Travel app Hopper to pay $35M in FTC settlement over ‘unfairly’ charging hidden fees
Another Republican Representative Is Missing
Yet another Republican lawmaker is missing in action.
Florida Representative Neal Dunn’s office told Punchbowl News Thursday that he won’t be voting unless Republican leadership says they need him.
Donald Trump put the 73-year-old lawmaker on blast in March, prematurely revealing at a White House event that Dunn was suffering from a terminal heart problem and would be “dead by June.”
“Congressman Neal Dunn of Florida had had some real health challenges, and it was very serious, and had had a pretty grim diagnosis,” House Speaker Mike Johnson admitted at the event at Trump’s behest. “I mentioned it to the president. I said, ‘Congressman Dunn is a real champion and a patriot because he’s still coming to work, and if others got this diagnosis, they would be apt to go home and retire.’”
“What was the diagnosis?” Trump pressed.
“It was—I mean, I think it was a terminal diagnosis,” Johnson said.
“He would be dead by June,” Trump interjected, before Johnson confessed, “That wasn’t public.”
Dunn has not been on Capitol Hill since June 11 and has so far missed 11 votes, according to his voting record. Nonetheless, he has not announced any plans to truncate his time in office. In January, Dunn released a statement indicating that he would not seek reelection, though the former Army surgeon is apparently not planning to formally bow out before the end of his term.
Dunn has a bad track record with missing votes. Since he entered the House in January 2017, Dunn has missed 246 of 4,992 roll call votes. That means the septuagenarian has missed at least 4.9 percent of the votes that took place during his term, according to an analysis by Govtrack.us, which is much more than the median of 2.1 percent missed by other representatives.
But he’s not the only Republican who’s been missing in action. Representative Tom Kean Jr. was absent from Congress since March 5, sparking a Washington brouhaha that lasted until Tuesday, when he suddenly appeared before the House floor to share that his inexplicable multimonth absence was due to depression. Notably, Kean has voted repeatedly to block paid sick leave for his constituents.
Anthropic is discussing a new custom chip with Samsung
What fresh (construction) hell is this?
Honestly, this is getting exhausting. Every day—like, literally every day by now—we see evidence of some new desecration of the White House. One of the most galling things about this latest indignity is that we don’t actually know what is happening here, because why would we ever know about the workings of our government these days? All we know for sure is that there was suddenly some…
Reflections from the 2026 Youth & Adult Partnership Summit
On June 11, I had the opportunity to attend the Youth & Adult Partnership (YAP) Summit at Cabrillo College’s Horticulture Center. I attended the event as a member of the United Way of Santa Cruz County’s team helping facilitate the event and as a Cal State Monterey Bay student. I am passionate about youth voice and community change for the betterment of future generations. Throughout the day, youth leaders, educators, nonprofit professionals and community partners had an opportunity to come together and discuss how we can strengthen youth-adult partnerships as well as create spaces where young people are not only invited into conversations but are empowered to create the change they want to see in the world, as Gandhi would say.
On the day of, I helped support the event behind the scenes. While I was helping, I also had the opportunity to take a step back and witness the conversations taking place. I was able to see youth and adults engage in meaningful conversations about leadership, decision-making and what it honestly means to share perspectives across generations.
One of the themes that I connected with most was the distinction between giving youth a chance to speak and genuinely listening to what they have to say. Speaking for myself, I feel that young people are invited into spaces as participants, but not always as partners. The YAP Summit is different that way – it challenges partners and community leaders to think differently. The summit created an environment where youth feel valued, heard and respected. This event gives youth the opportunity to be heard and collaborate with leaders in their community.
Throughout the day, I had the opportunity to hear directly from different peers whose experiences reflected the impact that meaningful youth engagement can have.
Alina C., a member of Pathways to Possibility (P2P), shared:
“Being in P2P for the last eight months has been super rewarding! One memory that really stands out to me is when we had our New Year’s party and played the Saran wrap game – it was a great bonding experience. To me, P2P acts as a program that has allowed me to grow both as a person and a peer, therefore allowing me to become a better member of our community.”
Alina’s reflection reminded me that youth leadership programs are more than just projects, meetings or presentations. They are about young people creating relationships with their community, and helping young people recognize the value they bring to their communities.
I was also inspired by Giovanni (“Gio”), who attended the summit for the first time and participated as both an attendee and presenter.
“Being able to attend this Youth and Adult Partnership Summit for the first time was an experience I will never forget. I went not only as an attendee but also as a part of one of the presentations. Working alongside United Way has been a choice I will never regret. They allow young people, including me, to show up and be something bigger. Getting to meet the different people that make all of this possible is a surreal experience, and it was inspiring to see not only adults but other youth in the room as well.”
One of Gio’s most powerful takeaways captured the meaning of the summit:
“It isn’t the youth changing to fit with the adults, but the adults changing to fit with the youth. It shouldn’t be on the youth to morph who they are to fit in. If adults want to work with youth, they should be willing to create spaces where young people can show up as themselves.”
Gio’s words stayed with me because they challenged a common assumption that youth have to adapt to existing systems. Instead, Gio showed us that authentic partnership requires adults and organizations to reflect on how they can better support and learn from young people. We have ideas and opinions, and with adult experience and guidance, think of what we can accomplish together.
Another perspective that stood out came from Crystal H., an All Children Thrive (ACT) coach supporting the Pathways to Possibility initiative. Crystal reflected:
“It felt refreshing to share space with youth and adult leaders and dig into how young people can serve as real experts and partners in systems change. I’m bringing those ideas back to the ACT team to strengthen how we amplify youth voices and build genuine partnership, not just participants. Excited to build and strengthen Pathways to Possibility!”
She also shared:
“The YAP Summit gave me real, usable ideas. I’m bringing them back to the ACT team to strengthen how we amplify youth voice and create genuine opportunities for partnership. Youth engagement isn’t a checkbox; it’s a partnership. The summit sharpened how I think about that, and I’m taking those ideas straight to the ACT team and our projects.”
YAP Summit was a reminder of why this work matters in Santa Cruz County. Growing up here and now as a young adult, there have been moments when I’ve questioned whether my voice would make a difference. Being in a room filled with youth and adult leaders who were actively discussing how to collaborate and better their community, it reminded me that change is possible when people are willing to listen and learn from one another. Events like this are important to this community; they give us the opportunity to learn from people of different walks of life.
I left the 2026 YAP Summit feeling confident that the ideas shared throughout the day have an opportunity to turn into action. The youth leaders who attended this meeting shared their experiences with adult partners so that the adults reflect on how they can improve when collaborating with young people. United 4 Youth’s mission is to “uplift youth voice, expand access to resources and champion youth well-being.” The summit showed what can happen when communities are invited to learn from one another and create change.
As I continue my journey professionally and as a member of this community, I will take all the lessons, conversations and stories from this year’s YAP Summit and let them empower me to listen and understand other people’s perspectives. I will carry the responsibility to help create spaces where young people are not just present, but encouraged to lead, influence decisions and shape the future of our communities.
Acucar “Sookie” Ramos is a Cal State Monterey Bay student & the Community Impact Coordinator for United Way of Santa Cruz County
The post Reflections from the 2026 Youth & Adult Partnership Summit appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.
Smooth AI criminal drives 'first' end-to-end agentic ransomware attack
ALT DOJ Accidentally Gives Jack Smith Report to Person They’re Suing
The Department of Justice accidentally released the second volume of former special counsel Jack Smith’s report on President Trump’s handling of classified documents in a legal case last month, according to a legal filing published Thursday.
DOJ lawyers sent the sealed report to lawyers for Carmen Lineberger, who was charged with stealing the report by emailing it to herself disguised as a cake recipe. On June 3, DOJ officials handed over discovery items on flash drives to Lineberger’s lawyers. Included in those drives were documents embedded in electronic messages that were required to be disclosed. On June 9, the defendant’s attorneys reported they found three documents and contacted the government to confirm if they were supposed to be part of discovery materials.
After they reviewed the documents, DOJ lawyers confirmed that they were actually copies of Smith’s report. Defense attorneys told the government they stopped reviewing the material before examining the report itself, deleted the discovery materials they had downloaded, and handed the flash drives back to the government. Thursday’s legal filing was to notify Judge Aileen Cannon, the judge presiding over Trump’s classified documents case.
The accidental leak has to be embarrassing for the government, considering Trump’s successful effort to keep the Smith’s report hidden from the public after he won the 2024 presidential election. The defense counsel could have leaked the documents, but considering that their client was accused of improperly handling them, chose to follow the rules.
The situation is ironic, considering Smith’s report was all about how Trump allegedly mishandled classified documents by keeping them at Mar-a-Lago instead of returning them to the government. Smith’s case wasn’t allowed to go to trial thanks to Cannon, a Trump appointee, dismissing it on flimsy grounds. It seems that the public may never know the full details of what Trump did.
Boeing-owned Wisk Aero accused of firing manager who raised safety concerns
Fox News’ lies exposed by weak attendance at Trump’s ‘state fair’
President Donald Trump’s “Great American State Fair” has been an attendance disaster, but his allies at Fox News are doing their best to hide the failure. While broadcasting from the event Thursday, co-host Dana Perino proclaimed that there was great “excitement” days before the celebration of America’s 250th birthday. But the imagery behind Perino and co-host Bill Hemmer told a…
Sports with SCOTUS
A cartoon by Clay Jones. Related | Supreme Court’s leader doesn’t care about the Constitution…
SoftBank enters the rent-a-GPU race as America looks for support for AI training
The State Department’s New Recruiting Contractor Wants More Christian Diplomats
Foreign Service Officers play a pivotal role in the US Department of State—and in the world. According to the agency’s website, these high-ranking officials “engage with foreign governments, advocate for American interests, and help shape global policy across political, economic, and humanitarian priorities.” Because of the importance of their duties, the vetting process for Foreign Service Officers is famously intense and includes both a rigorous screening process and a difficult multi-hour exam.
Last year, the Trump administration announced sweeping changes to the program, vowing to end hiring practices that it said relied too heavily on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. The Secretary of State was to “remove any reference to the Core Precept entitled ‘Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility,'” Trump ordered in a March 2025 memo. “The Secretaries shall promptly direct all employees of their Departments not to give this Core Precept any force or effect.”
Later that year, Secretary of State Marco Rubio abruptly recalled 29 ambassadors and fired 246 Foreign Service Officers. The moves were part of a restructuring that, Rubio wrote in a Substack post, aimed to rid the State Department of a culture where “radical ideologues and bureaucratic infighters have learned to…push through their own agendas that are often at odds with those of the President and undermine the interests of the United States.”
Now, the US Department of State is looking to hire a new generation of Foreign Service Officers. To recruit applicants for these coveted and vital positions, the agency just signed a contract with a company called Military Hire, a subsidiary of the employment firm RedBalloon, which describes itself as “America’s non-woke job board.” At $978,750, the amount of the contract is not particularly high, but the company nevertheless has lofty ambitions. It aims to give the Foreign Service an anti-woke makeover by attracting ideologically “aligned” candidates—hopefully Christians.
Earlier this week, RedBalloon CEO Andrew Crapuchettes appeared on CrossPolitic, a podcast that says it is “helping Christians apply God’s law to politics.” CrossPolitic is a project of CanonPress, the publishing house connected to Christian nationalist Idaho pastor Doug Wilson’s Church. Perhaps not coincidentally, Crapuchettes is an elder at Wilson’s Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, and Wilson has robust connections to the Trump administration through defense secretary Pete Hegseth.
“It was focused on trying to get in the guy with a PhD in Black dance, rather than people who can actually do a good job.”
In the CrossPolitic episode–called “Could 1,000 Employees Change the State Department Forever?”—Crapuchettes says that before the current administration, “a lot of the recruiting was focused on DEI. It was focused on trying to get in the guy with a PhD in Black dance, rather than people who can actually do a good job.”
Those DEI hires, Craphuchettes charges, were often reluctant to follow directives that aligned with the administration’s “America First” ethic. “What they’re finding is all these Foreign Service Officers are like, ‘Yeah, I don’t really want to. Yeah, that sounds really hard, so I’m not going to,’ because they’re, more than not, leftists, and they don’t want to do President Trump’s agenda,” he says. “They want him to look bad, and they want to drag their feet.”
Because of this mismatch of values, Crapuchettes says, the State Department “got rid of the entire recruiting department…like 50 people,” and now is in the process of “cleaning house.” That means “removing a lot of people who are not aligned with the current administration’s agenda, and they want to get people who are more aligned.”
Crapuchettes then invites Christians to apply for jobs in the foreign service. “I would love to see a lot of Christians applying, taking the test, doing the hard work, becoming a foreign service officer, going to Germany for two years, or Botswana, or Thailand,” he says. “You’re working for the ambassador; you’re going to build connections and relationships that you can’t get any other way, and all of a sudden you’re in a position where you can have a huge influence for the rest of your life on the US government.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Crapuchettes explains that RedBalloon is working on developing similar recruiting contracts with the Department of War and the Department of the Interior. He also claims that the company “just got another contract” with the Department of Veterans Affairs to perform “political appointee level recruitment for them.” Neither the State Department nor the VA responded to our questions; a spokesperson from the Department of War declined to comment.
Crapuchettes founded RedBalloon in 2021. At first, the company attracted applicants who were seeking jobs without Covid vaccine mandates. But as the pandemic faded into the background, the company’s remit expanded. A 2023 Wired profile noted that Donald Trump, Jr. called RedBalloon “a HUGE advance in the culture war.” Today, it boasts a network of “tens of thousands” of job seekers “who value freedom, hard work, and merit-based recognition.” The employers hiring through it include Turning Point USA, the Christian cell phone service Patriot Mobile, and the conservative media company The Daily Wire.
In the podcast, Crapuchettes boasts that RedBalloon has developed a reputation for working with government agencies unpopular with the political left. “We’re already doing stuff for like Border Patrol, which gets us in trouble—ICE, Border Patrol, we do hiring for them,” he tells Wilson. He suggests that Military Hire is a less controversial brand. “RedBalloon’s a little hotter to handle than Militaryhire.com, and so on a PR front, Militaryhire.com’s got the contract, not Red Balloon,” he says, “which is fine with me.” (A Border Patrol spokesperson clarified in an email to Mother Jones that the agency “has worked with Military Hire since 2022 and was under contract with them when they were acquired by RedBalloon.” Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
Doug Wilson, who heads the Idaho church where Crapuchettes is an elder and also oversees a small fiefdom of businesses and schools connected to his church, is increasingly influential in national politics. A spiritual adviser to US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, he delivered a sermon on manly, godly warriors at the Pentagon earlier this year. A self-proclaimed Christian nationalist, Wilson is a firebrand online. In previous interviews, he has told me that women’s suffrage was “a mistake” and that in his ideal version of the United States, public flogging would largely replace prisons. In a 2024 address at the National Conservatism conference, he described a society under siege by identity politics and anti-Christian bias. “It used to be that the sexually troubled had to keep their kinks hidden away in the closet,” he said. “Now it is the conservative Christian who needs to keep his virtues hidden in the recesses of the closet.”
On matters of woke-ism, Wilson appears to be firmly aligned with the Red Balloon ethos. In a post on his blog last year, he thundered against DEI initiatives. “It is not enough for us to be against woke, or DEI, or social justice, or whatever new term our lizard overlords have decided to foist upon us,” he wrote. “We must be hostile to all such verbal iterations.”
Job seekers don’t pay to use RedBalloon and Military Hire; rather, employers pay to recruit through these companies—hence the State Department’s contract. Crapuchettes says in the podcast that his platform will offer opportunities to take practice tests—an important feature because applicants are only allowed to take the test once a year. In an emailed statement, RedBalloon spokesperson Isaac Lopez said that the company does not “screen, filter, or evaluate any applicant based on political affiliation, religion, or ideology, and we have no policy, written or unwritten, that does so, consistent with federal hiring law.” Lopez added that Crapuchettes’ comments on the podcast “reflected a personal hope that more public-service-minded people of faith consider federal careers. His sentiment was not a company screening criterion.”
10 ways to make a difference this July: Volunteer in Santa Cruz County
From beach cleanups to delivering meals, here’s how to join a community built on hope, joy, and belief in people.
Last week at Harvey West Park, something beautiful happened. Volunteers of all abilities gathered to revitalize the Friendship Garden, a special space dedicated to community members with disabilities. They planted, raked, laughed, and connected. It was a simple project with a powerful message: when people come together, communities thrive.
That’s the spirit of volunteering, and the motto of Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz County. For forty-four years, under the leadership of Executive Director Karen Delaney, the organization has built something rare: a culture where hope and joy aren’t just words—they’re the backbone of how we show up for each other.
After 44 years as Executive Director, Karen Delaney is stepping into retirement. Her belief: everyone can make a difference. Let’s carry her torch forward – join your community in service today!
And, this is your personal invitation to join the hope and joy club, where everyone is welcome, and every gift matters!
Here’s 10 ways to volunteer (and nurture that hope and joy) this month:
- July 5: Community Coastal Clean Up at Twin Lakes Help Twin Lakes Beach bounce back after the Fourth of July: collect litter, protect marine life, and meet people who care about keeping our coastline clean. Bring reusable gloves, water, and comfortable shoes. Learn more & sign up →
- Every Saturday: Food Sort With Second Harvest Pack fresh produce and food for families in need at the Watsonville warehouse (7:45am-11am or 11:15am-2:30pm shifts). Bring your family or friends—ages 13+ welcome.
- Child Care Safety Plan Support Help parents plan for the unexpected and protect their children’s future.
- Life Lab Summer Camp Inspire the next generation of gardeners as an assistant camp counselor for children ages 7-10.
- Give Rides to Seniors Be a friendly driver for seniors in need—flexible hours, you choose your schedule, county-wide need – you can be the difference!
- Childcare during Support Groups Watch children while parents attend sobriety support groups—flexible hours, morning and evening shifts available.
- Youth Planning Committee: Queer, Trans & Allied Summit Help plan an inclusive summit for LGBTQ+ youth and allies on the Central Coast.
- Library Council for Teens Teens! Shape your library’s future and have your voice heard on what comes next.
- Teen Kitchen Project – Delivery Angels Deliver medically tailored meals and brighten the day of someone who needs it most.
- Evergreen Cemetery Friday Work Party Preserve local history and restore this beautiful site. Join us every Friday 9:30am-12pm, all abilities welcome.
Hands in the work, joy in the heart. The joy in these faces is what volunteering looks like.
Looking for something else? Visit scvolunteernow.org for 150 more volunteer opportunities, or meet with our volunteer matchmaker and get paired with your new favorite activity.
About the Volunteer Center
At the Volunteer Center of Santa Cruz County, we connect people for good because meaningful service is the heart of a strong, vibrant community and a healthy, happy life.
For 60 years, Santa Cruz County has trusted the Volunteer Center to help people connect for good, turning compassion into belonging and lasting impact. Our vision is a community where giving is the way of life — where everyone’s gifts matter, kindness is celebrated, and together we build a stronger, healthier, more connected community where everyone thrives.
Learn more at scvolunteercenter.org
The post 10 ways to make a difference this July: Volunteer in Santa Cruz County appeared first on Lookout Santa Cruz.
‘We’re going to keep escalating’: Dominican Hospital nurses decry proposed layoffs
Nurses and their supporters hold an informational picket at Dominican Hospital on June 30. (Amaya Edwards — Santa Cruz Local/CatchLight Local)
LIVE OAK >> Dominican Hospital nurses rallied in front of the medical center on Tuesday, one month after layoff notices were sent to about 20 nurses and staff. Drivers honked their horns in support as they passed dozens of nurses and their supporters chanting, waving signs and blowing whistles.
Hospital workers say the proposed cuts would jeopardize patient safety by stretching the staff thin and taking time away from patient care. CommonSpirit Health, which owns the hospital and more than 2,000 other health care centers in the U.S., did not say why the cuts were proposed.
CommonSpirit did not make anyone available for an interview with Santa Cruz Local. In an emailed statement, spokesperson Christina Zicklin wrote that “the safety of our caregivers and patients is our highest priority,” and said hospital operations were not affected by the rally.
Born and raised in Santa Cruz, Carly Chavez-Ellis has worked as a nurse at Dominican for three years. She said the cuts would slash “critical” staff positions. In the cardiac unit where she works, they are set to lose the person responsible for coordinating patient transportation and fielding phone calls from family members, other hospitals, doctors, nursing homes, patients who were discharged, and more.
(function() { window.mc4wp = window.mc4wp || { listeners: [], forms: { on: function(evt, cb) { window.mc4wp.listeners.push( { event : evt, callback: cb } ); } } } })(); Stay informed on Santa Cruz County’s biggest issues. Santa Cruz Local’s newsletter breaks down complex local topics and shows residents how to get involved. Email address:mc4wp.forms.on('subscribed', function(form) { // gtag.js if(form.id == '6954') { gtag('event', 'subscribe', {'event_category': 'newsletter_prompt', 'event_label':'top_of_story'}); } }); Leave this field empty if you're human:
“It’s scary, because all the nurses are wondering who’s going to take that role,” she said from the picket line. “I fear that nurses will be expected to step up and do those things, and that’s going to take nurses away from the bedside with direct patient care.”
Chavez-Ellis said the cardiac unit lost a staffer a couple years ago when CommonSpirit reduced the number of aides to three from four.
“Safe staffing saves lives,” she said, adding that the cuts are “under the guise of saving money, but their CEO made $14 million in 2025.”
Carly Chavez-Ellis, left, and Clara Hernandez rally against proposed layoffs at Dominican Hospital. (Amaya Edwards — Santa Cruz Local/CatchLight Local)
Tax returns from the nonprofit show that the 30 top-paid employees each made more than $1 million in the fiscal year ended June 2025, and brought in more than $128 million collectively. CommonSpirit reported a total of $822 million spent on salaries for its roughly 160,000 employees. Top-heavy executive compensation is not unusual for large hospital systems.
Rory O’Moore, who’s worked in health care for nine years and has been at Dominican for two, said the decisions are being made by executives who don’t necessarily understand the direct effects cuts have on patients.
“This is people’s lives that they’re playing around with, and they just want to save a couple dollars,” O’Moore said. “We’re going to keep escalating until we have something.”
O’Moore said that ostensibly the reason for the cuts is the effect of the Republican-backed One Big Beautiful Bill Act, that decimated funding for Medicaid, but that the effects of that bill also mean fuller emergency rooms and the need for staff has only increased.
“It’s very short-sighted,” O’Moore said of the proposed cuts.
Rory O’Moore, left, and his twin sister, Elaine O’Moore, are nurses at Dominican Hospital. They hold union signs that read ‘Some cuts don’t heal.’ (Amaya Edwards — Santa Cruz Local/CatchLight Local)
Lauren Bailey works in the ER at Dominican and said she is also concerned about the effects on patient outcomes if the cuts go through.
“If these ancillary services get cut, then more is going to be on the plate of the nurses, which means less time with patients, less time being able to review charts, to get reports from the ER nurses trying to get patients upstairs,” she said. Fewer staff would slow the process of moving patients from the ER to other units, she said, which also means fewer available ER beds.
Proposed cuts include the staff responsible for answering call lights from patients, she said, which come from “patients who are asking for emergent things. ‘I have to go to the bathroom. I need pain medicine.’ Basic human needs. And again, that’s going to fall on the plate of the nurses.”
She added, “when you’re in a scenario where you feel like you’re stretched too thin, things get missed.”
Evelia Carter, an environmental services technician, blows a whistle during an informational picket at Dominican Hospital on June 30. (Amaya Edwards — Santa Cruz Local/CatchLight Local)
Questions or comments? Email info@santacruzlocal.org. Santa Cruz Local is supported by members, major donors, sponsors and grants for the general support of our newsroom. Our news judgments are made independently and not on the basis of donor support. Learn more about Santa Cruz Local and how we are funded.
Learn about membership Santa Cruz Local’s news is free. We believe that high-quality local news is crucial to democracy. We depend on locals like you to make a meaningful contribution so everyone can access our news. Learn about membershipThe post ‘We’re going to keep escalating’: Dominican Hospital nurses decry proposed layoffs appeared first on Santa Cruz Local.
Trump Is Using Your Money to Pollute Our Air This July 4th
The Trump administration’s July 4th fireworks show will likely produce unhealthy levels of pollution at the National Mall and the surrounding area—a fitting byproduct of the president’s 250th American anniversary celebration.
Internal documents from the National Park Service, which hosts the annual DC fireworks celebration, and obtained by the Washington Post, say that people in the area should “remain indoors as much as possible during and after the show” and “wear an N95 mask when outdoors” to prevent “irritation symptoms.”
A significant contributor to these warnings is the scale of the fireworks display: the approximately 850,000 fireworks for 40 minutes. This is about 50 times more than the usual number of fireworks and double the typical show duration.
To fund the extravagance, Trump is using $1.6 million in revenue from entry fees to national parks—five times more than what’s usually spent on the show. According to the Washington Post, the president is funneling a total of at least $90 million from national park entry fees for his plans to remake DC in his own image. This includes $76 million for repairing fountains, such as the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
Surely, this is the best use of these funds, considering the US Department of the Interior states that, as of September 2025, it needs $35.4 billion for maintenance and repair tasks that have already been postponed.
As my colleague Dan Friedman noted in May, some watchdog groups say the Trump administration skipped past congressional oversight by funneling money to the public-private partnership Freedom250.
It’s just another set of opaque business deals to serve one man’s vanity.
How Much Does Trump’s Insane July 4 Fireworks Show Cost?
The White House is trying to break a fireworks record on Saturday—but doing so will likely cost taxpayers a pretty penny.
The Trump administration has not communicated how much the July 4 celebration will cost, or who is expected to foot the bill for the pyrotechnics display. There has been no public record of the company behind the show, Pyrotecnico, receiving a standard government contract for the job, as has been the case with Washington’s previous July 4 celebrations.
In lieu of concrete digits, NOTUS’s Anna Kramer reached out to several fireworks companies for a rough estimate on the show’s price tag. They projected the cost in the millions.
“You’re talking a many multimillion-dollar production, without a doubt,” James Woods, the director of sales at Pyro Shows in Tennessee, told NOTUS. Pyro Shows assisted in one of the previous world record-setting fireworks displays in Dubai in 2014.
Woods told NOTUS that some of the individual shells used in the upcoming celebration could cost anywhere between $50 to $1,000. NOTUS estimated that if even “3 percent of the devices used in this show cost $50, that would total $1.3 million for those devices alone.”
This year, the Freedom 250 celebration has promised a record-shattering 40-minute display beginning at 10:30 p.m. that will use more than 860,000 explosives. They’ll be set off along the Reflecting Pool, as well as in West Potomac Park and off of eight barges on the Potomac River.
The current record is held by the Iglesia Ni Cristo, a church in the Philippines that earned the Guinness World Record title in 2016 for lighting 809,000 fireworks during a New Year’s Eve event.
Another fireworks professional, Kellner’s Fireworks owner Bob Kellner, hypothesized that even if the entire record-setting show were composed of “filler” shells (the cheapest explosives possible, sold for around $2 a pop), the display would still cost a minimum of $1.7 million. But only hitting that bare minimum is highly unlikely, as more sophisticated fireworks cost significantly more.
There is just one federal record offering details about the upcoming semiquincentennial. A document from the Interior Department, dated December 2025, dedicated $1.5 million to Garden State Fireworks to man the display. But that was months before Donald Trump promised to launch “the LARGEST FIREWORKS SHOW IN HISTORY” on Independence Day 2026.
NOTUS reported that Garden State Fireworks has been responsible for the capital’s July Fourth show for the last decade, and typically receives a contract between $250,000 and $300,000 for the display.
Vim text editor game teaches you keyboard shortcuts with ice cream delivery
Trump Made Hundreds of Stock Trades One Day Before Pausing Tariffs
President Trump bought hundreds of stocks the day before he paused tariffs and caused the stock market to rally.
Trump filed his latest financial disclosure on Monday, and it shows that he made 327 individual stock purchases worth as much as $12.8 million on April 8, 2025, from companies including Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, and Alphabet (Google’s parent company), according to an analysis from investigative outlet Sludge. The next day, Trump announced that he was pausing his sweeping tariffs for 90 days, and the S&P 500 went up by nearly 10 percent, one of its largest one-day increases ever.
The timing of these trades suggests he planned to cash in, realizing that markets would rally after his announcement. Those weren’t the only suspicious stock trades he made last year, either. On August 18, Trump’s accounts bought between $250,000 and $500,000 of stock in chipmaker Intel, four days before the president announced that the federal government would take a nearly $9 billion equity stake in the company. Intel’s stock price went up 6 percent after that announcement.
Trump also bought stock in defense contractor Palantir Technologies throughout the year, publicly praising the company while increasing its federal contracts, particularly those with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. One of his top advisers, White House deputy chief of staff and anti-immigration hawk Stephen Miller, also owns between $100,001 and $250,000 of Palantir stock. This year, Trump singled out Palantir on Truth Social in April and sent its stock price soaring.
By law, Trump and other executive branch officials are supposed to publicly disclose securities transfers, including stock purchases, over $1,000 within 45 days. Not only did Trump wait more than a year to disclose the April stock purchases, he didn’t disclose any other of the thousands of stock trades he made in 2025.
In all, Trump reported $2.2 billion in income in 2025, from crypto, stock trades, foreign real estate, suing news organizations, and other grifts. His administration is openly engaging in market manipulation and insider trading without any fear of consequences.