1A

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

250 years ago, the founding fathers were days away from adopting the Declaration of Independence.

Fast forward to July 4, 2026, two and a half centuries later, has America lived up to those lofty ideals?

Is this anniversary a time for celebration, mourning, reckoning, or something else? We hear from 1A listeners on what Independence Day means to them.

Note: One of our callers referenced the Frederick Douglass speech ‘What to the Slave is the Fourth of July.’ You can read that here. 

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Americans are grappling with a rising cost in healthcare. For the first time in five years, fewer than half of Americans can consistently afford healthcare. That’s according to the latest data from Gallup. The cost of healthcare in the US remains higher than any other large, wealthy country. According to a report from the Department of Health and Human Services, five million fewer people are enrolled in marketplace plans for 2026, compared to last year. That’s as average premium costs rose about 58%.

With health care costs increasingly becoming a stress for Americans, voters are now making the issue a top priority at the ballot box. And it’s an issue that crosses party and geographic lines. According to new polling from The Century Foundation, 71% of Democrats, 66% of Republicans and 75% of rural voters agree that reigning in hospital costs should be a top priority for lawmakers. While new polling from Ipsos and Axios suggests that a majority of Americans say they’re more likely to vote for candidates in November who will lower their health costs.

How will the issue of healthcare shape the midterms? And how are Americans grappling with the cost of their health?

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President Donald Trump has taken an increasingly personal role in the government’s clemency process, wielding pardons aid his allies and advance his own political grievances.

A Reuters investigation found that 96% of Trump’s second-term clemency grants have gone to recipients who didn’t fulfill longstanding DOJ guidelines for such requests. Past presidents on have sidestepped those rules before, but fewer than 1% of those who received clemency during the Biden administration and just 14% of recipients in Trump’s first presidency failed to meet the guidelines.

Pardon applicants once had to comply with longstanding DOJ guidelines, such as a five-year wait after conviction or demonstrated remorse for their crimes. But a Reuters’ analysis shows that under Trump, clemency now is far more dependent upon access to his inner circle. They also found that “access is enhanced when an applicant can craft a narrative that resonates with the president’s own sense of victimization.”

During his first administration, Trump granted just 238 pardons and commutations, most of which came amid his frantic final days in office. But this term the White House has made clemencies a key part of its agenda.

As part of our weekly series “If You Can Keep it,” we discuss pardons in the second Trump Administration.

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This week the Supreme Court sides with President Trump on ending Temporary Protected Status. The decades-long program currently gives legal status in the U.S. to about 350,000 Haitians and more than 6,000 Syrians seeking refuge from crises at home.

The court also ruled to renew a “turn-back” policy at the border with Mexico that prevents migrants from entering the U.S. to seek asylum. A decision on President Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship in the U.S. is expected soon.

Also in Washington, the president creates chaos in his own party, demanding that Republican Senators reconsider their support for a war powers resolution on Iran. A vote to limit war powers passed on Tuesday with support from four Republicans. A similar resolution failed on Wednesday. President Trump also on Wednesday refused to sign a bipartisan housing bill that had passed the House 358-32.

And in New York, three candidates backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani win their primaries for Congressional seats against establishment Democrats.

And, in global news, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance were overseas this week, selling and negotiating an end to the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran.

But Iran’s chief negotiator calls the deal an “American declaration of defeat” and it marks the end of any remaining joint Iran-strategy between the U.S. and Israel.

Delegations from Israel and Lebanon meet in Washington to extend a ceasefire in a conflict that’s killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon and displaced 20% of the population of under 6 million. And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vows to continue fighting in Lebanon as he faces pressure at home and isolation from U.S. leaders.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer resigns in the U.K., but analysts say his likely successor Andy Burnham will face the same deep challenges that have knocked out six leaders in the 10 years since Brexit.

We cover the most important stories from around the world in the News Roundup.

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Artificial Intelligence is advancing at a dizzying pace. One analysis shows it doubling its abilities every seven months.

And it’s surpassed humans in more than just trivia and Chess. Last year, an AI from Microsoft solved complex medical cases with 85% accuracy, far about the 20% average for experienced physicians. And a recent Stanford report found that some of the newest A-I systems now match or beat the average human expert on PhD-level science questions.

But what happens when A-I is better and smarter than the brightest among us at every task? That’s called superintelligence.

Researchers disagree about how close we are to that sci-fi goal: is it years, or decades—or possible at all? And what happens if that genie-in-a-bottle is let loose? Some say the risk is as existential as total human extinction.

We’ll discuss the biggest promise – and peril – of AI’s advancement beyond humans.

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