Most Americans seem to understand that the Fourth of July is about something bigger than ourselves. It is about celebrating our democracy and our role as citizens—as equals—in it. George Washington understood what that meant. In his last will and testament, he described himself as “a citizen of the United States, and lately president of the same.

Halfway through President Trump’s first term, as construction crews were busy installing hundreds of miles of barriers along the southern border, a puzzling edict came down from America’s aesthete in chief. Trump wanted the border wall painted black.
The president had already lost an argument about what his “big, beautiful wall” should look like. Trump envisioned a solid-concrete structure, like the one Israel has built through the West Bank. But U.S.

Almost everything in the Trump administration seems like an implausible pitch for a television show, containing so many oddball plot devices and weird twists that even the most creative showrunner would veto most of them.

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In an interview with The New York Times early this year, Donald Trump was asked, “Do you see any checks on your power on the world stage? Is there anything that could stop you if you wanted to?” “Yeah, there is one thing,” he said. “My own morality. My own mind.

Bill Pulte has spent his first days as the acting director of national intelligence firing senior personnel. But according to the law, he’s not even eligible for the job he occupies.
On this matter, the act of Congress that created the position he now holds seems unambiguous: “The Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence shall act for, and exercise the powers of” the DNI when that position is vacant, as it is now. Not “may” serve. Shall.

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OpenAI’s CEO signed a letter in 2023 acknowledging that AI might cause human beings to go extinct. More recently, Anthropic’s CEO said that AI will “test us as a species.

General Chris “C. D.” Donahue was the last U.S. soldier to leave Afghanistan during the chaotic 2021 withdrawal. As the head of Army forces in Europe and Africa, he has helped bolster Ukraine in its fight to repel the Russian invasion. Now Donahue has become the latest casualty in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s purge of the military’s senior ranks.
Donahue’s abrupt departure, after just 18 months in his role, is another sign of the upheaval.

As far as I can tell, patient zero was a Swedish 24-year-old named Elsa Thora. “Why did no one tell me ranch sauce is like crack?” she posted to X earlier this month, apparently hours after landing in Indianapolis for a monthlong World Cup trip. “EUROPE WE NEED RANCH ASAP.” The post received 49,000 likes and propelled Thora to a very specific kind of fame.

Summer has begun—which is to say, wildfires in the West are chasing residents from their homes, the snowpack has dwindled to near-record lows in several states, drought is spreading, and temperatures are regularly exploring new heights. Yet America does not seem to be sweating climate change. You could call it “climate hushing,” as Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and others do, or a “worry gap,” as one study has. Whatever you call it, America’s interest in talking about climate change is at an ebb.