Ted Turner: From famous to superstar

Published on May 6th, 2026

With the passing of Ted Turner, his dominant 4-0 victory over Australia in the 1977 America’s Cup is brought back to life with extracts taken from the event archives:

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The Defense trials were somewhat closer. However, the lingering doubts about Ted Turner within the hierarchy of the New York Yacht Club persisted. Many years later, Gary Jobson opined that:

“I think the New York Yacht Club realized that Turner had the talent and the crew was good, and Courageous might be the right boat, but what about this mercurial southerner? Should he really be representing the New York Yacht Club in the America’s Cup? I think those of us in the boat bet they were looking for any excuse to get us eliminated and the only way to keep going was to keep winning.”

And win they did, starting the defense trials with five straight wins before finally losing a race to Ted Hood’s Independence. For Lowell North’s Enterprise, it was a difficult start, losing two straight races to Courageous and then sharing a two-race day with Independence.

North was tinkering still with Enterprise, and after another shared day with Independence before fog ruled out sailing for two days, he was fired, with Halsey Herreshoff coming onboard to boost the afterguard and Malin Burnham instated as skipper.

It had little effect initially, and Turner was quick to capitalize on the disarray in the Enterprise camp, thumping in two victories as racing resumed and a further victory against Independence the following day.

Hood’s hopes were fading fast too, even after replacing tactician Scott Perry with Steve Van Dyck and two further defeats by Enterprise and a 1 minute 23 second victory by Courageous saw the straw boater wearing Committee of the NYYC thanking Hood for his participation and excusing Independence from further trials.

Turner sealed the Defense nomination for Courageous the following day on Tuesday 30th August 1977 with a resounding, tactically brilliant race against Enterprise that saw Courageous on the right side of two shifts on the first leg and, never headed, sailed off to a 1 minute 26 second victory.

There was no other choice, Courageous with Turner, the ‘Mouth from the South’ was the nominated Defender for the America’s Cup, having lost just one race from 11 in the trials. Devastating performance and right when it mattered.

After being informed of his nomination to defend the America’s Cup by the NYYC Committee, Turner had commented: “There will never be a time in my life as good as this time. I can’t believe all this is really happening to me.”

So, with confidence high, the crew of Courageous, led by a skipper very much at his prime – Turner was 38 years old – the Americans faced a familiar foe, one they had encountered many times on the global grand prix yachting circuit, in Alan Bond.

Bond’s campaign had been one of steady improvement, something that had been monitored from afar by the Courageous syndicate who knew they were facing a much faster threat than Southern Cross posed in 1974.

The Australians also had controversially brought in match-racing ace and American national Andy Rose to the afterguard as tactician just before the semi-finals of the Challenger Series, and the move seemed to work with Rose gelling with skipper Noel Robins well. All was set for the 1977 Match.

It was September 13th, 1977, and Newport, Rhode Island was cold with a 12-knot breeze blowing from the south by the time the boats arrived at the racecourse after the customary long tow out from their Newport bases.

The pre-start circling was naturally aggressive as had become the norm in modern match-racing and with just 30 seconds left on the clock, both boats hardened up on timed-runs to the line on starboard tack. Gary Jobson, tactician on Courageous, called for Turner to hold the right and in the dying seconds, Turner tacked off on to port leaving Australia to head for the pin end of the line.

Both boats were late for the start line but with an expected veer out on the starboard layline, Australia came back on to port to follow Courageous after five minutes of windward work. With Courageous able to point consistently higher, the gauge visually decreased over a port tack leg that lasted for some 17 minutes.

When Courageous tacked, she was easily crossing Australia so Rose called for a tack beneath in what should have been a relatively clear leeward position, but the call was too late and Turner just eased Courageous over the top, blanketing the Australian’s sails.

Robins tacked immediately, a move that Turner ignored, electing to sail out of phase to the windward mark. It was brilliant tactical sailing in the conditions and Courageous rounded mark one with a lead of 1 minute and 8 seconds and headed off on a reach to the wing mark, setting her spinnaker with perfect crew co-ordination.

The expected offwind performance of Australia failed to materialize on the two reaching legs and Courageous was ahead by 1 minute 23 seconds at the first leeward mark, but closed up on the next beat courtesy of a favorable 20-degree windshift.

Encouragingly though for Courageous, whose tactician Gary Jobson had casually recorded the speed of Australia whilst training some weeks earlier and had chosen to keep the data to himself, the final run saw Courageous extend marginally before turning for home and stretching away. The final delta was 1 minute 48 seconds with the Australians ruing their choice of headsail and a lay day was called to re-group.

When the boats came back out for race two on the 15th September 1977, a rather familiar pattern began to emerge – that of Courageous being able to pinch higher to the wind than the Australians – and despite the race being abandoned as the 4:40pm time limit was breached, the Australians knew they had a problem with the American’s speed and point.

When race two was re-run in just 11 knots of southerly unstable air, it was the sort of conditions that Ben Lexcen and Johan Valentijn had in mind when they designed Australia. However, Turner made the best of the pre-start, trailing Australia down to the committee boat before gybing first and setting up in the leeward position, confident of his boat’s ability to hold and gain in a lane.

However, Australia held solid to windward for the opening minutes, and when Courageous tacked to come back on port, Turner, unable to cross opted for an aggressive lee bow tack setting right up underneath the Australians and it was effectively the move that won the race. Australia was forced to tack off and in doing so, opted to change headsails that cost them time that they could simply never make up. Courageous led by two minutes at the top mark.

Australia, though, were in this race to fight and despite rounding the leeward mark after the first two reaches, some 2 minutes 48 seconds adrift, managed to take 30 seconds out of Courageous on the second beat. With the wind building up to 15 knots for the run, Australia closed by another minute, setting the two up for a final beat where Courageous tenaciously covered to win by a delta of 1 minute and 3 seconds.

It was 2-0 to Turner and the defense of the America’s Cup was on.

Race three dawned as a typical Newport late summer day with fog reluctant to lift and a persistent drizzle blowing around on an 8-knot unstable south westerly. The pre-start was an anodyne affair with the two boats shadow-boxing in the circling and never really engaging. In the final moments, Courageous had set-up to leeward and ahead on starboard tack for the lead into the line.

With no other option, Robins wheeled away onto port, crossing some six seconds down and heading right. Turner and Jobson realized that they had to keep close in the veering wind so tacked over to cover after 45 seconds and a long drag race ensued out to the west.

Spectators observed that at various times, both boats locked into favorable shifts that put either one ahead, and arguably if Australia had tacked on one noticeable header she would have at the very least engaged with Courageous. Robins and Rose didn’t take the opportunity, claiming afterwards that they would not have been able to cross (but they didn’t have to?) and when the wind came back in favor of Courageous, the race was as good as lost.

Turner and Jobson were in marvelous sync, rounding the top mark 1 minute and 50 seconds ahead, and despite the breeze veering on the first reach causing both boats to gybe, by the first leeward mark they had extended to just over three minutes ahead.

That lead was extended further on the second beat to some 3 minutes 27 seconds before the Australians clawed their way back into the race on the final run as they brought down extra pressure and rounded 1 minutes 57 seconds astern at the final leeward mark.

Courageous kept a close cover on the final beat to cross the finish line and record a 2 minute 32 second victory as the “Rocky’ theme tune blared from a Coast Guard cutter. The writing was on the wall for Bond’s Australia campaign but, ever the optimist, in the press conference afterwards declared that more breeze would favor the Australians and that a better performance was on the cards. It was false hope.

The final race begun in some 14 knots – the wind Gods had answered Bond’s prayers – but the differences between the two boats were perhaps amplified by the conditions. Both boats started on port tack with Courageous to leeward and pointing so well that Australia just couldn’t roll over the top and was forced to eventually tack away.

Turner followed in quick pursuit and, now on starboard, held the advantage. Robins tacked and ducked the stern of Courageous and the call onboard the American boat was to stand on with the afterguard believing they were in a lift, and it was a full two minutes before they tacked to cover. When they did, the cross was easy, and the lift thus confirmed.

At the top mark Courageous was 44 seconds ahead and headed off on the two reaches with confidence in their downwind speed to stay ahead. By the leeward mark the Americans had stretched the lead to 56 seconds and as the wind began to drop, the second windward leg saw a tactical masterclass of Newport sailing as Courageous streaked into a 2 minute and 11 second lead that they further extended on the run.

By the finish line, it was a slam-dunk and the winning margin was 2 minutes 25 seconds as Newport went wild for their new hero in Ted Turner.

Much has been written about the immediate aftermath of the 1977 contest, and in particular an unfortunate, rather intoxicated, press conference that occurred immediately after the racing. However, some 32 years later, Jobson offered a snapshot that summed up that summer beautifully: “I think the ’77 Cup race was a high point of our lives. We were the underdogs going into that summer. We were going to have to perform at an absolutely superlative level. It was a crew of 100-percent winners.”

The America’s Cup had been defended in style by one of the true mavericks and characters of the event’s long history and the Auld Mug was safe once again in West 44th Street, home of the New York Yacht Club. Ted Turner meanwhile had: “rocketed from famous to superstar,” according to the New York Times.

The rest as they say, is history.

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Details: https://www.americascup.com/

A Mexican surveillance giant you’ve never heard of is now watching the US border

 A Mexican surveillance giant you’ve never heard of is now watching the US border - Rest of World

A Mexican surveillance giant you’ve never heard of is now watching the U.S. border

Grupo Seguritech quietly built a $1.27 billion surveillance empire. Now it’s expanding into the U.S. and across Latin America.

Adriana Zehbrauskas for Rest of World
By JOSÉ OLIVARES
8 APRIL 2026 • CIUDAD JUÁREZ, MEXICO
TRANSLATE





This article was produced in partnership with Type Investigations.

Inside a law enforcement command center in Ciudad Juárez, a police officer scrolled across a map on her touch-screen computer. As she used her fingers to navigate through the Mexican state of Chihuahua, where Juárez is located, different colored bubbles lit up. “That one is a camera,” the analyst explained, pointing at a circle. “We can just click it and see the live view.”


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“Look,” an analyst next to her said, demonstrating how the technology works. They zoomed in on a camera feed inside the women’s unit of a state prison. On screen, the camera focused on a group of women sitting around a table — the details of their playing cards clearly visible.

For decades, Juárez, which sits just across the border from El Paso, Texas, has been considered one of the most dangerous cities in the world. For years, rival gangs and drug cartels have battled for control of the city. To combat the violence, Mexican authorities have engaged in an ongoing fight against criminal groups in the area using surveillance technology.

This command center is key to Chihuahua’s growing surveillance network, Gilberto Loya Chávez, the state’s square-jawed and charismatic secretary of public security, said during a tour of the facility last October. Behind him, large screens blasted live camera feeds from throughout the state, as more than a dozen analysts typed away on computers.

Win With Style. Lose With Style

 Win With Style. Lose With Style.

Originally published in 2013, this message from Clemmie Everett provides a reminder that how we play the game impacts the health of the game:

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If a tree falls in the forest and there's no one around to hear it, does it really make a sound? I don't know, but if a sailor can win a race but there's no one to race against, can the sailor really win? Pretty clearly, the answer is no.

Sailing is a great lifelong sport that encompasses a range of ages, abilities, and degrees of seriousness, and one aspect that's vital to keeping the sport going is sportsmanship. It's often said that sailing is a self-policing sport and that for this reason, sportsmanship is particularly important.

However, it only takes one incident with one boat abusing the system to make a race less enjoyable for everyone else. Following the rules is certainly a significant piece of sportsmanship, but being a good sport in sailing goes beyond rules and the racecourse.

It's one thing to think about how to improve your boathandling or tactics, but thinking about how to be a better sport is a more difficult - and more important - task. It's relatively easy to think of ways to be a bad sport, but are there concrete steps to being a better sport? There's certainly no right answer, but here are a few things to keep in mind as you approach your next race or regatta.

1. Show your appreciation. Thanking the race committee, regatta organizers, your competitors, and any friends, family and coaches who helped get you to the starting line goes a long way to making sure that a positive racing atmosphere will stay that way.

2. Be prepared. If you have the parts, clothing, and information that you need for your time on the water, you'll be less tempted to grab a part from a boat in the parking lot or "borrow" the spray top you find in the bathroom. You'll also be less likely to feel like you've suffered for an "unfair" reason (like your traveler snapping or not knowing the starting sequence) and take out your frustration on others. - Read on

Kindle users get crafty as old models stop working

  Kindle users get crafty as old models stop working

Niv Bavarsky

Paperback diehards who claim to love lugging around Ron Chernow doorstoppers are getting vindicated. Today, Amazon is ending support for Kindle e-readers released before 2013—which prompted some users to load up on books or alter their devices. While the titles already loaded on the gadget your parents gifted you in 2010 aren’t going anywhere, the owners of the ~2 million older Kindles still in use won’t be able to acquire new books from the Kindle Store. The change affects more than a dozen models, including some Kindle Fire tablets, the Kindle Paperwhite 1st Generation, and the Kindle Touch. Amazon is offering a 20% discount on new Kindles and a $20 credit for e-book purchases to those trading in qualifying older models. But some aren’t rushing to Amazon.com Many scrappy bookworms are now sidestepping the Amazon ecosystem by sideloading titles onto their vintage Kindles from designated apps on their computer. Others are altering their Kindle’s software—a more technically involved process known as jailbreaking that may violate Amazon’s terms of service (though not always the law). This allows them to install alternative reading apps with more features and download books in formats that aren’t compatible with ordinary Kindles. You can see how people are doing it here. Many users are angry…accusing Amazon of practicing planned obsolescence and exacerbating the issue of e-waste, with some saying they’ll switch to competing e-readers. Amazon currently controls 72% of the e-reader market.

Investors are pulling away from AI on a global scale

 Investors are pulling away from AI on a global scale

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Investors around the world are dumping tech stocks like they’re toxic cast members on Love Island. Tuesday continued a global sell-off in tech that may be a sign that traders have become skittish about the long-term profitability of AI and chipmakers. The abandoning of the AI ship began in the US on Monday before spreading to Asia yesterday and resuming in the States after the other side of the world went to sleep: South Korea-based chipmakers SK Hynix and Samsung fell more than 12% yesterday, resulting in a 10% decline in the Korean Composite Stock Price Index. Magnificent Seven stocks finished down 1.5% as a group yesterday, with only Microsoft and Amazon showing a gain. Other US-based AI companies to take a hit included Broadcom (-3%), Micron (-13.2%), AMD (-5.8%), Intel (-6.1%), and Marvell (-9.4%). What’s causing the sudden loss of confidence? Much like a couple trying to decide what to have for dinner, no one has a definitive answer—but there are several plausible options. Google/SpaceX dips: On Monday, both companies took big losses—Google dropped 5%, while SpaceX fell 16%. Some analysts believe that was enough to trigger the sector-wide selloff. Interest rates: Most forecasters believe that the Fed will raise rates by at least a quarter-point this year. Bank of America predicted on Monday that there will be three hikes, totaling three-quarters of a point, in 2026. Higher rates could result in a deceleration of the heavy investing in AI technology that tech companies have planned in the coming years. Spending. Investors periodically remember that they’re worried about the hundreds of billions of dollars that tech giants are investing in AI. What’s next: JPMorgan analysts suggested that the anxiety could be related to Micron dropping its earnings report this afternoon. The chipmaker is expected to provide insight into whether the demand for AI infrastructure will remain high...or if the panic will continue.

How does the Fed work

 

So how does the Fed work? Glad you asked! USAFacts Founder Steve Ballmer just dropped this new video on the Fed and we couldn’t wait to share it with you.

Join Steve as he breaks down the Federal Reserve's complex role in the American economy. He'll break down complicated concepts, provide visuals to shed light on the institution, and even make a few costume changes.    This is the first Spotlight edition of the USAFacts newsletter, which we’ll send when we have a cool new way to explore data with you. You can expect to get them about once a month.    Here's a preview of what you'll find in the video, plus data to understand the Fed's role in your economic well-being:

The Federal Reserve is the most important bank you’ll never use. It’s a bank for banks. It holds cash reserves, moves money between banks, and can lend to them whenever needed. The Fed has five responsibilities. The one that affects you most directly is its mandate to conduct monetary policy to keep inflation in check and employment high. Through it, the Fed can influence interest rates across the entire economy. (Here are the other four.)

Speaking of inflation When the Fed lowers interest rates, it can lead to the running economy “hot.” It can make it cheaper for you to buy a house, get a car loan, or borrow money to open a business. But if money’s easier to borrow, it can fuel inflation. Last month’s inflation rate was 3.8%. The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures inflation through changes in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a metric designed to track the price of a “basket of goods and services.”

Think a dollar doesn't go as far as it used to? You're right. Track how the dollar’s value has changed with our inflation calculator! Explore the value from 1913 to now, or at any point in between. Workers’ wages aren’t keeping up with inflation. Nominal wages rose 3.6% from April 2025 to April 2026, while prices grew 3.8%. When the Fed raises interest rates, it can lead to the economy running “cold,” making things more expensive and slowing inflation. When borrowing is hard, it can slow the economy and drive up unemployment.

How the Fed influences interest rates The Fed changes the interest it charges on loans it gives and pays on other banks' cash reserves it holds, effectively setting the limits at which other banks can charge interest. The average overnight rate at which banks transact is called the federal funds rate. Get a jargon-free explanation of the federal funds rate from Steve himself.

If the Fed raises the federal funds range, your bank’s costs go up. Your bank might raise interest rates on new loans. Mortgages, car loans, credit cards, and short-term business loans all get more expensive. That can ripple across the economy: people buy less, inflation can decrease as demand falls, less demand means companies may need fewer workers — causing unemployment to rise. The federal funds rate target range has changed about 30 times in the last 10 years. In 2022, inflation climbed well above the Fed’s 2% goal. In response, the Fed raised the federal funds target range seven times in a single year.

The Fed uses the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCE) to measure inflation. The PCE tracks changes in the prices consumers pay across the economy. This differs somewhat from the CPI (the inflation measure most Americans are familiar with) because the two indexes use different methods and baskets of goods and services to calculate price changes. Sometimes interest rate changes aren't enough, so the Fed uses other tools. One of them is to create money. (Sounds nice, right?) Here’s how.    Thank you for joining us for this first Spotlight email! Watch the video now, then learn more about the Federal Reserve.

Last Time an El Niño Was This Bad, It Killed 50 Million People

Last Time an El Niño Was This Bad, It Killed 50 Million People


Last Time an El Niño Was This Bad, It Killed 50 Million People
"It was arguably the worst environmental disaster to ever befall humanity."


By Joe Wilkins


Published May 14, 2026 8:57 AM EDT
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As if oil shortages, perpetual wars, and the existential angst of AI weren’t stressful enough, there’s an El Niño brewing — and it’s looking like it’ll be one of the most severe in over a century.

According to numerous weather models, this year’s El Niño — a prolonged climate event featuring unusually warm temperatures, which pops up every couple of years — could easily be the most severe we’ve ever experienced in the modern age. This year’s warm spell could supercharge ocean temperatures by as much as 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit, the Wall Street Journal reports, resulting in widespread droughts for some, floods for others, and perhaps most chillingly, chaos for global food supplies.

To find a historical equivalent, scientists have had to reach all the way back to 1877, when a merciless El Niño unleashed death on a scale few events can rival. Per the WSJ, the catastrophe fueled ongoing droughts, culminating in a global famine that killed at least 50 million people, though some estimates peg the loss of life at an even more horrifying 60 million — around 3 percent on the total population on Earth at the time.

As climate researchers wrote in a 2018 study of the famine: “it was arguably the worst environmental disaster to ever befall humanity and one of the worst calamities of any sort in at least the last 150 years, with a loss of life comparable to the World Wars and the influenza epidemic of 1918/19.”

As humanity has developed, some have suggested that events like the 1877 El Niño represent a stress test of our progress, finding weak points in our political and economic systems. With widespread poverty and colonial immiseration fueling massive famines throughout the 1800s, it’s safe to say we failed our 19th century test.

While we’ve certainly come a long way since then, cynics have plenty of talking points. This year’s El Niño will be coming on the back of widespread droughts, a debilitated food supply chain, and years of record-breaking ocean temperatures, to give just a few pressing examples.

Whether 2026 becomes another chapter in this cycle of preventable devastation depends on how we use the technology, resources, and knowledge at our disposal. While it may be easy to wave away the calamity faced by our ancestors as a footnote in time, the future is never certain, and history doesn’t grade on a curve.

More on climate events: Earth Screams in Agony as Microplastics Found to Increase Global Warming

Largest AI Cheating Scandal in Ivy League History

Brown University Professor Horrified to Discover Largest AI Cheating Scandal in Ivy League History
"The empirical evidence of fraud is overwhelming."


By Victor Tangermann


Published Jun 30, 2026 2:54 PM EDT
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Award winning economist and Brown University professor Roberto Serrano says he has detected what appears to be the largest AI cheating scandal in Ivy League history.

As Spanish newspaper El País reports, Serrano noticed red flags as soon as he looked at the scores of a March midterm exam for one of the classes he teaches, an advanced undergrad course in mathematical economics.

The take-home and closed-book exam — an “Honor Code” type of test Ivy League schools are known for — resulted in 40 out of 86 students scoring a perfect 100. The average score was an equally questionable 96 out of 100.

In other words, it’s not a stretch to assume students gave in to the temptation to ask an AI chatbot for answers, particularly in the confines of their own homes without a teaching assistant looking over their shoulder. In Serrano’s testing, that appeared to be the case.

“Some answers contained unusual passages that coincided with results obtained after running the questions through ChatGPT,” Serrano told El País.

Perhaps most tellingly, the average score of an in-person final, which accounted for half of the final grade of the class, was an abysmal 48 out of 100. Of the 27 students who didn’t even bother to show up for the test, 22 had scored a 100 during the midterm exam, providing plenty of credence to Serrano’s theory.

“The empirical evidence of fraud is overwhelming,” he told the paper.

The incident highlights just how pervasive the use of AI has become in the classroom. Even students at highly reputable Ivy League schools are resorting to the tools to cheaply score high grades — even when doing so directly contradicts an honor code they all swore to uphold.

Compounding the concerning development, literacy and numeracy rates have taken a major hit over the last couple of years. College professors warn that we’re hitting a crisis point as incoming students barely have a middle-school level understanding of math and other subjects.

Some professors are lamenting that they’ve quickly become “plagiarism cops,” whose main job it is to root out AI-facilitated cheating instead of actually teaching. It’s a cat-and-mouse game greatly complicated by rapidly improving tech that’s making cheating harder to spot.

At the same time, experts warn that the use of the tools is destroying their students’ ability to think critically as they become hopelessly dependent on the tech.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Serrano has decided to stop giving take-home exams altogether.

A similar story is playing out at other Ivy League schools. As The Atlantic reported last month, Princeton recently stopped a 133-year-old “Honor Code” tradition involving professors leaving the room when students, who sign a pledge not to cheat, take their final exams.

Thanks to the dramatic uptick of AI use and academic dishonesty in the classroom, Princeton did away with the tradition altogether.

“There’s an air of people cheating on take-homes and people just using ChatGPT,” Princeton senior and former chair of the Honor Committee Nadia Makuc told The Atlantic. “As long as people think there is more cheating, it encourages more cheating.”

Beyond the loss of integrity, AI cheating is eroding the trust between students and educators, while the latter worry about the deteriorating value of a college degree.

“If we no longer defend truth and decency and honesty, then what kind of credibility are we going to have as academics?” Serrano told El País.

More on AI cheating: Princeton in Shambles Over AI Cheating

I Used to Work in Yosemite. No Reservation Rules

I Used to Work in Yosemite. This Is What the New No-Reservation Rules Really Do to the Park.


Outside Online · 4 hours ago
by awise · National Parks


On Saturday, May 2, I was walking through Camp 4 overflow parking lot in Yosemite National Park when my phone rang. “I just got ice cream, and I’m heading to El Cap Meadow to hang,” my friend Katy said. “Want to meet me there?”

I told her yes, but I’d be taking the bus. There was no chance in hell I’d drive my car and risk losing my parking spot.

Yosemite’s parking lots that day, the first major weekend of a nervously anticipated season with no entry limits, could reasonably be described as apocalyptic. Cars squeezed between trees and rocks, onto curbs, and into the dirt on both sides of the road. On my 500-foot walk to the Lodge shuttle stop, five separate drivers flagged me down to ask if I was leaving the lot.

“Sorry!” I replied.

As I moved through the lot, the situation only got worse. The shuttle itself was trapped by an illegally parked car, which was being loaded onto a tow truck by the time I got in line. I counted two more tow trucks in the same lot, removing cars that were parked at odd angles. When I finally stepped onto the bus, I took a window seat and gaped at the line of cars parked along the roadside. It extended for the entire 1.8-mile stretch from Camp 4 to the El Cap picnic area.

Parking along this road is illegal, and every single driver was breaking the rules.

“This is crazy,” I told my partner. I couldn’t help but pity the hundreds of tourists who were getting ticketed, towed, or trapped on the road. What’s the point of driving all the way here if you can’t even get out of your car?Yosemite Valley overlook (Photo: photosbyjim / Getty)
Ditching Reservations Opens the Door for Crowds

For the past five years, Yosemite officials have conducted a careful set of experiments with a timed-entry reservation system, only to find its conclusions overridden by a federal order. Back in 2019, the park experienced 4.42 million visitors, its highest number since records began in 1906. In 2020, after the park shut down for three months, administrators introduced the first iteration of the reservation system in order to contain the spread of COVID-19. Day-use reservations were required for the majority of visitors. Anyone who didn’t book lodging in advance, enter via public transit, or have a wilderness or Half Dome permit needed a reservation. This continued throughout 2020 and 2021, shifting in 2022 to a “peak hours” reservation system for entrants between 6 A.M. and 4 P.M. each day.

Then, in 2023, Yosemite temporarily halted reservations, with an exception for the last three weekends of February, when the park usually gets slammed for Firefall. But doing away with the system had consequences. According to a 224-page NPS report on park visitation, the 2023 season saw “long lines at entrance stations and increased strain on the park’s employees, resources, and infrastructure.”

“I was here in 2023, and it was a shit show,” said one employee of the concessionaire Aramark, which oversees hospitality and food service in the park. The employee requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. A survey conducted in 2023 found that 51 percent of visitors said they were negatively affected by parking shortages. An additional 26 percent said that crowding at restrooms and visitor centers negatively impacted their visit.

Having presumably learned their lesson in 2023, NPS officials brought back entry limits in 2024 and 2025 in a more limited, precise form: reservations would be required every day in the busy summer period, but only on weekends in the spring and fall. In August 2024, the park released a 224-page draft management plan that outlined and compared four different reservation systems, concluding that a parkwide reservation requirement during peak hours (5 A.M to 4 P.M.) would be the best option for managing the crowds. Already, the numbers were ticking up; 2025 saw 4.27 million visitors for Yosemite, nearly as many as before COVID-19.

In 2024, I worked in Yosemite as a Climber Steward, a position managed by the park’s nonprofit, Yosemite Conservancy, that offers advice and guidance to climbers. I came back to visit in June 2025, and both times, often drove between the park’s most crowded areas: Yosemite Village, Yosemite Lodge, Camp 4, and El Cap Meadow. Although lines were sometimes long, and I occasionally had trouble finding parking, I was never seriously delayed or hampered by the crowds. It seemed that Yosemite finally had its ideal rules to manage visitation capacity.

However, on April 3, 2025, Interior Secretary Doug Burgam ordered all national parks to remain “open and accessible.” Following that, on February 18, 2026, Yosemite Superintendent Ray McPadden announced that the NPS would do away with reservations in 2026. A March 2026 survey by the Yosemite Union showed that 85 percent of the 135 verified employee responses did not approve of Superintendent McPadden’s decision, predicting that no entry limit would lead to angry, disappointed, and exasperated guests who take out their frustrations on frontline workers. As of now, more than 300 staff members have publicly called for this decision to be reversed.
What to Expect

This spring, I returned to Yosemite to report on climbing for Outside’s sister publication, Climbing. Since the season’s opening, on Saturdays, I have seen the same clogged parking lots, miles-long entrance lines, and illegally parked cars that I saw on May 2. However, as summer approaches—and as monthly visitation nearly doubles between May and July—employees are steeling themselves for an unwinnable battle. In early May, one staff member in concessions told me that they predict the traditional Saturday crowding to become an everyday situation in June.

“Really?” I asked the worker, astounded. “Every single day?”

They nodded with a grim expression, the same I’d seen on every other Yosemite worker I’d asked about this topic: on guard and tired already.

Tourists are also feeling the impact of an unrestricted entrance policy. One visiting rock climber told me that the few restaurants in the park are overwhelmed by the crowds. During a recent trip to Curry Village, a collection of shops, lodges, and eateries near Half Dome, he saw hundreds of people waiting in line to get into the two restaurants. “I just got off Half Dome and went to Curry [Village] for a chill pizza moment,” he told me. “There were lines out the door everywhere; it was a total junk show. I had never seen this many people in my life.”
How to Visit Yosemite and Beat the Crowds

Amid the crowding and congestion, many readers may be planning to visit Yosemite National Park this summer. The good news is that, with some careful planning, you can sidestep the congestion. Here are four tips to hopefully save you some headaches during your visit.
1. Avoid Weekends, Especially Saturdays

Currently, Saturday is the only day when parking in Yosemite feels downright impossible. However, this will likely expand to Sunday, Friday, and beyond as the summer crowds draw nearer. For now, scheduling your visit from Monday to Thursday will give you the best chance of avoiding long entrance lines and full parking lots.

If you absolutely have to visit on a busy day, such as a Saturday or the upcoming Memorial Day weekend, it’s ideal to get to the entrance station in the early mornings (before 5 A.M.) or evenings (after 7 P.M.). You’re much better off getting an early start, entering without fuss, and finding a cool spot to nap by the river than being stuck for miles in a never-ending line.
2. Ditch Your Car for Public Transit

YARTS runs a bus service that splits from Yosemite Village in all directions: north to Sonora, west to Merced, south to Fresno, and east to Mammoth Lakes. Tickets run around $20 per person, and guess what? You won’t have to worry about parking at all.

Once you’re in the park, the Yosemite shuttle is free, although it only runs until 10 P.M. If you plan to be out after that, plan for a nice summer walk back to your camp spot.
3. Bring or Rent a Bike

If you have to put yourself through Yosemite’s parking hell, don’t make yourself do it more than once. Bring your own bike—I bought mine for $98 at Walmart, and you can get secondhand bikes for half that price on Facebook Marketplace—and get ready to hit all of Yosemite’s best tourist spots within just 10 to 15 minutes. Most of the Valley, especially the east side, features paved bike paths that pass under gorgeous redwood canopies. Honestly, biking is the most thrilling way to travel around Yosemite, even when it’s not crowded.

No bike, and no time to buy one? Yosemite offers daily bike rentals and helmets at the Lodge, Curry Village, and next to the Village Store, but beware: These can sell out within the first hour of the day, especially on weekends. A full day can cost up to $48, and all bikes must be returned by 6:45 P.M. Still, this beats spending most of your day looking for parking.
4. Pack Your Own Food

Some of the longest lines are at Yosemite’s few restaurants, especially during midday and after 5 P.M. To avoid this, it’s best to plan ahead and eat at camp or around the park. Instead of standing in line with a pager at Curry’s Pizza Deck, head to the Village Store early to grab your snacks. If they’re pre-cooked, stuff some utensils and blankets into your backpack and bike over to a lovely meadow or riverbank to enjoy it. If they need a proper grill, head back to your campsite and enjoy a group meal under the redwoods. Just make sure to observe proper Yosemite food storage, keeping it always in a bear box when you’re not around.

The post I Used to Work in Yosemite. This Is What the New No-Reservation Rules Really Do to the Park. appeared first on Outside Online.

New Haskell Library and Opera House Canadian entrance

New Haskell Library and Opera House Canadian entrance

Sherbrooke Record · 7 days ago
by Matthew Mccully · Community Interest

Record Staff (HB)

The Haskell Library and Opera House Board of Trustees is officially opening a brand-new Canadian entrance. This historic addition ensures uninterrupted access for Canadian patrons to the only library and opera house in the world deliberately built straddling an international border.

This construction follows an unexpected decision by U.S. authorities in March 2025, which restricted traditional Canadian access through the building’s historic main entrance.

For over a century, patrons from both countries entered through the same door without going through official border crossings. The new entrance preserves the institution’s founding mission: to serve as a shared cultural hub where borders disappear.

The opening ceremony for the new entrance will be on June 10, 2026 at 11a.m. at the location (1 Church Street, Stanstead), according to a press release from the Haskell. The inauguration is open to patrons, donors, the general public, media, and government representatives from both countries.

The Haskell structure has stood as a monument to international peace and community unity since 1904. While the events of 2025 presented an unprecedented challenge, the completion of this Canadian entrance is a testament to the unwavering commitment to the house’s patrons. The ribbon-cutting ceremony will include short speeches from board members and community leaders. It will be followed by a reception and guided tours of the facility.

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