The Brief

Some seasonal employees at Yosemite National Park worked for as long as six weeks without pay this spring and summer as park supervisors scrambled to manage hiring amid federal budget cuts, workers told NPR. The employees said they are now receiving hourly wages but have not been paid for the work they were asked to do as volunteers while they waited to be put on the federal payroll.  

Some of the workers said they feel exploited.

"It's definitely taking advantage of people who love their jobs and don't want the park to suffer," said one of the employees, who said they volunteered for three weeks before being hired.

NPR spoke with four seasonal and two full-time workers employed by the National Park Service who described the situation. NPR has agreed not to publish the names of the employees because they are not permitted to speak publicly and feared retribution.

Yosemite depends on seasonal workers to perform a variety of jobs from May through October, when the park receives most of the more than 4
million visitors who typically enter the grounds. The Northern California national park is one of the most visited in America.

At Yosemite, seasonal workers do "anything from campgrounds operations, to wilderness permitting for backpackers, to the seasonal interpretive rangers, seasonal maintenance staff," said Jesse Chakrin, the executive director of the Fund for People in Parks, a nonprofit that advocates for national parks. The National Park Service hires thousands of seasonal workers a year across America. More than 100 are typically hired annually at Yosemite early in the busy season, Chakrin said.

But 2025 was no typical year. On Feb. 14, 10 full-time federal employees at Yosemite were fired when the federal government terminated about 1,000 newly hired employees throughout the National Park Service. In the weeks that followed, additional experienced workers left the park service voluntarily. Since January, the amount of permanent staff across the service has declined by 24%, according to data analyzed in July by the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit that defends parks.

Then, after staff members were fired in February, some were hired back. That meant the park service's already straining Human Resources division had to take on additional work to bring those people into the workforce again, federal workers told NPR. Around late spring, when more visitors started entering the park and seasonal workers began arriving at Yosemite to start their jobs, Human Resources wasn't able to onboard all the seasonal staff, Yosemite employees said.

"We had the firing of probationary employees in February and then the rehiring, and this was a huge, huge burden on Human Resources to try to get people in and out," said Emily Thompson, the executive director of the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, a nonprofit that supports workers at parks. "And seasonal hiring was delayed."

But Yosemite still needed seasonal workers. An April order from the Department of the Interior, the agency that oversees the National Park Service, said all parks should stay open as usual in 2025, with changes to operating hours requiring special approval.

Seasonal workers needed the jobs too. Many count on their employment at the park to provide them with housing. Because some parts of Yosemite are dozens of miles from the nearest city, accommodations at the park are typically offered to people who work there, for a fee.

"They're dependent upon their job to have a home," said Chakrin.

On May 18, visitors took photos at a viewing point above Vernal Fall, a waterfall at Yosemite National Park.

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In other parks, seasonal employees weren't hired at all. As of July, only about 4,500 of the people expected to fill 8,000 seasonal positions across the Park Service were working in seasonal roles, according to the data from the National Parks Conservation Association. But in late April, supervisors at Yosemite started offering some of the prospective seasonal workers a different option. If they volunteered for at least 32 hours a week at the park, they could stay in Yosemite housing for free until the federal government was able to onboard and start paying them, emails reviewed by NPR reveal.

"My supervisors were emailing people week after week saying, 'Hey, the update is there's no updates and we understand you guys need housing and you're relying on this and we're relying on you. And we don't know what's going on, but one option is to volunteer,'" said one Yosemite worker.

NPR requested an interview with a representative at Yosemite and sent questions regarding how and when seasonal workers were hired this year. The park declined to answer the questions or speak with NPR.

"We are not conducting interviews about staffing levels," said the park's public affairs officer, Scott Gediman.

Gediman recommended that NPR email the National Park Service instead. No one at the service responded to NPR's questions or request for an interview.

But workers at Yosemite told NPR they estimate that more than 50 seasonal workers volunteered for the park service in Yosemite before they were paid later in the summer. Of the four people NPR spoke with who were asked to work for no pay until they could be onboarded, one declined and did not work at Yosemite this season. The other three agreed to volunteer and wait. The workers said they signed volunteer service agreements with the federal government, some of which NPR reviewed.

The three who volunteered said they were assigned a role in a different division than the one they had originally committed to work for. The park service prohibits seasonal employees from volunteering for positions "similar to their paid work" outside of the season. That sort of policy is to prevent the federal government from exploiting workers, the park service's reference manual indicates, and to ensure the park complies with federal labor laws.

"The NPS does not allow an NPS employee to serve as a volunteer in a manner that takes advantage of an employee's willingness to perform their paid work without pay," the manual states.

The federal government also assures people that they can expect competitive pay if they choose to work in public service. But seasonal workers said that's not what they received when they worked for free for weeks. Some believe the federal government did take advantage of them.

"We're here because we need housing," one said. "And there was this urgency to have a place to go, so we did it."

The sun rises over tall granite cliffs that rise from Yosemite Valley.

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It was 'offensive' to work without pay, one worker said

For weeks, before they started being paid by the park in June, the seasonal workers spent hundreds of volunteer hours doing tasks like educating visitors and maintaining trails, they told NPR.

While the employees said they were grateful to have a place to live and understood that their supervisors at Yosemite may not have had control over hiring delays at the federal level, they thought it was unfair not to be paid for their labor.

"The idea of volunteering for the job that we already don't get paid enough to do was offensive," said one of the workers.

A few weeks into the busy season, some prospective seasonal workers were hired and paid by the Great Basin Institute, a nonprofit that promotes conservation and has partnered with national parks on projects before.

"They reached out and said, 'Hey, we've got needs,'" said Peter Woodruff, the nonprofit's chief executive, referring to staff at the Park Service. "So they turned to us for that support during a time of uncertainty."

The institute paid fewer than 30 seasonal workers at Yosemite for a few weeks, said Woodruff. But not all seasonal workers were offered the opportunity. Of the three people NPR spoke with who volunteered, only one received payment from the Great Basin Institute in between volunteering and their employment with the federal government.

Another worker labored without pay for six weeks, from early May until the end of June, before they were onboarded, the employee told NPR. During that time, they stayed in a shared room owned by the federal government that was valued at under $500 a month, their housing agreement reviewed by NPR shows.

The park ultimately onboarded the three workers at different times, from early to late June. After they started being paid by the park, from that point forward, the workers said they earned between $19 and $23 an hour. But none were paid back for the weeks they volunteered, they said, and none were promised back pay.

By asking volunteers to work in different jobs than the ones they were later paid to do, the park service may not have violated federal labor laws, said Kevin Owen, an employment lawyer who represents federal workers. Still, Owen said that the requests to volunteer could harm the park. Since experienced workers might be less likely to agree to work without pay, fewer of them may have accepted the proposal, he said.

"It will lead to either stories of long lines at national parks or stories of missing campers who can't be found when they otherwise should have been," Owen said.

Chakrin, the director of the parks nonprofit, said that parks are currently under strain and struggling with staffing across the West. But he has never heard of seasonal workers being asked to work without pay for weeks because a park couldn't onboard them on time.

"The unprecedented part that I have never seen is, in mass, having seasonals have onboarding dates that are delayed indefinitely and up to three pay periods," he said. "It's just a whole lot of a season when your season is six months long."

Copyright 2025 NPR

The Trump administration is taking steps to advance a mysterious and unprecedented project to compile state-by-state lists of people it has decided are eligible citizens over the age of 18 who can vote in the upcoming midterm election. But it will no longer meet its own deadline to publish that information on a portal on Friday, which is 60 days before Election Day.

Department of Justice attorneys told opposing counsel in two separate lawsuits that instead of meeting the Sept. 4 deadline, they would give 48-hours notice to plaintiffs' counsel before the state citizenship portal was launched, according to recent court filings.

The U.S. has never attempted to create a comprehensive list of American citizens before this administration. Maintaining voter lists is the responsibility of states, not the federal government, as the Constitution dictates that states control elections. But President Trump has repeatedly taken steps to try to exert executive control over elections.

The basis for the federal government creating state citizenship lists is an executive order Trump signed on March 31. A lower court had blocked implementation of key parts of that executive order in 23 states and Washington, D.C., but the Supreme Court stayed that injunction late last month, opening the door for the plan to be implemented after all.

The March 31 executive order directs U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Social Security Administration to create "State Citizenship Lists" of individuals the agencies believe are citizens in each state, and send those lists to state officials "no fewer than 60 days before each regularly scheduled Federal election."

The next section of the executive order says the U.S. attorney general will prioritize investigating and prosecuting state and local officials who issue federal ballots to anyone not eligible to vote.

"States here have a strong incentive to actually use these lists to try to avoid federal investigation," said Jules Torti, counsel at the nonprofit Protect Democracy, in an interview with NPR. "But we know that these lists are going to be based on really inaccurate data. So the risk of disenfranchisement here is really, really palpable."

The privacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center, along with individual voters, filed a motion Thursday asking a federal judge in Maryland to block the administration from creating the citizenship lists and publishing them on a portal. Specifically, they seek to block a June 8 implementation memo authored by USCIS director Joseph Edlow that outlines the plan.

The motion, which was brought by Protect Democracy, along with another nonprofit legal group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, argues the administration's plans to share Americans' personal data between agencies and then disseminate the data to states violates multiple federal laws, including the Privacy Act, the Social Security Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. Under the Privacy Act, federal agencies must give the public 30 days notice and the opportunity to comment before they collect and disseminate Americans' personal data for a new purpose.

The EPIC lawsuit also argues the government does not have access to accurate, up-to-date information on American citizens, especially those who move frequently, have changed their names, or are foreign-born. For example, Social Security's citizenship data often isn't updated when people naturalize, and the SAVE data system, operated by USCIS, frequently doesn't include records for people who became citizens as minors when their parents naturalized.

Torti said it is "deeply concerning" that the administration is still planning to go ahead with the creation of citizenship lists but is no longer going to meet the deadline, since that means the lists will be completed even closer to Election Day.

"It means additional chaos, additional confusion for the state election officials and just for voters," Torti said. "And I think that's the point. The point here is to create chaos in advance of the election."

Neither the Department of Justice, nor the Department of Homeland Security, which is tasked with compiling the citizenship lists, responded to NPR's request for comment.

The June 8 implementation memo stated that the portal for state election officials would be available around June 30 and a second portal where citizens could check their information would be available at a later date – but that deadline passed without further updates.

The federal government has secured a domain for the state citizenship lists portal. While the portal is not currently online, it was briefly live in recent days with a landing page that said "Coming Soon," according to court filings.

Lawyers representing Democratic party groups that had challenged the March 31 executive order in a separate lawsuit filed in April, accused the administration in a recent filing of failing to notify the court or the parties about its plans to move forward with the state citizenship portal. They asked the judge to require the federal government to give immediate updates about their plans to implement the executive order.

This latest legal battle over the administration's plans to compile state citizenship lists comes as the Department of Homeland Security is ramping up its efforts to analyze state voter rolls with the goal of identifying potential noncitizens who are registered to vote. Previous audits have found instances of noncitizens casting ballots to be incredibly rare. 

Additionally, last week, ICE published a request for information on a federal procurement site seeking vendors who can compile public voter rolls and voter history files from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories, "to support Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) fraud detection and data segmentation activities."

NPR's Hansi Lo Wang contributed reporting to this story. 
Copyright 2026 NPR

A group of California lawmakers called on federal officials to halt and reject a proposed land exchange in Yosemite National Park that would allow a private developer to take control of a strip of land in the park for an access road to the park’s main attractions.

The letter to Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Wednesday was signed by a bipartisan group of 61 state legislators led by Assemblymember Greg Wallis, a Republican who represents Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

“Republicans and Democrats from both houses of the Legislature are standing together because some things are bigger than politics,” Wallis said in a statement. “Yosemite is not a subdivision. It is not a bargaining chip. And it is not for sale. Secretary Burgum and the administration should put an end to this proposal.”

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum (center) visited the Tunnel Tops in San Francisco in 2025 after he and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi toured Alcatraz ahead of their announcement to reopen the former federal prison.

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The group argued that the proposed land exchange is counter to the mission of the National Park Service and the founding of Yosemite in 1864, which set aside the start of the park for public use and protection for the first time in the history of the federal government.

“What is being proposed now runs directly against that founding principle, more than a century and a half later,” the letter states.

It continues later: “Our national parks belong equally to every American. They are not the Department’s to trade away, and they are not for sale.”

The proposal was first reported by news outlet NOTUS, which published a story last week alleging that members of the Trump administration were meeting with representatives of Kingsbarn Realty Capital, a private equity group that owns an 83-acre parcel next to the park. In an email to KQED, Kingsbarn’s lawyer Lanny J. Davis confirmed the group is pursuing the land exchange to build a new access road from its property to the park.

Previous owners have pushed for the same deal since the early 2000s and failed in court.

State Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), who signed on to the letter, called the proposal “indefensible,” and said he’s looking at state laws to ensure a similar proposal could never slip through.

“If the Trump administration can’t defend this publicly in broad daylight, then they shouldn’t be doing it,” he said.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Marin) told KQED’s Forum on Wednesday that he’s worried there isn’t enough opposition among his Republican colleagues in Congress to stop the Trump administration’s efforts.

“I have not seen a single Republican colleague willing to stand up to Donald Trump when he decides that he’s just going to do something,” Huffman said. “So that is my concern, that he just plows ahead with this — even if it has dubious legal authority, or even if it’s an open violation of the law. He’s doing stuff like that anyway. And in this Congress, there’s no one here to stop him.”

In a statement to KQED, state Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil (R-Modesto), whose district includes parts of Yosemite, said she will “keep pressing the Department [of the Interior] for a clear answer that this exchange will not proceed.”

Since the news of the deal broke late last week, it has sparked condemnation from a number of Democratic state leaders, including Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, as well as Attorney General Rob Bonta and Bonta’s predecessor, Xavier Becerra, who leads the race for California governor.

“The secretive backroom land-exchange scheme has gotten everyone’s attention,” said Neal Desai, senior Pacific regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association. “I can’t recall another issue — and I’ve been working in the conservation space for over a couple of decades — where the response has been this sharp and so one-sided that this is a terrible idea that should not happen.”

The backlash comes at a turbulent time for National Park Service employees, who have faced layoffs, staffing cuts and fear of retaliation for speaking up against Trump administration policies since the start of the second Trump administration.

Some former employees have also raised concerns about a potential reorganization of the National Park Service, according to a separate letter sent to Burgum’s office Wednesday. According to an email seen by KQED, park superintendents have been asked to attend in-person regional meetings in September — with no clear agenda beyond discussing “agency priorities, our FY 2026 outlook, and other matters important to the work ahead.”

The letter to Burgam, signed by 20 retired parks superintendents warns: “An ill-advised and hastily planned reorganization could dismantle that structure, putting our parks — and those who visit them — at great risk.”

Emily Thompson, executive director of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, which organized the letter, said the email about regional meetings “raises some alarm bells.”

“The Park Service is already operating from a difficult place, from a place of crisis,” she said. “And any additional cuts, any movements or actions that would further jeopardize the capacity of the folks that are left, that’s concerning. It’s worrying, and it’ll have a devastating impact on the Park Service.”

Among the letter’s signatories is Don Neubacher, retired Yosemite superintendent, who has been a vocal advocate for parks amid the Trump administration’s changes.

Thompson said she’s worried parks leaders will be stretched even further than they already are, and local decision-making over parks could be in jeopardy.

“Morale is low,” Thompson said. “It’s a hard time to be a federal employee. Anything that … contributes to this culture of fear, it’s just not acceptable.”

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

Long Beach is offering up to $1,500 for local business owners and landlords to equip their storefronts with safety measures like cameras, floodlights, alarms and point-of-sale systems.

The grant program is accepting online applications now. You can apply here.

Businesses with storefronts of 1,500 square feet or less may receive grants of up to $750, while businesses between 1,500 and 5,000 square feet are eligible for up to $1,500.

Nonprofit organizations are eligible as well, and landlords can apply on behalf of commercial storefronts that are vacant or occupied. Franchises can also receive the grant.

To qualify, a business must:

• Have an active business license for a storefront within the city
• Be independently owned and operated (franchises are eligible)
• Be currently open and active for business
• Earn no more than $5 million in annual gross revenue
• Hold “active” status with the California Secretary of State for corporations, limited liability companies and limited partnerships

The funds will be provided as a reimbursement after eligible security improvements are installed. Grants will be given out until funds are exhausted.

It’s a great idea, according to Edwin Jara, who manages a pet store in Belmont Heights and was on the receiving end of a break-in earlier this year.

His store had security measures already in place — two cameras and an alarm system — but even that wasn’t enough to deter a masked burglar who grabbed $1,000 cash and a handful of dog treats.

Despite having footage of the burglar, Jara said police haven’t been able to catch the person and that a detective never responded after he filed a police report.

The grant program is being paid for with $350,000 from the city’s Redvelopment Agency along with $50,000 from Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn’s office.

“Our local small businesses are part of the fabric of our neighborhoods, and when business owners feel unsafe, the whole community feels it,” Hahn said in a statement.

In a statement, Mayor Rex Richardson said the program is a “direct investment in the hardworking business owners who make our commercial corridors vibrant and welcoming.”

Jara said he would consider applying for a grant if the city could send someone to help him and the store’s owner fill out the application.

He was offered a separate grant to replace a glass door the burglar smashed, but the store’s owner opted not to fill out the application.

“There was a lot of stuff that we needed to do, and I don’t have a lot of that information,” Jara said.

Santa Monica College has money problems. Spending has outpaced revenues over the last three fiscal years — and the college doesn’t have enough in its coffers to pay for retirement benefits.

That’s according to the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges, the body responsible for evaluating community colleges. The organization has moved to “enhanced fiscal monitoring” of SMC.

In a statement to LAist, Mac Powell, president of ACCJC, said, “Enhanced monitoring is part of the Commission’s routine annual process for identifying and working with institutions that may be experiencing financial pressures; it is not, by itself, an accreditation sanction or adverse action.”

More than 25,000 students are enrolled at SMC, with over 50% identifying as first-generation. The school has around 320 full-time faculty and 852 part-time faculty. On their website, SMC touts itself as the “#1 Transfer College” to University of California schools, Loyola Marymount University and the University of Southern California.

In a letter to Santa Monica College informing them of the increased monitoring, ACCJC Vice President Melynie Schiel wrote that a three-year decline of the ending cash balance and multiple open labor agreements factored into the “at risk” designation.

Santa Monica College declined an interview with LAist. But in a post online, Santa Monica College President Kathryn Jeffery wrote that the at-risk category was largely “backward-looking.”

So what does ‘enhanced fiscal monitoring’ mean?

Gaining accreditation from a body like the ACCJC allows SMC to qualify for federal funding and to distribute financial aid to students.

Every year, institutions accredited by the ACCJC submit financial information, including reserves, operating revenues and deficits, salary and benefit costs, enrollment trends and audit findings.

If institutions fall in the “at risk” category like Santa Monica College, they are placed on increased monitoring. This helps ACCJC “better understand the circumstances, remain informed about the institution’s response, and track progress over time,” Powell said.

During this time, ACCJC staffers will meet with representatives from Santa Monica College “and the institution provides information regarding the circumstances contributing to its fiscal condition and the actions it is taking in response,” Powell said.

Powell said that, for students and prospective students, the enhanced fiscal monitoring "indicates that ACCJC is paying closer attention to the institution's financial condition while the institution addresses identified fiscal challenges."

Is SMC’s accreditation at risk?

In short: No.

“Santa Monica College is accredited by ACCJC and, at this time, is not in danger of losing its accreditation, nor is an adverse accreditation action by the Commission currently anticipated,” Powell said. “The purpose of enhanced monitoring is precisely to identify concerns early and provide appropriate oversight while institutions work to address them.”

Are there any other colleges in Southern California in the same boat?

Powell said ACCJC typically doesn't make public whether a college is subject to increased monitoring.

“We are aware that Santa Monica College has chosen to publicly disclose its own fiscal monitoring status. That disclosure was made independently by the institution and does not reflect a change in ACCJC's policy regarding the confidentiality of this information for other member institutions,” Powell added.

What is Santa Monica College doing to address their fiscal woes?

Jeffery wrote in a memo to employees posted on the college website that the at-risk rating “does not account for far-reaching actions the College has taken since,” noting actions like layoffs and contract non-renewals, employee furloughs and salary freezes; and cutting vacant positions.

Powell told LAist in a written statement ACCJC would not speculate about how decisions such as layoffs, salary freezes, or contract non-renewals might affect the student experience.

"From an accreditation perspective, ACCJC's focus is on whether an institution continues to meet accreditation standards, including maintaining the financial stability, staffing, programs, and student support necessary to fulfill its educational mission," he said. "Enhanced fiscal monitoring helps ensure that the Commission remains informed about an institution's financial condition and its capacity to continue serving students effectively."