Good Tuesday morning.
I have driven across the country not once, but twice, and still feel like I haven’t seen even a fraction of all there is to see in this amazing nation of ours. Both of my cross-country excursions featured stops at some of the 63 officially designated national parks, including Badlands, the Grand Canyon, and Yosemite.
On other trips, I have visited Bryce, Arches, the Great Smoky Mountains, Carter Lakes and the Redwoods. That’s not a bad list, but I still have a lot more parks to visit if I want to get them all in during this lifetime.
It was on this day in 1916 that then President Woodrow Wilson signed the Organic Act to create the U.S. National Park Service, but the system itself actually dates back decades earlier – to March 2, 1872, when then President Ulysses S. Grant signed the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act, creating the world’s first official national park.
The Organic Act brought 35 parks and monuments under one roof, so to speak, with the dual goal of protecting natural, historic, and wildlife resources for future generations and ensuring uniform management. (Sadly, these goals are arguably not being fully met today…but we’ll get back to that in a moment).
The number of National Parks have been steadily growing, with the most recent addition being the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve in West Virginia, which was designated in December 2020, protecting more than 70,000 acres of a rugged canyon and one of North America’s oldest rivers. Before that, New Mexico’s White Sands and Indiana Dunes were added in 2019 and Gateway Arch in Missouri came on board in 2018.
Interest in the National Parks dipped in the early days of the pandemic due to mandatory closures, but then rose exponentially as things started to open back up – but not fully – and people were looking for safe, outdoor recreation options. In 2024, the system experienced a record more than 331 million recreation visits, which was followed by 323 million visits in 2025, which occurred despite the longest-ever federal government shutdown.
This year is shaping up to be another banner visitation experience for the system, with a select few parks – like Yellowstone, for example – on pace to again break records. A select few parks, like Glacier and Yosemite, have lifted advance reservation requirements for vehicles, though others continue to use timed-entry to try to control traffic through the parks and minimize negative impacts on the environment.
It should be noted that National Parks are quite different from National Monuments as the former require an act of Congress to create, while the later can be created – or curtailed – quickly at the whim of the executive, as Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah know all too well.
The Trump administration has left a rather unfortunate mark on the National Parks, however, by slashing budgets and implementing hiring limits, which have resulted in delayed upkeep, shorter hours, cancelled programs and safety risks.
Today is National Park Service Founders Day, which the country is observing for the 110th year in a row. Admission to the parks is free between Aug. 22 and Aug. 30 in celebration. New York has no National Parks, but it does have lots of historic sites, monuments, and recreation areas. Nature doesn’t discriminate, just do yourself some good by getting outside and getting some fresh air.
We’ll see a cloudy start to the day, with skies clearing somewhat as the day progresses. There’s a slight chance of a rain shower. Highs will peak in the mid-70s.
In the headlines…
Ontario Premier Doug Ford on Monday threatened to cut the province’s power exports to the U.S. as a trade war with President Trump plays out publicly for a second time.
After Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney vowed to hit back with “dollar for dollar” measures against the U.S., Ford said Canada should pull the plug on electricity it sells to utilities on the U.S. side of the border in New York and other northern states.
Trump threatened on Monday to increase tariffs on all cars, trucks, car parts and steel from Canada to 50 percent, starting Jan. 1, as the relationship with America’s closest traditional ally morphs into a full-blown trade war.
The 50 percent tariffs President Trump imposed on Canadian exports to the United States will make it impossible for many Canadian companies to continue to sell to the U.S. market, economists say.
The Trump administration on Monday announced what it called its most comprehensive assault to date on Iran’s economy, unveiling a package of measures that are intended to isolate Iran from the rest of the world.
A divided Supreme Court on Monday lifted a block on President Trump’s executive order aimed at limiting mail-in voting but left uncertain whether it will allow him to implement major changes to those procedures before the midterms.
In an emergency order, the justices said Trump could proceed with implementing an executive order he had signed, which directed the U.S. Postal Service to help decide which voters should receive mail-in ballots.
The 6-3 decision — with liberal Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor dissenting — marks a major victory for Trump, but appears to leave room for future legal challenges that could delay the president’s order.
The Trump administration plans to revoke the visas of foreign citizens who came to the United States temporarily for tourism or business but have sought to stay in the country longer by applying for asylum.
If it happens, the move would be the largest single mass revocation of visas in U.S. history and would likely face legal challenges.
The Trump administration plans to charge employers seeking skilled foreign workers through the H-1B visa program a $103,265 fee, a proposed regulation posted on Monday says. Revenue from the fee would be used to run the legal immigration system.
At least one in four of all the people who have played in the N.F.L. might expect to end up with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, according to a study of hundreds of cases over a recent six-year period.
Yet OSHA has never addressed football, has never made recommendations to make it safer, even as hundreds of former N.F.L. players — workers, with a union — have been diagnosed with C.T.E., or chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
A subscription health services company will pay $400,000 in penalties after a New York State investigation found it “trapped” customers in expensive recurring subscriptions that were difficult to cancel.
The state correction officers union has filed a petition seeking a temporary restraining order blocking a subpoena that the Public Employment Relations Board served on Verizon Wireless to obtain the personal cellphone records of a union vice president.
Gov. Kathy Hochul expects Big Apple Mayor Zohran Mamdani will aid her reelection bid this year by being “helpful” — support that stands to harness the base of young, left-leaning backers who propelled him to City Hall.
A newly created political action group has vowed to inject millions of dollars into the New York gubernatorial race to help Blakeman elected — by highlighting Hochul’s ties to “(Mamdani) and the radical Marxist, Jihadi wing of the Democratic Party.”
Hochul has touted a new law that bans New York police from formally partnering with ICE to conduct immigration arrests. A little-known program still pays deputies to help Border Patrol detain immigrants.
Hochul, who ascended to the governorship in the depths of the pandemic, believes that New York is back. She hopes she has persuaded New Yorkers.
Hochul is getting slammed in a new ad for attempting to shift focus away from her record by blaming President Trump, and by extension, her Republican opponent Bruce Blakeman.
Republican leaders have used the foiled state Capitol bomb plot to implicitly criticize a new state immigration law they claim would prevent future law enforcement cooperation, leading to the kind of chaos that officers managed to stop this time.
Facing budget shortfalls that threaten their survival, New York’s child advocacy centers are urgently pleading with Hochul to restore funding before an Oct. 1 deadline forces them to shut their doors to victims of abuse.
A group of grocery store owners sued Mayor Mamdani and his administration Monday over a plan to open five city-funded grocery stores across the city offering heavily discounted prices to consumers, arguing the plan is discriminatory.
The lawsuit claims that city officials did not properly study how the new stores could adversely affect neighborhood supermarkets and would discriminate against Latino and Asian business owners.
At a news conference on Monday, the mayor defended the grocery plan, saying that the stores were needed to address the high cost of living. He argued that five stores would not hurt competition in a city of eight million people and 1,000 grocery stores.
Mamdani dismissed talk of a battle brewing between his administration, Speaker Julie Menin and the influential teachers union after he took the City Council to court over what the lawsuit called an illegal pay boost for public school paraprofessionals.
A month before the City Council is due to debate a raft of proposed e-bike safety bills, Menin is asking the city’s transportation department to restart age verification talks with the rideshare giant.
Mamdani is known for working around the clock as mayor of New York City, but last week he and his wife headed “upstate” for vacation and some locals were thrilled to spot them.
Mamdani acknowledged on Monday that the city did not inform New Yorkers about a partial breakdown of the 911 system last week that prevented hundreds of callers from reaching operators for nearly seven hours.
The City of New York has decided to go it alone on efforts to repair its section of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, foregoing federal funds and approvals in the hope of speeding up the work.
Mamdani’s plan to fix a crumbling stretch of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway is already hitting some bumps in the road, with community groups worried how a temporary highway would affect the waterfront park just completed over the last decade.
Mamdani accused the leader of the Brooklyn Democratic Party of trying to “circumvent the will of voters” — as she proposed last-minute rule changes that could help her hold onto power.
The mayor defended New York City-Democratic Socialists of America co-Chair Gustavo Gordillo amid controversy over a $1.5 million home his father bought for him.
Lobbyists are getting a warmer welcome than they expected from the Mamdani administration, which disappoints some good government advocates, who thought the new mayor would crack down on City’s Hall’s wheeling and dealing.
New York City is once again investigating an incident involving people apparently moving through its underground infrastructure.
The New York City medical examiner’s office announced that they had identified another 9/11 victim, the first identification in almost 12 months.
The NYPD on Monday said no busts have yet been made involving the “mole people’’ who climbed from a manhole just feet from the main entrance to Penn Station last week — terrifying the public.
Pint-sized peddlers as young as 11 are among the dozens of illegal vendors hawking goods on the Brooklyn Bridge — bumping even licensed military vets.
Hunter College is grappling with a massive $14 million deficit, officials confirmed, after the City University of New York’s board of trustees discussed the flagship school’s dire financial situation during a secret “retreat.”
Five state troopers assigned to Troop B in the North Country have been suspended since July in connection with the handling of a one-car crash last fall involving an off-duty trooper’s son, according to two people familiar with the matter.
This fall, a New York studio is expected to have the largest media release perhaps in the history of entertainment, with billions of dollars in projected sales. But it isn’t the release of a blockbuster film, a hit television series or a Broadway musical – it’s a game.
A new state law going into effect today prohibits local police from formally cooperating with ICE or detaining immigrants for the agency in local jails — but don’t tell that to Rensselaer County Executive Steve McLaughlin.
Albany Mayor Dorcey Applyrs whizzed off to a ritzy Martha’s Vineyard junket the day after a local firefighter and another government worker had to be airlifted to the hospital following a massive explosion at a city facility.
A head-on collision on Delaware Avenue in Bethlehem left one person badly injured Monday and forced police to close a portion of the well-traveled road for hours while officers examined the crash scene.
Saratoga Springs Police arrested a Connecticut homicide suspect after the license plate on the wanted man’s getaway vehicle was picked up by a data reader on a patrol car, city police said.
The Troy City Council has released two reports on how the Troy Police Department and other law enforcement agencies have used information collected by Flock license plate readers as a debate about how long the data should be kept and its proper use unfolds.
Photo credit: George Fazio.
