South Carolina's pine forests "have spent centuries hiding a secret as old as America itself," reports CBS News:



In August 1780, British and American soldiers clashed there, leading to a terrible defeat for the Continental army [fighting for the 13 colonies rebelling against England]. Battlefield archaeologists Jim Legg and Steve Smith have been studying the site for decades, but recently, they made a shocking discovery: The sandy soil was home to several sets of remains buried in shallow graves. Metal buttons suggested the men had been Continental soldiers, but there was no other identification... About 2,000 Continental soldiers were killed, wounded or captured, and some men never returned home.

Their families could only guess at their fates. But Legg and Smith's discovery, paired with an explosion in DNA technology, is changing what's possible. A set of remains, previously known only as 9B, has been identified as John Pumphrey, a young man from Maryland who enlisted in the Continental Army's 7th Maryland Regiment as young as 13... Pumphrey likely marched more than a thousand miles with the regiment. The unit fought in battles with then-Gen. George Washington in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.


Pumphrey likely marched more than a thousand miles with the regiment. The unit fought in battles with then-Gen. George Washington in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. In late June, members of the extended Pumphrey family came together to hear his story and say his name for the first time in centuries. His remains are interred in South Carolina, where he and the other soldiers were discovered, but the tombstone, once marked "Unknown," will soon have his name carved on it.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As America began celebrating its 250th birthday Saturday, 842,000 homes reported power outages, notes ABC News. Figures from tracking site PowerOutage showed states in America's Northeast and Midwest were impacted by severe weather and extreme heat.

That number, which will fluctuate throughout the day as crews work to restore power, is for households, meaning that the number of people impacted by these outages is likely to be much larger... Millions of Americans, however, will be contending with a heatwave that is blanketing much of the country, including in Philadelphia where the Salute to Independence Semiquincentennial Parade that had been set for Friday was canceled due to the dangerous heat wave, according to Philadelphia ABC station WPVI. Elsewhere, America's Independence Day Parade, which was scheduled for 10:30 a.m. on July 4 in downtown Washington, D.C. was canceled by organizers late Friday evening due to the extreme heat in the District of Columbia... Amtrak announced it will be canceling a number of trains due to heat-related conditions.

The outages seemed to last throughout the day, with 790,103 household outages still in effect by 4:30 p.m. EST. Ironically, the power outages hit several American states that were among the country's original 13 freedom-declaring colonies, including New Jersey (143,072 outages), Pennsylvania (40,944 outages), and Virginia (27,392 outages).

CNBC adds that America's largest power grid operator said Friday "it was under a federal alert to cut electricity consumption across its territory as it battled generator outages, massive overloading on its transmission lines and a surge in air conditioning use from prolonged sweltering heat."


PJM said it told utilities to reduce electricity to customers who are under contract to reduce consumption during emergencies. PJM serves 67 million people in the Mid-Atlantic, South and Washington, D.C., area. Spot wholesale electricity prices in northern Virginia, home to the largest collection of data centers in the world, have surged beyond $2,000 per megawatt hour this week. That compares to about $40 per MWh when PJM is not in distress.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you want a sense of the Chinese cultural impression of what Americans like, you only have to look at the products of fireworks maker Brothers Pyrotechnics, Inc., this year including the three pack of Hoist The Colors Red, White and Blue, the phallic cylinders of GLORY, HONOR and POWER that promise "oversized bursts," the Grand Jury composed of "Peak Performance Maximum Load 5-Inch Shells," Captain Sam "for daytime use," My Country and others. But what the heck is going on on the boxes of Caution To The Wind or Fowl Play? (Note: it's possible that some of these were made with AI generation, but honestly Brothers has generated ridiculous box art like this for many years with only Photoshop, so who the hell knows?)

Tasmanian.Kris has added a photo to the pool:

Layered reflections, textures, and just enough subject to hold it together. The trick here is restraint. Don’t chase clarity, let the mess sit.

Tasmanian.Kris has added a photo to the pool:

A handwritten poster wrapped around a pole, equal parts optimism and mild desperation. The kind of detail you only catch if you’re walking slow with a camera and no plan. Street photography is mostly about noticing what everyone else steps past.

Tasmanian.Kris has added a photo to the pool:

Those tram tracks pull the whole frame forward whether you like it or not. Classic leading lines doing exactly what they’re meant to do. I resisted the urge to overcomplicate it. Sometimes you let the geometry drive.

Tasmanian.Kris has added a photo to the pool:

A wall of windows repeating just enough to become pattern. Shooting upward flattens it into something almost graphic. These buildings aren’t pretty, but they photograph well if you lean into the rhythm.

Na de overtuigende overwinning van maandag op het Nederlands elftal had Marokko zaterdag aanmerkelijk meer moeite om te domineren. Toch won het, en staat de ploeg voor de tweede keer in de geschiedenis in de kwartfinale van een WK.

The Kremlin aide said Putin gave Trump a realistic assessment of the battlefield situation in Ukraine.