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WASHINGTON, D.C. — The State Department began issuing commemorative passports for America's 250th anniversary on Monday. The passports feature an image of President Trump and are only available in person at the Washington Passport Agency — and only with an appointment. John Hall drove all the way from his home in Alabama, in what he calls his "MAGA red" Hyundai, to get one of the new passports. "It's a commemorative thing to have," he told NPR.

On Wednesday, a federal appeals court denied President Trump's request to stop the removal of his name from Washington, D.C.'s Kennedy Center. The signage on the building has been covered with tarp and scaffolding since June 13, but in a court filing last month, the center's current executive director said that Trump's name has been removed.

Ohio is big in agriculture and that $124 billion industry relies on a small insect to survive: the honeybee. Despite their vital role in nature, producers in Greene County have started reporting a rapid decline in numbers of bee sightings since 2024. That decline is largely due to invasive and pesticide resistant mites that OSU reported killed 30 to 50% of colonies last year. "This mite is called a Varroa destructor.

Renewed fighting between the U.S. and Iran added yet another dose of uncertainty to the global economy. Crude oil prices jumped and stock prices fell after President Trump declared an end to the fragile ceasefire in the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. military attacked dozens of targets along the Iranian coastline overnight, in retaliation for what appeared to be Iranian attacks on vessels trying to transit the strait.

The family of an 18-year-old who was found dead after a July 4 boat trip to an island off the Gulf Coast has retained civil rights attorney Ben Crump amid an ongoing investigation into the circumstances of his disappearance. Nolan Xavier Wells' body was discovered Monday off the coast of Horn Island, Mississippi, where he was last seen with a group of friends Saturday afternoon, officials said.

In April 2025, design critic Catesby Leigh proposed the idea of building an arch in Washington, D.C., on a conservative think tank's website. The president should build the arch in the nation's capital to commemorate the country's 250th birthday, suggested Leigh, who included two sketches of arches to illustrate the concept.

MOSCOW — The International Olympic Committee (IOC) "provisionally" lifted its suspension of Russia on Tuesday — a decision laced with controversy amid Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine that nonetheless opens a path for Russian athletes to compete as full-fledged participants in the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles and beyond.

With just under four months before the midterm elections, a wave of court rulings, lawsuits and new laws is reshaping how elections are run in the U.S. In its spring session, the Supreme Court significantly narrowed the Voting Rights Act. "The Voting Rights Act of 1965, the most important civil rights law of the 1960s, has no teeth left. And that's just the beginning of what they've done in terms of weakening democracy," journalist Ari Berman says.

Updated July 8, 2026 at 1:29 PM EDT Liza Colón-Zayas and Jeff Hiller presented the nominees on Wednesday morning. Winners will be announced at the 78th Emmy Awards on September 14. Read analysis below or click here for the list of nominees. The nominations look familiar — up to a point. There are plenty of expected names in the list of nominees for the 2026 Emmy Awards: The Pittled all shows with 25 nominations, followed closely by the final season of Hackswith 24.

I had wanted to visit the monastery of Deir Mar Musa, about 60 miles north of Damascus, for a while. Its incredible restoration under a charismatic Italian priest, his tragic disappearance and presumed death during the Syrian civil war, and the inspiring interfaith work of the monastery's remaining monks and nuns all fascinated me. While hiking in a rocky valley behind the sixth-century hilltop monastery this summer, I came across a singular mulberry tree, its branches laden with ripe fruit.