Fireworks and other July 4 activities next weekend

June 26, 2026

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🗣️ It’s Friday.

Time for Only in Iowa, this week’s photo, and news you can use:

Over 2,000 Iowans now have a “certified wildlife habitat” in their yard, and you can too.
The University of Iowa tried changing a private scholarship meant for Black students majoring in chemistry or physical sciences to go toward “first-generation” students instead. The Iowa Supreme Court ruled against them.
There’s a superhero running around downtown Cedar Rapids. (If it’s you, I’d love to speak to you—and can keep your real identity a secret!)

Amie Rivers

Newsletter Editor, Iowa Starting Line

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Your guide to celebrating Fourth of July in the Des Moines metro

Fireworks fill the sky during the Des Moines Symphony’s 31st Annual Yankee Doodle Pops at the Iowa State Capitol, July 3, 2025, in Des Moines. (Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Register via Reuters Connect)

Communities across Iowa will offer fireworks, parades and more to celebrate the United States of America’s 250th birthday this July Fourth.

From the capital to small towns, there will be lights and sounds in the sky all across Iowa the long weekend around the Fourth of July.

If you’re in central Iowa, start with this list.

Start your weekend off with a bang

🦅 This is an eagle family along the Iowa River across from City Park in Iowa City, a great wildlife photo taken April 14 by reader Marc W.

“The parent eagles have been sitting in the nest since mid-February, and recently there have been two eaglets visible in the nest,” he wrote in April, calling this pic “a family portrait of the mother and the two ~3-week-old eaglets.”

How’d you get them to pose so great, Marc?

Send me your pet photos!