Extreme heat poses risk celebrations for 250th

East Coast cities have scaled back events as officials advise taking breaks and hydrating.

- STEVEN SLOAN

NATHAN HOWARD Associated Press ATTENDEES leave the Great American State Fair after a heat-related closure.

Festivities commemorating the 250th anniversary of American independence ramped up across the United States on Friday as demonstrations of national pride and hints of political polarization were balanced with efforts to stay safe as much of the country baked under extreme heat.

President Trump was scheduled to travel to South Dakota to deliver a speech and watch fireworks at Mt.

Rushmore. And in a novel twist, there will be a ball drop in New York City's Times Square at midnight to usher in the July Fourth holiday with much the same revelry that is typically reserved for New Year's Eve.

The sound of fighter jets on military flyovers shook the nation's capital. In New York City, Mayor Zohran Mamdani delivered his own address on the country's 250th anniversary that cast America as a nation of contradictions "working each day towards the perfection in which it was conceived." "The frontier may be closed, we may have walked on the moon, but the work of fulfilling the values first enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, that work endures, and it belongs to us all," Mamdani said, sitting behind George Washington's desk at City Hall and surrounded by a diverse group of recently naturalized citizens.