The US’ biggest fireworks display exploded in a spectrum of color over New York, temporarily stealing the spotlight from the city’s world-famous skyline and helping to create a brilliant end to a day of Fourth of July celebrations nationwide.
On the 232nd anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, spectators thronged the riverfront in a light rain, some holding red, white and blue umbrellas, while Boy Scouts in Hartford, Connecticut, rang a replica of the Liberty Bell.
Near Kissimmee, Florida, a wounded bald eagle, the national bird, was flying free after spending more than two months rehabilitating from a fight with another eagle. It was freed Thursday in Lake Tohopekaliga, the heart of Florida’s eagle country.
PHOTO: EPA
In Boston, the 211-year-old USS Constitution, the Navy’s oldest commissioned warship, was the backdrop on Friday morning as two dozen people were sworn in as US citizens.
US Vice President Dick Cheney greeted the new Americans and later, in a second ceremony, administered the re-enlistment oath to a group of servicemen.
The Hartford ceremony was among several similar events being held across the country on Friday by a group known as Descendants of the Signers of the Declaration of Independence.
PHOTO: AP
Thirteen peals, one for each of the original colonies, rang out from a replica Liberty Bell at the State Capitol.
US President George W. Bush saluted new citizens at a naturalization ceremony in Charlottesville, Virginia, where he was interrupted on several occasions by protesters calling for his impeachment.
North Carolina’s two major military bases planned big events to honor troops. Country star Wynonna Judd was to perform at Fort Bragg and the Marines were hosting her contemporary Lee Ann Womack at Camp Lejeune.
In Fairmont, West Virginia, gymnastics legend Mary Lou Retton was honored by her hometown with a parade and concert. She rode down streets in the cherry picker bucket of a fire truck, just as she did in 1984, when she was 16 and a new hometown hero.
Near Cincinnati, a daredevil walked 610m across a cable suspended high off the ground in an amusement park.
Rick Wallenda is the grandson of Karl Wallenda, patriarch of the “Flying Wallendas” high-wire act, who fell to his death trying to walk a cable in Puerto Rico in 1974.
Rick Wallenda, 53, completed the feat using a balancing pole and without a safety net or harness.
“I think my granddad would be proud,” Wallenda said.
After dark, more than 3 million people were expected to attend the fireworks display along New York’s East River, moved south this year so onlookers would get a better view of the city skyline.
Organizers said this year’s show, broadcast on NBC, would include new nautical fireworks that float on the water. Other new shells would go through multiple transformations after they launch, providing four different effects.
And it would not be July Fourth without the annual hot-dog eating competition at Coney Island in New York. This year was another heartbreaker for longtime champion Takeru Kobayashi of Nagano, Japan.
He was trying to reclaim his title after a disappointing three-dog loss last year to Californian Joey Chestnut shattered his six-year winning streak. But it was not to be: Chestnut made it two wins in a row, beating Kobayashi in a tiebreaker.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, alias “Fito,” was Ecuador’s most-wanted fugitive before his arrest on Wednesday, more than a year after he escaped prison from where he commanded the country’s leading criminal gang. The former taxi driver turned crime boss became the prime target of law enforcement early last year after escaping from a prison in the southwestern port of Guayaquil. Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa’s government released “wanted” posters with images of his face and offered US$1 million for information leading to his capture. In a country plagued by crime, members of Fito’s gang, Los Choneros, have responded with violence, using car
Two former Chilean ministers are among four candidates competing this weekend for the presidential nomination of the left ahead of November elections dominated by rising levels of violent crime. More than 15 million voters are eligible to choose today between former minister of labor Jeannette Jara, former minister of the interior Carolina Toha and two members of parliament, Gonzalo Winter and Jaime Mulet, to represent the left against a resurgent right. The primary is open to members of the parties within Chilean President Gabriel Boric’s ruling left-wing coalition and other voters who are not affiliated with specific parties. A recent poll by the
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
CYBERCRIME, TRAFFICKING: A ‘pattern of state failures’ allowed the billion-dollar industry to flourish, including failures to investigate human rights abuses, it said Human rights group Amnesty International yesterday accused Cambodia’s government of “deliberately ignoring” abuses by cybercrime gangs that have trafficked people from across the world, including children, into slavery at brutal scam compounds. The London-based group said in a report that it had identified 53 scam centers and dozens more suspected sites across the country, including in the Southeast Asian nation’s capital, Phnom Penh. The prison-like compounds were ringed by high fences with razor wire, guarded by armed men and staffed by trafficking victims forced to defraud people across the globe, with those inside subjected to punishments including shocks from electric batons, confinement
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