America has plenty of problems. But for July 4, Jim and Mike have a simpler message: America still rocks. The Axios co-founders go Behind the Curtain to explain why Americans are living through one of the greatest moments in U.S. and human history, even as patriotism falls, trust erodes and pessimism dominates the national mood. They discuss the gap between how America feels and what the country still gets right: freedom, entrepreneurship, innovation, democracy, capitalism, energy, military strength and the everyday decency of normal people. The bottom line: America is imperfect, noisy and often frustrating. But it is also young, resilient and still full of possibility.
Timestamps: 00:00 – Why America feels broken 00:38 – The collapse in national optimism 01:22 – Why the bad feelings are real 02:51 – The facts behind American progress 04:28 – Why cynicism dominates the news 05:22 – America’s advantages 06:19 – What capitalism and democracy still produce 07:15 – The entrepreneurial boom Jim sees coming 07:44 – Why most people are still normal 09:31 – How broken institutions get rebuilt 10:00 – The small things that still unite Americans 11:43 – Why 2026 feels different from 1976 12:47 – Can America repair itself?
Six children have been placed on life support in just the past two weeks as a result of e-scooter crashes, doctors have revealed.
Staff at Temple Street children’s hospital in Dublin said the rate of serious brain injuries among young children is an unprecedented ‘epidemic’ that requires a total ban on e-scooters.
Four children are still on life support, some in critical condition, at CHI Temple Street after incidents in the last fortnight alone, with one surgeon telling RTÉ that many will have lifelong injuries.
Pic: Getty Images
Consultant neurosurgeon Professor Darach Crimmins said e-scooter crashes are the ‘single biggest cause of head trauma in children’ and that over 400 children attended emergency departments across Children’s Health Ireland hospitals in Dublin for e-scooter injuries in 2025.
‘I’ve been in operating with my colleagues most nights on children. Skull fractures, intracranial haemorrhage, surgery to relieve pressure on the brain, surgery to put in pressure monitors,’ he said.
‘Some of them will be on life support for some weeks and some of them may not make it. None of these children that I’ve treated this week will be the same children ever again. Severe brain injuries will affect them physically, will affect them socially, will affect them intellectually.’
Pic: Nico De Pasquale Photography/Getty Images
Prof Crimmins described the injuries as completely preventable if ‘a strong Government were to turn around and say enough is enough
While under-16s were banned from using e-scooters two years ago, many doctors at Temple Street have called for an outright ban on the vehicles.
The call goes one step further than a recent demand – highlighted in the yesterday’s Irish Daily Mail – from the Garda union for new laws requiring a licence to operate e-scooters and e-bikes after a young recruit was injured in an incident involving a suspected teen drug dealer.
Pic: Alexander Spatari/Getty Images
The incident happened in the Cappagh area of Finglas in northwest Dublin on Wednesday afternoon, in the same area where tragic Grace Lynch, 16, was knocked down and killed by a scrambler bike in January this year.
Just this week, the second electrically powered vehicle death of the year took place after teen Janis Ozols fell from an e-scooter in Carlow town on Monday.
The 17-year-old was pronounced dead in Beaumont Hospital.
The mayor of Carlow, Councillor Ken Murnane stated that the town was devastated after the young man’s death in the e-scooter incident, adding: ‘It just shows that e-scooters are actually very dangerous.’
Almost half of the ICU beds in Temple Street are occupied by children who have sustained head injuries from e-scooter accidents.
Research from the hospital found that the average age of patients injured by e-scooters was 12 years old, while the youngest victim was just three, and was being carried as a passenger on an e-scooter.
Prof Crimmins said: ‘I’m quite angry. I’m doing these awful operations in the middle of the night, knowing this is completely preventable.’
Dr Emer Ryan, paediatrician at CHI Temple Street said that ‘children are coming off e-scooters like little catapults’ and that parents are blind to the dangers of the vehicles’.
Consultant paediatrician in neurodisability Dr Irwin Gill called on the Government to act urgently to deal with e-scooters and said parents need to have serious conversations with their children about the dangers involved.
The declaration came 442 days after the first volleys of the American Revolution were fired at Lexington and Concord in Massachusetts and marked an ideological expansion of the conflict that would eventually encourage France’s intervention on behalf of the Patriots.
The first major American opposition to British policy came in 1765 after Parliament passed the Stamp Act, a taxation measure to raise revenues for a standing British army in America. Under the banner of “no taxation without representation,” colonists convened the Stamp Act Congress in October 1765 to vocalize their opposition to the tax.
With its enactment in November, most colonists called for a boycott of British goods, and some organized attacks on the customhouses and homes of tax collectors. After months of protest in the colonies, Parliament voted to repeal the Stamp Act in March 1766.
Writing of Declaration of Independence
To many in the Continental Congress, war was unthinkable. So why did they finally create this revolutionary document?
Why did the American Colonies declare independence?
Most colonists continued to quietly accept British rule until Parliament’s enactment of the Tea Act in 1773, a bill designed to save the faltering East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a monopoly on the American tea trade.
The low tax allowed the East India Company to undercut even tea smuggled into America by Dutch traders, and many colonists viewed the act as another example of taxation tyranny. In response, militant Patriots in Massachusetts organized the “Boston Tea Party,” which saw British tea valued at some 18,000 pounds dumped into Boston Harbor.
The British Parliament, outraged by the Boston Tea Party and other blatant acts of destruction of British property, enacted the Coercive Acts, also known as the Intolerable Acts, in 1774. The Coercive Acts closed Boston to merchant shipping, established formal British military rule in Massachusetts, made British officials immune to criminal prosecution in America, and required colonists to quarter British troops.
The colonists subsequently called the first Continental Congress to consider a united American resistance to the British.
With the other colonies watching intently, Massachusetts led the resistance to the British, forming a shadow revolutionary government and establishing militias to resist the increasing British military presence across the colony.
In April 1775, Thomas Gage, the British governor of Massachusetts, ordered British troops to march to Concord, Massachusetts, where a Patriot arsenal was known to be located. On April 19, 1775, the British regulars encountered a group of American militiamen at Lexington, and the first shots of the American Revolution were fired.
Initially, both the Americans and the British saw the conflict as a kind of civil war within the British Empire: To King George III it was a colonial rebellion, and to the Americans it was a struggle for their rights as British citizens.
However, Parliament remained unwilling to negotiate with the American rebels and instead purchased German mercenaries to help the British army crush the rebellion. In response to Britain’s continued opposition to reform, the Continental Congress began to pass measures abolishing British authority in the colonies.
How did the American Colonies declare independence?
In January 1776, Thomas Paine published “Common Sense,” an influential political pamphlet that convincingly argued for American independence and sold more than 500,000 copies in a few months. In the spring of 1776, support for independence swept the colonies, the Continental Congress called for states to form their own governments, and a five-man committee was assigned to draft a declaration.
The Declaration of Independence was largely the work of Virginian Thomas Jefferson. In justifying American independence, Jefferson drew generously from the political philosophy of John Locke, an advocate of natural rights, and from the work of other English theorists.
The first section features the famous lines, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The second part presents a long list of grievances that provided the rationale for rebellion.
When did American colonies declare independence?
On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress voted to approve a Virginia motion calling for separation from Britain. The dramatic words of this resolution were added to the closing of the Declaration of Independence. Two days later, on July 4, the declaration was formally adopted by 12 colonies after minor revision. New York approved it on July 19. On August 2, the declaration was signed.
The Revolutionary War would last for five more years. Yet to come were the Patriot triumphs at Saratoga, the bitter winter at Valley Forge, the intervention of the French, and the final victory at Yorktown in 1781. In 1783, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris with Britain, the United States formally became a free and independent nation.
R.Kerr, a Kincora survivor, was to be interviewed by M. Hennessy of The Irish Times after securing £100k from the UK. His account of being abused in Village magazine was then described as ‘worthless’ by another IT writer. Kerr has cancelled the interviewhttps://coverthistory.ie/2026/06/28/thunderous-silence/
As the United States marks 250 years of independence, Germany is confronting an uncomfortable question: can it still rely on its most important ally? Former German ambassador to Washington Emily Haber joins DW’s Nina Haase to discuss the future of transatlantic relations and how Europe may have to forge new alliances and capabilities on its own.
00:00 A Foreign Policy Revolution 02:29 From Kennedy’s Berlin to a New Reality 06:21 Germany’s Growing Doubts 08:58 Can Europe Stand on Its Own? 12:44 Ukraine, Biden and Europe’s Comfort Zone 15:47 Why America Is Looking at China 18:08 Building New Partnerships 20:33 Germany’s China Knowledge Gap 24:27 Trump or a Deeper Shift? 27:26 Germany Through American Eyes 31:28 NATO, Burden Sharing and Power 36:00 When Principles Come at a Cost 40:24 A Memory from Washington DW Berlin Briefing on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast… Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/07Wp4c6…
America’s fentanyl crisis is showing signs of turning around. Recent data shows fentanyl overdose fatalities dropped nearly 20% last year. Are US President Donald Trump’s policies helping? DW spoke with Vanda Felbab-Brown, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, who says the reasons are complex, and warn that Trump’s approach risks causing another spike in deaths. #fentanyl#usdrugoverdoses#usa#donaldtrump#dwcurrentaffairs For more news go to: http://www.dw.com/en/ Follow DW on social media: ►Instagram: / dwnews ►TikTok: / dwnews ►Facebook: / deutschewellenews ►Twitter: / dwnews
As Iran prepares to bury former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, attention is turning to his successor. Mojtaba Khamenei’s prolonged absence from public view has raised questions about leadership and continuity.
Iranian officials have presented the rites as a national and religious event, with ceremonies planned in Tehran, Qom, Iraq and finally Mashhad, where he is scheduled to be buried on July 9.
State-linked organizers have spoken of urban crowd corridors, large accommodation capacity and the participation of huge numbers of people from inside and outside the country. Some official estimates have suggested that the turnout could reach into the tens of millions, although such projections remain impossible to verify in advance.
The timing of the funeral has also prompted discussion among religious commentators, as under Shiite Islamic tradition burial generally takes place soon after death.
Vahid Heroabadi, a former Shiite cleric living in Europe and a critic of the Islamic Republic, told DW that the delay conflicts with established religious practice.
“In Islamic jurisprudence, there is a strong emphasis on burying the dead without delay,” he said. “So much so that this is one of the classic examples used in religious education when explaining an obligation that must be carried out immediately.”
Iran’s regime boosts surveillance measures as dissent grows
As preparations continue, one question remains unanswered: whether Mojtaba Khamenei, who succeeded his father as Iran’s supreme leader, will attend.
Where is Mojtaba Khamenei?
Iranian officials have not confirmed whether Mojtaba Khamenei will appear at any stage of the funeral ceremonies.
Ali Akbar Pourjamshidian, head of Iran’s national funeral and farewell committee for the leader of the Islamic Revolution, said on July 1 that Mojtaba Khamenei’s attendance was outside the authority of the organizing committee. He said any announcement would come from the office of the commander-in-chief and the office of the leader.
Mojtaba Khamenei has not been seen publicly for months. His absence from several events linked to members of his family has attracted attention in Iran and abroad.
Among them was the symbolic funeral ceremony held for his wife, Zahra Haddad Adel, at which no audio or video message from him was released.
In recent months, reports concerning Mojtaba Khamenei’s health have circulated in Iranian and international media. Iranian authorities have not publicly explained his absence, and claims regarding his medical condition have not been independently verified.
Whether he attends the funeral may also affect who will lead the funeral prayer. In Shiite tradition, the individual who leads the prayer for a deceased senior religious figure holds symbolic importance. Iranian authorities have not announced who will perform that role during the ceremonies.
What we know — and don’t know — about Iran’s nuclear program
Will Iran continue to ‘look east’?
The funeral is also expected to bring together official delegations from a number of countries.
Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni has said presidents, parliamentary speakers, prime ministers and ministers are among those expected to attend. Iranian officials say representatives from dozens of countries have expressed readiness to participate.
Reuters reported that India plans to send a high-level delegation, and that Iran expects official participation from more than 30 countries.
For some analysts, the guest list will matter as much as the crowds. Presence, absence and level of representation may all be read as political signals about where Tehran stands after war and succession.
Ahmad Vakhshiteh, a senior lecturer at RUDN University in Moscow, told DW that Ali Khamenei played a significant role in strengthening relations between Iran and Russia in his opposition to the United States and his broader “Look East” policy.
At the same time, Vakhshiteh said he does not expect major changes in bilateral relations following Khamenei’s death.
“I believe that the future of Iran–Russia relations will depend on what strategy the new power structure in Tehran adopts toward the West, the economy, and regional security,” he added.
How does US-Iran war impact China’s aspirations for Taiwan?
Heroabadi said he expects political differences within the system to become more visible over time.
“The remnants of the Islamic Republic will naturally analyze events and act according to what they learned from Khamenei during the last decade of his rule,” he said.
However, Heroabadi thinks that the assassination and the leadership transition “could provide the basis for a period of redefinition in the domestic balance of power and, consequently, in the country’s external relations.”
Vakhshiteh, by contrast, said the state’s institutions have shown continuity and are likely to maintain key policies.
“It should be noted that following the assassination, the United States, and Israel in particular, expected the Islamic Republic to face collapse and regime change,” he said.
“However, it became clear that, contrary to expectations, the Islamic Republic is more system-oriented than personality-driven and was able to preserve its political continuity.”
The average gallon of regular gasoline costs $3.84 nationally as of this morning, Axios’ Ben Geman reports from AAA data.
That’s lower than a few weeks ago. But it’s by far the highest price heading into the July Fourth weekend since 2022, when the national average was $4.80 on the holiday itself.
️ Gas price politics are tricky.
The price surge during the Iran war, which started at the end of February (charted above), could hurt Republicans in November midterms.
But thetrajectory has been sharply downward in recent weeks, after prices peaked at $4.56 per gallon in May
. What we’re watching: President Trump this week issued a vague threat of “big problems” for gasoline retailers unless stations cut prices faster.
He also said a handful of “Freedom Fuel Network” gas stations around the Philly area would slash prices tomorrow. Go deeper.
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Data: AAA. Chart: Ben Geman/Axios
️ Gas price politics are tricky.
What we’re watching: President Trump this week issued a vague 
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