Trump has big plans for America’s next birthday. Historians have questions

WASHINGTON — As Americans mark the Fourth of July holiday this weekend, the Trump administration is planning ahead for the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence next year, a moment of reflection for a nation beset by record-low patriotism and divided by heated culture wars over the country’s identity.

White House officials are actively involved in state and local planning for the semiquincentennial after the president, in one of his first acts in office, established “Task Force 250” to organize “a grand celebration worthy of the momentous occasion.”

The administration has launched a website offering its telling of the nation’s founding, and Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” — which he had hoped to pass by this Independence Day — includes a provision allocating $40 million to commission 250 statues for a “National Garden of American Heroes,” to be built at an undetermined location.

Trump has been thinking about the 250th anniversary for years. He invoked the occasion in his first joint session to Congress in 2017, stating it would be “one of the great milestones in the history of the world.” And in 2023, campaigning for a second term, he proposed a “Great American State Fair” to take place around the country throughout the year.

—Los Angeles Times

Trump worked phones on ‘big beautiful bill’ — but left some arm-twisting to others

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump was “heavily engaged” in Republicans’ budget reconciliation process at every step and a big player in an endgame “full-court press,” according to sources. But he left it to GOP leaders and his vice president to twist the arm of one key Senate holdout.

As a group of conservative holdouts left the House frozen overnight into the wee hours of Thursday morning, Trump worked the phones to sell those members on his executive power to implement Senate-crafted provisions to be more in line with their priorities. And when he’d had enough, the president who still maintains a vise grip on his party, used two social media posts to issue his final marching orders for the stragglers to fall in line.

“FOR REPUBLICANS, THIS SHOULD BE AN EASY YES VOTE. RIDICULOUS!!!” he wrote in one post. That followed an earlier dispatch in which Trump warned the holdouts that “MAGA IS NOT HAPPY, AND IT’S COSTING YOU VOTES!!!”

“Largest Tax Cuts in History and a Booming Economy vs. Biggest Tax Increase in History, and a Failed Economy. What are the Republicans waiting for??? What are you trying to prove???” he wrote, addressing the conservative lawmakers he sometimes calls “grandstanders.”

—CQ-Roll Call

North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein vetoes 1 bill on gender identity, but signs another

RALEIGH, N.C. — Gov. Josh Stein vetoed a bill Thursday targeting the transgender community that declared North Carolina would only recognize two sexes.

Stein vetoed House Bill 805, which says North Carolina recognizes only two sexes and gender identity won’t be treated the same legally or biologically as sex. Other provisions in the bill include restrictions on where transgender students can sleep on overnight school trips and restrictions on state funding for gender-affirming care.

It was among four vetoes the Democratic governor issued on Thursday. The other three vetoes deal with bills that would bar diversity, equity and inclusion from being promoted in K-12 public schools, public higher education and in state agencies.

“My faith teaches me we are all children of God no matter our differences and that it is wrong to target vulnerable people, as this legislation does,” Stein said in his veto message. ”I stand ready to work with this legislature when it gets serious about protecting people, instead of mean-spirited attempts to further divide us by marginalizing vulnerable North Carolinians.”

—The Charlotte Observer

Putin urges diplomacy and sticks to his positions in call with Trump

MOSCOW — Russian leader Vladimir Putin called for a diplomatic solution to ongoing conflicts in the world and reiterated his known positions during a telephone conversation with U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday.

"He declared the Russian side's willingness to continue the negotiation process (with Ukraine)," Putin's foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said after the one-hour conversation.

But Russia would not deviate from its goals of eliminating the cause of the conflict, Ushakov added.

Russia launched the war against its neighbor more than three years ago, arguing that Ukraine's accession to NATO would endanger its own national security and that Moscow needed to protect the Russian-speaking minority in the neighboring country.

—dpa