the city he governed as mayor from 2017 until his return to UK Parliament in the Makerfield by-election last month.

What Number 10 North actually is

Stripped of rhetoric, Number 10 North is a written ministerial statement. On July 21, Baroness Smith of Basildon, Leader of the House of Lords and Lord Privy Seal, confirmed on the government’s behalf that devolution and local growth policy functions are moving out of the housing ministry and the Treasury and into a new Manchester-based operation. There, civil servants will work inside a restructured Office for the Prime Minister and the Cabinet, led by Cabinet Secretary Dame Antonia Romeo.

The interim headquarters is Heron House, in the New Islington area of Manchester, chosen partly for its proximity to a planned Manchester Digital Campus.

Caroline Simpson, the outgoing chief executive of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority, has been named Burnham’s deputy chief of staff, and will be in charge of day-to-day office operations. Downing Street says Burnham himself expects to work from Manchester “at least one day a week”, though officials caution his diary may change, and insists the arrangement carries no additional cost to taxpayers.

Burnham calls it “the nerve centre of a rewired Britain” and rejects suggestions it is symbolic. “Not a gimmick,” he told his first Cabinet meeting about Number 10 North.

Plumbing, but no water

Number 10 North “establishes the plumbing, but the water isn’t flowing yet”, said Mirte Boot of the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) North. The institutional architecture is firming up, but fiscal devolution – ie, the transfer of money and tax-raising power – that would make such a policy meaningful doesn’t yet exist, she added.

Still, she calls it “a step in the right direction” after what she describes as “too much power condensed into one postcode”. Leaving Westminster isn’t enough; Number 10 North will need “strong political leadership aside from the prime minister”, she added.

The verdict that Number 10 North contains vision and ambition but currently lacks a detailed plan and delivery mechanism is a recurring response from independent voices.

Jonathan Carr-West of the Local Government Information Unit calls Burnham’s devolution agenda “the most ambitious statement … from a senior politician in a generation”, while warning that English councils are so financially hollowed out that the vision “requires a vehicle” it does not yet have.

Malcolm Morgan, a transport researcher at the University of Leeds, puts it more bluntly: genuine devolution means spending, taxation and regulatory power, not just relocated functions, and “devolution does not create more funding”.

That funding question sits unresolved alongside the national one. The 2026 English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act expanded mayors’ control over transport, planning and housing, but left fiscal devolution to a separate Treasury “roadmap” due alongside the autumn budget. According to Centre for Cities, a UK urban policy think tank, the UK remains the most fiscally centralised country in the G7: some 95 percent of tax revenue flows straight to Whitehall.

Devolution, or recentralisation?

For Scotland’s SNP government, the Number 10 North framing is beside the point. First Minister Swinney responded that “rhetoric alone will not cut it” and argued that four consecutive Holyrood elections have handed his party a mandate for Scottish self-determination, something Westminster keeps ignoring, he said. In Glasgow, Burnham declined to engage with that argument directly.

Meanwhile, Wales’ Ap Iorwerth struck a more cooperative note but still said he expected “that Number 10 North would not become Whitehall with a different postcode”.

He also used the meeting with Burnham to press for a new Wales Bill granting policing and justice powers, and a replacement for the Barnett Formula funding mechanism, which Westminster uses to calculate annual changes to the block grants allocated to the UK’s devolved governments, so Wales would have funding parity with Scotland.

Reform UK’s Nigel Farage, from the opposite political direction, warned that a Number 10 in the south and one in the north would simply “fight against each other”.

What it means in Manchester

In Bury, Greater Manchester, Scottish-born Debe Conway sells children’s books at markets and has lived in the area for 56 years, but remains unconvinced about the new prime minister.

Her biggest concern is immigration, which she called Burnham weak on. And as for Number 10 North, she wants to know how it’s being paid for, and asks how long it will last, considering that the UK has had seven prime ministers in the last 10 years.

Rich Carver, who has run pizza restaurants in Manchester for 15 years and is currently “soaking up the energy in the city”, says he cares more about what will happen in the next 10 years.

He’s also tired of the succession of governments and wants this one to last. He likes Burnham and is optimistic enough about the city’s trajectory that he is opening a new restaurant in the coming weeks, something he would not have done five years ago.

“We are all one country,” he says, hoping the rest of the UK (and the media) give the new prime minister time and the chance to implement his vision. Whether that time produces growth, or just relocated offices, is the question Number 10 North still has to answer.

WASHINGTON — The Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday for Todd Blanche, President Trump’s pick for attorney general, will be a referendum on far more than his individual merits.

Blanche, the acting attorney general, served as Trump’s defense attorney before taking office and has been closely linked to many of the most consequential — and controversial — issues that have dominated the first two years of Trump’s second term.

Blanche is set to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will decide whether to approve his nomination and send it to the full Senate for a confirmation vote. The committee hearing will continue Thursday.

“I would expect committee Democrats to treat Mr. Blanche’s hearing as an opportunity to conduct oversight of the Department of Justice,” said Phil Brest, president of the American Constitution Society, a progressive legal nonprofit and a former top Democratic staffer on the committee. “It’s a test of the Senate’s willingness to probe the department’s operations and to actually serve as a check on the department and the administration more broadly.”

Democrats on the committee are expected to push Blanche on a host of topics, including the $1.8-billion “anti-weaponization fund” that critics derided as a slush fund for the president’s allies, the Justice Department’s rollout of the so-called Epstein files, and the department’s prosecution of several perceived enemies of Trump, notably former FBI Director James Comey.

“While deploying the Justice Department as a shield for the president and his cronies, Blanche has also used our top law-enforcement agency as a sword against Trump’s political opponents,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the ranking Democrat on the committee last month. “The independence of DOJ has been decimated under Blanche’s authority.”

Blanche was confirmed by the Senate as deputy attorney general in March, 2025, and was elevated to his current role after Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi was fired in April.

More critical to the success of Blanche’s nomination will be whether he can win the support of two lame-duck Republican senators, Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Cornyn of Texas, who expressed some reservations about Blanche soon after his nomination was announced.

Cornyn raised concern about Blanche’s independence from Trump, while Tillis said Blanche’s stance on protesters who violently stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, would be critical to his consideration.

Some of those Jan. 6 protesters were expected to be the beneficiaries of the $1.8-billion fund announced as part of a settlement to a lawsuit Trump and his sons and business brought against the IRS.

In a scathing ruling this week, the federal judge wrote that the lawsuit was improper and recommended sanctions against two Justice Department attorneys who worked on the case, though not Blanche himself.

Cornyn told Semafor on Tuesday that the ruling raised a number of issues, including “the potentially collusive nature of the lawsuit.”

He has said previously that he will hold off on making a decision about whether to approve Blanche until after the hearing.

Tillis, meanwhile, told CNN’s Manu Raju on Tuesday that the weaponization fund would need to be completely off the table for him to support Blanche’s nomination.

Trump touted Blanche’s record ahead of the hearing.

“Todd Blanche is doing a PHENOMENAL job as Acting Attorney General of the United States,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “He is a great lawyer, always very fair, and every Republican Senator should vote to CONFIRM Todd Blanche, ASAP!”

Sen. Lindsey Graham’s death means that Republicans currently only enjoy a one-seat majority, but a replacement for Graham on the committee could be in place before it votes on whether to move his nomination to the Senate floor, which will likely come two weeks after the hearing.

Blanche, 51, spent 12 years working for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, working largely on drug and violent crime cases, and rose to the level of co-chief of the district’s White Plains division.

He left the office in 2014 for private practice and joined the prominent law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft in 2017 as a partner. He left the firm in 2023 and went independent after other partners expressed concern when he took Trump on as a client.

Blanche went on to represent Trump in several criminal matters, including the New York case about hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, and cases brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith about Trump’s alleged efforts to block the transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election and his alleged retention of classified documents.

He listed all three as among the 10 most significant cases of his career in the questionnaire he completed ahead of the hearing, along with his work at the Justice Department on a lawsuit challenging the construction of a new White House ballroom.

A group of more than 1,200 former Justice Department attorneys wrote a letter opposing Blanche’s nomination, asserting that his leadership has resulted in mass departures of career staff. That has “meant that much of the department’s vital work isn’t being done, or isn’t being done as well – leaving communities less safe, Americans’ rights less protected, and our national security more vulnerable,” the lawyers wrote.

Former Justice Department pardon attorney Liz Oyer is scheduled to testify as a witness for Democrats on Thursday. She has said she was fired for refusing to recommend the restoration of actor Mel Gibson’s gun rights.

Oyer will be joined Thursday by Dani Bensky, one of many victims of the deceased sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein who has criticized Blanche’s handling of the release of the so-called Epstein files — millions of pages of records detailing the Justice Department’s investigations into Epstein’s crimes.

Numerous victims have said that their names and other sensitive information were not properly redacted in the files and criticized Blanche and the department for failing to investigate Epstein’s potential co-conspirators.

Blanche has also come under criticism from survivors of Epstein’s abuse for the interview he conducted in July, 2025, with Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year prison sentence for her role in facilitating and participating in Epstein’s abuse.

Days after their interview, Maxwell was moved from her prison in Florida to a minimum-security prison in Texas.

On Friday, a group of retired judges stepped off a tour bus in a ritzy Michigan suburb after three days of barnstorming through corn fields, cities and coal towns in Ohio and Pennsylvania. They carried with them a message.

In courthouses and public squares, they marked the nation’s 250th anniversary with a dire warning: The rule of law in America is in grave danger. They delivered a similar message at a library in Grosse Pointe just outside Detroit — the last stop on an extraordinary tour to defend judicial independence and bolster trust in courts.

Americans’ confidence in the court system and democracy has dipped in recent years. The country is more polarized, and President Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the fairness of the judicial system.

Some judges on the tour said in phone interviews this week that the United States was at a precipice.

“Looking back in history, we have teetered,” former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Michael Donnelly said. “This is a moment where we can decide to reinstill those beliefs that we are a country of laws and not of men.”

Judges step off the bench

The four-day tour through the Rust Belt is a sharp departure for a typically reserved and insular branch of government. Federal judges in particular largely limit their comments to the courtroom and written decisions, focusing on the facts of individual cases.

But that restraint is loosening amid a barrage of attacks by Trump and other White House officials, the administration’s rampant defiance of U.S. district court orders and its expansive view of executive power. Trump has called a district judge who ruled against one of his immigration moves “crooked” and suggested with no evidence that Supreme Court justices who struck down his tariffs were motivated by foreign interests.

More federal judges have recently begun talking about receiving death threats and profane messages, though they have not blamed Trump or any other officials. Some have blasted administration policies in sharply worded opinions that strayed beyond the legal dispute before them. Even U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has weighed in.

In an appearance in March, Roberts said personal criticism of federal judges was dangerous and had to stop. The rare rebuke from the head of the nation’s top court came two days after Trump’s remark about a “crooked” judge, though Roberts didn’t mention Trump or anyone else by name.

The U.S. Marshals Service reported 564 threats against federal judges in the government fiscal year that ended in September, up from 509 the year before.

“I don’t want to say we have moved into an era of lawlessness, but it sometimes feels that way,” said former U.S. District Court Judge Victoria Roberts, who joined the bus tour in Michigan.

Timothy Lewis, another former federal judge on the tour, said his concerns about the politicization of the judicial branch reached a tipping point a decade ago, when Senate Republicans thwarted President Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court. Today, the rule of law is facing an “existential threat” from an ongoing breakdown of norms, according to Lewis, who spent seven years on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

“I have fundamental concerns,” he said, “about where we are headed as a nation.”

Their route has been varied

The tour started Tuesday in the western Pennsylvania town of Greensburg — once the hub of a thriving coal industry that now lures visitors from nearby Pittsburgh for highland recreation and a historic downtown.

Judges mingled with customers at a coffee shop before speaking at the domed, ornate Westmoreland County Courthouse. Then it was off to Washington, also in western Pennsylvania. The town of 13,000 people, where about 15% of the population is Black, was a key stop on the Underground Railroad and a regional base for the civil rights movement.

From there, the bus headed west for events Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio, and the city of Wooster in Amish country. The judges stopped at a Cracker Barrel restaurant on the way. They spent Thursday in Cleveland before circling Lake Erie north to Michigan.

The two groups that planned the tour — dubbed “Justice in Motion” — say they were inspired by a similar campaign in Poland in 2021 after that country’s governing party took control of key judicial institutions.

Independent Polish judges visited scores of towns to promote the rule of law and teach voters about the country’s constitution. The U.S. tour also aims to educate people.

An effort to combat misinformation about what they do

Maureen O’Connor, a former chief justice of the Ohio Supreme Court, said judges risk ceding the narrative about their roles and motives to “voices of misinformation” if they don’t speak up.

A letter she received years ago, and still keeps, reminds her of that danger. The writer accused O’Connor, a Republican, of betraying her party when she repeatedly struck down Republican-drawn legislative maps as illegal gerrymanders. “There was just a basic misunderstanding of what my role was as a judge,” O’Connor said.

O’Connor is among roughly 30 judges, including two former federal judges and two current federal judges, who participated in the tour. One of the federal judges was nominated by a Democrat, the other three by Republicans. The state judges, some of whom are also still on the bench, represented both parties.

They were joined by former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, former Ohio attorneys general and a few lawyers. The event was put together by the Democracy Rising Collaborative and Keep Our Republic, nonpartisan advocacy groups.

Organizers say they chose stops that would get the judges in front of as many people as possible to build connections and trust. The judges embraced that mission.

“The lifeblood of the judiciary is public confidence,” Donnelly, the former Ohio Supreme Court justice, said. “If you lose that, it’s very difficult to get it back.”

Thanawala writes for the Associated Press.

South Sudan became the world’s newest country in July 2011 after nearly 99 percent of voters chose independence from Sudan.

Fifteen years later, most of the major promises that came with independence remain unfulfilled.

South Sudan remains one of the world’s most fragile states.

Oil finances nearly 90 percent of the government’s revenue, but the country remains wracked by deep inequality and violence: 82 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, and political jostling between rival groups has left the young nation in a perpetual state of conflict.

Elections have never been held since independence, millions remain displaced, and the country’s economy depends on pipelines running through Sudan, the very nation it fought to leave.

‘A failed promise’

Jok Madut Jok, 57, a professor and director of graduate studies at Syracuse University, is from Warrap, South Sudan, and still has family in both rural and urban parts of the country.

Jok says he recalls the joy of the time when South Sudan broke away to establish a new beginning. It was a moment of hope. Today, though, he feels as though he has been denied all that was promised at the time.

“South Sudan at the moment is a failed promise,” he says. “South Sudanese who had lived under brutal regimes in Sudan and had been excluded from money and development programmes, and were victims of security operations in the southern part, had hung their hopes on independence.”

Jok says people are now looking towards possibilities of political transitions to hold their government accountable.

Who controls what in South Sudan?

The country is technically governed by a transitional unity government created under the 2018 peace agreement.

But that peace remains fragile.

Violence continues across Jonglei, Upper Nile, Unity and Equatoria states with clashes involving government forces, opposition fighters and other armed groups.

Elections scheduled several times since independence have again been delayed, with the latest vote planned for late 2026.

Main political and armed groups:

Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)

The ruling party which led the independence movement.

Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO)

Led by Riek Machar, it is part of the unity government. It still maintains armed forces in parts of the country.

South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF)

The national army, formerly known as the SPLA, it is loyal to President Salva Kiir.

White Army

A loose network of armed youth, mainly from the Nuer ethnic group.

National Salvation Front (NAS)

It remains active, mainly in Equatoria province. The NAS never fully joined the peace agreement.

Who runs the government?

Salva Kiir – President since independence.

• Leader of the governing SPLM.
• Supported largely by influential sections of the Dinka, South Sudan’s largest ethnic community.

Riek Machar – Vice President.

• Leader of SPLM-IO.
• Historically backed by many Nuer supporters.
• His rivalry with Kiir triggered the 2013 civil war after political tensions exploded inside the ruling party.

Independence delivered, violence continued

Between 2011 and  2026, according to data compiled by the United States-headquartered Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED), there were 13,256 attacks in South Sudan, which means 883 attacks per year on average – or more than two a day.

The majority of the attacks have been led by:

• Various communal and clan-based armed groups. These constituted 6,168, or just over 46 percent, of all attacks.
• The armed forces and police, who were responsible for 3,278 attacks.
• Unidentified armed groups, behind 2,276 attacks.
• Sudan’s People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition, responsible for 900 attacks.
• National Salvation Front, behind 269 attacksForeign actors, behind 154 attacks.
• Others, responsible for the remaining 184 attacks.

Jan Pospisil, 52, a researcher at the Austria-based Peace and Conflict Evidence Platform, recently conducted a survey of more than 22,000 respondents in South Sudan.

Of them, 98 percent said they were proud of being South Sudanese. At the same time, more than 52 percent of respondents said in 2023 that they didn’t feel safe speaking up politically, and in 2025, the results were approximately the same.

Hunger persists after 15 years of violence

Hunger is worsening across South Sudan, where an estimated 7.8 million people are facing crisis levels of food insecurity between April and July 2026, about 280,000 more than projected last year, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification.

Of those, about 73,000 people are living in catastrophic conditions, facing starvation, extreme food shortages and a heightened risk of death.

Another 2.5 million are in emergency conditions, while 5.3 million more are struggling to meet daily food needs without exhausting what little they have left.

The nutrition crisis is worsening alongside this.

An estimated 2.2 million children under five now require treatment for acute malnutrition, an increase of about 90,000 cases since the previous assessment.

Another 1.2 million pregnant and breastfeeding women also need urgent nutritional support.

The crisis is being fuelled by conflict, displacement and repeated shocks that have destroyed livelihoods, disrupted markets and cut communities off from aid.

“My family is living in rural areas, some in the cities but have no access to quality healthcare, no clean drinking water, no road infrastructure,” Jok says. “Even if they were to farm and raise cattle, and create their own livelihoods, they usually are cut off from markets and from basic services that are the responsibility of the state, especially a state that extracts public resources from underneath the people.”

“It’s a feeling that people are totally excluded from the gains of independence,” he added. “It verges on criminal neglect.”

Economic inequality

Pospisil says despite the riches of the 150,000 barrels of oil that are extracted, sold and mainly exported every day, broader economic gains are not a reality for most of the public.

In most rankings, South Sudan languishes as the poorest nation in the world.

South Sudan mainly exports crude to China, but also has Chinese and Indian companies invested alongside state-held organisations that own blocks in the oil fields.

Venezuela has marked its 215th Independence Day as citizens continue to grapple with grief following a pair of deadly earthquakes on June 24.

On Sunday, interim President Delcy Rodriguez sought to project strength during a military service in honour of the annual holiday.

“There will be no social unrest here,” Rodriguez said. “What we have here is deep social solidarity.”

But Rodriguez’s government has faced backlash since the twin earthquakes struck, hitting Venezuela with magnitudes of 7.2 and 7.5, respectively.

On Sunday, Venezuela’s Ministry of Communication and Information announced that it had recorded 3,342 deaths as a result of the earthquakes, with more expected. Thousands of people remain missing.

In addition, some 16,470 people are injured, while 17,345 have been left without homes.

The powerful seismic activity levelled buildings along Venezuela’s northern coastline, damaging regions like La Guaira and the Caracas metropolitan area.

Critics have accused the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, which has led the country since 2007, of chronic mismanagement and corruption.

That, they say, has left Venezuela incapable of handling a crisis of the current scale. The June 24 earthquakes are the deadliest in a century for the country, and they represent the most catastrophic natural disaster Venezuela has weathered since the flash floods of 1999.

After the earthquakes, residents reported that government aid was slow to reach the most affected areas. Some accused the government of impeding the flow of foreign assistance.

In Sunday’s remarks, Rodriguez accused critics of seeking to stir “hatred” against the state.

“Attempts are being made today to attack Venezuelan institutions,” Rodriguez said. “There can be no room for any kind of conspiracy, internal or external, from whatever source it may come.”

The earthquakes are the first major disaster the Rodriguez government has had to contend with.

Rodriguez was sworn in as acting president in January, after serving as vice president under then-President Nicolas Maduro.

But on January 3, the United States launched a military operation to abduct and imprison Maduro on drug- and weapons-related charges. He is currently facing trial in New York.

Since taking power, Rodriguez has sought to work within the demands of US President Donald Trump. Her government has overseen reforms, for example, to its nationalised mining and fuel industries allowing more foreign investment.

The Trump administration, meanwhile, has stood by Rodriguez, even amid the outpouring of criticism following the earthquakes.

Media reports have emerged that the US has repeatedly rejected requests from Venezuela’s main opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, to help her return to the country.

Machado had been living in hiding under Maduro for fear she would be arrested for her politics. In December, shortly before Maduro’s abduction, she secretly left Venezuela to collect a Nobel Peace Prize for promoting democracy.

But Machado has yet to return, though she has said she wants to be in the country to help with disaster relief efforts.

Her political coalition, Vente Venezuela, has been organising its own volunteer effort to collect donations and distribute supplies.

In a message to mark Venezuela’s Independence Day, Machado sought to draw a parallel between the US and her country.

“Yesterday, the people of the United States celebrated the 250th anniversary of their Declaration of Independence. Mere hours separate these commemorations, reflecting far more than a coincidence of history,” she wrote.

“They remind us that our nations are bound by the same republican ideals and by a shared commitment to the defense of the free world.”

In January, Machado presented Trump with her Nobel Peace Prize medal, in what was widely seen as an attempt to curry favour with the US president.

She has repeatedly pushed for new elections in Venezuela, claiming that her party has had a mandate to lead since the 2024 presidential race.

That election saw Maduro claim a third term as president, despite published vote tallies indicating he lost the race to the opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalez, an ally of Machado.

“We have built an unshakable democratic legitimacy, we have defeated the regime’s lies with the truth, and we have peacefully mobilized an entire nation that today is outraged and desperate for change,” Machado wrote in her Independence Day message.

“Enduring alliances are built on truth and trust. Now is the time to move forward with determination and to carry out, with unwavering resolve, the decisive chapter of our shared strategy.”

SEATTLE — James Wilson, one of just six men who signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, never could have imagined how grand the country he was founding would become. But he knew how it could get there.

Wilson envisioned a steady stream of foreigners coming to America every year, reinvigorating the energy and vitality the nation needed if it were to survive, much less thrive. Which is why Wilson, who moved to the colonies from Scotland at 22, argued against barriers on immigration that would “deprive the government of the talents, virtue and abilities of such foreigners as might chose to remove to this country.”

What Wilson had in mind, then, is something such as the U.S. national soccer team, which gathered to train Saturday morning, on the country’s 250th birthday.

Six of the 26 players on the team, which will face Belgium in a World Cup elimination game Monday, are foreign-born. Five others were born to immigrant parents and two others have immigrant grandparents or great-grandparents. Nearly half have dual nationality.

U.S. coach Mauricio Pochettino jumps into the arms of his players after their World Cup win over Paraguay at SoFi Stadium on June 12.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

Yet they all play with the U.S. flag stitched over their hearts. What could be more American than that?

“It is special,” U.S. captain Tim Ream said of having the team together on Independence Day. “Obviously, doubly special because it’s during a World Cup and triple special because it’s here in the U.S. “As a group, with all our different backgrounds, it’s a true representation of what America is. It’s a melting pot of, of people, of personalities, of characters.”

And it’s led by a country-music-listening Argentine coach, Mauricio Pochettino, who first learned to throw a baseball last week so he could perform first-pitch duties at a Seattle Mariners’ game. (He threw a strike.)

“That sort of stuff can only happen in America,” said striker Folarin Balogun, who grew up in England with Nigerian parents but plays for the U.S. because he was born in Brooklyn, qualifying for birthright citizenship through the 14th Amendment to the constitution Wilson helped write.

It would be hard for the U.S. soccer team to more closely resemble the architects who founded the country, nor the vision those architects had for their creation.

Eight the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence and eight of the 55 framers of the Constitution were immigrants. That’s about the same percentage of immigrants on this summer’s World Cup roster. Another 20 of the Founding Fathers were the sons of immigrants; again, the same percentage as the national team.

“That is the U.S. experience of taking different people from all over the world, the immigrant experience, and mixing it into something that the world has never seen,” said Adam Sawyer, a co-founder of Relevant Research, a Baltimore firm which provides support to immigration researchers and organizations.

“One in seven Americans was foreign-born. Our soccer team is like one in four. I always think of soccer [as] leading society and it’s pulling us with it,” continued Sawyer, who recently published an analysis of the role global migration has played on World Cup success. “Our sporting teams push us forward towards further integration.”

The signers of the Declaration of Independence never foresaw a World Cup, much less an American World Cup team. But they did see immigration as such a fundamental strength, they used America’s founding document to condemn King George III for endeavoring “to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners.”

Without that naturalization, Christian Pulisic might not be playing for the U.S.; in fact, he might not even be in the U.S. His paternal grandfather Mate immigrated from the former Yugoslavia in search of opportunity and was later naturalized as a U.S. citizen. The paternal ancestors of goalkeeper Matt Turner became naturalized citizens after fleeing to the U.S. to escape religious persecution in Lithuania and midfielder Cristian Roldan’s parents escaped civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala, then gained permanent residency through President Reagan’s amnesty program.

“This soccer team is reflecting America at its best,” said Faisal Al-Juburi, co-chief executive of RAICES, a Texas-based humanitarian aid and immigration services nonprofit. “Its global roots, its shared purpose, its one jersey.”

Soccer in the U.S. has long been an immigrant sport. In the years after World War II, when soccer was still an amateur and semi-pro game, the best teams in the country had names such as the Philadelphia Ukrainian Nationals, New York German-Hungarian SC and the Los Angeles Danes. Joe Gaetjens, one of the country’s first stars and the man who scored the goal that beat England in the 1950 World Cup, was a Haitian immigrant.

In recent years, however, the national team has begun recruiting dual-nationals from overseas, among them World Cup midfielder Malik Tillman, who was born to a U.S. serviceman in Germany, and Antonee Robinson, who was born in England to a naturalized U.S. citizen father, and Sergiño Dest, a Dutch native whose father is Surinamese American.

“It is definitely a team that embraces their diverse backgrounds, and that’s quite meaningful, especially now,” said Al-Juburi, the son of Iraqi immigrants. “This notion that we are stronger with impenetrable walls that divide us is definitely not reflected in this team. It credits a lot of its success to its immigrant roots.

“And I think that’s incredibly powerful to see that and to see a nation cheering and getting behind that diversity. It is a reminder that we are stronger from that coexistence.”

But Al-Juburi doesn’t see the result as a melting pot, which burns away the unique flavors and characteristics of each ingredient. For him, it’s more a gumbo in which every ingredient changes and improves the mix.

U.S. players huddle seconds before playing Bosnia-Herzegovina during a World Cup knockout round match at Levi’s Stadium on Wednesday.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

“You’re looking at lineage from Nigeria, from Guatemala, from El Salvador, from Mexico, from Liberia, Jamaica, Croatia,” he said. “All these disparate ingredients work together so beautifully and in such a balanced way.”

And when that team succeeds, as the U.S. has this summer, it not only underscores the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, but it offers a lesson for today as well.

“This team contains a different picture of inclusion really mattering, just by being exactly who they are,” said Jules Boykoff, a political science professor at the University of Portland (Ore.) and a former U.S. youth international. “They don’t have to say anything. They just have to be who they are and do their best on the pitch.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s plans to commemorate America’s 250th anniversary of independence with a rally on the National Mall were complicated on Saturday by severe storms that gathered near Washington, forcing event organizers to order an evacuation.

“Freedom 250 will share updates on programming and doors reopening,” Freedom 250 spokesperson Danielle Alvarez said in a statement that encouraged participants to seek shelter at museums and federal buildings near the National Mall. Washington’s metro system also said several of its underground stations were available for shelter.

Plans for fireworks were still moving forward in other cities including Chicago and New York, where tall ships passed the Statue of Liberty earlier in the day, recalling the fanfare around America’s 200th anniversary in 1976.

Anticipation for the milestone holiday has been building for much of the year, serving as an opportunity for Americans to reflect on their complicated history as onetime colonists of an empire who became a superpower of their own. Organizers of celebrations months in the making had to adjust or cancel activities entirely as much of the East Coast sweltered under heat that approached and in many cases surpassed triple digits.

Heat is defining the big weekend in many places

The disruption was particularly acute in Washington, where signs at the Great American State Fair posted an alert shortly after 7 p.m. ET encouraging participants to leave the area. As the order to evacuate was played over loudspeakers on the National Mall, some people appeared to be standing in place, talking with those around them and not exiting the area, while others were walking toward exits. National Guard troops told people to leave.

The U.S. Secret Service announced it had temporarily closed checkpoints to screen attendees ahead of Trump’s speech, which was scheduled to begin around 10 p.m. ET.

Crowds were building in the area several hours before Trump’s speech. Tina Hale, 58, of Cohoes, New York, watched three of her grandchildren children dip their hands into a pool of water near a museum. Hale pointed toward the sky and urged them to look up as three military jets roared above the crowd.

“If that doesn’t make you proud to be an American,” she said.

David Koshko, 42, and his wife, Jennifer Koskho, of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, came to Washington for a baseball game but planned to stay for the city’s fireworks show. After baking in the heat for hours during the Pittsburgh Pirates’ win over the Washington Nationals, they took a break in the shade of an overpass near the National Mall to plot their next stop.

“Just to be a part of the 250 years (anniversary) is an amazing thing,” said David Koshko, a commercial driver and veteran of the Marine Corps reserves.

In Philadelphia, fireworks began to crack as early as midday in the birthplace of the nation near the site where the Declaration of Independence was adopted by delegates to the Second Continental Congress. Hundreds of visitors were gathering at Independence Hall in the sweltering heat to await the celebrations coinciding with the France-Paraguay World Cup knockout game at Philadelphia Stadium, which began with commemorations of the holiday.

“It’s one big party in here,” Carlos Alban, who traveled to Philadelphia from Chicago to watch the match, said as he arrived at the stadium, adding that he spotted a fan in the parking lot dressed as one of the Founding Fathers.

About 45 minutes before another World Cup match in Houston, a message from astronauts aboard the International Space Station noting the holiday was beamed into the stadium.

In New York, tall ships, with their masts, rigging and white sails outlined against a blue sky, made a procession around the Statue of Liberty and up the Hudson River.

The 43 ships were followed by a display of aerial might with a stealth bomber and the Navy’s Blue Angels. Patrouille de France, the French Air Force’s acrobatic teams, flew over New York Harbor with their red, white and blue trails, evoking images of the American flag.

“We got up early and just rode our bikes about a mile down here to come see the scene,” said Oona Moore, a Jersey City, New Jersey, resident who took in the New York festivities. “We saw the tall ships and we saw the planes, you know, all different manner of military aircraft. I’ve never seen it so close and in the sky at the same time.”

At George Washington’s Mount Vernon, people took the Oath of Allegiance to become U.S. citizens. They stood with eyes closed and hands over hearts for the national anthem.

An uneasy nation gets ready to celebrate

Trump spoke Saturday with world leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who both congratulated the U.S. as they engage in a war. The president has also heard from Britain’s King Charles III and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in recent days.

Inside the U.S., The celebrations are unfolding against the backdrop of a deep divide this election year that has been expanding for years, visible in everything from political expression to cultural norms to age-old questions over race, class and immigration.

At Mount Rushmore on Friday, Trump spoke of communism as a “mortal threat to American liberty” with the Republican president saying it was more dangerous than either World War or 9/11.

Without naming Trump, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Democrat who is also a democratic socialist and recently backed several successful congressional candidates in their primaries, appeared to reference Trump during a speech Friday.

“Those ideals upon which our nation was built — they are strong enough to endure any authoritarian regime, but only if we reach for them,” he said.

Vice President JD Vance said small but loud voices would speak on America’s birthday about its imperfections instead of its greatness.

“They will tell you that America is just another country, where the weak struggle against the strong,” Vance said speaking aboard the USS Kearsarge in New York Harbor.

Sloan writes for the Associated Press. Associated Press writers Emily Wang in New York, Luis Andres Henao in Philadelphia, Kristie Rieken in Houston, Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Va., Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, S.C., Safiyah Riddle in Los Angeles and Jesse Bedayn, Anna Johnson, Will Weissert and Michael Kunzelman contributed to this report.

July 4 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1776, the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming U.S. independence from Britain.

In 1826, in one of history’s notable coincidences, former U.S. Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died, 50 years to the day after the Declaration of Independence was adopted.

In 1863, Union troops defeated Confederate forces in a battle at Vicksburg, Miss.

In 1895, the poem “America the Beautiful,” by Wellesley College Professor Katherine Lee Bates, was published. The poem with music by Samuel A. Ward was published as a song in 1910.

In 1910, American boxer Jack Johnson took on former undefeated heavyweight champion James J. Jeffries, beating him in 15 rounds, to stake his claim as the as the greatest heavyweight in the world.

File Photo by Library of Congress/UPI

In 1939, Lou Gehrig gave his “luckiest man on the face of the Earth” speech in announcing his retirement from the New York Yankees. Gehrig had been diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a debilitating motor neuron disease. United Press writer Jack Cuddy wasn’t impressed with the Yankees’ “Lou Gehrig Appreciation Day,” saying doctors made up his ailment to explain his unexpected retirement.

In 1976, Israeli commandos raided the airport at Entebbe, Uganda, rescuing 103 hostages held by Arab militants.

In 1986, more than 250 sailing ships and the United States’ biggest fireworks display honored the Statue of Liberty in its 100th birthday year.

In 1995, the British Parliament reconfirmed John Majors as prime minister.

In 1997, NASA’s Pathfinder reached Mars to become the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the planet in more than two decades. Pathfinder returned more than 16,000 images and some 8.5 million measurements back to Earth before its final transmission on September, 27, 1997.

File Photo courtesy of NASA

In 2006, North Korea test-launched seven ballistic missiles in what it called “routine military exercises,” causing a firestorm of anger among its neighbors and the United States.

In 2010, U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus took command of the Afghan war, acknowledging the “tough fight” ahead for NATO forces while pledging “We are in this to win.”

In 2013, the Statue of Liberty reopened to the public nine months after it was closed because of damage caused by Hurricane Sandy.

In 2018, Hong Kong’s high court ruled unanimously that same-sex couples are entitled to spousal visas like married heterosexual couples.

In 2022, seven people died and dozens others were injured in a mass shooting during an Independence Day parade in Highland Park, Ill., near Chicago. Far-right activist Robert Crimo III, then 22, was charged with murder for the shooting.

A participant of the March Fourth rally to ban assault weapons holds a sign for Eduardo Uvaldo, a victim of the Highland Park shooting, outside the Senate office buildings at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on July 13, 2022. File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI

July 3 (UPI) — A rare copy of the Declaration of Independence printed in 1776 has been found in London, making it the only known example of the so-called Exeter printing to exist outside the United States, the British National Archives announced Friday.

The document is one of only 11 known copies of the Declaration of Independence to be printed in Exeter, N.H., in the days after it was formally adopted July 4, 1776. It was printed between July 16 and 19, 1776, with the purpose of spreading the news of independence across the colonies.

Graham Moore, the curator of the National Archives’ Revolution 250 exhibit, said the document is so rare because it wasn’t printed to be preserved but to be distributed quickly and widely.

The document in question was seized among papers aboard the American ship Dalton by Britain’s navy on Christmas Eve in 1776, the National Archives said in a release.

The British navy’s HMS Raisonable pursued the Dalton for 7 hours off the coast of Portugal before it was captured and taken to Britain.

“Listed at the time simply as ‘another paper,’ it has now been identified as a contemporary printing of the Declaration,” the release said.

Workers at the National Archives made the discovery in May while working on cataloging documents from the American Revolution to mark the 250th anniversary.

“What makes this discovery even more exceptional is that, as the only known copy taken by military action, we know much more about it — thanks to the bureaucratic processes of war,” Moore said.

“Evidence taken from captured ships was preserved as part of Admiralty court proceedings, and we hold those records at The National Archives. So we can present an unusually rich backstory that most surviving declarations do not have.”

A US pilot has been killed in Indonesia’s Papua region after separatist rebels said they shot him and set his aircraft on fire. The attack highlights the decades-long independence struggle, which has displaced more than 122,000 people since 2022.

A century and a half ago, Richard Wagner was running out of cash as he was preparing to stage his four momentous nights of opera known as the “Ring Cycle” when he got a message from the Women’s Centennial Executive Committee in Philadelphia. It offered him a princely $5,000 (around $150,000 today) to write a triumphant 12-minute orchestral score to open the Centennial Exposition in Fairmont Park celebrating the 100^th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

On May 10, 1876, Theodore Thomas, perhaps America’s most famous conductor at the time (he would go on to head the New York Philharmonic and help found the Chicago Symphony), led the premiere of Wagner’s “Grosse Festmarsch” with a 150-member orchestra, its brass and percussion so impressive that the addition of cannon fire Wagner suggested was not needed. The crowd was said to number well over 100,000. President Ulysses S. Grant attended and invited Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil to join him along with members of Congress and Supreme Court justices for what remains a unique Declaration of Independence spectacle and debacle.

The “Centennial March,” as it came to be known, turned out to be dreck. Even Wagner, who carelessly tossed it off in a couple of weeks, said the best thing about the score was the fee, which he had demanded to be paid in gold. But what sounds like something AI might come up with if asked to write a pompous march in the style of Wagner began the American obsession with celebrating the Declaration of Independence, the words and deeds of our presidents, our very democracy with the assist of the symphony orchestra and opera.

One hundred years later, the country was awash with federal, state, city and philanthropic funding for a music-happy bicentennial of exceptional ambition. “With millions available in hand and more money to come,” Time Magazine wrote in 1975, “the Bicentennial is the biggest bonanza for the American composer since Hollywood discovered the musical.”

And so it was. The centerpiece was the National Endowment for the Arts Bicentennial Orchestra Commissioning Project. That funded America’s six top orchestras to each commission a major work that all six would play. In addition, the NEA offered further support to 34 American orchestras for dozens more new scores.

Everyone got into the act. The New York State Council of the Arts alone sponsored 68 commissions. Orchestras everywhere came up with striking projects. The Pittsburgh Symphony, for instance, premiered L.A. composer John LaMontaine’s opera/oratorio “Be Glad Then America” that featured the folk singer Odetta as the Muse of Liberty and enlisted ROTC students to reenact the Battle of Lexington overhead the orchestra.

The National Symphony commissioned symphonies from Roy Harris and William Schuman as well as Alan Hovhaness’ “Ode to Freedom,” a lovely short violin concerto written for Yehudi Menuhin. The list goes on.

We are obviously not seeing or hearing much like that in a semiquincentennial year when our government’s green gets the most attention for promoting algae. Even so, the NEA does indeed have an “America250” project (though it does little to publicize it, let alone fund it on the scale of 50 years ago) that is promoting more than 50 artworks. In music, they range from the Montgomery Symphony’s premiere in February of Nkeiru Okoye’s oratorio “A Time for Jubilee,” commemorating the 60^th anniversary of the 1965 Selma-to-Montgomery civil rights marches, to a New West Symphony premiere last weekend of Michael Christie’s “A Ronald Reagan Portrait” at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

The major East Coast orchestras are paying some attention. The New York Philharmonic premiered David Lang’s luminous “the wealth of nations.” The National Symphony got the most attention in its attempt to commission Philip Glass’ “Lincoln” Symphony, which the composer pulled in opposition to an un-Lincoln-like presidential takeover of the Kennedy Center. Glass then gave the rights to the Boston Symphony for a July 5 first performance.

The National Symphony did pull off the premiere of Peter Boyer’s “American Mosaic,” and it was to the Altadena composer that Philadelphia, this time around, entrusted its Declaration of Independence commemoration. Boyer’s multimedia oratorio, “A Hundred Years On,” was given its premiere by the Philadelphia Orchestra last month at the orchestra’s outdoor summer home, the Mann Center.

Upcoming will be a few repeat performances. Next month, “the wealth of nations” lands at the Aspen Festival, as does the “Lincoln” Symphony at the Cabrillo festival (with an L.A. Phil performance next season). “American Mosaic,” of which the Pacific Symphony was a co-commissioner, had its West Coast premiere in Costa Mesa last month and was scheduled to be performed at the Hollywood Bowl by the National Symphony in August, but that has now been replaced by Dvorak’s commonplace “New World Symphony.”

None of this comes close to comparing with the attempted civic zest of 1976. The NEA made it a matter of admirable policy that commissioned new works get multiple performances. Yet despite several of these being substantial works by some of our most noted and venturesome composers, few bicentennial commissions have survived. Even odder is that many of the composers did not necessarily feel compelled to explore nationalist themes. For them, American liberty implied freedom to simply write the kind of music they cared about.

The six works for the six orchestras were David del Tredici’s irresistibly over-the-top “Final Alice” (Chicago Symphony), Elliott Carter’s arrestingly impenetrable-on-first-hearing “Symphony for Three Orchestras” (New York Philharmonic), John Cage’s irrepressibly come-what-may “Renga” (Boston Symphony), Morton Subotnick’s brilliant electronic-landscaped “Before the Butterfly” (Los Angeles Philharmonic), Leslie Bassett’s introspective “Echoes From an Invisible World” and Jacob Druckman’s abstract-modernist “Chiaroscuro” (Cleveland Orchestra).

No orchestra has brought back its commission over the last half century, and only Chicago and New York recorded their commissions. No recording at all exists of L.A.’s, although Subotnick’s inventive uses of electronic music with a standard symphony orchestra went on to have considerable influence. None of these works, it appears, are likely to be heard anywhere in America this year, with one sort-of exception.

An explanation for that may be that, while 1976 was a fraught time for America — the country was recovering from the Vietnam War, we had a president and vice president who were not elected, there was runaway inflation, etc. — the music of the time represented optimism. Many works around the country explored new electronic music technology. It was the year Glass wrote “Einstein on the Beach” and Steve Reich created “Music for 18 Musicians” — the composers’ first masterpieces — demonstrating that Minimalism mattered.

That sense of liberation is clearly behind Del Tredici’s “Final Alice,” an hourlong romp around the ending of “Alice in Wonderland” for superhuman soprano and orchestra. It is so obsessively and addictively wild that its tamest moments sound like Richard Strauss on LSD. It does have a cult following although performances are few and far between.

Cage’s score is an abstract work based on the Japanese form of collective poetry known as renga, in which each poet attempts to write a line that is as distant as possible in meaning from the preceding line. Cage translates that to an independence of instrumental parts. While “Renga” can be performed alone Cage further suggests it be played along with an actual bicentennial work he wrote separately, “Apartment House 1776.” That is what Boston and the other orchestras did.

Indeed, “Apartment House” got the lion’s share of bicentennial attention and ridicule. When Zubin Mehta conducted it at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the L.A. Philharmonic did not take it seriously and many walked out on it.

The work features four vocal soloists who represent Native American, Sephardic, African American and Protestant religious traditions, along with instrumental music based on early American hymn tunes. Everything is cut up and put together through chance operations into what Cage called a Musicircus. Under the circumstances “Renga” was hardly noticed, although two decades later, “Renga” came into its own when Michael Tilson Thomas famously conducted it with the San Francisco Symphony and the surviving members of the Grateful Dead.

Still the idea that “Apartment House” need not stand alone, that our traditions and those of long-ago Japan belong together, represented for Cage a future for America. We need not act like a superpower, he noted, but merely be one nation, no more and no less, among many.

We are obviously not that nation. A half-century later, “Apartment House” tends to exist mainly in its own right. An excellent London new music ensemble calls itself Apartment House. Detroit Opera recently staged it with a 2026 need to give the singers the opportunity to select their own music rather than reflect on our heritage. If American music in 1976 represented a collective, inquisitive, inventive American spirit of discovery, the semiquincentennial in the age of social media has become more about the individual identity.

As a sign of how we think about ourselves, the Los Angeles Philharmonic begins its Hollywood Bowl season five days after the 4^th with a program of American music conducted by Thomas Wilkins that opens with Valery Coleman’s “Fanfare for Uncommon Times,” which was written five years ago.

But for now, the work that stands out is Lang’s “the wealth of nations.” It balances harsh thoughts of how the promise of capitalism has failed society and how racism remains with music of stunning beauty and glory, to gently but forcefully show us, in our age of American dissatisfaction, the direction in which we might go to make us proud again. It needs many performances.

WASHINGTON — Federal agencies long regarded as pillars of nonpartisan stability are facing an identity crisis after the Supreme Court this week swept away nearly a century of precedent limiting presidential power.

The high court’s decision in Trump vs. Slaughter, allowing the president to remove members of historically independent agencies without cause, has sent shock waves through institutions that once believed their legal protections were secure. And it has raised concerns about the future credibility of agencies that serve crucial public functions, from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which protects investors, to the National Labor Relations Board, which safeguards the rights of private-sector workers.

Some experts question the ruling’s practical impact, noting that existing laws still require political balance on many agency boards. Presidents already wield significant influence over agency leadership. Still, most agree the decision could inject overt partisan politics into agencies that have traditionally resisted it, eroding public trust in their rules and judgment, chilling enforcement and kicking off a cycle of regulatory whiplash.

Already, President Trump has removed members of several independent regulatory bodies and appointed new leadership — including Brendan Carr as chair of the Federal Communications Commission — stoking fear among critics that these agencies are being used to advance the administration’s political priorities.

The ruling, Trump said, is the “greatest increase in presidential power in the last 100 years,” praising the decision as a necessary expansion of his authority.

Now, “the president can fire the principal officers heading these agencies at will,” said Gillian Metzger, a professor of administrative and constitutional law at Columbia University. “That will allow for dramatic swings in policy when administrations of different parties come into office, and seek to undo decisions and policies of prior administrations.”

The Slaughter decision overturned a 1935 ruling from the Supreme Court that found independent agencies — established and mandated by Congress, but housed under the executive — should have special removal protections, reflecting their hybrid roles between branches of government.

That ruling, Humphrey’s Executor vs. United States, found that Congress intended for members of independent bodies to be guarded against the winds of politics, providing long-term stability, professional consistency and nonpartisan expertise.

“Presidents will be more able to direct these agencies to implement particular policies and actions, and the independent decision-making and expertise-based decision-making that Congress intended these agencies to wield will be significantly undermined,” Metzger added. “That, it seems fair to say, is a real blow to the credibility of these entities as independent and expert regulators.”

In a separate opinion this week, the Supreme Court singled out the Federal Reserve as an exception to its otherwise sweeping rollback of protections for independent agencies.

But it leaves bodies like the SEC — created after the 1929 stock market crash to prevent market manipulation, enforce corporate transparency and maintain fair markets — vulnerable to accusations of political capture.

“The SEC has some Fed-like characteristics as a guardian of market confidence and financial stability, but it will not receive Fed-like protections under the two decisions released yesterday,” said George Georgiev, a law professor at the University of Miami and chair of the Investor Advisory Committee to the SEC.

“The practical consequences will depend on how aggressively future administrations use the removal power, and who is appointed to the Commission in the first place,” Georgiev added. “Yesterday’s decisions certainly upend how we think about independent agencies.”

John C. Coffee Jr., a leading authority on securities law at Columbia, said the decision will lead to “a loss of credibility for the SEC.”

“The lobbyists will redouble their attacks, and money will dominate good arguments in their approach,” Coffee said. “It is likely to become a much more politicized agency that has less interest in hiring independent professionals.”

“In such an environment, policy principles get ignored or shabbily distinguished, and marching orders come from the Executive Office Building,” he added.

Kristin Hickman, a distinguished professor and associate director of the Corporate Institute at University of Minnesota Law School, characterized public reaction to the ruling as “overblown.”

“Frankly, I don’t know if their function is going to be all that different,” Hickman said. “Statutorily, they still have to have members that are divided by party. Their statutory responsibilities don’t change. The president has always had the authority to change who serves as the chair of the agency upon coming into office.”

“On the one hand, doctrinally, Slaughter is a shift. You’re overruling a 90-year-old precedent,” she added. “On the other hand, it’s not clear to me that the everyday functioning of these agencies will change dramatically.”

Some of the agencies, such as the National Labor Relations Board, have no statutory requirement for political balance — and could simply cease functioning under an administration opposed to labor law enforcement.

But other experts share Hickman’s skepticism that the ruling will fundamentally change agency operations.

A study published two years ago in the Cornell Law Review examined the true independence of congressionally mandated agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission, FCC, SEC and others, and found that the independent agency design did not work particularly well, with presidents already exercising substantial control.

“By appointing the chair and general counsel, presidents had agenda setting power and some policy power. For agencies without independent litigation authority, the DOJ controlled legal arguments,” said Neal Devins, a professor of law and government at the College of William & Mary and an author of the study. “By the time presidents were able to have a majority of commissioners from their party — typically just over a year — presidents often called the shots.”

“Yesterday’s decisions certainly matter, as they give the president immediate direct control,” he added. “They are also significant symbolically. But the real story is taking presidential control from the shadows into a very public place.”

A cross section of a 250-year-old Pasadena oak tree that was uprooted in a 1993 windstorm is among the first things visitors will see upon entering the Huntington’s new exhibit, “This Land Is…” Jagged cracks in the trunk, which was once rooted in the Huntington’s lawn, are feebly held together by wooden joints.

It’s a fitting emblem of what’s to come in a long-planned show curated to coincide with the country’s upcoming semiquincentennial, and crafted to pose land itself as central to the country’s complex past. After taking in the exhibit, attendees can draw their own conclusions about the land’s role as a “geographical and metaphorical space of promise, struggle, and belonging.”

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On a recent late afternoon, the Pasadena sun drilled down on the facade of the Huntington’s MaryLou and George Boone Gallery, where the show’s organizers waited beside four chiseled columns with their hands tucked behind their backs, swaying in anticipation.

“It’s the first time anyone is seeing it,” said Linde B. Lehtinen, the museum’s senior curator of photography.

Joining her are Josh Garrett-Davis, curator of Western American history, and Armando Pulido, assistant curator for special projects. All three smile with excitement.

For the better part of the last two and a half years, Lehtinen and Garrett-Davis have spearheaded the curation of “This Land Is…,” which opens Sunday and runs through early next year.

For them the fallen oak tree represents hope amid disturbance: Another once-towering elder on the museum’s North Vista was uprooted during a windstorm in 2025 — one of its acorns has since sprouted and now stands more than 6-feet tall.

Still, it only brushes the surface of an exhibition that seamlessly draws upon a plethora of works crafted across U.S. history. Want to plan a visit? Here are five things you shouldn’t miss seeing.

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“This machine kills fascists,” etched on the back of Woody Guthrie’s guitar on display at The Huntington.  (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

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A closer view of the “This Machine Kills Facists” etching.  (Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Woody Guthrie’s guitar, inscribed with ‘This Machine Kills Fascists’

In 1940, Woody Guthrie sat in a Midtown Manhattan hotel, toiling over lyrics for what would become “This Land Is Your Land.” Today, it’s been adopted as a quasi-anthem for the U.S. and the epitome of American progressivism.

For this exhibition, the museum acquired Guthrie’s C.F. Martin and Co. guitar, a seamless blend of spruce, mahogany, celluloid, ebony and mother-of-pearl. On its back, a carved inscription reads, “This Machine Kills Fascists.”

“The idea for ‘This Land Is…’ emerged … because the scope and breadth of his voice in terms of his activism and how prolific he was … and thinking about how he reflected on and experienced American land,” Lehtinen said.

Alongside the guitar is a copy of the Declaration of Independence, annotated by John McKesson, secretary of New York’s Fourth Provincial Congress, in the days following July 4, 1776. According to Lehtinen, the two objects were paired as instruments of protest and change.

“We talked to [Guthrie’s] granddaughter Anna Canoni, and she said to us at one point that he used guitars like pens or tools, and that was so appropriate to how we were thinking about its relationship to this document,” she added.

A map of the Butte Community, Gila River Relocation Center drawn by an internee.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Japanese flower farmers photographed before, during and after internment

Not far from the Guthrie guitar is a panoramic portrait of the Kuromi family, posing amid a flower farm that stood where Los Feliz Boulevard is now. To its right is a watercolor painting of the Gila River War Relocation Center in Arizona, where many members of the family were forcibly transported to and imprisoned during World War II.

“I was looking at a historic preservation report, and the name was the same as my mechanic in Los Feliz,” Garrett-Davis said. “The next time I went to get my oil changed, I took a printout of that panorama and was going to show it to them and ask, ‘Do you know anything about this? Is this related?’

“I walked into their office, and a copy of that photo had been on their wall for years. In 10 years, I had never noticed it,” he said with a laugh.

After their internment, the Kuromi family returned to their farm in 1945 to find their equipment stolen. The process of regaining access to their land was slow, but they eventually settled back in, and operated the farm until losing their lease in 1961.

‘A Harvest of Death’ and mail from home on the Civil War front

One of the most grotesque displays on view is an albumen print of an 1863 photo titled “A Harvest of Death,” taken by Timothy H. O’Sullivan after the Battle of Gettysburg. Within its frame lies the bodies of fallen soldiers, sprawled out and lifeless on the grass.

“That evocative title signals some of the other things that we have been thinking about, whether it’s looking at gardens or loss … in this case, these are bodies that have been left, and they’re decomposing,” Lehtinen said.

Paired with the print is a letter from a young woman named Harriet Bailey to her uncle on the front lines of the Civil War, containing seeds delicately etched with drawings of a ship, facesand a dog. The two pieces represent a stark contrast in experiences during the same conflict, once again touching upon the theme of hope amid disturbance.

“This is a remnant of home that he’s actually being sent while on the battlefield,” she continued. “So, the joy and lightness to what is an incredibly somber moment in American history.”

“Archiving the Watershed” is a collection of artifacts from the Colorado River assembled by Otis R. “Dock” Marston on display.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

The Colorado River, mapped out through an adventurer’s eyes

This display is described as a “tiny slice” of the Huntington’s archive on Otis Reed “Dock” Marston, a historian and river runner who made it his life’s goal to collect information on the Colorado River. According to Garrett-Davis, Marston had around 185 binders full of photographs, often placed on a cut-out map of where they were taken and organized mile-by-mile, from below the U.S.-Mexico border all the way into Utah.

This taps into a focal point of the exhibition: adapting it to a West Coast perspective. In this way, the idea of independence is viewed expansively as it unfolds across time and place.

“The Huntington has a wonderful collection of presidential papers and documents relating to the Colonial era, but we also have materials on California … from the lens of the West,” said Huntington President Karen R. Lawrence.

“We can show the West’s visual culture at the same time that we can show the original copies of the Declaration of Independence … we have a breadth that’s quite rare.”

Artist Noni Olabiisi’s, “Troubled Island” mural on canvas, depicting the struggling of the Haitian revolution.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

‘Troubled Island’ and a mirrored struggle

The Haitian Revolution may seem out of place in an exhibition celebrating the U.S., but Haiti was the second independent nation in the Western Hemisphere. Its independence from the French was proclaimed in 1804, just two decades after the American colonies signed the Treaty of Paris.

In the mural “Troubled Island,” Noni Olabisi chronicles the Haitian struggle for independence, including how suffering under French colonists led to the 1791 slave rebellion. The piece was first painted for the William Grant Still Arts Center in West Adams in 2003, referencing an opera of the same name.

The opera was composed by Still with a libretto from the Missouri-born poet, playwright, novelist and social activist Langston Hughes, who connected Haiti’s struggle for freedom to his home country’s.

“We wanted to focus on parts that might seem peripheral but are actually quite central to American history,” Garrett-Davis said.

Three years later, Olabasi would render the same powerful mural on canvas.

WASHINGTON — When nearly all the scheduled musical performers pulled out of a concert series marking America’s 250th anniversary — fearing the event had become too closely tied to President Trump — he responded by making it official.

Trump announced he’d now be the headlining act of the Great American State Fair.

That put to rest any possible scenario where a president who has built his personal and political persona on seizing the spotlight might cede the stage to avoid overshadowing a national celebration bigger than himself. It also offered a peek into how the president is likely to approach hosting the upcoming World Cup.

From his reality shows before becoming a politician, to hours spent entertaining at events in ways planned and impromptu, to proudly showing off his various properties and efforts to overhaul the White House, the president relishes hosting. Last year he even jokingly mused about leaving the presidency to do it again full time on TV.

Trump can be a gracious, personable and highly watchable master of ceremonies — but he’s also one who tends to make every event about himself.

“The president has an outsized personality,” said Timothy Naftali, former director of Richard Nixon’s presidential library and professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. “There’s a predictability to the way in which the president frames his actions — or any actions around any event associated with him — and that’s just part of who he is, and his makeup and his professional background.”

Exhibit A is the fair, which begins June 25 and was supposed to feature concerts but now will be kicked off by a Trump rally. That will follow a UFC bout at the White House on June 14. Trump is a longtime cage match fan and the event marks his 80th birthday, but the president has sought to bill it as part of the anniversary festivities.

Many presidents relished hosting — but not like this

Andrew Jackson threw open the White House for an 1829 Inauguration Day bash so unruly that staff eventually dispersed the crowd by moving tubs of whiskey and ice cream to the lawn. Franklin D. Roosevelt mixed pre-dinner cocktails for friends and aides at White House gatherings he playfully dubbed “The Children’s Hour.” Audrey Hepburn was among the luminaries Ronald Reagan hosted at the White House.

Trump frequently had first-term dinners with business leaders but has more fully embraced the role since returning to the White House. He built a patio area similar to one at his Mar-a-Lago estate and frequently travels to Florida and his properties in Bedminster, New Jersey, and Sterling, Virginia, to headline fundraisers and other swanky gatherings.

Asked if Trump might overshadow events meant to bring the country and the world together, White House spokesman Davis Ingle pointed to the president’s efforts to lead extensive renovations at the White House and around Washington. He said in a statement that the “historic beautification” gives the city “the glory it deserves during our nation’s historic semiquincentennial celebration — something everyone should celebrate.”

Still, Trump has found unprecedented ways to inject himself into the anniversary.

The State Department is issuing passports with the president’s picture and officials have designed a new $250 bill with his likeness. The Trump Organization, being run by Trump’s children while he’s president, applied to trademark “Trump 250” logos and other merchandise.

The U.S. Mint is also producing a 24-karat gold commemorative coin with Trump’s face, though that recalls a half-dollar silver coin bearing the likeness of President Calvin Coolidge to help mark America’s 150th anniversary in 1926.

Past presidents had starring anniversary roles

Ulysses S. Grant opened a Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia to mark the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1876. Richard Nixon, in 1971, inaugurated a five-year “Bicentennial Era” ahead of the 200-year mark, though he resigned before the big day arrived.

Nixon’s successor, Gerald Ford, then in the midst of an ultimately unsuccessful reelection campaign, began the week of July 4, 1976, by inaugurating the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum and attending a Kennedy Center event featuring Bob Hope, OJ Simpson and others reading patriotic texts.

On Independence Day, Ford spoke at historic Valley Forge, then traveled to Philadelphia’s Independence Hall, declaring, “Liberty is a living flame to be fed, not dead ashes to be revered.“ He also went to New York Harbor for a tall ship parade, presided over naturalization ceremonies at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate and hosted a state dinner for Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II.

Still, “while Ford certainly hoped to use the bicentennial to promote his reelection campaign, he didn’t do it in such a self-aggrandizing, self-centered, narcissistic way,” said Marc Stein, a history professor at San Francisco State University and author of “Bicentennial: A Revolutionary History of the 1970s.”

Ford, added Naftali, “knew when to step out of the limelight and make sure the focus was on what mattered, which was the United States of America and the Declaration of Independence.”

Trump, by contrast, “generally has contempt for norms” and rarely mentions “the great sweep of history,” Naftali said.

Dueling anniversary planners as Trump pushes to revise history

Congress charged a national organization, America250, with planning commemorative events. Ahead of the 2024 election, the group drafted a memo asking whomever the incoming president was to mobilize federal agencies and welcoming presidential involvement in events and initiatives.

Asked about Trump, America250 Chair Rosie Rios said the group “has had a very supportive and collaborative relationship with the organizations planning initiatives on behalf of the president.”

But Rios’ organization is separate from Freedom 250, a mix of public and private partnerships which the Trump administration established to fund and prepare anniversary events — which has caused confusion.

America250 aims to “inspire our fellow Americans to reflect on our past, strengthen our love of country, and renew our commitment to the ideals of democracy through programs that educate, engage, and unite us as a nation.”

That might seem a departure from the “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” executive order Trump signed last year. It sought to beat back a “revisionist movement” responsible for “replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.”

Stein, now serving a one-year term as president of the Organization of American Historians, is helping organize “We Want More History,” a push to coordinate local events celebrating the public’s love for the subject in fact-based ways.

He said Trump’s version of history is “closer to propaganda, and it’s closer to cheerleading.”

World Cup gives Trump another platform to play host

The president has similarly taken his exceeding-normal-limits approach to the soccer tournament the U.S. is co-hosting with Mexico and Canada.

He created a federal World Cup task force, and leads it. He collected a peace prize from soccer’s governing body, FIFA, and said he’d be on stage to present the tournament’s golden trophy to the winning team.

Trump even oversaw the tournament’s draw at the Kennedy Center, which he’s sought to rename for himself, sparking legal challenges.

He returned to the same building to headline December’s Kennedy Center Honors, noting, “We never had a president hosting the awards before.” He later posted on social media, “Would you like me to leave the Presidency in order to make ‘hosting’ a full time job?”

Naftali noted, “Whatever filters there were in the first term — and there weren’t many — are gone.”

“It’s undiluted Donald Trump.”

Weissert writes for the Associated Press.

BOSTON — Former Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell used one of his first major public appearances since leaving office to defend independent institutions while accepting an award Sunday honoring his efforts to preserve the central bank’s independence.

Speaking at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library overlooking Boston Harbor, Powell called universities, courts, Congress and the central bank “the foundation and the embodiment of our democracy” and argued that the Fed’s independence was a “priceless asset” that must be protected.

It was one of his most direct defenses of Fed independence, warning that a single administration’s decision to remove bank officials over policy differences would open the way for future elected officials to follow suit, ultimately undermining the credibility that the Fed has spent decades building.

Powell, who frequently clashed with President Trump during his eight years as chair, stepped down as his term expired in May. He was succeeded by Kevin Warsh, whom Trump selected to lead the central bank.

After stepping down as chair, Powell took the unusual step of keeping his seat on the Fed’s governing board, which he has until January 2028. By doing so, he has deprived the Trump administration of an opportunity to appoint another member of the board.

The Trump administration has also sought to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook, which would open an additional seat on the rate-setting committee the president could fill. Yet Cook sued and the courts have so far let her keep her seat.

While Powell never mentioned Trump by name Sunday, he repeatedly returned to the importance of protecting institutions from political pressure and preserving public trust in their independence.

“Like many other institutions, the Fed has been undergoing a stress test,” he said. “Congress wisely chose to insulate monetary policy decisions from political pressure. All other advanced economy nations have done the same.”

Since 1989, the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award has recognized public servants who make what the foundation describes as courageous decisions of conscience despite personal or professional consequences.

Previous recipients include former Presidents Barack Obama and George H. W. Bush, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and former Vice President Mike Pence.

In March, the foundation said it was awarding Powell for protecting the independence of the Federal Reserve “despite years of personal attacks and threats from the highest levels of government.”

Trump harshly criticized Powell throughout his tenure as chair, frequently attacking the Fed’s interest-rate decisions and urging the central bank to cut borrowing costs more aggressively.

Beyond the Federal Reserve, Powell defended U.S. universities and research institutions, the Constitution, Congress and the court system.

“The United States has long been the leader of the world’s freedom-seeking people — the indispensable nation. Other countries know us as a nation built on integrity, and that integrity must be maintained,” he said.

In his remarks, Powell indirectly acknowledged mistakes as chair. The Fed is legally required to seek stable prices, but inflation surged amid the pandemic’s supply chain crunch. Many economists believe the central bank should have raised interest rates more quickly in response.

“At the Fed, we are, of course, human and thus imperfect,” Powell said. “When we make mistakes, we acknowledge them and change course.”

Powell was honored alongside residents of Minnesota’s Twin Cities, who received the award for what the Kennedy Foundation described as acts of courage during a federal immigration crackdown that led to thousands of arrests and the deaths of Minneapolis mother Renée Good and nurse Alex Pretti, both of whom were killed while observing or documenting enforcement activity.

“It’s wonderful just to be invited, honoring Renée,” Good’s father, Tim Granger, said as he entered the library with family members.

Kennedy’s only surviving child, Caroline Kennedy, and her son, Jack Schlossberg, said in a statement that without people like Powell and those in Minnesota “willing to put their lives on the line to hold America to its promises, our democracy can’t survive.”

Attendee U.S. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who is running for governor of Minnesota next year, reflected that the award was unusual because it recognized ordinary residents rather than elected officials.

“This didn’t go to an elected leader for a reason,” Klobuchar said. “It’s because the people stood up. They stood up by marching 50,000 strong. They stood by bringing kids they didn’t even know — strangers’ kids — to school, by bringing them groceries and they didn’t blink. And that’s what this award is about. It’s about courage.”

Willingham writes for the Associated Press. AP journalist Christopher Rugaber contributed to this report from Washington.