The first presidential debate served as a flashpoint for an election season that was hurtling toward a showdown between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump. Many were excited for the bout, others dreaded it and some were not sure it would even happen.

We wanted to understand voters’ reflections on the debate through the lens of their weekend news consumption. To do this, we asked six voters around the country to log all the debate-related media they saw or heard in the days after the event.

During the weekend, they noted news articles, social media posts on X, Instagram and Reddit, podcasts on YouTube, newsletters, clips from broadcast TV, and even texts with friends. They didn’t report seeing vastly different sentiments across these platforms and outlets — instead, there was somewhat remarkable unity over just how bad it all felt.

Here are the themes that emerged after a weekend of scrolling.

Biden’s Poor Performance

All six voters said they felt confronted with the reality of the president’s age in the content they saw.

Lauren Waits, a member of the state committee for the Democratic Party of Georgia, realized through her weekend reading how broadly her concerns about Mr. Biden’s performance were shared among fellow Democrats.

Most of her media consumption centers around reading articles from local and national news outlets on her phone. She also reads three or four politics-focused newsletters almost every day.

What stood out most to David Carlson, the treasurer of the Georgia Young Republicans, was the mainstream media’s reaction to Mr. Biden’s performance.

“Their shock comes as a surprise,” he said. “It’s not like they weren’t aware of the alleged health problems for President Biden.” What he saw after the debate only deepened his belief that the mainstream media is a “deeply unserious enterprise.”

Most of Mr. Carlson’s news comes from X, not from official news outlets, but from individuals whose analysis and commentary he trusts. He regularly watches podcast shows from Breaking Point and The People’s Pundit on Youtube.

Distaste for Both Choices, and Despair

Social media posts that expressed distaste for both candidates resonated especially with the younger voters in our group who plan to vote Biden.

Aaron Hernandez, a California voter, said that even though Trump performed better, he would not change his mind.

“I feel like I have a good grasp of his true character and dark agenda if he got a second term,” he said. “Both parties made poor choices with their nominees.”

“I would describe the Democratic establishment as frantic, in frenzy, in panic,” he added, after a weekend of seeing dozens of memes about the debate. “This is really bad because it seems like they don’t know what they’re doing. And they’re scrambling to come up with Plan B since they didn’t have one in place. I think they’ll be trying to convince Biden to step out but if he doesn’t, then what?”

Arina Trotter, a 20-year-old student from Bloomington, Ind., who is registered as an independent, tuned into the debate feeling fairly sure she would vote for Mr. Biden, but with little enthusiasm. She was surprised that she ended up feeling even more disappointed with the choices than she had been previously.

“I haven’t seen anything positive really,” she said. Instead, there were many posts about “a lack of faith in our democracy” and the “two-party system altogether, specifically because of the age of the two candidates and the repeat lineup, and a lot of disappointment with Biden’s performance.”

Jim Hauersperger, 71, of Unionville, Iowa, voted for Mr. Trump in 2016, but quickly soured on him, and was appalled by the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Now, he said, “I don’t want to join the Democratic Party, but I left the Republican Party.”

A retired auto-manufacturing plant employee, Mr. Hauersperger gets nearly all of his news from network television. He doesn’t have cable T.V. or a smartphone. He has had only an internet connection at his house since December, and he does not read news online. “I don’t use it for anything other than if I need to go on and figure out how to fix my mower — stuff like that,” he said.

Over the three days immediately following the debate, he watched several network news segments. The coverage had left him more or less where he started. “I’m wishy-washy either way,” he said. “I’m not going to vote for Trump. But I don’t think I can vote for Biden either” — unless the race was close, in which case he thought he would vote for Biden. “What can you do?”

Few Issues, Many Memes

With focus on Biden’s poor performance, few issues or policies that came up during the debate surfaced in our voters’ media diets. The younger voters in our group saw many memes and jokes that entertained them.

Jonathon Ballard, 35, an assisted living facility staff coordinator from Green Bay, Wis., voted for Mr. Biden in 2020, but has since turned against him, mostly on account of inflation and, later, immigration. Mr. Ballard said he plans to vote for Mr. Trump this year. He went to a Trump rally for the first time this spring. Still, he said, “I’m not that much into politics.”

Mr. Ballard saw only the last half-hour of the debate, and missed the next-day coverage on the evening news because he got home late from his job on Friday. What he saw about the debate over the weekend consisted of a handful of pro-Trump memes and videos he came across while scrolling through his mostly apolitical Facebook and Instagram feeds, or in texts from friends.

The videos — from a conservative religious account, a right-wing meme maker with a large online following, and a Republican congressman from Alabama — all focused on Mr. Biden’s visible struggles in the debate, with only one touching briefly on a policy issue, immigration.

“I already had my mind set on Trump” before the debate, Mr. Ballard said. “But coming out of it, I was like, ‘Biden’s done.’”

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Emmanuel Macron’s move to call snap elections has cast a shadow over the Paris Olympic Games, raising the possibility of political unrest and a far-right government in charge of the world’s biggest sporting event.

The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) is projected to become the biggest parliamentary party after the run-off vote on Sunday. While a hung parliament appears the most likely outcome, if the RN were to win a majority, its 28-year-old party chief Jordan Bardella could be prime minister when the Games open on July 26, with his team greeting top athletes and dignitaries from across the world.

The timing of Macron’s decision to dissolve parliament was “catastrophic for the Games”, said Pascal Boniface, head of Paris-based think-tank Iris and an expert on the politics of sport. “We are in the thickest of fog over the future.”

Pierre Rabadan, a senior official responsible for Olympics planning in the Paris mayoralty of Socialist Anne Hidalgo, told the Financial Times he was “stupefied” by Macron’s “irresponsible” decision.

While he said the main strategic decisions had already been made, the move had raised “pragmatic and operational questions”, including deploying mayoral staff and city police for both the elections and the Games.

“We had thought about all the possible scenarios, except for the dissolution of the Assembly,” added Rabadan, a former professional rugby player with Stade Français.

Security experts had already warned of big policing challenges for the opening ceremony, in which thousands of athletes will sail down the River Seine watched by around 300,000 spectators along the quays. Pressure on security services would further be aggravated if anti-RN protesters were to take to the streets, they said.

Rabadan said his main concern now was the image of France that a far-right government, with an anti-immigration and nativist policy platform, would present.

“The Games are about welcoming the entire world and showing that we are an open country,” Rabadan said. “That clearly goes completely against what the Rassemblement National wants.”

Hidalgo told France 2 on Tuesday that “the party would not be spoiled” by an RN government.

But dozens of athletes have voiced concerns about the elections. Prior to the first round, French football star and captain of the national team Kylian Mbappé called on the electorate to vote “against the extremists”, while almost 300 sportspeople, including Rabadan, signed a column in French sports publication L’Equipe opposing the RN.

“In my memory, I have never seen athletes engage to this extent in the political field,” said Boniface.

Macron’s sports minister Amélie Oudéa-Castera told journalists ahead of the first round that despite the extensive preparations for the Olympics, an RN majority would mean far-right politicians with no experience in national government would still have to make important decisions “in a geopolitical context that is difficult, delicate and tense”.

Bardella has said he would not change the officials running the Games.

Guy Drut, a former 110m hurdles Olympic champion and sports minister under President Jacques Chirac, and one of the few athletes to publicly back the RN campaign, told Le Monde: “There is no reason the Games would go badly under an RN government.”

Scattered protests were held against the RN after the first-round vote. Paris police commissioner Laurent Nuñez told France Inter that the authorities were ready for further unrest but that this would not interrupt the Games.

“We’re preparing for this type of protest and we will have an extremely large [presence] in the Greater Paris region of 45,000 officers to manage [disorder],” he said.

In a further potential risk to smooth running, four unions representing airport management staff have threatened to strike in pursuit of “a uniform and fair bonus” for working during the event. Police, air traffic controllers, rubbish collectors and train and bus staff have already been promised bonuses.

Despite his confidence that policing and organisation were well in hand, Rabadan lamented the impact of the elections on the build-up. “There is very, very strong enthusiasm and popular support,” he said. “But the president’s decision . . . has put a stop to that rise in excitement we were hoping for, so that’s really quite disappointing.”

If you don’t see them, you hear them. On any July Fourth or New Year’s Eve, it’s common to experience the loud pop of a firework or see it colorfully explode into the sky and hang there briefly.

Pyrotechnic amusements from sparklers to Roman candles have long been a staple of celebrations in the U.S. and beyond, helping to mark national holidays, sporting events and more.

“They have become a global phenomenon, and they have become almost, if you like, the accepted way in which big events are celebrated,” said John Withington, author of the upcoming book, A History of Fireworks from Their Origins to the Present Day.

But the elaborate, computer-controlled displays of contemporary fireworks shows are a long way from the medium’s simpler beginnings in ancient China.

Fireworks began in ancient China before spreading West

The thinking goes that someone living in China around the first century B.C. threw a piece of bamboo on a fire and it exploded with a bang. Bamboo stalks contain air pockets that can expand and blow up in extreme heat. According to Withington, Chinese travelers would carry bamboo on journeys in case they needed to create a loud noise to scare away wild animals.

The next major development came around the ninth century, when gunpowder was invented. Chinese fabricators loaded up bamboo stalks with gunpowder to create perhaps the world’s first manufactured fireworks, and later began using paper tubes as well, History.com said. These were deployed to ward off evil spirits and celebrate births and weddings, according to the Smithsonian.

By the 12th century, fireworks were being lit for entertainment purposes in China’s imperial court, Withington said. Rudimentary fireworks then made their way to Europe around the 14th century, where Italian artists constructed displays resembling theatrical sets called “machines” and set off fireworks inside them.

Fireworks became even more complex thanks to advances in chemistry. The 19th century saw potassium chlorate used to elicit brilliant colors in fireworks, such as red and green, and enhance their brightness, according to Withington.

Over the years, innovations in technology led to some curious suggestions for how fireworks could help solve modern problems. Whalers experimented with rocket-powered harpoons in the late 1800s, and inventor Gerhard Zucker attempted to use pyrotechnic rockets to deliver mail in the 1930s.

A July Fourth tradition

Europeans who made their way to the Americas brought fireworks with them. It’s possible that Capt. John Smith, who was saved by Pocahontas according to legend, set off fireworks in Jamestown in 1608.

On July 3, 1776, the day after the Continental Congress voted for independence from Great Britain, John Adams wrote a letter to his wife, Abigail, imagining future celebrations of the occasion. (Though Congress voted for the Declaration of Independence on the 2nd, it was approved, signed and printed on the 4th.) Adams suggested those observances should include “illuminations,” or fireworks.

“It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more,” Adams wrote.

The following year, one of the first organized July Fourth celebrations was held in Philadelphia and included a fireworks display. “The evening was closed with the ringing of bells, and at night there was a grand exhibition of fireworks (which began and concluded with thirteen rockets) on the Commons, and the city was beautifully illuminated,” a story in the Pennsylvania Evening Post reported.

To critics, however, fireworks weren’t just a flashy racket — they were also deadly. On Independence Day of 1903, more than 460 people were killed in fireworks accidents, according to Withington.

A Pennsylvania attorney named Charles Pennypacker wrote in a letter to the Philadelphia Inquirer that year that Americans should hold a “quiet and sane observance” of the holiday. They could take a trolley ride, sit under a tree or bake a cake, Pennypacker suggested.

It didn’t go over too well with some. “On July 3, 1904, so the day before Independence Day,” Withington said, “some local young people gathered outside his house and started letting off fireworks and generally creating mayhem.”

Still, the “Safe and Sane” movement gained traction among some city officials who hoped to create calmer July Fourth celebrations. Chicago’s mayor outlawed the discharge of fireworks, while Santa Fe held a beauty pageant in place of the typical festivities, according to Smithsonian Magazine.

Fireworks today

The interest in fireworks never fizzled out, and they remain available across almost the entire U.S. today.

Only Massachusetts bans all forms of consumer fireworks, according to the American Pyrotechnics Association (APA). Every other state and the District of Columbia permit the sale of some or all types of fireworks.

According to the APA, fireworks remain popular. Consumers bought 246.5 million pounds of fireworks last year and 436.4 million pounds the year before that, industry figures show.

Yet they continue to pose a safety risk both to professionals working with commercial-grade fireworks and those lighting the odd firecracker for fun.

According to a recent report by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, 9,700 people were treated in emergency rooms for fireworks injuries last year, eight of whom died. Two-thirds of the injuries occurred in the weeks before and after July 4.

But safety experts say there are some best practices people can follow to have a blast without getting hurt, such as lighting fireworks outside, not holding lit fireworks in your hand and not using fireworks when impaired by alcohol or drugs.

According to KCUR, fireworks can also pose a risk to human health by producing particulate matter and other pollutants and harm the environment by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.