Lifestyle
Can I Skip My Niece’s Graduation to Avoid the Politics?
My beloved niece is graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy next month. She has invited me to attend her graduation ceremony. Typically, the president, the vice president or one of the president’s cabinet officials addresses the midshipmen and their families as the commencement speaker. But listening to a self-serving speech by any of these individuals would be nauseating for me given our current geopolitical situation. So, I’m inclined to skip the graduation ceremony and to attend the family party afterward. But that means I would miss watching my niece collect her diploma and make her first salute as a commissioned officer. Will she think I chose politics over honoring her achievement?
AUNT
Short answer: yes. Your niece will probably believe that you are prioritizing politics over her graduation if you skip the ceremony and attend the party a little later — because that is precisely what you will be doing. And that may be necessary for you. I am not here to judge your political or moral beliefs. But let me remind you that there is no Republican Navy or Democratic Navy. The armed forces protect all Americans.
Now, I don’t mean to minimize the tremendous influence that a sitting president wields on military matters while in office. And you may object fiercely to the current president’s military choices. But elected officials come and go, and it would be wrong to conflate politicians with the brave men and women who dedicate their lives to defending our country in the armed services. The president may be commander in chief, but only until the next one is sworn into office.
Still, I understand your ambivalence about attending a ceremony that features a speaker with whom you may disagree strongly. So, how about excusing yourself for that portion of the ceremony (provided that the actual speaker this year is objectionable to you)? If attending is still impossible, make sure to explain your absence to your niece in a way that distinguishes politics from the greater cause to which she is dedicating her young life.
Sometimes a Stop Isn’t Just to Smell the Roses
I was walking my dog on a leash recently when he stopped to sniff some flowers at the edge of a neighbor’s yard. My dog was standing on the public sidewalk. My neighbor asked me to stop my dog from doing that. She said it attracted other dogs. I figured she couldn’t see that my dog wasn’t peeing, so I said, “Oh, he’s just sniffing.” My neighbor replied, “This is not a dog park,” and turned away. This same neighbor has spoken to me harshly about my dog before. What is the best way to respond?
DOG MOM
Over decades of walking a string of much-loved dogs, I have observed that sniffing — flowers, sticks, bird poop on the sidewalk — can turn to peeing in a split second. And dog urine can kill flowers. So, despite your sound argument that your dog was not trespassing and your dislike of your neighbor’s snippy tone, focus on being a good neighbor: Keep your dog moving briskly past this neighbor’s yard.
Responsible dog owners are sometimes forced to pay for the sins of irresponsible ones. Your neighbor seems to dislike dogs, and it’s unlikely that you will convince her to make an exception for yours.
Commiseration Addict? Cut Off His Supply.
I need help with a co-worker. He is very effective in his position, but he complains nonstop — particularly about his workload. But the reason he has so much work is that he volunteered to take on additional duties. I’ve told him to speak with our supervisor. She is supportive and would reassign some of his work. How do I tell my co-worker to stop complaining? I’ve tried to be compassionate, but my patience is wearing thin.
CO-WORKER
In my experience, chronic complainers thrive on sympathy, and they often prefer the martyrdom of complaint to an actual solution to their problems. I have found a gentle clapback to be effective here. Say: “I’ve already told you how to fix this problem. Have you spoken to our supervisor yet?” (Spoiler: He probably hasn’t.) And he may not stop complaining entirely, but he will stop complaining to you.
Count Your Blessings, This Isn’t About You
Last week, we saw paramedics and then the police and then a hearse at our neighbors’ townhouse. I texted the couple to ask if they were OK and to offer our help. We are casually friendly with them. (We’ve had dinner in each other’s homes.) I have seen lots of family at the house this week, but we still don’t know who died: husband or wife. There has been no obituary online. Should I back off and let it go that they don’t want our family informed?
NEIGHBOR
I may be misreading your letter, but you seem to be more curious about what happened next door than broken up over the death of a neighbor. Your last line suggests that you are taking the situation personally, but the death has nothing to do with you! The grieving survivor has more on his or her mind right now than informing everyone who ever dined with them of the loss. Back off, and wait until you see an obituary or the surviving spouse to express your condolences.
For help with your awkward situation, send a question to SocialQ@nytimes.com, Philip Galanes on Facebook or @SocialQPhilip on X.
What freedom looks like today.
Getty Images/Viktoriia Miroshnikova/Photo illustration by NPR
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Getty Images/Viktoriia Miroshnikova/Photo illustration by NPR
What does freedom mean today?
Happy Juneteenth! For those not in the know, today commemorates when U.S. federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people were freed – a full two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Since then, Juneteenth has been celebrated all over the country, especially in Texas and across the South, where Juneteenth parades, cookouts, festivals and pageants happen every year. Two weeks from now, the country will celebrate the Fourth of July – and its 250th anniversary. For many Black Americans, there’s always been a tension between these holidays – and their two different ideals for what it means to be free. As voting rights protections are rolled back and Black history is being scrubbed from government websites, what does freedom look like for Black Americans today?
To get into it, Brittany is joined by Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson, chair of Africana Studies at Wellesley College.
For more episodes about the quality of Black life in America, check out:
Jesse Jackson & the end of the civil rights superhero
Is the economy slowing? Ask Black women.
What to expect when you’re expecting racism
Support Public Media. Join NPR Plus.
Follow Brittany on Instagram: @bmluse
For handpicked podcast recommendations every week, subscribe to NPR’s Pod Club newsletter at npr.org/podclub.
This episode was produced by Corey Antonio Rose and Liam McBain. It was edited by Neena Pathak. We had engineering support from Josephine Nyounai. Our Supervising Producer is Cher Vincent. Our Executive Producer is Barton Girdwood. Our VP of Programming is Yolanda Sangweni.
First released in 2000, the acclaimed film Amores perros, which was produced and directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu and written by Guillermo Arriaga, has been remastered and is returning to theaters.
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Before Amores Perros became widely regarded as a modern classic, it belonged to Mexico. The film premiered at the 53rd Cannes Film Festival in 2000, where it won The Grand Prix, launching a run of international acclaim that has never quite ended. This month, Amores Perros is back in theaters in a fully remastered format from its original Kodak film stocks.
The film’s plot centers on three strangers whose lives intersect at the scene of a car crash. Each story wrestles with overlapping issues of social class disparities, crime and familial betrayal. The release in Mexico coincided with the end of the Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI’s 71-year hold on power. Amores Perros was followed by a period of original, contemporary films in Latin America that would prove the region’s studios could compete with Hollywood in scope and complexity.
One of the film’s lead charachters, Octavio, is played by actor Gael García Bernal.
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The film marked the directorial debut of Alejandro González Iñárritu, who would go on to win four Academy Awards including back-to-back best director awards for Birdman (2014) and The Revenant (2015). In a recent interview with NPR, Gael García Bernal, a lead actor in Amores Perros, called the film’s launch “a new geography in cinema.”
González Iñárritu and García Bernal spoke with Morning Edition’s A Martinez about their early collaboration and the film’s continued resonance with new audiences.
Listen to the interview by clicking on the blue play button above.
The broadcast version of this story was produced by Margaux Bauerlein.
Preparations underway for the Great American State Fair, as seen on Washington, D.C.’s National Mall last week.
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A lot is changing these days in Washington, D.C., with even more on the horizon: 10 city blocks of the National Mall will soon transform into a multi-week state fair spectacle, complete with a Ferris wheel, in honor of the country’s 250th birthday.
The “Great American State Fair” will run from June 25 through July 10, promising to bring state-themed pavilions, movie screenings, musical performances, military flyovers, nostalgic snacks, a daily rodeo — and potentially scores of tourists — to the nation’s capital.
It will feature more than 150 exhibits, with full participation across the United States and several U.S. territories, as well as “businesses, innovators and civic organizations,” according to Freedom250, the White House-backed campaign that is organizing the fair in addition to other semiquincentennial events.
“A master-planned celebration will unfold along the National Mall from the Capitol to the Washington Monument, featuring vibrant pavilions representing every U.S. state and territory,” says the White House website, adding that the beaux-arts style tents will also highlight national themes like agriculture, the arts, faith and family.
Workers started setting up the fair, in view of the U.S. Capitol, in late May.
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However, not all states are sending official government delegations to the fair. Officials in more than half a dozen states — including Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island and Washington — confirmed to NPR that they are not participating directly. Most cited financial considerations and a desire to prioritize celebrations in their own communities, though others voiced political concerns.
Rachel Reisner, a spokesperson for Freedom250, emphasized in an email that there is “a vast majority participating” among the states. Additionally, others are being represented by local businesses and organizations — such as two companies from North Carolina and a museum from Illinois.
“Whether represented by a governor’s office, a tourism board, or a beloved state company or organization, every community will be celebrated, and every American will see themselves in this once-in-a-generation event,” Reisner said.
The state fair is one in a series of patriotic anniversary events planned for D.C. this summer, including the UFC fight night outside the White House last Sunday and a fireworks-heavy July Fourth celebration that President Trump rebranded as a political rally in a Truth Social post on Monday.
In another post that day, Trump encouraged people to attend the kickoff to the fair on Wednesday — and, by extension, the “summer long Celebration of 250 years of American Independence.”
“We are going to have fun, and celebrate America!” he wrote.
That opening event was originally billed as a concert, though many of the performers originally attached to it — including Martina McBride, Bret Michaels, the Commodores and Young MC — have withdrawn in recent weeks. Organizers now say the kickoff will feature remarks by Trump and performances by Lee Greenwood and Christopher Macchio, musicians who have sung at Trump events before.
What to know about the fair
The fair is an all-day, rain-or-shine event. It is free and open to the public, though preregistration is encouraged.
Freedom250 is promising attendees an interactive experience at the state pavilions, from Michigan’s mechanical milking cow to Florida’s re-creation of a Spanish fort honoring explorer Juan Ponce de León.
There will also be activations by a wide range of companies, organizations and government agencies, from NASA and John Deere to Meta and the Washington Commanders.
Each of the fair’s 16 days has its own theme, including two “MAHA Mondays” and a military and veterans’ appreciation day. July Fourth is branded as the Independence Day Celebration, and the fair’s final day is billed as “The Next 250: Innovation.”
The extravaganza will span a wide swath of the National Mall, much of it already blocked off with fences and construction cranes. The fair may also impact air travel in the area.
In a press release this week, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority warned travelers at D.C.’s Reagan National Airport that their flights might be adjusted or delayed due to some of the America 250 celebrations — including the opening and closing days of the state fair.
“Many events will include downtown flyovers or other aerial displays such as fireworks or parachute jumps, which will affect flights periodically at Reagan National,” it said, adding that the most significant disruptions are expected on July 3 and 4.
Why some state governments aren’t participating
Nearly 10 states say they will not be spending funds or sending personnel to the D.C. fair. While all but one are led by Democratic governors, many told NPR the decision not to attend was a financial decision, not an overt political statement.
“The states were expected to fund and to staff a multi-week exhibit in Washington, D.C., which would entail getting staffers down to D.C., housing them, feeding them, and with the booths and everything … the estimated budget was at least $100,000,” said Cathryn Vaulman, a spokesperson for Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont.
Vaulman said that money would have come out of the state’s budget for its own 250th celebrations — so leaders made a “resource-based decision” to focus on those instead. But she noted that plenty of other blue states, like New York, are still planning to staff the state fair.
Some other states estimated their costs as $100,000, though others were much higher: Sarah Hansen, director of the Maine Semiquincentennial Commission, told NPR that its cost estimates were “half a million dollars or more,” which she said was not feasible for the state, “given the federal government’s refusal to provide any funding.”
Washington Lt. Gov. Denny Heck’s office told NPR over email that the state opted out in large part because of confusion over costs.
The fair will span 10 city blocks on the National Mall for over two weeks.
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“We had heard participating states (whether that was state agencies, tourism authorities, etc.) were generally planning for their costs to be anywhere between $100k to nearly $1m,” Dallas Roberts, Heck’s chief of staff, said in the email.
Each state and territory gets about 600 square feet to build its exhibit, with no set dollar amount required to participate, according to Freedom250. It acknowledges that cost was a concern for many states, which is why some partnered with tourism bureaus and companies.
“Our ask was not your government entity must do this and give money; it was an invitation to the state to represent their culture, heritage, and landscape however they would like,” Reisner, the Freedom250 spokesperson, wrote in an email, adding that the event is funded by “both private and public dollars.”
Officials in a handful of states have been more outspoken in their criticism of how the event is being run.
Speaking to GBH News’ Boston Public Radio earlier this month, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, who also opted out, said Trump “invited all the states to participate and wants to charge us to go down and put something on his exhibit.”
“It’s just ridiculous,” she added. “This is taxpayer money.”
Luke Harkins, a spokesperson for Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, told Oregon Public Broadcasting that the state is not participating “due to both the cost of participating in the Fair and growing concerns that the event in Washington, D.C. is shaping up to be a more partisan affair than originally presented.”
Officials from different states told NPR they had different understandings of how representation from their state would work.
Jayette Bolinski, a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, said the Peoria Riverfront Museum volunteered to represent the state with an “Illinois-centric pavilion” featuring a hologram of stories from over 50 residents — none of which was paid for by state funds, she stressed. Vaulman, of Connecticut, said she believes its booth will have photos and posters of some sort, while Hansen of Maine said their inquiries to Freedom250 about this “have gone unanswered.”
What else is on the anniversary agenda — and who’s planning it
Planning for national 250th anniversary events mainly falls to two main groups, which have become increasingly politicized.
In 2015, looking ahead, Congress created a nonpartisan commission to orchestrate anniversary celebrations, which in turn created a nonprofit called America250. It’s composed mostly of private citizens, along with several members of Congress and representatives from federal agencies.
America250 appears to focus mainly on getting Americans involved in celebrations at the local level, such as attending synchronized nationwide block parties. It has gathered — and recently sealed — a time capsule with contributions from every state and is hosting a July Fourth concert in Los Angeles, with tickets selling for $17.76, featuring the Smashing Pumpkins, Chris Stapleton and Queen Latifah.
Freedom250, on the other hand, emerged from a Trump 2025 executive order establishing a task force for celebrating the milestone. Critics — including progressive consumer advocacy group Public Citizen — see this group as Trump’s attempt to bypass America250 after trying unsuccessfully to pack it with loyalists.
Freedom250 describes itself as “the national, non-partisan organization leading the celebration of our Nation’s 250th birthday.” Another sign of its standing in the administration: The official White House webpage for the 250th links out to Freedom250, not America250.
The group has organized many other high-profile anniversary events, including the White House UFC event, the July Fourth rally on the Mall, a July Fourth tall ship event on the East Coast and the Freedom 250 Grand Prix of Washington, D.C., an Indycar event scheduled for the National Mall in August.
Trump’s executive order says the 250th task force must disband at the end of the year, unless he extends it. And many of the beautification projects his administration is undertaking in D.C. — from restoring fountains to installing statues to repainting the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool — are tied to the anniversary but could shape the city far beyond it.
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