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      Hundreds in Park Service Have Opted to Quit, Agency Memo Says

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      More than 700 National Park Service employees have submitted resignations as part of Elon Musk’s “fork in the road” offer, according to an internal agency memo that critics of the plan said would diminish staffing ahead of the busy summer tourism season.The news of the resignations comes after a decision earlier this month at the Department of Interior to fire more than 1,000 full-time national park employees. According to the new memo sent on Tuesday and viewed by The New York Times, the additional 700 workers who agreed to the resignation plan would not be permitted to work after March 7.The staffing cuts have sparked a public outcry. Conservationists, outdoor enthusiasts and park rangers have warned that the reductions threaten to leave hundreds of national parks understaffed during the busy summer season, and already are causing some parks to reduce hours, cancel tours and close visitor centers.The national park job losses are part of a chaotic effort by President Trump to delete thousands of federal jobs. Adding to the confusion, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has said the park service also plans to rehire thousands of workers — albeit as temporary, summer positions.“The National Park Service is hiring seasonal workers to continue enhancing the visitor experience as we embrace new opportunities for optimization and innovation in work force management,” Elizabeth Peace, a spokeswoman for the Interior Department, said in a statement.“We are focused on ensuring that every visitor has the chance to explore and connect with the incredible, iconic spaces of our national parks,” she said.Kristen Brengel, the senior vice president of government affairs at the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit group, has said the temporary positions are not a substitute for the employees with years of full-time experience now lost to the park system.She also noted that about 2,000 prospective seasonal employees had their job offers rescinded when Mr. Trump, during his first days in office, imposed a hiring freeze across the government. That freeze compromised the ability to accelerate the process of rehiring those people.During the warm-weather months, as many as 325 million people visit the nation’s 63 national parks and hundreds of historic sites and other attractions managed by the park service.Federal workers received the Trump administration’s resignation offer in an email last month entitled “A Fork in the Road.” Under the offer, employees who accepted it would leave their jobs, but continue getting paid through September — and those who did not accept it risked being fired. According to the Office of Personnel Management, about 75,000 workers across the government have accepted the offer. More

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      White House Moves to Pick the Pool Reporters Who Cover Trump

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      The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Tuesday that the Trump administration would start handpicking which media outlets were allowed to participate in the presidential pool, the small, rotating group of journalists who relay the president’s day-to-day activities to the public.The change announced by Ms. Leavitt breaks decades of precedent. The White House Correspondents’ Association, a group representing journalists who cover the administration, has long determined on its own which reporters would participate in the daily pool.Because presidents often hold events in smaller settings like the Oval Office, where not every reporter who covers the president can fit, the pool format has long been used to ensure that journalists accurately record a president’s comments. The reporters who witness the events distribute a series of “pool reports” to a wider group of journalists, including hundreds of news outlets that cover his daily activities and remarks.The pool is most often made up of journalists from organizations like CNN, Reuters, The Associated Press, ABC News, Fox News and The New York Times.Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, speaking to reporters in the briefing room this month.Eric Lee/The New York TimesMs. Leavitt said that the new policy was intended to allow “new media” outlets — such as digital sites, streaming services and podcasts — “to share in this awesome responsibility.”The White House Correspondents’ Association rebuked the move in a blistering statement.“This move tears at the independence of a free press in the United States,” Eugene Daniels, the president of the association, wrote. “It suggests the government will choose the journalists who cover the president. In a free country, leaders must not be able to choose their own press corps.”The association said that it had been given no warning of Ms. Leavitt’s announcement and that there had been no prior discussions about it with the White House. “The W.H.C.A. will never stop advocating for comprehensive access, full transparency and the right of the American public to read, listen to and watch reports from the White House, delivered without fear or favor,” Mr. Daniels wrote.The Trump administration recently added a “new media” seat in the White House briefing room. The seat has been occupied by some journalists who strive for accuracy and fairness, such as reporters at Axios and Semafor, and by partisan figures who are sympathetic to the Trump administration, such as the podcast host Sage Steele.“Legacy media outlets who been here for years will still participate in the pool, but new voices are going to be welcomed in as well,” Ms. Leavitt said at Tuesday’s press briefing.Ms. Leavitt did not provide specific details of how the plan might work, but it would allow President Trump and his aides to handpick which reporters and media personalities were granted the ability to ask him questions and observe his behavior at specific events.Ms. Leavitt put a different spin on it. “By deciding which outlets make up the limited press pool on a day-to-day basis, the White House will be restoring power back to the American people,” she said. More

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      Trump Returns to a Favorite Issue: Health Care Price Transparency

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      In a new executive order, President Trump will reaffirm his commitment to one of his favorite health care policies of his first term: His push to make the prices paid for medical services more public and transparent.Mr. Trump will sign the order on Tuesday afternoon, according to a White House official. After years of halfhearted compliance from hospitals and insurance companies with the previous policies, Mr. Trump is signaling a more aggressive approach to enforcing the rules and making pricing data accessible to patients, the official said.Health care prices have historically been shrouded in secrecy, negotiated in private between doctors, hospitals, drug companies and the insurance companies that pay their bills. The parties in those negotiations have fought hard to keep those numbers out of public view, saying that confidentiality is key to their bargaining process. Economics literature — which relied heavily on a study of Danish concrete prices in the 1990s — has suggested that making them public could actually backfire, by increasing health care prices.But with two major rules issued jointly by the departments of Health and Human Services, Treasury and Labor during his first term, Mr. Trump tried to force the industry to become more transparent. One rule required hospitals to publish the prices they charged to various insurers for a set of common services. Another required insurance companies to publish a more comprehensive listing of the prices they had negotiated with various health care providers.Industry compliance has been grudging, slow and marked by extensive litigation. After the rules became final in 2021, many hospitals simply declined to publish the required lists. Others tried to make their price information hard to find. The Wall Street Journal reported that several had inserted code into their web pages listing prices that made the pages impossible to find using an internet search engine.Nevertheless, the requirement did provide new information to researchers, employers and some patients about the nature of health care prices — and their wide and often inexplicable variation. The policy has so far not delivered on one of Mr. Trump’s key promises from his last term, that price transparency would significantly drive down health care costs. Health care prices have continued to rise.The new executive order will task H.H.S., Treasury and Labor with considering new ways to expand the reach of current initiatives, but it does not call for much in the way of specific new policy. Any meaningful new transparency initiative would require regulatory action or legislation, or both. But the signing of the new order does suggest that Mr. Trump has not forgotten about this priority, which he often referred to in his first term as “bigger than health care itself.” More

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      Three Years: Reflections on the Ukraine War

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      More from our inbox:Advice for Democrats: ‘Go Home and Listen’Lab Discoveries LostBuy Back Pennies and NickelsRe-evaluating Movies Andrew Kravchenko/Associated PressTo the Editor:Re “At Home and Abroad, Mourning Lives Lost Over Three Long Years” (news article, Feb. 25):Feb. 24 marked the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. I am inspired by, and my heart breaks for, the brave and noble Ukrainians. I wish my president were more like President Volodymyr Zelensky.Alison FordOssining, N.Y.To the Editor:Re “Dueling U.N. Resolutions on Ukraine Highlight Fissures Between the U.S. and Europe” (news article, Feb. 25):If the United States’ joining Russia to vote against a United Nations resolution to condemn Russia’s war against Ukraine isn’t giving aid and comfort to our enemy, I don’t know what is. Shame on us all.Eileen MitchellLewes, Del.To the Editor:Republicans, historically the party for a strong U.S. foreign policy and an understanding of who our democratic allies are, now remain silent.As President Trump embraces Vladimir Putin, widely suspected of being a killer of political rivals and journalists, and calls President Volodymyr Zelensky a dictator, our Republican senators and representatives should understand that their silence is more than acquiescence.It should be construed as supporting our current path. So when things go wrong, as they inevitably do when you cut deals with bad actors, don’t you dare pretend you were not a part of this abhorrent change in direction in U.S. policy.Steve ReichShort Hills, N.J.To the Editor:Re “Ukraine Nears a Deal to Give U.S. a Share of Its Mineral Wealth” (news article, nytimes.com, Feb. 24):I want to register my objection to the United States’ “mineral rights” demand to Ukraine. Further, any treaty granting our nation such rights must be approved by Congress, which I hope will show a shred of dignity and ensure that it at least gives Ukraine protection and sovereignty in return.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Justice Dept. Takes Broad View of Trump’s Jan. 6 Pardons

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      The department has increasingly taken the position that criminal behavior discovered during an investigation stemming from a suspect’s role in the Capitol attack is in fact related to Jan. 6.Four years ago, when F.B.I. agents searched the Florida home of Jeremy Brown, a former Special Forces soldier, in connection with his role in the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, they found several illegal items: an unregistered assault rifle, two live fragmentation grenades and a classified “trip report” that Mr. Brown wrote while he was in the Army.Mr. Brown was ultimately tried in Tampa on charges of illegally possessing the weapons and the classified material. And after he was convicted, he was sentenced to more than seven years in prison — even before his Jan. 6 indictment had a chance to go in front of a jury.On Tuesday, however, federal prosecutors abruptly declared that because the second case was related to Jan. 6, it was covered by the sprawling clemency proclamation that President Trump issued on his first day in office to all of the nearly 1,600 people charged in connection with the Capitol attack.And if a judge eventually agrees with that assessment, it could mean that Mr. Brown — whose Jan. 6 charges were already wiped out by the presidential pardon — will get to go free on his other case as well.The Justice Department’s position with regard to Mr. Brown is not the first time it has said in recent days that separate criminal cases emerging from the investigation of Jan. 6 — especially those involving weapons discovered during searches — should be covered by Mr. Trump’s sweeping reprieves.Ed Martin, the acting U.S. attorney in Washington, advanced that view on Tuesday in the case of another pardoned Jan. 6 defendant, Daniel Edwin Wilson.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Some Republicans Sharply Criticize Trump’s Embrace of Russia at the U.N.

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      A band of moderate Republicans in Congress sharply criticized the Trump administration this week for siding with Russia at the United Nations on resolutions regarding the war in Ukraine, even as the majority of the G.O.P. turned a blind eye to the United States’ sudden embrace of a longtime adversary.“The Trump Administration royally screwed up today on Ukraine,” Representative Don Bacon, Republican of Nebraska, wrote on social media on Monday night. “The vast majority of Americans stand up for independence, freedom and free markets, and against the bully and invader.”The reproach from Mr. Bacon and others came after the United States on Monday voted against a U.N. General Assembly resolution, introduced by Ukraine, that condemned Russia for invading Ukrainian territory and demanded that it withdraw and face repercussions for war crimes. Shortly afterward, the United States succeeded in passing a U.N. Security Council resolution calling for peace in Ukraine that did not chastise Russia. Key U.S. allies, including Britain and France, abstained.“This posture is a dramatic shift from American ideals of freedom and democracy,” Senator John Curtis, Republican of Utah, wrote on social media on Monday night, saying he was “deeply troubled by the vote,” which had “put us on the same side as Russia and North Korea.”The Russian representative to the United Nations welcomed the move by the United States and said the new stance gave Moscow “a certain optimism” about the future of European security.The position adopted by the Trump administration would have been anathema in recent years, during which the United States shipped arms to help Ukraine’s fighters beat back Russia’s invasion and sent funds to prop up the war-torn country’s civilian infrastructure. Even many Republicans who bristled at the tens of billions of dollars in aid packages that Congress approved for Ukraine were resolute that Russia and Vladimir V. Putin, its president, were the aggressors in the conflict.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      The World Bank Pivoted to Climate. That Now May Be a Problem.

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      The Trump administration’s deep cuts to clean-energy programs are raising concerns about U.S. commitments to the lender.As the Trump administration imposes deep cuts on foreign aid and renewable energy programs, the World Bank, one of the most important financiers of energy projects in developing countries, is facing doubts over whether its biggest shareholder, the United States, will stay on board.While the Trump administration has voiced neither support nor antipathy for the bank, it has issued an executive order promising a review of U.S. involvement in all international organizations. And Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint for overhauling the federal government, has pressed for withdrawal from the World Bank.If the United States were to withdraw, the bank would lose its triple-A credit rating, two credit-rating companies warned in recent weeks. That could significantly reduce its ability to borrow money. Roughly 18 percent of the bank’s funding comes from the United States.In an interview, Ajay Banga, the bank’s president, said his institution was fundamentally different from the aid agencies, such as U.S.A.I.D., that the Trump administration has been cutting. And he used some of the administration’s own talking points to argue the case: Investment in natural gas and nuclear power is good, he said, and the development projects funded by the bank can help prevent migration.He also said that the bank makes money and shouldn’t be seen as charity from U.S. taxpayers.“The World Bank is profitable,” he said, noting that it more than covers its own administrative costs even if most of its projects are designed to yield slim returns. “It’s not as though we take money every year from taxpayers to subsidize us and our salaries.”The concern about the bank’s future is heightened as the second Trump administration doubles down on its repudiation of climate projects and promotes an accelerated expansion of U.S. oil and gas projects.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      7 New Songs You Should Hear Now

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      Hear new music from Doechii, Valerie June, Perfume Genius and others.Doechii performing at the Grammys.Mario Anzuoni/ReutersDear listeners,Did any musician have a better February than Doechii?* Going into this month, the Tampa, Fla., rapper and self-proclaimed Swamp Princess was a rising star but hardly a household name. Then on Feb. 2, she had a breakout night at the Grammys, giving an unforgettable (and impressively gymnastic) performance that showcased the full scope of her artistic vision, pulling off an upset win in the best rap album category for her razor-sharp “Alligator Bites Never Heal” and giving one of the night’s most memorable, emotional speeches. If you didn’t know her in January, you know her now.But as Doechii makes clear on “Nosebleeds,” an audacious one-off single she dropped just hours after her triumphant Grammy night, she was fully prepared to win that award. “Will she ever lose?” she ponders on the track with her signature cartoonish bite, before offering an answer straight out of another famous Grammy speech: “I guess we’ll never know.”Doechii’s bold, keyed-up victory lap kicks off this eclectic roundup of some of the most notable new songs released in February, though it eventually segues into some softer sounds from the indie-rock group Mamalarky, the alt-country staple Waxahatchee, and the ambient folk composer William Tyler, among others. What would happen if you didn’t have any new music to listen to this month? I guess we’ll never know.Cut my mic off ’cause I’m ’bout to misbehave,Lindsay*OK, maybe Kendrick Lamar, but that’s the only other acceptable answer!Listen along while you read.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More