Latest news with #NPS
NBC News
6 hours ago
- Politics
- NBC News
Park ranger fired after helping drape a transgender pride flag on Yosemite's El Capitan
Yosemite National Park fired a park ranger last week for hanging a transgender pride flag on the park's iconic El Capitan rock formation in May. Shannon 'SJ' Joslin, who has been a ranger and a wildlife biologist in the park since 2021, said they were fired Aug. 12 from what they described as their dream job. They said park leadership told them they 'failed to demonstrate acceptable conduct' in their role by participating in the trans flag display. 'I'm devastated,' said Joslin, who is trans and uses they/them pronouns. 'We don't take our positions in the park service to make money or to have any kind of huge career gains. We take it because we love the places that we work. I have a Ph.D. in bioinformatics, and I could be making a lot more money in Silicon Valley, which is only a few hours away, but I made career choices to position myself in Yosemite National Park, because this is the place that I love the most.' When asked for comment on Joslin's termination, a spokesperson for Yosemite National Park said the National Park Service, which oversees Yosemite, 'is pursuing administrative action against multiple National Park Service employees for failing to follow National Park Service regulations.' The spokesperson did not immediately respond to an additional question about which regulations the employees allegedly violated. The NPS did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Joslin, who is 35 and had been going to the park for years prior to working there, has written Yosemite climbing guidebooks and volunteered to work overtime to help issue hiking permits and manage traffic in the park. As a wildlife biologist, they managed the park's 'big wall bats' program, to study how bats use cliffs and protect them from a deadly disease called white-nose syndrome. Joslin said they came up with the idea to hang the trans pride flag on El Capitan in the spring after President Donald Trump issued a variety of executive orders targeting trans people, including orders to change the federal definition of sex to exclude trans identities, restrict access to trans health care and prohibit trans women from competing in female sports. Joslin said the flag display, which they organized with other LGBTQ climbers and advocates and participated in outside of work hours, was intended to celebrate trans people and show that everyone is welcome in the nation's parks. The flag was up on El Capitan for about two hours when park officials told the climbers to remove it, though the climbers said at the time that they were not told that they had broken any park rules. About a week after the display, Joslin said, park leadership told them they were the subject of a criminal investigation into the hanging of the flag. After that investigation, Acting Deputy Superintendent Danika Globokar fired Joslin due to their participation in what leadership described as the 'flag demonstration,' Joslin said. Joslin said they asked for evidence proving that the flag display was a demonstration but said leadership did not provide any. They also cited the long history of a variety of flags being flown on the rock's face, including by park employees. For example, park employees flew an upside-down U.S. flag during Yosemite's firefall event in February to protest the Trump administration's cuts of National Park Service employees. A group of activists also raised a 'Stop the genocide' flag on El Capitan in support of Palestinians in Gaza in June 2024. There was no policy prohibiting the display of flags on El Capitan until the day after Joslin and their team hung the trans flag, when the National Park Service issued a new rule banning the hanging of large flags in wilderness areas. Yosemite leadership updated the 2024 Superintendent's Compendium to include the update. 'Hanging flags has been a tradition that climbers have done on El Cap for decades, and that's both individuals who are visiting the park, but also employees that are on their off time,' Joslin said. 'There's never been any kind of ramifications to any of those flag hanging activities. I'm the only one who's been fired for it.' Joslin said two other NPS employees, including one who works in Yosemite and another who works in a different park, are under investigation for helping to display the trans flag. Joslin said being fired from a federal position will hurt their ability to work for the government, or any other park, in the future. They plan to seek legal counsel to try to contest the decision, citing an executive order Trump issued on the first day of his presidency to protect free speech and end federal censorship. 'I'm going to fight this tooth and nail,' Joslin said. 'I think that everyone as Americans should be upset about this, and it doesn't matter who I am or what my identity is, this is a matter of free speech.'
The Onion
14 hours ago
- The Onion
National Park Service Begins Offering Annual Body-Dumping Pass
WASHINGTON—Expanding its suite of discounted entry options to draw in more visitors, the National Park Service announced Tuesday the rollout of a new annual body-dumping pass for use on federal lands across the country. Officials confirmed the pass covers park admission and day-use fees for the disposal of dead bodies on America's government-owned nature preserves, including all 63 national parks and other recreational cadaver dump sites managed by the U.S. Department of the Interior. 'This pass is your ticket to more than 2,000 scenic burial grounds across this great country,' Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said. 'Just $80 a year gives you and up to four victims unlimited access to our many desolate campgrounds, dense areas of brush filled with natural predators, and bodies of water with strong currents.' 'Miles and miles of pristine earth for hiding evidence,' Burgum added, 'right here in our own backyard.' Interior Secretary Doug Burgum personally recommended park sites in his native North Dakota as great places to visit after committing murder. According to the NPS, while a 12-month pass might not make sense for Americans who only get rid of one or two bodies a year, serial visitors stand to save hundreds of dollars annually. Previously, single-day access could set guests back nearly $250 in bribes alone. Park officials expressed hope that the new rates would generate enough revenue to allow the facilities to offer amenities like community shovel rentals, while also helping to restore endangered scavenger populations behind the scenes. The Interior Department confirmed the body-dumping pass is part of a larger effort across the agency to court an untapped demographic of potential visitors who in the past have historically avoided entering the parks through the front gates during daylight hours. 'I'll admit, it's a great place to bring what's left of my family,' said Gary Masterson, a first-time visitor of Zion National Park, placing stained clothing items into one of the many accessible fire pits at the remote Lava Point campground. 'It's nice to get away from the barrage of questioning back home.' 'You really can't beat the austere, magnificent backdrop of these sandstone canyons for digging a hole or chopping up limbs,' the former father of two added. With the NPS anticipating an influx of new visitors like Masterson in the coming season, body-dumping passholders are being issued a version of the 'Leave No Trace' conservation principles that detail best practices for concealing one's crimes with minimal disruption to the natural surroundings. The guidelines include reminders to avoid leaving behind weapons or bloody trash bags when finished, and to properly return any brain-splattered bludgeoning rocks to their original location. A preliminary survey found that many longtime parkgoers were interested in switching to the body-dumping pass, with 56% saying they 'could save a lot of money by tossing Grandma's remains off El Capitan.' In addition, 70% suggested they had recently backed over someone in their driveway and 'needed to make them disappear quickly in a way that looks like an accident,' while 94% agreed they 'would like to see what happens to a bunch of corpses stuffed into a geyser.' Several leading conservationists have praised the new campaign as a return to form, claiming the body-dumping pass falls more in line with Theodore Roosevelt's original vision for the parks system, which under his stewardship doubled its number of sites even as the U.S. population mysteriously decreased. 'It was here that the violence of my life began,' President Roosevelt once wrote of the 230 million acres of public lands he helped establish during his presidency. 'Whether it's scouting new prey among the hikers at Crater Lake or disemboweling one's fellow man in the Petrified Forest, America's majestic scenery offers something for everyone.' 'There's nothing better than looking out over the serene landscape of this beautiful country as you reckon with what you've done,' Roosevelt added.
Mint
a day ago
- Business
- Mint
'Steady retail inflows will help DIIs continue to deploy at attractive valuations'
Mumbai: Uncertainty sparked by the US's crushing tariffs on Indian imports could abate by the second half of the fiscal year, which will see a rise in government capex , festival-led consumption, an improvement in rural demand owing to a favourable monsoon, and a broad-based pick-up in credit growth, said K Sivakumar, chief investment officer, ICICI Prudential Pension Funds Management Co Ltd. With the RBI front-loading interest rate cuts, he sees room for one more cut by the end of the year and expects the spread between the 10- and 40-year government securities to shrink in the medium term . Growing interest of private sector participants in the NPS will enable fund managers like him to deploy funds at attractive valuations, he added. Here are some edited excerpts from an interview. What impact will the US's crushing tariffs on India have on markets in the short to medium term? Can domestic institutional investors (DIIs) keep buying if there is a structural shift in trade dynamics? The high tariffs are expected to have an impact on market sentiment, especially in export-oriented sectors such as electronics, textiles and pharma. We will have to wait and watch how this plays out over time. Nevertheless, over the longer term, the markets will be more influenced by our domestic growth and a pick-up in consumption. Steady retail inflows will help DIIs to continue to deploy as and when valuations are attractive. The RBI held rates steady and raised its inflation forecast for the first quarter of the next fiscal year. How will the markets react to these observations on inflation and the pause in light of global uncertainty? What do you estimate will be the terminal repo rate this year? We believe the RBI is in a 'wait & watch' mode as the transmission of the earlier 100 bps of cuts of is still ongoing. The lower rates are expected to impact the economy from the second half of the fiscal year. Having said that, we expect the lower inflation print over the coming months will give the monetary policy committee room for one more 25 bps cut before the end of the year. We expect to see the terminal repo rate at 5.25% over the medium term. We expect an uptick in inflation from Q1FY27 and feel we should tone down expectations of further cuts. With the monetary policy announcement behind us, the market is expected to be more focused on tariff-related action for further cues. Earnings growth has been tepid in this quarter. Do you think a recovery in government capex implies that earnings growth may have bottomed out in Q1FY26? Companies have seen low earnings earnings growth, especially in the banking and IT sectors. While government capex has picked up meaningfully over the past few months, we expect a pick-up in earnings from the second half of FY26 on the back of festival-led consumption, improving rural demand due to a good monsoon, and a broad-based pick-up in credit growth. Tariff-related uncertainties should have also settled down by then. Which sectors are you bullish on, and which ones will you avoid and why? We continue to like the BFSI, auto, capital goods and healthcare sectors. Given the weak global economic outlook, we don't see the IT and metals sectors offering any compelling investment opportunities for now. Credit growth in the Indian economy is expected to pick up from the third quarter, which should see an uptick in earnings in interest-rate-sensitive sectors. Rural and urban consumption trends are expected to improve on the back of a good harvest and festival-related buying, which should bode well for discretionary consumption themes. Are your investments in equities tilted towards large, small or mid caps and why, given that we will see lower nominal growth this year because of lower inflation? The investment universe for equity schemes under the National Pension System (NPS) is the top 200 stocks by market capitalisation. This covers all the large cap stocks and a sizable number of mid cap stocks. While valuations in the mid cap space remain elevated, we take a bottom-up approach and have exposure to quality mid cap stocks which we feel have a strong earnings trajectory and a long runway for growth. Given the long-term nature of pension funds, we use any near-term volatility in markets to our advantage and ensure market-beating returns for our subscribers. Do you expect private capex to pick up or remain slack, given that a pause in rate cuts is likely amid global uncertainty and inflation is set to rise in FY27? It is true that except in a few pockets of the economy, private capex has been on the lower side of expectations. This is largely since corporates have been circumspect in issuing debt, with overall borrowings rising by only about 3% between FY21 and FY25. While PLI (production-linked incentive) schemes have led to capital spending in niche areas such as electronics manufacturing, solar modules and electric vehicles, we are yet to see strong private capital commitments in the broader economy. The slowdown of the global economy and the tariff uncertainty aren't helping matters. While the domestic capacity utilisation has been improving, we need to see a strong recovery in urban and rural consumption before we can expect private capex to return in a big way. Do you expect bond prices to rally, given the lower inflation print at least for this year? We're unlikely to see a strong rally in the bond prices, given that a bulk of the monetary-policy-induced rate cuts are behind us. However, we believe the steepness of the yield curve is on the higher side with the 10Y-40Y spread at about 75 bps. This is higher than the long-term average of around 40 bps. We expect this spread to get compressed a little over the medium term and reduce the steepness of the curve. As a pension fund, is your allocation to equity capped and have you reached that cap? What's the maximum allocation to debt and why? Under NPS, there are two types of caps on equity. One is at the scheme level (composite schemes of central and state governments), where the fund manager can invest up to 25% of the portfolio in equity. The second type of cap is at the subscriber level in the 'All Citizen' scheme. Here the subscriber can set the allocation to equity, and the cap is 75%. Composite schemes are managed by certain PFMs (pension fund managers) only, as decided by the regulator. We manage only the subscriber-choice schemes so there is no cap on equity for us, it is all subscriber-led. With the 'active choice' option, subscribers get to decide their asset allocation to equity, government securities, corporate bonds and alternative asset schemes, subject to caps. The regulator also provides an 'auto choice' option, in which the asset allocation is based on their age and risk tolerance. Subscribers can modify their asset allocation up to four times in a fiscal year. How is private participation picking up in NPS? Out of ₹15.4 trillion of assets as of June end, I believe 15% is from private employees and 85% from governent employees. Do you see room for more private growth, given that govt contribution is mandatory? While overall assets in the NPS have been growing steadily, growth has been much stronger in the non-government segment. It was almost 50% in the previous fiscal year, compared to 18% for government funds, resulting in the share of private being closer to 20%. This is largely due to growing awareness about the ability of NPS to help individuals build a substantial retirement corpus. With its low costs, flexibility and tax benefits, both during the investment and redemption phases, NPS stands out as a prudent choice for long-term household savings. According to PFRDA, there are currently around two crore subscribers to NPS, excluding Atal Pension Yojana (APY) subscribers, which is quite low. We think there is a long runway for growth for this instrument in the years to come. What was your fund's AUM of your fund at the end of July? How did it grow over the past year and how did it perform vis-a-vis the competition? At the end of July we had AUM of about ₹50,850 crore, an increase of 44% over last July. We continue to growth faster than the industry. NPS has been receiving a lot of attention as awareness about the retirement solutions is increasing. According to data disclosed by the NPS trust on 6 August, we have delivered compound annual returns of 20.2% and 13.8% over the last five years and seven years, respectively. This places us among the top two funds among our peers.
Economic Times
a day ago
- Business
- Economic Times
This Bangalore-based professional can save Rs 70k income tax just by switching to new tax regime
WRITE TO US FOR HELP Bengaluru-based Avinash Tandon is a finance professional. He has chosen the old regime because he has a joint home loan with his wife and invests in many tax-saving instruments, including ELSS ( equitylinked savings scheme ) funds and the National Pension System (NPS). He pays a high tax as his salary structure is not he will save more if he shifts to the new tax regime . The new regime offers no deductions and exemptions, but the standard deduction is higher at Rs.75,000, and tax slabs are wider, with lower rates. Even if no deductions are available, there is room for tax savings. He is already contributing 14% of his basic salary to the NPS, which is tax-free under the new regime (10% of basic salary under the old regime), and he should continue with has also invested about Rs.4 lakh in fixed deposits and NSCs ( National Savings Certificates ), and earns an interest of Rs.30,000 on these. To save tax, he should switch from these investments to debt funds or arbitrage schemes. While the interest income is taxed every year, in debt and arbitrage funds it is applicable only at the time of withdrawal. This can reduce his tax liability by Rs.9, has also made long-term capital gains of Rs.2.5 lakh from stocks and equity funds . Regular harvesting of capital gains to remain within the tax-free limit of Rs.1.25 lakh can help reduce tax he can reduce his overall tax by more than Rs.70,000 by shifting from the old to the new tax regime Paying too much tax? Write to us at etwealth@ with 'Optimise my tax' as the subject. Our experts will tell you how to reduce your tax by rejigging your pay and investments.
Time of India
a day ago
- Business
- Time of India
This Bangalore-based professional can save Rs 70k income tax just by switching to new tax regime
WRITE TO US FOR HELP Bengaluru-based Avinash Tandon is a finance professional. He has chosen the old regime because he has a joint home loan with his wife and invests in many tax-saving instruments, including ELSS ( equitylinked savings scheme ) funds and the National Pension System (NPS). He pays a high tax as his salary structure is not he will save more if he shifts to the new tax regime . The new regime offers no deductions and exemptions, but the standard deduction is higher at Rs.75,000, and tax slabs are wider, with lower rates. Even if no deductions are available, there is room for tax savings. He is already contributing 14% of his basic salary to the NPS, which is tax-free under the new regime (10% of basic salary under the old regime), and he should continue with has also invested about Rs.4 lakh in fixed deposits and NSCs ( National Savings Certificates ), and earns an interest of Rs.30,000 on these. To save tax, he should switch from these investments to debt funds or arbitrage schemes. While the interest income is taxed every year, in debt and arbitrage funds it is applicable only at the time of withdrawal. This can reduce his tax liability by Rs.9, has also made long-term capital gains of Rs.2.5 lakh from stocks and equity funds . Regular harvesting of capital gains to remain within the tax-free limit of Rs.1.25 lakh can help reduce tax he can reduce his overall tax by more than Rs.70,000 by shifting from the old to the new tax regime Paying too much tax? Write to us at etwealth@ with 'Optimise my tax' as the subject. Our experts will tell you how to reduce your tax by rejigging your pay and investments.
