(NEWS FROM THE STATES) – Visitors from across the United States traveled to the National Mall Thursday for the opening day of the Great American State Fair, a days-long event that is part of President Donald Trump’s Freedom 250 celebration of the nation’s semiquincentennial.

States and territories showed off cultural and agricultural exports at exhibits stretching nearly a mile. Attendees snapped photos on the small Grand Ole Opry stage in the Tennessee booth, kids tried putt-putt at Indiana’s miniature golf course and cowboys rode horses at Montana’s rodeo.

A 110-foot Ferris wheel slowly turned at the center of the freshly manicured lawn, framing the Washington Monument and the U.S. Capitol in the distance on either side. Nearby stood a model of Trump’s controversial “triumphal arch.”

People collected swag from each state — drawstring bags from Ohio, stickers from South Dakota, snacks from Tennessee — and could receive a stamp on state fair passports.

The fair is part of the larger Freedom 250 programming and kicked off Wednesday night with a rally on the mall featuring a speech from the president that closely resembled his remarks along the 2024 presidential campaign trail. The festivities will continue over Independence Day, when Trump will deliver a second speech followed by what is promised to be an impressive fireworks display.

The president will visit North and South Dakota as part of his Freedom 250 tour for the opening of the Teddy Roosevelt presidential library and Independence Day eve fireworks above Mount Rushmore.

Freedom 250 then extends into August with a high school athletic competition in Washington, D.C., dubbed the “Patriot Games” and a Freedom 250 INDYCAR race around the National Mall.

The administration’s celebration is separate from the America250 commission, created by Congress a decade ago, and which has its own nationwide programming this year.

From Lake Erie to the Ohio River

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and first lady Fran DeWine greeted guests in Ohio’s pavilion. The couple posed for photos in front of a map of the Buckeye State.

“We wanted to see on the wall all the different things, from Lake Erie to the Ohio River, all the different fun things you can do in Ohio,” the Republican governor said, adding the state has local celebrations and initiatives planned for the 250th anniversary, including “Movies in Ohio” for community showings of films that feature the state.

Ohio’s first lady showcased a children’s literacy exhibit on the opposite wall and touted the roughly 427,000 participants in the state’s partnership with the Dolly Parton Imagination Library, a program that mails free children’s books monthly to households with kids under age 5.

“We’ve mailed out 27 million books. We know that a child’s brain is 80% developed by age 3, so we want to get them those books early,” she said.

Reflecting on America’s milestone birthday, the governor said, “We’re always a work in progress, Ohio’s a work in progress, this country is a work in progress.”

“I think you know the thing we need to keep in mind, all of us, is there’s some essential core principles that we all believe in. … We may disagree about different policies, but the core principles are the same,” he said.

Cartwheels on the lawn

People from various states walked from exhibit to exhibit, while stopped in the nation’s capital during road trip vacations.

Tanya Geders, 43, of St. Louis, Missouri, did a cartwheel in the mall lawn, trying to persuade her son to join in. The family stopped at the state fair on their way to Virginia Beach.

“We’re like, well, if we go to the ocean, we can go to D.C. and what a better time to be here than the 250th anniversary,” Geders said.

Robyn Toman, 71, of Severn, Maryland, escorted her 12-year-old grandson Miles to meet DeWine and grab a photo with the governor.

Toman said she remembers the country’s bicentennial.

“I was a kid about his age, and I came in 1976. I said, ‘We’re gonna go, let’s go down to D.C. for a couple days and see this,’” she said.

“We’ve enjoyed it. We went over to the archives yesterday, and saw the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence, and the Bill of Rights. And, oh, that was so nice, that was fantastic.”

Not all states are there. A spokesperson for Washington state’s lieutenant governor’s office told States Newsroom the administration declined to join because of “the costs to the state associated with participating.”According to news reports, Connecticut, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont did not contribute exhibits, though many are still represented by flags outside the individual booths.The state officials did not immediately respond to States Newsroom for confirmation.

All states that reportedly did not participate, with the exception of Vermont, are Democratic-led.

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton issued an opinion Friday saying part of an Austin Energy code that went into effect last year conflicts with Texas law and is unenforceable, opening a new legal challenge for Austin’s push to make new buildings easier to electrify.

In April 2025, the Austin City Council adopted the 2024 International Energy Conservation Code, which, among other things, created new “electric-ready” requirements for residential and commercial buildings that could make it easier for future owners to transition away from natural gas.

Weeks later, Texas Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, asked Paxton whether those provisions conflicted with a 2021 state law prohibiting local governments from discriminating against utility services based on the type of energy used. In his opinion, Paxton concluded that they do.

Paxton wrote that Austin’s new electric-ready requirements have the “purpose, intent or effect” of discriminating against gas utilities, which conflicts with state law, a finding that could intensify the broader political fight over local control, consumer choice and the role of natural gas in Texas.

“We therefore conclude that the Utility Code’s broad prohibition renders (the provision) of the City’s ordinance unenforceable,” Paxton wrote.

Austin Energy did not respond to a request for comment late Friday afternoon.

State opinion escalates fight over Austin’s push toward electrification

It is unclear whether the city will challenge the attorney general’s interpretation in court. An attorney general’s opinion is not the same as a court ruling and does not become law, though agencies often take such opinions into account when making policy decisions.

In his letter to Paxton, Birdwell said House Bill 17, which passed in 2021, was drafted in response to the growing number of Texas cities restricting gas hook-ups in new buildings and was intended to “preserve customer choice and allow Texans to decide how to meet their own energy needs.”

He said Austin’s “electric-ready” provision would “severely affect commercial customers” by requiring additional electrical infrastructure to be installed alongside certain natural gas appliances, raising costs for customers planning to use natural gas for those appliances.

Paul Robbins, vice chair of the Resource Management Commission, argued the city’s intent in adopting the code was not to prohibit building owners from using natural gas, but instead to give them the option to transition to electrification in the future by requiring electrical infrastructure during construction.

“The city tried to pursue this in a fuel-neutral way,” Robbins said. “They did not say you cannot build gas homes; they said you have to give customers a choice, so that if they choose to go all-electric, then it doesn’t cost them a lot of money to rewire their house.”

Robbins said Austin’s approach was meant to expand options, not restrict them.

“You can make a cogent argument that not doing electrification is actually discriminatory.”

A man who escaped an Alabama prison facility and allegedly staged a local carjacking in 2019 has been extradited to Escambia County, Florida.

Travis Wyatt Dawson was served with outstanding warrants and extricated last week for felony carjacking with a weapon and misdemeanor battery. He remains in the Escambia County Jail with bond set at $102,500.

The charges stem from a July 14, 2019, incident on Miller Road in Walnut Hill. Dawson, who had escaped from a Loxley, Alabama, work release center four days prior, allegedly grabbed a victim from behind, brandished a machete, and stole a 2016 Dodge Caravan. As Dawson fled the scene, a witness jumped into the back of the minivan to try to stop him. The vehicle was later found abandoned after running out of gas at Interstate 65 and Government Street in Mobile.

Dawson eluded capture until May 2020, when he was apprehended in Louisiana.

At the time of his escape, Dawson was serving a 20 years sentence for a 2013 convocation for possession of a controlled substance in Escambia County, Alabama.

A man who escaped an Alabama prison facility in 2019 and allegedly staged a local carjacking has been extradited to Escambia County, Florida.

Travis Wyatt Dawson was served with outstanding warrants and extricated last week for felony carjacking with a weapon and misdemeanor battery.

The charges stem from a July 14, 2019, incident on Miller Road in Walnut Hill. Dawson, who had escaped from a Loxley, Alabama, work release center four days prior, allegedly grabbed a victim from behind, brandished a machete, and stole a 2016 Dodge Caravan. As Dawson fled the scene, a witness jumped into the back of the minivan to try to stop him. The vehicle was later found abandoned after running out of gas at Interstate 65 and Government Street in Mobile.

Dawson eluded capture until May 2020, when he was apprehended in Louisiana.

At the time of his escape, Dawson was serving a 20 years sentence for a 2013 convocation for possession of a controlled substance in Escambia County, Alabama.

Pictured top: Officers from the Alabama Department of Corrections speak to an Escambia County (FL) deputy and a citizen a roadblock on Miller Road in Florida on July 12, 2019. Dawson allegedly carjacked a minivan just a few yards from this location on July 14, 2019.  Pictured below: An Escambia County (FL) Road Prison K-9 team searches near a Rockaway Creek Road bridge that spans the Alabama-Florida state line. Pictured bottom: An Escambia County (FL) deputy helps maintain a perimeter around a neighborhood along Rockaway Creek Road at Grubbs Street in Atmore. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.