Latest news with #ParkService
The Hill
3 hours ago
- General
- The Hill
Federal agency cancels plans to close DC park during WorldPride
The National Park Service reversed plans to close the park in Dupont Circle during the WorldPride parade this coming weekend, according to two local councilmembers. The Park Service announced Monday evening that the park would be closed during festivities this coming weekend, according to multiple outlets, but the councilmembers said they spoke to Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith on Tuesday morning and convinced her to reverse the decision. 'I spoke with Chief Smith this morning and I'm glad to report that the decision to close DuPont Circle Park is being rescinded. The Park is central to the lgbtq community, and neighbors will be able to enjoy it this year for World Pride,' DC Councilmember Zachary Parker (D-Ward 5) said in a post on X Tuesday. DC Councilmember Brooke Pinto (D-Ward 2) similarly said on X she worked with Smith and other members of the community and 'am thrilled to share the decision to close the Dupont Circle Park has been reversed.' 'People celebrating World Pride will be able to gather safely in the symbol of our city's historic LGBTQ+ community,' she wrote. 'I am grateful for MPD's efforts to keep DC residents and visitors safe while also ensuring Dupont Circle remains central to the festivities. Let's all remember to treat all of our neighbors and public spaces with respect and care this weekend — vandalism or violence will not be tolerated.' Parker told The Washington Post that, in his conversations with Smith, she stressed that the decision to close the park was hers, not the federal government's. Smith made the decision over concerns related to safety, property damage and police resources, Parker told the Post. Smith added that police will need to be reallocated to the park over the weekend to make sure it can stay open, Parker told the Post. Parker said in his interview with the Post that he conveyed the importance of the park to the LGBTQ community and, 'And the chief, to her credit, took a lot of that to heart and found an alternative way to keep the park open.' In the statement Monday evening, a spokesperson for the Park Service said the decision to close the park was made at the request of DC police to help 'keep the community and visitors safe and protect one of D.C.'s most treasured public spaces.' He also noted that the decision adhered to President Trump's executive order on protecting federal monuments, the Post reported.
New York Times
10 hours ago
- General
- New York Times
National Park Service to Close Dupont Circle in Washington During Pride Event
The National Park Service will close the park at Dupont Circle, a gathering place for the city's L.G.B.T.Q. community, during a major Pride Month event this weekend that is already grappling with cancellations and pulled corporate sponsorships. The event, WorldPride, is an international celebration of the L.G.B.T.Q. community that is held each June in a different city. Washington won the bid for this year's edition, which began in mid-May and runs through Sunday, in 2022. The Park Service will fence off the Dupont Circle park during WorldPride celebrations from Thursday to Monday as a 'public safety measure,' said Mike Litterst, a spokesman for the agency, in a statement first shared on Monday. The statement cited 'a history and pattern of destructive and disorderly behavior' in the park during previous Pride celebrations, including vandalism of the park fountain in 2023. The last WorldPride event in the United States, in New York City six years ago, was largely peaceful. 'Five million people, and there was almost not a single incident,' Mayor Bill de Blasio said at the time. The Park Service said it was closing the park in response to a request from Washington's police force, and that the closure was in line with President Trump's executive order in March to protect historic national monuments. Some L.G.B.T.Q. residents and at least one elected official responded on social media by calling on Mayor Muriel Bowser, who is set to march in the city's Pride Parade this weekend, to open the park. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
An old ex-con recalls his days at Alcatraz. His biggest complaint: ‘Boredom'
There are only two people left in the world who really know what it was like to be a prisoner on Alcatraz, the legendary island in San Francisco Bay. One is Charlie Hopkins, who lives in Florida. The other is William Baker, who lives in Toledo, Ohio, and is spending the summer in San Francisco. Hopkins, a kidnapper and robber who spent three years on Alcatraz, is 93. Baker, a counterfeiter and escape artist, spent four. Baker is 92. 'As far as I know, we are the last two Alcatraz prisoners still around,' Baker says. Hopkins was interviewed on BBC in May at his home in Florida. I had lunch with Baker last week at Sam's Grill on Bush Street. Baker is spending a lot of the time these days on Alcatraz, where he appears at the bookstore on the island. He's there to sign his book — 'Alcatraz #1259,' the story of his life, which is mostly a story of 30 years behind bars. 'I guess you might say I'm a career criminal,' he writes. He's also a rarity: a survivor, a convict who managed to make crime pay. When he arrived at Alcatraz in the winter of 1957, he was a 23-year-old tough guy — 'a bad boy' with a reputation as a troublemaker, a jailhouse rioter, someone who was always trying to escape. He nearly got away more than once. Almost, not quite. 'You could see freedom,' he said of one near escape. At Alcatraz he got a job making gloves. But he learned another trade as well. This one was counterfeiting payroll checks, which he learned from Courtney Taylor, a convict who was the master of the trade. After Alcatraz, Baker spent years working with payroll checks. He made a good living, too. 'I'm the best counterfeit check casher there is,' he wrote. But technology and computers tripped him up, and he spent his post-Alcatraz years in other prisons. But then he turned to another trade he learned in prisons. He became a writer. 'I did always want to write,' he told me over lunch. He took creative writing courses at a South Dakota prison and began to write short stories. One of his stories, 'The Old Man and the Tree,' won first place in a nationwide prison writing contest. When his prison days were over and he was paroled in 2011, he wrote 'Alcatraz #1259' and sent it to the Park Service to have it approved for sale. Marcus Koenen, the supervising ranger at the time, liked it. There are lots of Alcatraz books, but Baker's has the ring of an insider, the reality of prison life. The book is a good read and a bestseller, too. Baker published it himself, and the Golden Gate Conservancy, a park service partner, handles sales. Baker is on hand three days a week to sign autographs and pose for pictures. He's living history, the Alcatraz legend in person. His book has done well. He's sold thousands of copies. 'We sold 302 on Memorial Day alone,' he said. 'Not bad.' 'I do this trip because I need the money,' he said. 'I've got a wife and a house and a dog to support. I'd sell my book on the street if I had to.' Baker is a bit gaunt. He wears thick glasses, and his hand trembles a bit. But he still has a bit of that tough kid who first landed on the Rock years ago. To celebrate a San Francisco lunch, he bought a brand new Stetson Stratoliner hat, the kind Howard Hughes liked. A new coat, too. But never mind the new clothes. We talked prison. What was the worst thing about Alcatraz? 'The boredom,' Baker said, 'Being locked up with nothing to do. The routine. Every day was the same. Not having freedom. But a writer can't write about boredom. So I wrote about people.' He wrote about Robert Stroud, the Birdman. Baker didn't know him; Stroud was in solitary. But he'd see him. Stroud was a prison hero but something else, a presence. He describes an encounter: 'What I saw in that brief moment was a dark cell with a gray shadow of a man peering out at me with bright white eyes streaked with the coal fires of hell.' Baker knew Roland Simcox, who was quiet, polite and 'a cold-blooded killer' who fatally stabbed another inmate. 'He killed him in the shower room in cold blood with a guard looking straight at him,' Baker recalled. That one stuck in Baker's memory. 'The guard threw a roll of toilet paper at him and yelled, 'Hey, break it up.'' Escape? 'Everybody talked about it all the time,' Baker said, 'but they didn't do it.' One friend of Baker's who did try was Aaron Burgett, who was involved in a prison liquor escapade and played baseball in the yard. One day on garbage detail Burgett and Clyde Johnson, another prisoner, overpowered a guard and jumped in the bay. They'd made flotation devices, but they weren't good enough. Johnson was caught and Burgett drowned. 'They found his body but his soul was long gone,' Baker wrote. Alcatraz is in the news these days. President Donald Trump is thinking of turning the island back into a prison. Is that possible? Thirty years as a prisoner made Baker guarded about prison policy. 'I don't know,' he said. 'It would be very expensive. It's crumbling, too. The last escapers used a spoon to get away. And they never came back. Besides, they already have a high-tech maximum security prison in Colorado.' They call it the Alcatraz of the Rockies and Baker described it in detail, the cells, the security, the exercise yard built like a pit where all an inmate can see is the sky. Nothing else.
The Hill
3 days ago
- Business
- The Hill
Why would the US government ever refuse the US dollar?
In a moment of remarkable irony, Toby Stover vs. United States National Park Service may go down in history as the case that put America's legal tender on trial — at the hands of its own government. At its core, this lawsuit challenges the National Park Service's growing refusal to accept cash — U.S. dollars — at dozens of federally funded national parks. One such site is none other than the historic home of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in New York's Hyde Park. There, a woman offered to pay her entry fee in U.S. currency, clearly marked 'Legal Tender for All Debts, Public and Private.' Park officials refused. Reflect for a minute on that. The Park Service, a federal agency, is declining to accept money issued by the U.S. Treasury, backed by federal law. And in this instance, it happened at the home of FDR, the very president who, in 1935, ordered the inclusion of the Great Seal of the United States on every dollar bill to bolster confidence during the Great Depression. Today, the federal government refuses to accept those very same bills on the hallowed grounds of his historic residence. According to the plaintiff's May 12 filing in the Washington, D.C., Federal District Court, entrance fees to a national park are bound by the U.S. Treasury's legal tender statute, which states that 'United States coins and currency … are legal tender for all debts, public charges, taxes, and dues.' Refusing to accept cash for public entry fees appears to directly violate this statute. The question at hand is not whether the Park Service prefers digital payments — it is whether federal agencies can legally refuse the nation's own money. This isn't a glitch in the system. It's a symptom of a larger, and dangerous, trend. Scores of parks across the country have implemented or are transitioning to 'cashless' payment systems. This includes iconic places like Yosemite, Rocky Mountain, Mount Rainier and Lake Mead. Even our more local Great Falls National Park went cashless in January. As the U.S. National Park Service turns its back on cash, however, other federal institutions are moving in the opposite direction. According to the IRS's chief counsel, Taxpayer Assistance Centers are required to accept cash from taxpayers pursuant to federal law. And in the U.S. Congress, Rep. John Rose (R-Tenn.) recently reintroduced the Payment Choice Act, a bill with bipartisan support that would require retailers to accept cash for purchases of $500 or less in brick-and-mortar establishments. An increasing number of state and local jurisdictions are passing 'cashless bans' in the absence of a federal law, requiring retailers to accept cash to ensure access and inclusion for all consumers and to guarantee essential commercial continuity in times of disaster. So while these local governments affirm cash as a public right, the U.S. National Park Service is refusing the only form of payment that requires no permission, no technology and no third-party intermediary charging fees to facilitate a simple transaction and/or selling your data to other companies. That contradiction should trouble us all. In the Toby Stover case, the National Park Service argues that if visitors can pay digitally, refusing to do so is a 'self-inflicted' injury. This logic is deeply flawed. The right to engage in commercial transactions should not be contingent on smartphone access or digital literacy. Tendering cash is an exercise of one's basic right to permissionless transactions. There is also a practical vulnerability here. Digital systems depend on power and internet connectivity. What happens when the grid goes down following natural disasters, computer glitches or cyberattacks? At many parks, visitors could be turned away, not because they didn't want to pay but because they brought the one form of payment the U.S. government no longer respects — its own currency! Will history remember Toby Stover vs. U.S. National Park Service as the case that helped rescue the dollar's dignity, or as the beginning of its quiet demise? In a democracy built on laws and liberty, the answer matters. Jeff Thinnes is CEO of JTI, Inc., which supports the Payment Choice Coalition, a group of companies advocating for the right to use cash for reasons of resilience, national security, privacy, fairness, safety and freedom of choice.
Yahoo
26-05-2025
- Yahoo
The Alaskans who keep our national parks running are needed
A mother bear known as Bear 402 and her cubs are seen on Sept. 26, 2018, below a viewing platform at Brooks Camp in Katmai National Park and Preserve. The Brooks Camp site, at the salmon-rich Brooks River, is a world-famous destination for bear viewing. (Photo by R. Taylor/National Park Service) Like many other Alaskans, I love our national parks. Their beauty, wildlife and opportunities for adventures are a great gift to current and future Alaskans, as well as our many visitors. From Denali to Katmai to Glacier Bay, these special places help drive a thriving tourism economy and support reliable, made-in-Alaska jobs. Unfortunately, Alaska's national parks and the economic benefits they bring are threatened by drastic staffing and budget cuts to the National Park Service. It was recently reported that the National Park Service Alaska Regional Office in Anchorage has lost an estimated one-third of its staff — more than 60 knowledgeable Alaskans — a result of downsizing the Department of Interior through pressured buyout tactics. And the federal administration has threatened additional cuts through mass firings. Roughly 2 million people visited Alaska national parks in 2023, and more are expected this year. They spent $1.5 billion dollars and supported 23,000 jobs, according to the National Park Service. In Anchorage alone, 1 in 9 jobs is in tourism, Visit Anchorage has found. Across the country, one tax dollar invested in the Park Service returns $10 to the economy. But national parks don't run themselves. People are needed to keep parks running, from park rangers to contracting experts, from educators who design the visitor center exhibits to biologists who make sure that park wildlife survive and thrive. The Alaska Regional Office provides oversight and expertise to 24 national park sites across Alaska, covering more than 50 million acres of federal land. The scale and landscape of Alaska makes the Alaska Regional Office essential. Most Alaska national park sites only have one or two resource staff and limited capacity. It doesn't make financial sense for every park to have its own pilot and plane, geologist, or subsistence expert. The Regional Office provides support and expertise that serve all our parks. At the Alaska Regional Office, cuts and consolidation programs have eliminated crucial positions, including the regional chief ranger overseeing law enforcement. Now there is only one staff member leading archaeology and cultural resource protection for all of Alaska's national park sites, and just a handful of staff remain to work with Alaska Native tribes, whose culture, food security, and traditional ways of life should be respected by those parks. The people who work in the National Park Service in Alaska are Alaskans. Their jobs bring important cash into our communities, and they are our friends and neighbors. The loss of Park Service jobs and the other federal land management agency jobs will hurt our economy and jeopardize the valuable resources of the parks. Without adequate staffing, park visitors may be at risk or at least disappointed. The tourism market is extremely competitive. It may not take too many bad experiences with deteriorating roads, dirty restrooms, inadequate information, disorganized commercial operations and absent wildlife to undermine one of the pillars of Alaska's economy. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has pushed hard to protect federal jobs in Alaska. In contrast, Rep. Nick Begich just voted for a $250 million cut to Park Service staff funding. We need our delegation to stand up for our national parks, our economy and our communities. It is not too late to keep our amazing national parks safe, accessible, sustainable, productive and world class. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
