As the United States turns 250 years old, Americans across the country are spending the holiday thinking about what the big birthday means to them, with reflections and celebrations as diverse as the nation itself.

NPR’s member station reporters fanned out to collect snapshots of the occasion from sea to shining sea.

In one ‘City of Presidents,’ Main Street is decorated for a party

At least two cities in the U.S.call themselves the “City of Presidents” and Cuba City, in Wisconsin, is one of them, largely due to its patriotic Main Street decorations. Every year from Memorial Day through Veteran’s Day, red, white, and blue shields, one for each U.S. president, are prominently displayed high up on the light poles lining Main Street.

It’s a tradition that began in 1976 to commemorate the country’s bicentennial, says Donna Rogers, who is president of the ongoing project but admitted that when it first started, she wasn’t particularly tuned-in to the display.

“I was raising three little boys and working at John Deere, so I didn’t really pay too much attention to community service at that time,” she said.

Donna Rogers shows off one of Cuba City’s presidential lampposts.

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A few years later, she was tapped to help keep the initiative alive.

When she thinks of the country’s history, she says the signing of the Declaration of Independence and abolition of slavery top her list, plus a current event–

“Of course, now, our nation’s 250th birthday. I think those three would be the three most important things in history to me,” she said, quickly adding “[the] right for women to vote, don’t forget that, right?”

Rogers and Cuba City are pulling out all the stops for the 250th, with a parade and a mac-and-cheese festival, because “that was some of our founding fathers favorite foods, along with turkey and cranberries and other items.”

She laughed and admitted she googled that. True or not, Rogers says they’ll go all-out to celebrate the 250th in her “City of Presidents”.

Washington — There are fireworks, and then there’s what’s in store for Saturday in Washington, D.C.

When the sun goes down on Independence Day, the skies of Washington are expected to fill with a record-setting 850,000 individual fireworks for a 40-minute spectacle like no one has seen before.

A company called Pyrotecnico will attempt the biggest fireworks show in history, using five generations of family know-how and a background in Super Bowls and large musical acts to help America celebrate its 250th birthday with a bang.

“I mean, it is the biggest show that we’ve done,” Rocco Vitale, president of Pyrotecnico, told CBS News. “…My earliest memories of fireworks displays and doing the Fourth of July was here.”

Pyrotecnico has been planning this year’s show since January, using computers to simulate the display. But now it’s time for the real thing.

Vitale gave CBS News an exclusive look at his not-so-secret weapons: eight barges out on the Potomac River, each one ready to light up the night sky.
 
“Each firing location has a communication device, and its all set on GPS. And once the time of the show is put into the system, it goes at that time,” Vitale explained.

According to Freedom 250, the organizer of the “Salute to America 250 Celebration & Fireworks” on the National Mall, President Trump will deliver remarks at 9:45 p.m. Eastern Time, and the fireworks display will get underway at 10:45 p.m. The event is expected to draw hundreds of thousands of people.

Join CBS for “The Great American Block Party 250,” a primetime special on Saturday, July 4, hosted by CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil and Entertainment Tonight’s Nischelle Turner, featuring live musical performances, celebrations around the country, and the largest fireworks show in history in the skies over the nation’s capital. Tune in July 4 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and stream it on Paramount+ and CBS News 24/7.

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In between shifts in the emergency room, Dr. Dan McGee was in an Oregon courtroom. He was fighting for his practice — Eugene Emergency Physicians (EEP). The group of more than 40 doctors and physician assistants work at multiple emergency departments; it was being replaced by a national company.

“This was big time, David and Goliath stuff,” McGee said. “You see 14 of their lawyers sitting there and you see three of ours.”

Those lawyers argued that ApolloMD, the national company, violated Oregon’s corporate practice of medicine law. The 2025 law bans corporations from taking control of a medical practice’s operations and finances.

The case garnered national interest because Oregon’s new law targets the loopholes large staffing firms have been employing to circumvent state corporate medicine laws.

Money for control

Most states have laws requiring that doctors own medical practices, not corporations. These rules aim to put patient interests ahead of profit motives. Over the last several years, companies have used a model where a doctor technically owns the local practice, but as Erin Fuse Brown, a professor at Brown University, explains, those physician owners are often not involved in care and cede hiring, firing and other operational functions to the corporation.

Fuse Brown said these arrangements are attractive to hospitals because these companies often promise more revenue and take over the responsibilities that come with running an ER.

“There’s worry that these investors or these corporate management companies should not be totally controlling the operations and the clinical decisions of those who are trained to deliver patient care,” Fuse Brown said.

The connection to patient care concerned Dr. Jonas Pologe, who works for Eugene Emergency Physicians, in the Eugene, Ore., area. ApolloMD offered local doctors jobs, but Pologe worried that if he pushed back on decisions ApolloMD made, he could lose work hours.