Key events
Oliver Milman
Across the US’s fabled but overstretched national parks, unusual scenes are playing out this summer following budget cuts by Donald Trump’s administration. Archeologists are staffing ticket booths, ecologists are covering visitor centers and the superintendents of parks are even cleaning the toilets.
The National Park Service (NPS), responsible for maintaining cherished wildernesses and sites of cultural importance from Yellowstone to the Statue of Liberty, has lost a quarter of its permanent staff since Trump took office in January, with the administration seeking to gut the service’s budget by a third.
But the administration has also ordered parks to remain open and accessible to the public, meaning the NPS has had to scramble remaining staff into public-facing roles to maintain appearances to the crowds of visitors. This has meant much of the behind-the-scenes work to protect endangered species, battle invasive plants, fix crumbling infrastructure or plan for the future needs of the US’s trove of natural wonders has been jettisoned.
“It’s nearly impossible to do the leadership role expected of me,” said one superintendent who heads a park in the western US who didn’t want to be named for fear of retribution from the administration.
“I’m doing everything now. That means I regularly have to make sure the doors are open, I have to run the visitor center, I have to clean the bathrooms. I’d say I’m cleaning the bathroom on a weekly basis now because there’s no one else to do it.”
This sort of triage situation is occurring across the 433 sites and 85m acres – including 63 national parks and an array of battlefields, monuments and cultural sites – that make up the national park system in the US, multiple current and former NPS staff have told the Guardian, risking long-term degradation of prized parks.
Opening summary
Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of US politics as JD Vance prepares to visit Indiana on Thursday to discuss redistricting with Republican leaders.
The vice president’s trip comes as Donald Trump ramps up pressure on GOP states to redraw congressional boundaries and give the party more winnable seats in the 2026 midterm elections. In Texas, Democrats who left the state in an effort to block a new congressional map from being implemented say they experienced a bomb threat at their Illinois hotel on Wednesday morning amid the standoff.
Vance is scheduled to hold private meetings with Gov. Mike Braun and others before attending a GOP fundraiser on Thursday night in the solidly Republican state. Braun had earlier told reporters he expects to discuss several matters with the vice president — including redistricting — but said no commitments have been made.
“It looks like it’s going to happen across many Republican states,” Braun said. As Associated Press reports, Indiana is staunchly Republican, outnumbering Democrats in Indiana 7-2, limiting the possibilities of squeezing out another seat.
Opponents of any redistricting attempt are planning to make their objections known on Thursday with protests and a news conference by the two Democratic members of the state’s congressional delegation. The constitutionality of the move would also almost certainly be challenged in court.
We’ll bring you all the developments throughout the day. In other news:
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Donald Trump has claimed “great progress was made” during talks on ending the war in Ukraine between his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin on Wednesday. The three-hour talks came two days before a deadline the US president set for Russia to reach a peace deal in the war or face fresh sanctions.
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The White House is placing an additional 25% tariff on imports from India, bringing total tariffs up to 50%, in retaliation for the country’s purchase of oil from Russia, according to an executive order signed on Wednesday morning. India has 21 days to respond to the potential tariffs before they go into effect. The tariffs will be tacked on to a 25% tariff on India Trump set last week as a “penalty” for the country’s trading relationship with Russia.
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A new report has found hundreds of reported cases of human rights abuses in US immigration detention centers. The alleged abuses uncovered include deaths in custody, physical and sexual abuse of detainees, denial of access to attorneys, and child separation.
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Trump on Wednesday celebrated a commitment by Apple to increase its investments in US manufacturing by an additional $100bn over the next four years. Apple’s plan to up its domestic investment comes as it seeks to avoid Trump’s threatened tariffs, which would increase the tech giant’s costs as it relies on a complex international supply chain to produce its iPhones.
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South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa held a telephone call with US president Donald Trump on bilateral trade matters, Ramaphosa’s office said in statement.
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Switzerland’s government will hold an emergency meeting on Thursday to decide its next move after its president returned home empty-handed from an 11th-hour trip to Washington aimed at averting a crippling 39% US import tariff on Swiss goods. An urgent meeting of the seven-member Federal Council – Switzerland’s governing cabinet – will take place in Bern in the early afternoon, the government said a post on X. Swiss president Karin Keller-Sutter left Washington on Wednesday without a new deal and did not meet with Donald Trump or any of his top trade officials, two sources told Reuters.
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The man charged with killing the top Democrat in the Minnesota House and her husband, and wounding a state senator and his wife, is expected to plead not guilty when he’s arraigned in federal court on Thursday, his attorney said. Vance Boelter, 58, of Green Isle, Minnesota, was indicted 15 July on six counts of murder, stalking and firearms violations. The murder charges could carry the federal death penalty, though prosecutors say that decision is several months away.
