US 4th of July celebrations LIVE updates: Fireworks start as Trump finishes speech at Washington event postponed by storm that upended America’s 250th anniversary celebration

Thank you for joining our live coverage of the US 4th of July celebrations.

Here are the top headlines from today:

• The National Mall in Washington was evacuated due to a weather emergency ahead of Trump’s speech to celebrate the country’s 250th anniversary. The event was also scaled back due to heat.
• Masked white nationalists crammed the subway and staged a march in Washington.
• In Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, jets roared ahead of the France-Paraguay World Cup game as fans celebrated the double joy of soccer’s biggest tournament on home soil and the 250th anniversary of American independence.
• In Iran, a performer at the funeral for the country’s slain supreme leader called for Trump’s death.

And that’s it from us.

An environmental group’s ship displaying a “politically charged” message has been removed from a fleet of ships in New York to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US, according to the Coast Guard.

A ship owned by the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater environmental organisation was forced out of the Sail4th 250 parade in New York Harbour, the Coast Guard said in a statement.

The ship had banners that read, “Save the Clean Water Act” and “Indigenous Rights, Racial Justice, Climate Solutions”.

Participants in the event had agreed to refrain from displaying political or politically charged messages or statements, according to the Coast Guard, which said it enforced the agreement on behalf of Sail4th.

While the theatrics continue in the US, a performer at the funeral for Iran’s late supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called for the death of President Donald Trump before a crowd in Tehran.

The comment represents the first direct call for Trump’s death by an emcee at the funeral, although posters and graffiti calling for the killing of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have appeared.

That’s been a hard-line demand even as Tehran negotiates with the US over a permanent end to the war that’s disrupted global energy supplies.

Mohammad Rasouli, a poet, drew calls of “Death to America!” and “Death to Israel!”

Speaking to the crowd over loudspeakers at the funeral, Rasouli asked, referring to Trump: “Why is the most bastard man in the world still alive?”

The question drew cheers from the crowd, and again when Rasouli said that “the world is no longer a good place for” Trump.

AP

“We have thrived and flourished because our founders were great. Our cause was just, our people are brave, our culture is exceptional, and our destiny is written by God,” Trump says.

“This is only the dawn of the golden age of America.

“We’re going to make it bigger, better, stronger, and we’re going to love it even more,” he says.

“The inconvenience of lightning can do that, but lightning will never stop you.”

Trump seems to be wrapping up now, but first he takes a little detour to talk about how he made Washington safe.

“Our capital is now safe, gleaming, and beautiful again. It’s safe again. Went from a very unsafe place two years ago to one of the safest cities in the country,” he says.

The president controversially sent US National Guard troops to take control of the city’s policing last year.

After a long riff about flight and space travel, Trump insists American astronauts will be headed to Mars.

“We’re going to be going to Mars very soon, and I think that’s something that we do have in mind, and we’re going to do the moon, and we’re going to go from there, we’re going to go to Mars,” the president said.

“We were losing to China and to Russia in space, and now we’re leading them by giant steps, and it’s a great thing,” he said.

President Trump is shouting out various World War II veterans who are in the crowd.

“They are the greatest generation. I hate to admit that, but they are.”

Then, Trump returns to a recurring theme of his address – the threat of communism.

“Communism is a loser, and it always will be,” he said.

“The stars and stripes cast the hammer and sickle into oblivion before, and we will do it again if necessary.”

“We never had the American dream, however, like we have it right now, the American dream is back, very strong, beautiful,” the US president has told the crowd.

He then says that the US military is “overflowing” after being “rebuilt” in his first term.

Trump then makes reference to his false claims that he won the 2020 presidential election.

“We used it [the military] a little bit in our, actually, I should say, third term, but I won’t do that, because I don’t want any controversy.”

Trump is now talking about the threat of communism.

“We don’t want communists in our country,” he said. “Never worked, and it never will work.”

The president, who in 2024 was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, then appears to reference his own legal troubles.

“We have freedom of speech, freedom of religion, equal justice under the law. Although I wasn’t treated that well, but we won’t get into that,” he said, to jeers from the crowd.

Trump begins with a typically over-the-top monologue about American greatness.

“For 250 years, the United States of America has been the hope, the promise, the light, and the glory among all of the nations of the world,” he said.

The president then insists that today’s event was “bigger” than the adoption of the US Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776.

“This is bigger than if we didn’t have the lightning blaring, we had lightning blaring, but this is bigger, [a] little more inconvenient, but it’s bigger. I think in its own way, it’s more beautiful.”