United States | News & Politics

The National Park Service said Tuesday it is going to start charging the millions of international tourists who visit U.S. parks each year an extra $100 to enter some of the most popular sites, while leaving them out of fee-free days that will be reserved for American residents.

The announcement declaring “America-first entry fee policies” comes as national parks deal with the strain of a major staff reduction and severe budget cuts, along with recovering from damage during the recent government shutdown and significant lost revenue due to fees not being collected during that time.

The fee change will impact 11 national parks, including the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and Yosemite, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior.

As part of the changes, which are set to take effect Jan. 1, foreign tourists will also see their annual parks pass price jump to $250, while U.S. residents will continue to be charged $80, according to the department’s statement.

The commercials are meant to speak "directly to ICE agents who may be grappling with guilt, burnout, or moral conflict over their work" – providing a counterpoint to ICE recruitment commercials and to commercials where Noem advises migrants to self-deport.

The Department of Justice is facing new scrutiny over the decision to withhold the Jeffrey Epstein files earlier this year.

A federal judge on Monday ordered the DOJ to expedite processing of a Freedom of Information Act request related to the Trump administration’s decision in July not to release files from the investigation of Epstein.

https://archive.vn/fWa6G

Shortly after a new feature on X in late November 2025 revealed from where accounts on Elon Musk's social media platform were posting, a rumor began to spread that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was running its official account from Tel Aviv, Israel.

As of this writing, the post had more than 39.7 million views and 330,000 likes. The same rumor appeared many times on X. Some posts claimed that X turned off the feature 20 minutes after the DHS account's location was exposed.

Snopes was not able to verify directly that the DHS account's About page ever showed it had been created in Israel and was posting from there. For this reason, we have left the claim unrated.

It would be easy to dismiss Kshama Sawant as a far-left radical with pie-in-the-sky dreams, if not for the fact that she was elected three consecutive times to Seattle’s City Council, narrowly survived a recall campaign, and won victories while in office, such as establishing a $15 an hour minimum wage in 2014 and fighting for a historic tax on large corporations such as Amazon. Now Sawant—who was born in India, immigrated to the United States in 1996, and describes herself as a Marxist and a revolutionary socialist—has tossed her hat in the ring to run for the U.S. Congress seat currently held by fourteen-term incumbent Adam Smith in Washington State’s ninth Congressional district.

Q: Now you’re running for Congress in Washington’s ninth district, against incumbent Democrat Adam Smith. On news broadcasts, he comes across as, and is treated like, one of the more liberal Democrats in Congress. Why are you challenging him?

Sawant: Adam Smith voted to send tens of billions of dollars for the Israeli genocide in Gaza. He voted repeatedly to ban any U.S. funding for United Nations food assistance in Gaza. He did that while there was mass starvation in Gaza. He voted for the Iraq War in 2002. He voted to create ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] by voting for George W. Bush’s Homeland Security Act, and for Bush’s PATRIOT Act, which unleashed a new wave of mass surveillance and attacks on peaceful protest.

In 1997, Smith voted for Bill Clinton’s so-called Balanced Budget Act, which savagely cut Medicare and Medicaid by about $120 billion. In 1999, Smith voted for the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which deregulated banking and helped create the 2008 recession—he then voted to bail out Wall Street, instead of millions of ravaged working families. In 2022, Smith voted to break the railroad workers’ strike. For nearly thirty years, Adam Smith has been a dogged, unshakeable, loyal advocate for big business and the war-mongering interests of U.S. imperialism. In my view, Smith has blood on his hands—he should be on trial for war crimes, and thrown out of office.

https://archive.ph/jLK9z

The mayor-elect chastised a synagogue that hosted an event promoting migration to Israel and settlements in occupied territories. His stance further tested his strained relationship with pro-Israel Jews.

Mr. Mamdani, the mayor-elect, responded the next day, saying through a spokeswoman that he “discouraged the language” used at the protest and that New Yorkers must be “free to enter a house of worship without intimidation.”

But it was what he said next that alarmed some Jewish leaders: He chastised the synagogue, saying through his spokeswoman that “these sacred spaces should not be used to promote activities in violation of international law.”

(Bloomberg) -- New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has selected several corporate executives to join his transition team as the democratic socialist seeks to mollify concerns his policies might harm the city’s business community.

Among those chosen to help in his move to City Hall are former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. partner Margaret Anadu, developer Jed Walentas and Kathy Wylde, head of the Partnership for New York City. Wylde and Anadu will serve on the Committee on Economic Development & Workforce Development, and Walentas will join the Committee on Housing, according to a statement from Mamdani’s transition team on Monday.

Walentas, the Brooklyn developer behind the revamp of the Domino Sugar Refinery, had spoken with Mamdani before the election as part of a charm offensive by the candidate to reassure business leaders who were wary of the 34-year-old’s policies. The incoming mayor, who takes office on Jan. 1, ran on a pledge to freeze rents and provide free childcare and bus service, and promised to pay for his programs with a tax on corporations and the wealthy.

More than 100 homes have been damaged after a tornado touched down in a residential area outside Houston, authorities in Texas said Monday.

No injuries were reported.

Photos and drone video posted on Facebook by the Harris County Precinct 4 constable showed roofs with shingles ripped off. Some debris blocked roads.

The damage affected the Memorial Northwest neighborhood, according to the office of Mark Herman, the constable.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.today/post/42401522

Former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, whose 2017 election renewed hope for Democrats in Alabama, announced Monday that he is running for governor of the state in 2026.

Jones announced his campaign Monday afternoon, hours after filing campaign paperwork with the Secretary of State’s Office. His gubernatorial bid could set up a rematch with U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, the Republican who defeated Jones in 2020 and also is running for governor. Both candidates have party primaries in May before the November general election.

“I am running for governor of Alabama,” Jones said in a campaign video posted on social media. “Folks in Alabama deserve a governor who is going to fight for them.” He will do an official campaign kickoff next month.

On Saturday night, members of the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America voted not to recommend endorsing New York City Council Member Chi Ossé’s nascent primary challenge against House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

In an online vote, roughly 52% of eligible members of NYC-DSA’s Electoral Working Group voted against endorsing Ossé’s congressional campaign. In total, 1,205 DSA members voted, with 626 voting against the endorsement and only 555 voting in favor, with 24 abstaining.

The outcome of the vote will likely come as welcome news to New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, who has tried to discourage Ossé from running and even attended Wednesday’s DSA candidate forum to appeal to comrades in person not to recommend endorsing Ossé’s congressional bid.

Democratic-backed candidates beat out Republican-backed ones in numerous school board elections nationwide during the recent Democratic Election Night elections, showing a successful repudiation of Republican messaging about banning books and restricting transgender restroom use. Democratic groups hope the recent wave of victories can be repeated in the new wave of school board elections next year.

Republican takeover of school boards spiked after the COVID-19 shutdown, amid conservative upset over mask mandates, trans-inclusive policies, “pornographic” library books, and progressive curriculum (like so-called critical race theory).

Of all the democratic socialists who piled into a Manhattan church on Wednesday evening, none had the cachet of the man handed a microphone toward the meeting’s close.

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani offered some pleasantries — “Hello friends, Zohran, he/him, Queens D.S.A.” — before launching into his mission: torpedoing the candidacy of a left-leaning ally, Councilman Chi Ossé, who is attempting to unseat Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat.

The remarkable scene was both a reflection of the tricky political calculuses Mr. Mamdani confronts as he prepares to take office next year and the egalitarian nature of a group that served as the grass-roots organizing machine of his political success.

A federal judge dismissed the criminal indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James after finding the prosecutor who brought the cases, former Trump attorney Lindsey Halligan, was not lawfully appointed.

"I agree with Mr. Comey that the Attorney General’s attempt to install Ms. Halligan as Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was invalid. And because Ms. Halligan had no lawful authority to present the indictment, I will grant Mr. Comey’s motion and dismiss the indictment," U.S. District Judge Cameron Currie wrote in her ruling, finding the indictment should be tossed because the appointment of former Donald Trump personal lawyer Lindsey Halligan was invalid and she'd lacked the authority to present a case to a grand jury.

"All actions flowing from Ms. Halligan’s defective appointment, including securing and signing Mr. Comey’s indictment, were unlawful exercises of executive power and are hereby set aside," the judge wrote.

She issued a separate, similar ruling dismissing the James case.