{"id":741977,"date":"2026-07-04T02:15:08","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T02:15:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/741977\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T02:15:08","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T02:15:08","slug":"americas-250th-live-updates-trump-to-speak-at-mount-rushmore-as-heat-disrupts-july-fourth-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/741977\/","title":{"rendered":"America\u2019s 250th live updates: Trump to speak at Mount Rushmore as heat disrupts July Fourth events"},"content":{"rendered":"

As many good stories do, this one begins in Italy.<\/p>\n

In 1889, Constantine Vitale opened a fireworks shop in his small Italian town, turning his fascination with pyrotechnics into a family business.<\/p>\n

When he immigrated to the United States in 1920, he brought that expertise with him. After settling in New Castle, Pennsylvania \u2014 north of Pittsburgh \u2014 he opened up a fireworks business that would eventually become Pyrotecnico.<\/p>\n

More than a century later, the company is in its fifth generation, producing fireworks, drone and light shows for everyone from Cardi B to the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, as well as communities across the country.<\/p>\n

But nothing has compared to this.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think if he would see the company today, he would probably be incredibly proud, but probably think we were a little crazy,\u201d Constantine\u2019s great-grandson and current CEO Stephen Vitale told NBC News.<\/p>\n

\"Family-owned<\/p>\n

On July Fourth in Washington, D.C., Pyrotecnico plans to launch more than 850,000 fireworks, aiming to shatter a world record previously set by a megachurch in the Philippines a decade ago.<\/p>\n

The 40-minute display will launch from eight barges on the Potomac River and two land-based sites \u2014 West Potomac Park and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. In all, about 58,000 pounds of fireworks were transported from western Pennsylvania to the nation’s capital, where a crew of 75 Pyrotecnico employees will bring the show to life.<\/p>\n

To create the display, designer Jason Farrell traveled the world in search of the right fireworks. The finale will feature shells from Spain, Italy and China.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach country kind of has their own take on how they create fireworks, so everybody has kind of a specialty of what they do,\u201d Farrell said.<\/p>\n

The fireworks will be synchronized to a live soundtrack performed by a military band made up of musicians from several branches of the U.S. armed forces. The setlist spans six decades and includes \u201cDon\u2019t Stop Believin\u2019,\u201d \u201cCourtesy of the Red, White & Blue,\u201d \u201cSweet Caroline\u201d and \u201cParty in the U.S.A.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s something about the feeling and the honor of doing a firework display on the Fourth of July in Washington, D.C.,\u201d Vitale said. \u201cIt\u2019s Independence Day at its best.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As many good stories do, this one begins in Italy. In 1889, Constantine Vitale opened a fireworks shop…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":741978,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,451,3,452,453],"class_list":["post-741977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741977\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/741978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}