The resort’s “Stars, Stripes & Sizzle” celebration will take place June 26-28 and again July 3-5, featuring fireworks, live music, DJs, carnival-style games and themed dining specials throughout the property.

The festivities will officially begin June 26 with a fireworks display scheduled for 9 p.m. Resort officials said the event is intended to give visitors an early start to Independence Day celebrations while recognizing the nation’s semiquincentennial, marking 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence.

Throughout both weekends, guests can enjoy live entertainment on multiple stages, poolside activities, interactive games and promotional giveaways.

A centerpiece of the celebration will be Morongo’s “Rev, White, and Blue” vehicle giveaway promotion on June 28. The festivities continue July 3 with the resort’s “250 for 250” promotion, which will award a total of $250,000 in prizes in honor of the nation’s 250th anniversary.

On July 4, guests will also have an opportunity to receive a commemorative 250th anniversary hat while supplies last.

Amy Hunstock, vice president of marketing for Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, said the resort wanted to create an event that brings together entertainment, community and summer traditions.

“As the country prepares to celebrate 250 years, we’re excited to bring guests together for a series of events centered around entertainment, celebration, and community,” Hunstock said. “From fireworks and live music to gaming, dining, and special promotions, this summer lineup reflects the energy and experiences guests have come to expect at Morongo.”

In addition to entertainment and gaming promotions, visitors will find a variety of limited-time food and beverage offerings inspired by classic fair and carnival favorites.

Featured menu items include a giant Bavarian pretzel with beer cheese sauce, fried chicken tenders paired with French toast sticks, corn esquites topped with Flamin’ Hot Cheetos, caramel apples, specialty frappuccinos and dessert shakes. Additional themed beverages and treats will also be available at various dining locations throughout the resort.

Owned and operated by the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, Morongo Casino Resort & Spa is located along Interstate 10 near Cabazon. The AAA Four-Diamond resort features gaming, dining, entertainment, lodging, a full-service spa and access to the nearby Morongo Golf Club at Tukwet Canyon.

The celebration will include dining specials across the Morongo Casino Resort & Spa, including:

• Good Times Cafe – Giant Bavarian Pretzel with whole grain mustard and beer cheese sauce | $14
• Ruffled Feathers – Fried Chicken Tenders & French Toast Sticks with maple syrup and powdered sugar | $13
• Fiesta Taco – Corn Esquite with Flamin’ Hot™ Cheetos | $12
• Pink Coffee – Assorted Caramel Apples | $8.50 or Carnival Candy Crunch Rich chocolate Frappuccino topped with colorful carnival sprinkles and whipped cream | $8
• Mozen Express – Carnival Cake Shake, Strawberry confetti shake topped with whipped cream and a vanilla cupcake | $14
• Marketplace – The Carnival Cruiser in a Souvenir Cup Baja Sipper, tropical fruit, pineapple, cherry, and island flavors | $19.99

Additional information about the Stars, Stripes & Sizzle celebration and event schedules can be found through Morongo Casino Resort & Spa.

Source: Morongo Casino Resort & Spa press release.

About the Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa

The AAA 4-Diamond Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa is located along the 10 Freeway near Palm Springs, Calif. Owned and operated by the Morongo Band of Mission Indians, the Morongo Casino, Resort & Spa offers the hottest slots and an array of table and high-limit gaming at one of the largest tribal gaming centers in the United States. The towering 27-story resort features top-rated restaurants, a stunning swimming pool with private cabanas, a world-class spa, legendary live entertainment and, nearby, the 36-hole championship Morongo Golf Club at Tukwet Canyon. Learn more at morongocasinoresort.com.

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian forces Wednesday launched a rocket attack on a Ukrainian train station on the embattled country’s Independence Day, killing 22 people, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after warning for days that Moscow might attempt “something particularly cruel” this week.

The lethal attack took place in Chaplyne, a town of about 3,500 people in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukrainian news agencies quoted Zelenskyy as telling the U.N. Security Council via video. The president’s office also reported that an 11-year-old child was killed by rocket fire earlier in the day in the settlement.

“Chaplyne is our pain today,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation.

At one point, Zelenskyy put the number of wounded at about 50. The deputy head of Zelenskyy’s office later said 22 people were wounded in the attack, which hit five passenger rail cars.

Ukraine had been bracing for especially heavy attacks around the national holiday that commemorates Ukraine’s declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Wednesday also marked the six-month point in the war.

Days ahead of Independence Day, Kyiv authorities banned large gatherings in the capital through Thursday for fear of missile strikes.

Residents of Kyiv, which has been largely spared in recent months, woke up Wednesday to air raid sirens, but no immediate strikes followed. As the day wore on, Russian bombardments were reported in the country’s east, west and center, with the most serious attack apparently at the train station.

Outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson marked the holiday with a visit to Kyiv — his third since the war broke out — and other European leaders used the occasion to pledge unwavering support for Ukraine, locked in a battle that was widely expected to be a lightning conquest by Moscow but has turned into a grinding war of attrition. U.S. President Joe Biden announced a new military aid package of nearly $3 billion to help Ukrainian forces fight for years to come.

Over the weekend, Zelenskyy cautioned that Russia “may try to do something particularly nasty, something particularly cruel” this week. He repeated the warnings ahead of the train station attack, saying, “Russian provocations and brutal strikes are a possibility.”

Nevertheless, a festive atmosphere prevailed during the day at Kyiv’s Maidan square as thousands of residents posed for pictures next to burned-out Russian tanks put on display. Folk singers set up, and many revelers — ignoring the sirens — were out and about in traditionally embroidered dresses and shirts.

Others were fearful.

“I can’t sleep at night because of what I see and hear about what is being done in Ukraine,” said a retiree who gave only her first name, Tetyana, her voice shaking with emotion. “This is not a war. It is the destruction of the Ukrainian people.”

In a holiday message to the country, Zelenskyy exulted over Ukraine’s success in fending off Moscow’s forces since the invasion, saying: “On Feb. 24, we were told: You have no chance. On Aug. 24, we say: Happy Independence Day, Ukraine!”

Britain’s Johnson urged Western allies to stand by Ukraine through the winter.

“This is not the time to put forward flimsy negotiating proposals,” he said. “You can’t negotiate with a bear when it’s eating your leg or with a street robber when he has you pinned to the floor.”

A car bombing outside Moscow that killed the 29-year-old daughter of right-wing Russian political theorist Alexander Dugin on Saturday also heightened fears that Russia might intensify attacks on Ukraine this week. Russian officials have blamed Ukraine for the death of Darya Dugina, a pro-Kremlin TV commentator. Ukraine has denied any involvement.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces have encountered unexpectedly stiff Ukrainian resistance in their invasion and abandoned their effort to storm the capital in the spring. The fighting has turned into a slog that has reduced neighborhoods to rubble and sent shock waves through the world economy.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, speaking Wednesday at a meeting of his counterparts from a security organization dominated by Russia and China, claimed the slow pace of Moscow’s military action was due to what he said was an effort to spare civilians.

Russian forces have repeatedly targeted civilian areas in cities, including hospitals and a Mariupol theater where hundreds of people were taking shelter.

But Shoigu said Russia is carrying out strikes with precision weapons against Ukrainian military targets, and “everything is done to avoid civilian casualties.”

“Undoubtedly, it slows down the pace of the offensive, but we do it deliberately,” he said.

On the battlefield, Russian forces struck several towns and villages in Donetsk province in the east over 24 hours, killing one person, authorities said. A building materials superstore in the city of Donetsk was hit by a shell and erupted in flames, the mayor said. There were no immediate reports of any injuries.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, the Russians again shelled the cities of Nikopol and Marhanets, damaging several buildings and wounding people, authorities said. Russian troops also shelled the city of Zaporizhzhia, but no casualties were reported.

In addition, Russian rockets struck unspecified targets in the Khmelnytskyi region, about 300 kilometers (180 miles) west of Kyiv, the regional governor said. Attacks there have been infrequent.

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — A California inmate firefighter left “half a block of destruction” when he stole a firetruck in an apparent Independence Day escape bid and later tried to carjack a second vehicle, officials said Monday.

The 31-year-old inmate from Orange County was part of an inmate crew fighting a vegetation fire caused by illegal fireworks late Sunday in the Sierra Nevada foothills town of Shingle Springs east of Sacramento, said California’s corrections and firefighting agencies, which jointly oversee the inmate firefighters.

The inmate stole a California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection all-wheel-drive wildland firefighting engine designed to carry four firefighters, in what California Highway Patrol Sgt. Dave Varao called an escape attempt.

He drove it through a fence onto the nearby Rack-It Truck Racks property where he rammed one of the business’ parked vehicles, a tree and another fence before the rig jumped a curb and became stuck in a ditch, Varao said.

“It’s half a block of destruction from him trying to steer this big truck, which he probably doesn’t know how to drive very well, ricocheting off fences and trees,” Varao said.

Surveillance video from the business shows the firetruck with emergency lights blazing, bouncing through the fence at what appears to be slow speed before circling around inside the property with streams of sparks flying from underneath the vehicle. Other vehicles’ emergency lights are visible in the distance.

“Significant damage was done to the engine as well as private and public property,” the prison and firefighting agencies said in a statement.

With the firetruck disabled, the inmate ran back toward the truck racks business and tried to steal a vehicle from a business employee who was just leaving, Varao said. They fought, but the employee was able to escape back into the business and lock himself inside, while the inmate was unable to start the employee’s vehicle.

The employee was left with “very minor injuries” but was not taken to the hospital, while the inmate was then captured by correctional officers with the help of El Dorado County sheriff’s deputies about a half-hour after the incident began.

Bill Wilde was watching to make sure the fire didn’t spread into his adjacent neighborhood when he saw a fire chief jump into his pickup truck and drive off at a high rate of speed while the remaining inmates were loaded back into their transport vehicle.

“I called home and told them, ‘Lock the doors, there’s an inmate on the loose,’” he said Monday. He then saw and heard the inmate crash the firetruck through the fence and then into the ditch.

But the inmate then ran back the way he came, Wilde said: “He basically made a loop — he didn’t do a very good job getting away.”

The inmate was hospitalized but was in good condition Monday and expected to recover, officials said. He had been in prison since 2015, but officials would not say on what charges, give his name or provide other details, citing the ongoing investigation. They also could not say if there have ever been similar previous incidents.

Employees with the business did not return telephone and emailed messages.

The wildfire was controlled at about 1 acre (0.4 hectares), said Diana Swart, spokeswoman for the state fire agency, Cal Fire.

“It went a little smoother than what it could have, if he’d been able to escape and actually get out on the roadways with that thing,” said Varao. “Fortunately, he can’t drive.”

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Were it not for the Boston Tea Party and colonists’ resentment of taxation without representation; we might never have become a country. King George III of England, due to his greed, committed the greatest error in his reign. Had he relented, we might still be part of the British Empire overseen by a governor instead of a president.

Although there was resentment throughout the colonies over the tea tax, between twenty and thirty percent of the population were still loyal to the crown and not interested in forming a new country. They feared economic disaster would result if we declared our independence. Not unlike the division we’ve had in this country due to the unpopular Vietnam War.

There were three types of colonists:

• The Loyalists to Britain

• The Rebels, who fought for independence and;

• Those who just wanted to be left alone and didn’t care either way.

Many returned to England while others fled to what is now Canada, as did many of those who refused to honor the draft during the Vietnam conflict.

New York, Pennsylvania and many in the South were loyal to the crown, feeling that they had escaped the iron hand of England and actually had nothing to fear from their English masters. Further, New York delegates abstained from the vote because they had no authorization from the colony’s governing body to do so. They were shortly thereafter given the authorization to vote for independence. Consequently, a week later, they were allowed to cast the vote retroactively. Even so, a third of the state remained loyal to the crown.

Another thing you may not know, Georgia did not send delegates to the Continental Congress before the start of the Revolution because they wanted the British to assist them with Native American raids. They did eventually join the Revolution and was the 4th state to ratify the constitution.

Although Thomas Jefferson, a founding father in an early draft of the Declaration, prepared a 168-word passage that condemned slavery as one of the many evils foisted upon the British crown’s colonies, it was removed from the final document.

The deleted passage read, in part as follows:

“King George has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither, exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.”

Decades later, Jefferson blamed two Southern states for the removal, acknowledging the North also had a role in the deal. In an autobiography he explained, “The clause…reprobating the enslaving the inhabitants of Africa, was struck out in compliance to South Carolina and Georgia, who had never attempted to restrain the importation of slaves, and who on the contrary still wished to continue it. Our Northern brethren also I believe felt a little tender under these censures; for tho’ their people have very few slaves themselves, yet they had been pretty considerable carriers of them to others.”

The final draft of the Declaration was submitted to the Continental Congress on June 28, 1776, voted into law on July 2 and formally ratified on July 4. However, New York didn’t vote until July 9 and many of the signers didn’t attach their names to the document until August 2. The war for independence rated on until 1783 when the Peace Treaty was finally signed at the Treaty of Paris.

Other things about the Fourth of July that you might not know:

1. It didn’t become a national holiday for more than 100 years after it became law.

2. During the war, George Washington gave his troops a double ration of rum to celebrate the Fourth.

3. Jefferson and Adams both died on July 4, 1826, the nation’s 50th birthday.

4. Calvin Coolidge is the only president born on the Fourth of July.

5. More hot dogs are sold on July 4 than any other day of the year.

Maybe this is more than you want to know, and maybe not. Just sayin’

rustystrait@gmail.com

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The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, serving the cities of Perris, Menifee, Canyon Lake, and the unincorporated county areas, want everyone to have a safe and Happy Independence Day. We want to remind our communities that it is illegal to possess, discharge, or sell fireworks. All fireworks, including sparklers, are prohibited in Riverside County. California Fire Marshal approved “Safe and Sane” fireworks are also illegal in all unincorporated areas of Riverside County. Every year fireworks cause significant damage and tragedies. Fireworks can also cause severe injuries to people, pets, and livestock. Do not let a senseless tragedy ruin your holiday.

Now and throughout the week of the Fourth of July, the Riverside County Sherriff’s Department and CAL FIRE will have additional patrol personnel throughout our communities. They will be enforcing a ZERO-TOLERANCE policy for any person caught with fireworks. Violators of Firework Laws will be prosecuted and are subject to confiscation of fireworks, arrest, citation, and/or fines. A combination of fines for the use of illegal fireworks can cost up to $3,500.

Riverside County has a very diverse terrain with dry vegetation where fireworks can quickly start a vegetation fire. Individuals who cause fires by using illegal fireworks will be held responsible for all suppression costs. These costs can run up to millions of dollars. We urge anyone observing the unlawful use of fireworks to contact the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department immediately by calling dispatch at 951.776.1099. Social media platforms are NOT the way to report fireworks. For all immediate threats to life or property, please dial 9-1-1.

It’s important to know that celebratory gunfire is unsafe, but it is also against the law. Discharging a firearm into the air is a crime and can lead to criminal charges under California state law. Bullets shot into the air can climb up two miles, and as you know, “what goes up must come down.” When a bullet falls, it travels at a high rate of speed and can kill or seriously injure people.

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