Do you even like fireworks anymore? Should we ban them? Take our poll.
It's not even the Fourth of July, and already I've had my fill of fireworks.
My neighborhood began setting them off in late June, creating the kind of pop and crackle that lights up platforms like Nextdoor with endless posts and debate about 'were those firecrackers or gunshots?'
This time of year, as well as Christmas, New Year's Eve and those precious moments our sports teams actually win, it's always fireworks. And I'm over it.
For many, watching the sky light up amid thunderous booms is one of the core memories of childhood. I share that same nostalgia: Setting up lawn chairs, necks craned toward the sky, delighting in all the dazzling designs and colors. Lighting the fuse on a bottle rocket and running for cover, all 10 fingers fortunately still intact.
But maybe it's because I'm older now and value a good night's sleep – or because I've come to understand just how detrimental fireworks are to our environment, our pets, the wildlife around us and, yes, even our health – that I've found myself sympathizing, and maybe even agreeing with, the 'ban fireworks' contingent. At the very least, maybe we can leave the pyrotechnics to the professionals and stop shooting them off in every neighborhood in the city. (Don't agree? Scroll down to vote in our poll.)
The harmful effects of fireworks
Because the thing is, fireworks cause very real harm to the very people who have fought to protect our freedoms. The flashes of light, burning smells and smoke are known triggers for veterans and others with PTSD. Fireworks are likely causing fear and anxiety – and even physical pain and distress – in your pets, too. Studies have shown that half of dogs express fear at the noise. Birds and wildlife experience the same fear and disruption at the sound of fireworks, often resulting in them fleeing in panic, and sometimes dying as a result.
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And the damage doesn't just happen during nightfall: The debris left from fireworks – the plastic and chemicals and pollutants in the powder that cause such awe-inspiring explosions – can be a choking hazard and toxic. It's hurting your lungs, too. According to the American Lung Association, a 2015 study found air pollution levels increased by an average of 42% on the Fourth of July.
Still convinced you'll escape unscathed? The Consumer Product Safety Commission's annual report shows a 38% increase in firework-related deaths and a 52% increase in injuries – more than 14,700 total – in 2024. About 20% of those injuries required hospitalization.
You know what doesn't send you to the hospital? A drone show.
Should we ban fireworks or make them legal everywhere?
What do you think? Should we ban fireworks altogether? Leave it to the professionals, but limit private use? Or make them available to everyone, everywhere? Take our poll below. And have a safe Independence Day!
Janessa Hilliard is the director of audience for USA TODAY Opinion and Opinion at Gannett.
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So long, single-girl dinner. I spent a week re-creating takeout meals to see if cooking for one gets any easier (or cheaper).
DIY McDonald's fries were worth it. My Domino's pizza dupe was not. Back in 2016, a lifetime and multiple jobs ago, I publicly lamented that the worst thing about being single is all the soup. It was the end of a long winter, and I had grown sick of soup serving sizes that left me, the lone occupant of my studio apartment, with a freezer full of bygone broccoli cheddar, forgotten French onion ... you get the idea. Don't get me wrong; I love to cook and I love to eat, and I do plenty of both. But the production, the leftovers, the mess — it sometimes seems like more trouble than it's worth for one person. And yet, at the same time, I'm not much interested in takeout either. I rarely order in, and when I think about doing it, I often find myself filling a cart, experiencing sticker shock over the service fees charged by third-party delivery apps and promptly jumping ship. Plus, in my experience, half the fun of ordering delivery is getting a bunch of things to share. 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After consulting this list of Grubhub's most-ordered dishes of 2022, I went through and picked four favorites: a burrito, pizza, Caesar salad and a cheeseburger. Then I went rogue and added orange chicken to the mix, since on the rare occasions that I do order delivery, it's usually Chinese food. Next, I mock-ordered my five chosen dishes online from national chains to see how much they would set me back. I noticed something immediately: On almost every website, I was asked — even encouraged — to upgrade my order to a bigger portion or tack on an add-on for a slightly higher cost. Hello, don't they realize I'm trying to end up with less food, not more? Instead of submitting these online orders, I whipped up a grocery list to DIY these dishes at home over the next few days. Here's how my cooking skills and cents stacked up to these mainstays of American takeout. Day 1: Domino's pepperoni pizza I was so excited to get started on this culinary experiment. So excited, in fact, that I left my keys at home when I left for work. I was locked out of my house (with no partner or roommate around to save the day) before I even had a chance to get to the supermarket. By the time I did get to my local Wegmans, it was 9 p.m. Nothing says 'I'm single' like being alone, at a Wegmans, at 9 p.m. I had some pizza decisions to make. Should I make my own dough, or buy it premade? Should I go out and buy a pizza oven, or was I already overthinking this assignment? As the clock ticked onward, I made the executive decision to go with a full block of mozzarella over the pre-shredded stuff and save time elsewhere with a premade dough. The only kind left was whole wheat, but I thought, How different could it be? Reader, let me tell you. It's pretty different. The first joke was on me when I got home and noticed the note on the bag: 'Bring dough to room temperature, one to two hours.' Great. It was already late at this point; I probably wouldn't have been able to order a pizza even if I wanted to. So, I let the dough rest for about an hour before I lost patience and started trying to soften it up with my hands. Because I don't own a pizza stone, I had to make myself a square pie. It was ... fine? Not great. The crust was too thick, too sweet. The cheese, sauce and pepperoni were good, but I was left with — what do you know! — a ton of leftovers I wasn't particularly in the mood to bring for lunch with me all week. The pizza is still in my fridge, waiting to get thrown out. Time spent: 3 hours What a delivery app would charge (including fees, tax and tip): $20.12 Money spent on ingredients: $14.60, roughly $1.80 per serving Score: -10,000/10 Days 2-3: McDonald's burger and fries I'll be honest, after the midnight pizza debacle, I didn't have high hopes for day two. And I was right not to. 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I quickly realized I was missing an orange, a pretty crucial ingredient for this dish. But I figured orange juice would do the heavy lifting. I zested a lemon and got to work. The recipe itself wasn't that hard, though it was a little messy. After cutting my chicken breast into bite-size pieces and dredging them in egg and flour, it was time to fry them up. I normally probably would use my air fryer in lieu of actual frying, but I wanted to stay true to the recipe I'd found. The frying took the longest, while the sauce actually came together quickly and easily. I'm not sure if I had just gotten into a cooking groove, but making these meals started to feel simpler. I made rice, tossed the golden pieces of chicken in the sauce and dinner was served. I feel like of all the dishes I made, this one was definitely the closest to the real thing. It tasted like fast food in a way that made me feel a little happy, and a little sick. Time spent: 2 hours What a delivery app would charge: $17.81 Money spent on ingredients: $23.81, roughly $5.95 per serving Score: 9/10 Day 6: Chipotle burrito I'll be honest with you, I was about ready to be done with this challenge by this point. By the time I was able to make the final meal, the guacamole I bought had gone bad. I'd run out of chicken and had to buy more. I was second-guessing the shredded Mexican cheese blend I had. I was tired of cooking. My refrigerator was bursting at the seams with leftovers. And I was pretty much convinced that I had no idea how to roll a burrito. Still, I trudged on. I seasoned the chicken thighs with a sazón spice blend, along with a few other seasonings, and set them to air fry. Then, I cooked the rice and stirred in black beans. In a last-minute Hail Mary, I cooked down some tomatoes and onions, then blended them up to be salsa-esque, but the flavor was pretty off. It was also really ... not much to look at. And it didn't taste that good either. My homemade version definitely did not hold a candle to burritos I've eaten out in the world. Time spent: 2 hours What a delivery app would charge: $16.06 Money spent on ingredients: $32.13, roughly $8 per serving Score: 4/10 The verdict Buying groceries to replicate takeout meals can add up, but when you factor in how many servings you're getting (yep — leftovers again), it comes out to being cheaper. But cooking requires time, something most people don't have. Getting dinner delivered is undoubtedly more convenient — making pizza late at night is not sustainable — but that convenience comes at a cost. I also have some big concerns about our food delivery system, and the culture around delivery in general. We are conditioned to believe that we can get whatever our hearts desire, delivered directly to our doorstep, in record time. In New York, where I live, this puts intense pressure on the people hired to deliver that food, often putting them in precarious situations as they zip around trying to make quotas for third-party delivery apps. It might be 'cheaper,' but not once you start accounting for the human cost. There are also, of course, environmental implications. After a week of eating homemade takeout dupes, I was not inspired to order delivery. If anything, I realized that if and when I do want to eat something I haven't cooked for myself, it makes more sense to get out into the world, pop into a local business, bypass the interference (and fees) of third-party apps and pick something up myself. Not only will it be easier on my wallet, it will also be easier on my mind. For now, I most likely will maintain my standing-over-the-sink-eating-cold-rotisserie-chicken and tinned fish lifestyle — and sprinkle in some homemade McDonald's-style french fries when the mood strikes. Solve the daily Crossword
a day ago
'I need somebody to take me seriously': More 911 calls released from Texas floods
When a Gillespie County, Texas, 911 dispatcher answered the phone on the Fourth of July and asked the caller the address of her emergency, the woman on the other end of the line did not respond with the name of a street. "The Guadalupe River in Kerrville," the caller said instead. "I need someone to take me seriously." As the Guadalupe River overflowed in Kerr County, calls like this one poured into emergency communications centers in neighboring counties like Kendall and Gillespie, according to dispatch recordings released in response to a request filed by ABC News under the Texas Public Information Act. The flooding led to more than 130 deaths in Central Texas. "I have two missing people that were swept away in their Airstream at 4:58 this morning," the caller explained to the Gillespie County operator. "However, one phone [of theirs] is still ringing." The tone of her voice grew more urgent. "If you could take my information and take the phone number, they might be able to be found," she continued, begging the operator not to redirect her to someone else. She went down a list of agencies she said she already called but had directed her elsewhere. "Please do not do this to me," the caller said. The operator told her that he was transferring her call to Kerr County, since Kerrville is not in Gillespie County. On another recording, a different dispatcher told a caller that there had not been any reports of Gillespie County flooding yet. "However, Kerr County is getting bad," the 911 operator said. "I don't know everywhere because their dispatch is, like, beyond swamped." One man called 911 trying to find out where his daughter, a camper at Camp Mystic in Kerr County, was located. He told a dispatcher that he heard an indirect report that she was airlifted from the river. "I'm trying to locate her whereabouts so I can meet her immediately," the camper's father said. Fears of flooding in that part of Texas date back generations. "I saw a post where they're comparing it to 2002," a dispatcher said in one of the recordings, referring to the floods 23 years ago that killed more than 200 people. "That is very unsettling for me."
