WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Defense announced on Friday a significant reduction in the number of religious affiliations it officially recognizes.

The new list of 31 is down from more than 200 previously recognized traditions that troops could choose from. The list no longer includes atheists, Unitarian Universalists, pagans and Wiccans.

“This decrease in religious affiliation codes is not designed to make any claims on the legitimacy of any faith or religious belief, nor is it intended to provide a list of ‘officially approved’ religions,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement. “Rather, it is designed to allow chaplains to quickly look at the religious composition of their units and determine how they structure resources to best provide for warfighters of all faith groups.”

Parnell added the department values the free exercise of religion and chaplains facilitate service members’ “ability to freely exercise their religion of choice, or no religion at all.”

The list creates broad categories of some Christian traditions — Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist — without specifying denominations within those traditions, which can span the theological and ideological spectrum.

Service members can choose to identify as “no religion,” “other religions” or agnostic. Also included are Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, the Baha’i faith and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

The Unitarian Universalist Association, which was cut from the list, said in a statement, “This may make it more difficult for our uniformed UUs to access the spiritual care that they need.” The denomination said it is working on a strategic response to support UU service members.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has infused his evangelical Christianity with his leadership of the Pentagon, hosting worship services for employees and often speaking of the United States as a Christian nation.

He first announced the impending changes to the faith categories in December, saying the large number of faith codes had become unmanageable.

“Secretary Hegseth is not ‘streamlining’ anything. He is elevating one narrow religious worldview from the top of the chain of command,” said the Rev. Paul Raushenbush, a Baptist minister and head of the progressive Interfaith Alliance. “The First Amendment does not allow the government to create a hierarchy of faiths, and it certainly does not allow the Pentagon to decide which beliefs are worthy of recognition.”

The military is religiously diverse, and nearly 70% of troops identify as Christian, according to a 2019 congressional report. Almost a quarter of troops were listed as other, unclassified or unknown.

“As a member of a minority religion, I think it’s really important that we be counted,” said Irene Glasse, a pagan religious professional and Marine Corp veteran. “It erases us, and so many of us have served so proudly, so well, and so honorably.”

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AP reporter Konstantin Toropin contributed to this report.

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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Water has started flowing into the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool after President Donald Trump’s renovation, which included painting the basin a deep shade he called “American flag blue.”

This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.

NEW YORK (AP) — Saying “We don’t want to see ‘60 Minutes’ die,” the three remaining correspondents at the turmoil-plagued CBS News show have decided to stay – for now.

A memo from Lesley Stahl, Jon Wertheim and Bill Whitaker to fellow staffers at the CBS News show expressed anger over the recent firings at the show, and said the three had had “a hard time” deciding whether to stay — but ultimately decided to remain.

“Here’s why we are staying: We don’t want to see ‘60 Minutes’ die,” the three wrote in a joint memo obtained by The Associated Press on Friday.

They expressed their regret over the recent firings of colleagues implemented by Bari Weiss, the new CBS News editor-in-chief, and the executive producer she installed last week, Nick Bilton. HE replaced Tanya Simon, who was let go along after a 30-plus year tenure with the show, and correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, among other top staffers. Scott Pelley was then fired this week after a tense confrontation with CBS News bosses.

“We want to express how sorry we are that these principled, fair and honest journalists were treated so shabbily, with such indecency,” the three correspondents said in their memo. But they said they were “working to build trust” with Bilton, their new boss, and left open the possibility that they could leave later, if need be.

“If we can continue doing the work that made this show what it is — committing acts of independent, fearless journalism and storytelling — we’re here for it,” the three wrote. “If not, we leave.”

“Here’s to Season 59!” the note ended.

Persuading the three to remain was a crucial step in Bilton’s task of getting the show back on track for the next season, which launches in September.

The show is suddenly down four correspondents. In addition to the three dismissed, Anderson Cooper — whose primary job is on-air work for CNN — said earlier this year he was leaving of his own accord after two decades.

Bumps had been showing at “60 Minutes” for more than a year. Much of it came after President Donald Trump sued the show over its editing of a 2024 interview with then-Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris.

That became part of a broader shakeup at CBS News after Weiss was named to the new role of editor-in-chief by parent company Paramount late last year following David Ellison’s arrival as the network’s corporate leader.

Ellison’s company, Skydance, merged with CBS parent company Paramount, which later settled the Trump lawsuit for $16 million. That upset some at “60 Minutes” and indirectly led to the departure last month of popular longtime CBS late-night host Stephen Colbert, who had called the settlement “a big fat bribe.”

CBS News has been at the center of the American broadcast-news ecosystem since its radio days before the dawn of television, though Weiss earlier this year announced the shutdown of CBS News’ radio operation. The network’s nightly newscase was seen for decades as one of the most widely trusted institutions in the nation under longtime anchorman Walter Cronkite.

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Jocelyn Noveck covers the intersection of media and entertainment for The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawyers representing the federal government argued Friday that a court could not stop construction of a White House ballroom because it was already underway and because of the sensitive security concerns they say the structure is meant to address.

Attorney Yaakov Roth, speaking during an exchange with U.S. Appeals Court Judge Patricia Millett, said only Congress could halt the $400 million project. The administration has been asking the court to allow it to press on with the ballroom without congressional approval.

At issue is an April 16 order from U.S. District Judge Richard Leon for Trump’s Republican administration to halt aboveground work on the 90,000-square-foot (8,400-square-meter) ballroom. Leon, who was nominated to the bench by Republican President George W. Bush, allowed for construction to continue on belowground work on a bunker and other “national security facilities” at the site.

The hearing Friday centered on who has standing to challenge government steps once they have already been taken and whether that standing overrides national security.

In response to hypothetical scenarios put forward by Millett, Roth agreed that the government could bulldoze the Statue of Liberty and the White House — and the descendants of immigrants who came through Ellis Island and the enslaved people who built the White House would not have legal standing to oppose the move after the fact.

Millett, nominated to the bench by Democratic President Barack Obama, asked Roth when the construction on the ballroom was a “fait accompli?”

“Was it when you started doing the underground work, which is now totally completely integral and connected and inseparable from a massive ballroom on top?” she asked. “When did it become impossible for courts to stop this project?”

Roth replied: “I think it would have been improper to enjoin it even on Day One.”

The exchange was one of many during the two-hour hearing before the three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The hearing concluded without a decision by the judges.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued to challenge the project in December, a week after the White House finished demolishing the East Wing to make way for a ballroom that Trump said would fit 999 people.

It is hard to determine how the judges might rule. While there were numerous questions for Roth over the administration’s authority and changing explanations of how it is moving forward, plaintiff attorney Tad Heuer also faced numerous questions.

The judges pressed Heuer on standing in the case and on how basic aesthetic questions can override the national security concerns.

“We have never opposed the underground construction of the bunker, which is where the government until recently has said the national security concerns lay,” Heuer said. He said construction should be halted until Congress weighs in.

“Congress can allow ballrooms to be built — it’s its property,” Heuer said.

Government lawyers have argued that the project includes critical security features to guard against a range of threats, such as drones, ballistic missiles and biohazards.

“These upgrades, alterations, and improvements are essential to protecting the President, his family, and his staff, as well as the White House itself, and the entire project flows from them,” they wrote in a court filing.

DENALI NATIONAL PARK AND PRESERVE, Alaska (AP) — A ranger in Alaska died after falling into a crevasse on North America’s tallest mountain, the National Park Service said.

Robin Pendery of Enumclaw, Washington was a seasonal mountaineering ranger assigned to Denali National Park and Preserve. She fell Thursday while on climbing patrol on Mount McKinley, and died despite immediate rescue efforts, the park service said.

The death is under investigation. It comes only a week after three climbers from a Latvian mountaineering expedition died after falling near a treacherous pass on McKinley. A fourth climber was rescued. They were part of a seven-person team traversing a route known for its exposed sections, where many climbers have died or been injured over the years.

McKinley stands at about 20,310 feet (6,190 meters), and Pendery fell near what’s known as the 14,000-foot (4,328-meter) camp.

“Our mountaineering rangers dedicate themselves to serving visitors and helping others in one of the most challenging environments in the world,” Denali Superintendent Brooke Merrell said in a statement Friday. “Today, we mourn the loss of a valued colleague, friend and teammate.”

WASHINGTON, June 5 (Reuters) – Senator Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, prodded President Donald Trump’s derivatives regulator on Friday over recent reporting in The New York Times that reported on outside interference and favoritism allegedly benefiting the crypto and prediction markets industries.

• In a letter to Michael Selig, who took office in December as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and is the sole sitting commissioner of the five-member bipartisan agency, Warren cited reporting in the Times and elsewhere according to which agency leadership intervened to benefit companies backed by Trump allies and punished agency staff who stood in the way.

• CFTC representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday. The White House told The Times last month President Trump faced no conflicts of interest.

• Crypto companies and prediction markets have benefited under Trump’s CFTC, which has dropped enforcement actions into the industries, and is working on friendly regulations with the stated purpose of sector growth.

• But congressional scrutiny of the prediction market sector is mounting amid concerns of insider trading.

• CFTC headcount is down sharply since last year to its lowest levels since the 2008 financial crisis and the agency’s enforcement activity has also fallen.

• “Taken together, these are concerning signs of a CFTC beholden to political pressures and interests of the wealthy insiders, unbound by the rule of law and failing to protect investors and market integrity,” Warren wrote.

(Reporting by Douglas Gillison in Washington; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

WASHINGTON (AP) — With virtually no strings attached, Congress is on the verge of providing a sizable infusion of cash to the Department of Homeland Security, powering President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda for the remainder of his term in the White House.

The nearly $70 billion package, which cleared the Republican-held Senate in a middle of the night vote and now heads to the House, was declared a “rotten bill” by the Democratic leader and an “ATM for ICE” by pro-immigrant advocates.

But for those aligned with Trump’s campaign promise for the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history, it all but guarantees an uninterrupted flow of money to carry out the administration’s immigration enforcement operations — and comes on top of some $170 billion Congress already approved for the department last summer, as part of Trump’s big tax breaks bill.

“We’re going to continue to arrest people, we’re going to continue to detain people and we’re going to keep deporting people,” Trump border czar Tom Homan told CBS News on Friday.

He hinted at summer sweeps of enforcement actions coming next to New York City.

The work of Congress comes at a pivotal time for the Republican president and his party as they face restless voters before the midterm elections. About one in three U.S. adults know someone who has been impacted by Trump’s immigration operations, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in April. And as America celebrates its 250th anniversary, most say it’s no longer a great place for immigrants.

The funding package from Congress is just a slim dozen-page bill that carries none of the usual guardrails or directives typically demanded in legislation. It turns loose $30 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, and billions for the Border Patrol, and others, prepaying the department’s operations into 2029.

“Their options are limitless in terms of what they can do with this money,” said Vanessa Cardenas, the executive director at America’s Voice, a longtime advocacy organization for immigrants.

“That is such a hard thing to accept as a taxpaying citizen that our dollars are going to this massive, mass deportation machine, while Americans are struggling to meet health care costs, and have access to food and they’re paying so much in gas.”

The administration has sought to shift the debate over its immigration operations, installing new leadership at Homeland Security in the aftermath of violent scenes of immigration enforcement earlier this year and the shooting deaths of Americans Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

Rather than the dramatic street sweeps, the administration is working behind the scenes on actions that are stripping immigrant groups of their ability to remain in the U.S., by doing away with Temporary Protected Status or making it more difficult to secure green cards.

The so-called Dreamers, young immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as children, have reported delays in renewing their Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals status, exposing them to potential deportation.

But protests on American streets continue, including over detention conditions at the Delaney Hall facility in New Jersey.

At the same time, Homeland Security continues to hire more ICE agents — it’s hosting an employment fair next month in Florida — build more detention facilities and partner with countries around the world to take people who are being deported from the U.S.

In a statement, the department said Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin are “laser focused on ensuring the hardworking men and women” of ICE and Customs and Border Patrol are fully funded. It said the package from Congress “will ensure our critical national security operations continue despite any Democrat attempts to hold our great patriotic employees hostage in the future.”

Typically a funding package from Congress would run hundreds pages or more, with a range of specific instructions about how the money can be spent and on what timelines.

Congress, after all, holds the power of the purse, and often uses that constitutional role to put checks on the administration.

But after Democrats refused to fund Homeland Security earlier this year following the violence in Minnesota, Republicans retaliated by using the congressional budget resolution process to muscle the package through on their own, outside of the traditional appropriations channels.

It’s the same process both parties have used in the past, most recently on Trump’s 2025 tax cuts bill.

“All this important oversight doesn’t happen,” said Bobby Kogan, a former staff member of the Senate Budget Committee and now at the Center for American Progress, a think tank.

Overnight, Democrats in the Senate worked to exert that authority, offering amendments to ensure Congress had some say in the process. Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, for example, sought to protect “Dreamers” from deportation as their DACA renewals are being delayed. But those efforts all failed.

Meanwhile the administration is under enormous pressure to deliver on its promise to boost deportations to some 1 million a year, after the Republican president’s first year numbers fell short.

Mike Howell, president of the Oversight Project, is a leader of the Mass Deportation Coalition that is pushing the Trump administration to stick to its promises.

“Everyone’s talking about it like ICE is about to get another massive cash injection, and that’s not how I see it at all,” he said. “They’re getting like life-support money.”

“We’re not asking them to keep going,” Howell said. “We’re asking them to start.”

Howell said there’s little chance the Trump administration will be able to reach the president’s deportation goals unless it drops its priority to go after what they call the “worst of the worst.”

His group put out a framework earlier this year that proposes more comprehensive sweeps to arrest immigrants, particularly in the workplace. He also wants to see the Trump administration make it more difficult for immigrants who are in the U.S. to use the banking system, get social services and obtain drivers licenses. Republicans in Congress have offered bills tackling some of those issues.

The administration has been amping up its own rhetoric and recently posted a new website that characterizes immigrants as “aliens” — with outer-space themes — and suggests ways the White House is working to prevent people from staying in the U.S.

DENVER (AP) — A Colorado court has ordered new trials for two paramedics found guilty in the death of Elijah McClain, almost seven years after the Black man was pinned down by police and injected with a fatal dose of ketamine.

The rare homicide convictions of the two Aurora Fire Rescue paramedics sent shock waves through the ranks of first responders across the U.S. New trials would again train a spotlight on the use of ketamine to subdue struggling suspects.

Colorado’s attorney general has vowed to appeal Thursday’s reversal of the homicide verdicts to the state supreme court, which could delay any new trials. Here’s what to know:

Paramedics Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper arrived at the scene after three police officers approached McClain, who had been listening to music on earbuds while walking home from a convenience store in the Denver suburb of Aurora in 2019. A 911 caller had said a Black man walking through the neighborhood was suspiciously waving his arms and seemed “sketchy.”

An officer put McClain in a neckhold and the paramedics injected him with ketamine before he suffered cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital. The 23-year-old massage therapist was taken off life support three days later.

McClain’s death led many EMS agencies to limit or ban the use of ketamine as a way to subdue people deemed combative.

The Colorado health department has since told paramedics not to give ketamine to people suspected of having a disputed condition that was invoked in McClain’s case. “Excited delirium” was described in a since-withdrawn emergency physicians’ report as manifesting symptoms including increased strength, but a doctors group has called it unscientific and rooted in racism.

A jury found the paramedics guilty in late 2023 after a weekslong trial in which prosecutors argued Cichuniec and Cooper failed to do basic medical checks, such as taking McClain’s pulse, before giving him the ketamine to help police subdue him.

Experts testified the dose was too much for McClain’s 140 pounds (64 kilograms). Prosecutors also argued the paramedics didn’t monitor McClain immediately after giving him the drug.

Cichuniec received a five-year sentence but was released early from prison in 2024 after a judge reduced his sentence to four years of probation. Cooper avoided prison and was sentenced to 14 months in jail with work release and probation.

The Colorado Court of Appeals on Thursday upheld Cichuniec’s assault conviction, but faulted the instructions given to jurors with respect to the criminally negligent homicide charges.

Those instructions included discussion of the “standard of care” paramedics must adhere to in situations such as when they encountered McClain, which, under Colorado’s criminally negligent homicide law, is what a “reasonable person” would do. The appellate judges said the trial judge erroneously refused to clarify the concept for jurors.

Thursday’s ruling sends their cases back to a lower court for a new trial on those counts, pending Attorney General Phil Weiser’s planned appeal.

McClain’s death in 2019 foreshadowed the following year’s police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, which set off protests across the U.S. and internationally.

While Floyd’s killing stirred criticism of police violence against unarmed Black men and policing policies for Black communities, McClain’s death expanded that scrutiny to paramedics and firefighters working in the field.

Activists say Wednesday’s appeals court rulings keep Colorado’s Black community from healing.

One of the officers was convicted of homicide and third degree assault in McClain’s death, while two other officers were acquitted on charges including homicide and manslaughter.

The reversal of the paramedics’ homicide convictions now reopens a wound that hasn’t fully healed in the years since McClain was killed, a Denver activist group, the Epitome of Black Excellence, said in a statement.

“We who believe in freedom cannot rest until the killing of a black man, a Black mother’s son, is the same as the killing of a white man, a white mother’s son,” said MiDian Shofner, CEO of the Epitome of Black Excellence and Partnership, at a news conference Friday. “This nation as of yesterday morning should be restless.”

The paramedic’s 2023 trial delved into largely uncharted legal territory since it’s exceedingly rare for EMS providers to be charged criminally while providing care. Normally, that’s treated as a medical malpractice issue, which is civil.

Firefighters and officials from their union sharply criticized the state’s prosecution, saying it was putting lives at risk by discouraging firefighters from becoming paramedics and decreasing the number of qualified personnel in emergencies.

Experts warned it also could make responders pause during critical moments when they have to make split-second decisions that can determine life or death.

University of Miami criminologist Alex Piquero said he’s unaware of any analysis that would show whether paramedics have changed their behavior as a result of this case.

“They’re always doing the best that they can do under the circumstances,” Piquero said.

But new trials could revive second guessing among first responders when dealing with patients in police custody, he said.

“I think we have to wait to see what that outcome is going to be. But I think this brings it back fresh: ‘Oh, my gosh. Here we go again. Should I alter my behavior?’”

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Brown reported from Billings, Montana and Gruver reported from Fort Collins, Colorado.

WASHINGTON (AP) — After cooling slowly in 2024 and 2025, inflation is rising again, squeezing most Americans’ budgets and making it harder to afford gas, groceries, and other necessities. Inflation reached 3.8% in April from a year earlier, the highest in three years.

So, how bad is it really? Larry Kudlow, a financial news commentator on Fox Business, posed that question Wednesday to Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, which advises the president on the economy. Hassett had good news: inflation is actually “on a deep downward dive,” particularly if you take blue states out of the equation.

The numbers, however, tell a different story.

Here’s a look at the facts.

HASSETT: “Inflation is really out of control in the blue states. If you take out New York and California the story is radically different. So these really high costs, high regulatory states are driving inflation as well.”

THE FACTS: This is false and appears to be based on outdated data. Inflation is high in all nine of the Census Bureau’s national regions and is driven by rising gas prices stemming from the Middle Eastern conflict, which have also pushed up air fares. More expensive fuel has also raised shipping costs, which has lifted grocery prices. Clothing costs have also shot higher, which may reflect the delayed impact of President Trump’s tariffs.

“It’s not a blue state story,” said Omair Sharif, chief economist at Inflation Insights. “Gas is going up in every state.”

Hassett cited a report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers that had found modestly higher inflation in blue states. Yet the report used data from last November, long before the Iran war, which began Feb. 28. Since then soaring gas prices — up more than 40% nationwide, according to AAA — have erased those discrepancies.

In short, taking blue states out of the equation makes little difference, as plenty of red states are seeing higher inflation, too. The Labor Department compiles the most widely-followed inflation gauge, the consumer price index, and releases the data by region. So, for example, the Pacific region is made up of mostly so-called blue states, or those governed by Democrats: California, Washington, Oregon, Hawaii, and Alaska, and its yearly inflation rate was 3.5% in April — below the national rate of 3.8%.

The East South Central region is made up of all so-called red states — governed by Republicans — and its annual inflation rate in April was 4.5%, above the national average. The East South Central is Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, and Tennessee.

Some red states are seeing lower inflation than the national average. The West South Central region, which is made up of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana, saw consumer prices rise 3.2% in April from a year earlier. But before the pandemic that region was seeing inflation closer to 1% annually, so inflation has gotten worse even there.

It’s true that blue states such as California or New York often do have higher prices overall than red states. For example, gas prices in Texas averaged $3.72 a gallon Thursday, according to AAA, while they were $5.98 a gallon in California.

But inflation measures price increases, not levels. And gas prices have jumped in Texas since the Iran war, just as they have in California. In fact, compared with a year ago, gas prices have risen nearly 36% in Texas, while they are up 26% in California.

HASSETT: “It’s on a deep downward dive if you look at the trimmed mean or the core, it’s headed right towards the Fed’s target.”

THE FACTS: This is misleading. Core inflation, according to the consumer price index, has risen this year from an annual rate of 2.5% in January to 2.8% in April, the latest data available. It is lower than the headline number of 3.8% because the core figure excludes volatile food and energy prices in an effort to get a picture of underlying inflation trends. Over time, the headline figure tends to move to the core, which is why the Federal Reserve and economists often put more weight on the core.

Using the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge — the personal consumption expenditures price index, or PCE — annual core inflation also rose to 3.3% in April, up from 3.1% in January.

“There’s no deep dive happening in core inflation anywhere,” Sharif said.

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, pointed out that core inflation as measured by the CPI is still lower than it was in January 2025.

The trimmed mean that Hassett mentioned is one of many obscure, alternative measures, and it has gotten more attention recently because it has been cited by Kevin Warsh, the new chair of the Federal Reserve appointed by President Trump. The trimmed mean is calculated essentially by throwing out many of the largest price changes, both increases and decreases, in an effort to gauge whether price increases are spreading more broadly into a wide range of categories.

Hassett is right that the trimmed mean for the PCE index, as calculated by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, has declined slightly since the start of the year, from 2.5% to 2.3%, and is close to the Fed’s 2% target. Yet the president of the Dallas Fed, Lorie Logan, warned Wednesday that the measure may be misleading when inflation is surging because of some quirks in the way it is calculated. It stayed low well into the inflation surge of 2021, for example.

The Cleveland Fed calculates a separate trimmed mean from the CPI data, and it recently ticked up to 2.8% from 2.6%.

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Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

ATLANTA (AP) — What is more American than taking a musical instrument with ancient roots and zapping it with electricity? That new creation, the electric guitar, has launched the dreams of millions of teenagers.

It turned garages into impromptu rehearsal spaces for would-be rock stars across the American suburbs. For those who couldn’t play, couldn’t try to play or couldn’t get some friends with instruments together, there was always the air guitar. (Does anyone ever play an acoustic air guitar?)

Nearly 100 years ago, Americans’ love of tinkering, music and just making things louder combined when George Beauchamp created and Adolph Rickenbacker produced the first commercially successful electric guitar. That was “the Frying Pan.”

The tinkering continued. Musician and inventor Les Paul put strings and pickups on a block of wood called “the Log” and made it one of the first solid body electric guitars. And now we’re talking.

Imagine the intro to Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode” without the electric guitar. Would that song about a guitar player even exist? It’s the engine powering Jimi Hendrix’s version of “All Along the Watchtower” and Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” It spawned the ax man, the guitar god and the apotheosis of look-at-me American exceptionalism, the guitar solo.

It’s in your face and loud. It goes to 11, after all.

It was so provocative that many felt deep betrayal when Bob Dylan plugged in.

It became so ubiquitous, so essential to rock and pop music, that MTV created its successful “Unplugged” franchise, where bands were forced to play nonelectric instruments as an acoustic counterprogramming novelty.

And like all the best American inventions, it was exported around the world, where it still has the power to make kids dream. As long as they have somewhere to plug in.

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Part of a recurring series, “American Objects,” marking the 250th anniversary of the United States. For more American objects, click here. For more stories on the anniversary, click here.