US President Donald Trump has kicked off Independence Day celebrations at an event in South Dakota. Fireworks lit up the sky over the Mount Rushmore monument which, in a controversial move, Trump chose as the venue for this year's festivities. In a divisive speech, he criticized recent protests against racial injustice as "a merciless campaign to wipe out our history." Trump made little reference to the coronavirus pandemic, though his speech came on a day the US saw another record rise in cases, with more than 57,000 new infections.

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