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‘Hire back park staff’: Visitors feel the pinch of Trump’s layoffs at National Park Service
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The visitors who trek to America’s national parks are already noticing the changes, just months after President Donald Trump took office.
“I’ve been visiting national parks for 30 years and never has the presence of rangers been so absent,” one visitor to Zion National Park wrote in National Park Service public feedback obtained by CNN.
The visitor said they saw just one trail crew at the iconic Utah park. There were no educational programs offered at any of the five parks they visited on their trip.
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“Hire back park staff. We need them,” the visitor wrote.
At Yosemite, another visitor said there were no rangers at the Hetch Hetchy reservoir entrance station, preventing visitors from picking up wilderness permits.
“More staff would be a BIG and IMPORTANT improvement,” that visitor wrote.
America’s most treasured national parks are getting crunched by Trump’s government-shrinking layoffs just as the summer travel season gets into full swing.
Top officials vowed to hire thousands of seasonal employees to pick up the slack after the Trump administration fired around 1,000 NPS employees as part of wide-ranging federal firings known as the “Valentine’s Day Massacre.” Department of Interior officials said in a February memo they would aim to hire 7,700 seasonal workers at NPS, and post listings for 9,000 jobs.
But those numbers haven’t materialized ahead July 4th — the parks’ busiest time of the year. Internal National Park Service data provided to CNN by the National Parks Conservation Association shows that about 4,500 seasonal and temporary staff have been hired.
The Department of Justice quickly fired the newly named US attorney in New Jersey on Tuesday after federal judges in the state declined to extend Alina Habba’s interim appointment.
Attorney General Pam Bondi’s announcement came after the district court voted to elevate Desiree Leigh Grace, New Jersey’s first assistant US attorney, to replace the Trump ally.
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“Nonetheless, politically minded judges refused to allow her to continue in her position, replacing Alina with the First Assistant. Accordingly, the First Assistant United States Attorney in New Jersey has just been removed. This Department of Justice does not tolerate rogue judges — especially when they threaten the President’s core Article II powers,” Bondi posted on X.
The rapid change-up prompted confusion as to who will lead the top federal prosecutor’s office in the state.
It’s unclear if Grace’s removal is enforceable or whether the district court judges will challenge the move. There’s also some confusion of when Habba’s appointment expires.
Grace’s appointment was set to be “effective July 22, 2025, or ‘upon the expiration of 120 days after appointment by the Attorney General’ of the Interim U.S. Attorney Alina Habba, whichever is later,” according to the order signed by Chief Judge Renee Marie Bumb.
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President Donald Trump appointed Habba to the position on March 24, but she was sworn in on March 28, with department officials arguing that her term doesn’t conclude until Friday. Interim US attorneys are only allowed to serve for 120 days if they are not confirmed by the US Senate or extended indefinitely by the district court in their jurisdiction.
Habba previously served as a spokesperson for the Trump campaign and as a personal attorney for Trump. She represented Trump during his civil fraud trial in 2023 and 2024. After Trump won reelection, Habba served as counselor to the president before Trump tapped her to serve as US attorney.
Trump formally nominated Habba to serve in the position for a four-year term on July 1. Habba’s nomination is still awaiting a vote from the Senate Judiciary Committee before she would advance to the full Senate for a floor confirmation vote.
The president and his legal team have been exploring options for reappointing nominees rejected by the courts, but it is unclear if Habba would accept a reappointment in this case, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche put out a statement on X on Tuesday, saying: “The district court judges in NJ are trying to force out @USAttyHabba before her term expires at 11:59 p.m. Friday.”
“Their rush reveals what this was always about: a left-wing agenda, not the rule of law. When judges act like activists, they undermine confidence in our justice system. Alina is President Trump’s choice to lead—and no partisan bench can override that.”
He had previously urged the federal judges in New Jersey to appoint Habba indefinitely on an interim basis while she awaits Senate confirmation, saying she has the “full confidence” of leadership at the Justice Department.
Habba is President Trump’s second US attorney nominee to struggle to receive support from the district court or the Senate Judiciary Committee. In May, the Senate Judiciary Committee decided not to confirm Trump’s controversial pick to lead the DC US attorney’s office, Ed Martin.
It is rare to have multiple candidates fail to receive support from the district court or the Senate Judiciary Committee.
When President Donald Trump reopened a long-closed conversation about the name of the Washington NFL team, he and others implied that liberal thinking forced the venerable franchise to change its name from Redskins to Commanders in 2022.
It wasn’t “wokeness” that led to that moment. It was capitalism. Corporate sponsors made the decision, not politicians or fans.
On July 2, 2020, after the murder of George Floyd in late May and the resulting national conversation on race and racism, FedEx – the title sponsor of the team’s stadium at the time – called on the franchise to change its name.
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Nike removed Redskins apparel from its website on the same day. The next day, the league and the organization announced that they were reviewing the team’s name. Soon, Amazon, Target and Walmart also removed Redskins merchandise from their stores and websites.
At a time of heightened corporate sensitivity to racism, the franchise suddenly saw the possibility of millions of dollars in revenue being lost due to the Redskins name. After years of controversy, the organization’s then-leadership finally saw the financial writing on the wall and gave up a fight they had promised to wage forever.
On July 13, the team announced it was retiring its name and logo and would go by the name Washington Football Team for the time being. Less than two years later, after a contest to rename the team, it became the Commanders.
None of this came about quickly, or without a fight. This was a conversation, and a decision, years in the making. Protests occasionally popped up around Washington Redskins games in the 1990s and early part of the 21st century, but there was no evidence of a groundswell to change the name.
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In 2013, the National Congress of American Indians, representing 1.2 million people in its member tribes, announced that it opposed the moniker.
The team consistently replied by saying it was honoring the achievements of Native Americans by keeping the name. As evidence, then-team president Bruce Allen said that three high schools with a majority Native American student body used the name. The team and its supporters mentioned a 2004 poll by the Annenberg Public Policy Center that found that a majority of Native Americans were not offended by the name.
Then again, the use of public polling methods to measure a small, diverse population also came into question and was criticized by experts.
More than a decade ago, Sports Illustrated’s Peter King led the way, as did a few other sports journalists, including myself, publicly stating that we would no longer use the name – a name that each of us had said thousands of times in our careers covering the NFL.
“Try explaining and defending the nickname to a child,” I wrote in 2013. “It’s impossible.”
Back then, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was still defending the team’s name, but he said in radio interviews that he wanted to “listen” on the issue.
“We’ll always listen, and we’ll always be open,” he said on ESPN Radio August 1, 2013, when asked to compare his defense of the Washington team name with his comments on Philadelphia Eagle Riley Cooper’s racist slur at the time, which were anything but a defense: “Obviously wrong … insensitive and unacceptable,” Goodell said of Cooper’s language.
Goodell went farther a month later while speaking to a Washington radio station: “Ultimately it is Dan (Snyder’s) decision, but it is something I want all of us to go out and make sure we are listening to our fans, listening to people that have a different view, and making sure we continue to do what is right. We want to make sure the team represents the strong tradition and history that it has for so many years. … If we are offending one person we need to be listening and making sure we are doing the right things to address that.”
Questioned by both Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill about the low staffing numbers, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has brushed off concerns, testifying in May that slightly less than half of permanent NPS employees work on the ground in the parks, while other staff work at regional offices or at DC headquarters.
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“I want more people in the parks,” Burgum said. “I want less overhead. There’s an opportunity to have more people working in our parks … and have less people working for the National Park Service.”
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But internal NPS data tells a different story, Brengel said, showing that around 80% of National Park Service staff work in the parks. And regional offices play an important supporting staff role, with scientists on staff to help maintain fragile parks ecosystems, as well as specialists who monitor geohazard safety issues like landslides.
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska recently pressed Burgum to provide a full list of staff positions that have been cut at the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management and the US Forest Service since the Trump administration took over. The Interior Department has not provided the list, a Senate staffer said.
The regional offices within the park service are on edge, waiting to see how courts rule on a Trump administration reduction in force plan they fear could gut their ranks, a National Park Service employee in a Western state told CNN.
“If they greenlight the RIF plan, then it’s going to be a bloodbath,” the employee said.
In addition to probationary workers that were fired in February, early retirements are also culling the agency’s ranks, and the continued $1 spending limit on federal workers’ credit cards is making it extremely difficult to do field work in the parks, with a simple overnight trip needing to be requested 10 days in advance, the employee added.
The lack of superintendents and NPS supervisors creates more of a headache, they added.
“These times, when it’s all about fighting for scarce resources, you really need those upper-level people with clout working the system,” the employee said.
Hall, the retired NPS regional director, said losing rangers, maintenance professionals and park superintendents could profoundly alter American landmarks.
“What you’ve lost with all this attrition – you’ve lost all this knowledge that’s going to take years to build back up,” Hall said.
While manufacturers continue to tweak their products to overcome the stigma of ultraprocessed foods, nutritionists suggest consumers move forward in choosing products that help the planet — as long as they keep reading the nutrition label.
“I would look for something with a good fat composition in which saturated fat is less than a third of the total fat,” Willett said. “Some vegetable burgers made from peas and legumes can be quite starchy, which the body breaks down similarly to sugar, so I would prefer to see alternatives with more healthy fat, more nuts, more soy.”
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While the Dietary Guidelines for Americans call for a limit of 2,300 milligrams of sodium per day for adults, “the American Heart Association recommends a limit of 1,500 milligrams for adults over 50, which is the standard I prefer,” Willett said.
“Look for about 1 milligram of sodium per calorie, which is a pretty good criteria,” he added. “In general, salt and saturated fat are the two really important factors — along with something that’s flavorful or delicious, which is, of course, up to the consumer.”
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One more key point from Willett: Before plant-based meats can truly help save the planet, they need to come down in price.
“These products are quite a bit more expensive, from what I’ve seen, than basic hamburger,” he said, “and we really need products that are price competitive with the beef and pork if we’re going to see them used on a daily basis, not just by people who can afford it.”
Two planes nearly collided on the runway in Mexico City on Monday, as an AeroMexico regional jet coming in for landing flew over and touched down in front of a Delta Air Lines Boeing 737 jet already beginning to take off.
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Delta Flight 590 was starting to roll down the runway at Aeropuerto Internacional Benito Juarez with 144 customers and six crew members on board when the pilots saw another plane land directly in front of it, the airline said in a statement.
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Flight tracking website Flightradar 24 shows AeroMexico Connect flight 1631, an Embraer 190 regional jet, flew less than 200 feet over the moving Delta plane then landed in front of them on runway 5R.
The pilots stopped the takeoff and returned to the terminal. The plane eventually took off on its flight to Atlanta about three hours late.
Delta said it reported the incident to Mexican aviation authorities, as well as the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board in the United States.
“Delta will fully cooperate with authorities as the circumstances around this flight are investigated,” the airline said in a statement. “We appreciate the flight crew’s actions to maintain situational awareness and act quickly – part of Delta’s extensive training.”
AeroMexico and the Mexican civil aviation authority did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Mexico’s aviation safety rating was downgraded by the FAA in May 2021 for non-compliance with minimum international safety standards. The top level “category one” status was restored in September of 2023 after, “the FAA provided expertise and resources via technical assistance… to resolve the safety issues that led to the downgrade,” the agency said at the time.