President Donald Trump’s executive order increasing fees at National Parks for foreign tourists could soon be made permanent by a new bill led by Indiana Senator Jim Banks.

The Patriot Parks Act looks to address the U.S. National Park Service’s (NPS) $23 billion maintenance backlog that threatens repairs to visitor facilities, trails, roads, and NPS conservation needs.

‘Americans already pay for our parks through federal taxes on top of standard admission fees, so it’s fair to ask foreign visitors to chip in more,’ Banks told Fox News Digital. ‘This bill codifies President Trump’s executive order and helps protect our national treasures for future generations.’ 

Some factors that contributed to the major deferred maintenance shortfall in funding include aging infrastructure of equipment and facilities, federal budget restraints and cuts, and a steadily increasing number of visitors to parks across the US. 

The fight to erase the roughly $23 billion backlog has been a key issue in Congress for a number of years.

The landmark Great American Outdoors Act, which was introduced in 2019 by then-Senator Cory Gardner, R-Colorado, and sitting Senator Steve Daines, R-Montana, included $6.5 billion for NPS from 2021-2025. As that funding is set to expire and foot traffic at national parks increases, the Patriot Parks Act could play a new role in reining in the maintenance backlog.

The NPS recorded 331.9 million visits in 2024 alone, with roughly one-third of those visitors from outside the US. There are more than 400 national parks in the US, which include landmarks like the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, and Yosemite.

On July 3, 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order titled: ‘Making America Beautiful Again by Improving Our National Parks,’ which established an increased fee for international travelers.

The NPS operates under the US Department of Interior, led by Secretary Doug Burgum, who posted to X that the executive order ‘will ensure our parks stay accessible, sustainable, and protected for generations to come.’ 

A House version of the legislation is expected to be introduced by Congressman Riley Moore, R-West Virginia, making the bill a bicameral effort to back up President Trump’s executive order. 

‘From the New River Gorge in my home state to Shenandoah, the Great Smoky Mountains, the Everglades, and the Grand Canyon – God blessed our nation with a tremendous natural heritage,’ Moore told Fox News Digital. 

‘We owe it to future generations to ensure these natural marvels are protected.’

Preston Mizell is a writer with Fox News Digital covering breaking news. Story tips can be sent to Preston.Mizell@fox.com and on X @MizellPreston

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has fired two of his top aides. 

The biographies of Heather Flick Melanson, his chief of staff, and Hannah Anderson, deputy chief of staff of policy, are no longer pictured on the department’s leadership page. 

‘Secretary Kennedy has made a leadership change within the Immediate Office of the Secretary,’ an HHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital. ‘Effective immediately, Matt Buckham will serve as Acting Chief of Staff.’ 

‘Mr. Buckham currently serves as the Kennedy’s White House liaison at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where he oversees the recruitment and onboarding of political appointees across the agency. He brings valuable experience in personnel strategy and organizational management to this new role,’ the spokesperson added. 

‘Secretary Kennedy thanks the outgoing leadership for their service and looks forward to working closely with Mr. Buckham as the Department continues advancing its mission to Make America Healthy Again,’ the spokesperson also said. 

Melanson is a lawyer who previously served in multiple top roles at HHS during the first Trump administration. 

She previously was HHS’ acting general counsel before becoming its acting secretary for administration and then eventually a senior adviser to then-HHS Secretary Alex Azar. 

Prior to joining HHS for the first time, Flick was an attorney at Dhillon Law Group, a firm founded by Harmeet Dhillon, who Trump has tapped this time around to be his assistant attorney general. 

‘Heather Flick is outstanding and will most definitely help soon to be Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,’ former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn said in a post on X after news of Flick’s new role. 

Fox News Digital’s Alec Schemmel contributed to this report. 

A recently expelled D.C. Council member has won the seat from which he was removed five months ago after being charged with accepting cash bribes.

Trayon White is set to reclaim the seat he vacated back in February when members of the D.C. Council voted unanimously to remove him from the position, a first in the city’s history.

In August 2024, the FBI arrested White after he was accused by federal authorities of agreeing to accept $156,000 in bribes. His trial is scheduled to begin in January 2026. White denies any wrongdoing and is pleading not guilty in the federal case, despite apparent video of him pocketing allegedly cash-stuffed envelopes. 

A Justice Department statement from August 2024 alleges that White agreed to accept the bribes in exchange for ‘using his official position to pressure renewal’ of contracts valued at $5.2 million.

White was allowed to run in the special election because he had not been convicted of a felony.

‘So we sent a message loud and clear to D.C. City Council that Trayon White is here to stay,’ White said in his victory speech, according to the Associated Press, which called the race. The outlet added that the troubled ousted council member told the story of his return to office as one of resilience and redemption. 

Now, D.C. Council members are facing a choice: Do they allow White to take back his seat or do they expel him again, effectively disregarding the will of Ward 8 voters? They still have time to decide as White will not be sworn into office until after the election results are certified in August. However, according to Axios, the council has the ability to preemptively block White from taking office due to the corruption scandal.

White’s story echoes that of controversial former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry in more ways than one. Barry famously staged a historic political comeback after the FBI caught him on camera smoking crack cocaine. 

White is being represented by Frederick D. Cooke Jr., who also served as Barry’s defense attorney, according to the Associated Press. Furthermore, after his two mayoral terms, Barry served as the Ward 8 representative on the D.C. Council, first winning the seat in 2005. He held the position until his death in 2014.

Late-night dramatics and surprise defections capped off the push to advance President Donald Trump’s multibillion-dollar clawback package through procedural hurdles, but now lawmakers are nearing the finish line.

Lawmakers cruised through hours of debate on Trump’s $9 billion rescissions package Wednesday morning and are now entering into another vote-a-rama, where both sides of the aisle can offer an unlimited number of amendments to the package. 

At stake are clawbacks that would yank back congressionally approved funding for foreign aid programs and public broadcasting, which Senate Democrats, and some Republicans, have admonished.

The president’s rescissions package proposed cutting just shy of $8 billion from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and over $1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the government-backed funding arm for NPR and PBS.

Republicans have broadly lauded the targets, arguing that they are scraping back funding for ‘woke’ programs that do little more than to gird the government’s spending addiction.

Like the preceding debate, Senate Democrats are expected to push numerous amendments intended to derail the legislation that are unlikely to succeed, but will drag out the process for several hours. 

Ahead of the vote-a-rama, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Democrats would highlight several areas of the bill that cut funding through the amendment process, and accused Republicans of having ‘no idea how the [Office of Management and Budget] plans to apply the cuts.’ 

‘Senate Democrats, however, know that our job in this chamber is to govern, is to legislate, not simply eat dirt from the executive and ask for more, which is unfortunately what my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are doing,’ he said. 

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., fired back that Senate Democrats were doing nothing more than defending their penchant for wasteful government spending. 

‘I’ve heard Democrats fearmonger about this bill. Let me set the record straight. Republicans are protecting emergency alert systems here at home,’ he said. ‘Democrats are protecting and promoting electric buses in Africa. In November, Americans rejected wasteful Washington spending. This week, Republicans are delivering on that mandate.’

Before the vote, Senate Republican leaders agreed to carve out $400 million in cuts in global HIV and AIDS prevention funding that leaders hoped would win over holdouts. But it didn’t work for all.

A trio of Senate Republicans defected – Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. – forcing Vice President JD Vance to cast his sixth and seventh tie-breaking votes of the year to keep the package alive.

He will likely be needed again later Wednesday to pass the bill, once lawmakers complete another vote-a-rama, where both sides of the aisle can offer unlimited amendments to the bill. 

Murkowski argued on the Senate floor that the rescissions package was effectively usurping Congress’ duty to legislate.

‘We’re lawmakers, we should be legislating,’ she said. ‘What we’re getting now is a direction from the White House and being told, ‘This is the priority we want you to execute on it. We’ll be back with you with another round.’ I don’t accept that.’

Collins contended that lawmakers actually knew little about how or where the clawbacks would come from, and accused the Office of Management and Budget of not painting a clearer picture on the issue.

‘I recognize the need to reduce excessive spending and I have supported rescissions in our appropriations bills many times, including the 70 rescissions that were included in the year-long funding bill that we are currently operating under,’ she said in a statement. ‘But to carry out our constitutional responsibility, we should know exactly what programs are affected and the consequences of rescissions.’

McConnell similarly blamed the Office of Management and Budget, but noted that he might not be against the package when it came to a final vote. 

‘I’m not going to predict where I am at the end, but I want to make it clear, I don’t have any problem with reducing spending,’ he said. ‘We’re talking about not knowing that they would like a blank check, is what they would like. I don’t think that’s appropriate. I think they ought to make the case.’

House Oversight Committee Republicans are not ruling out potentially compelling former President Joe Biden and former First Lady Jill Biden to appear before Congress as part of an investigation into whether signs of Biden’s mental decline were covered up during his time in the White House.

‘Every option’s on the table. We’re going to try to get answers. We’re going to try to do this rapidly,’ House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., told reporters when asked if the former president could be brought in for questioning.

‘We’ll decide as a committee what steps to take next and who to bring in. But I think right now every option is on the table.’

Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., was more forceful in his demands for more high-profile witnesses – noting he was speaking for himself, rather than the committee.

‘As far as I’m concerned, every member of the Biden administration at this point needs to be subpoenaed. I don’t care if they were a secretary. I don’t care if they were a janitor working in there. They’ve all got to come in and answer questions,’ Donalds said.

When asked if that meant the former first lady as well, Donalds responded, ‘Of course.’

He and Comer were both present for the closed-door deposition of Anthony Bernal, a longtime aide to Jill Biden who was subpoenaed in the Oversight Committee’s probe.

‘Her right-hand man – listen, Anthony Bernal was the right-hand man. That’s her guy, her chief of staff,’ Donalds said. ‘If he came in here and pleaded the fifth, I’m sorry, the former first lady, she’s got to come in here and answer questions.’

Comer is investigating allegations that Biden’s former top White House aides covered up signs of his mental and physical decline while in office, and whether any executive actions were commissioned via autopen without the president’s full knowledge. Biden allies have pushed back against those claims.

In an interview with The New York Times on Thursday, Biden affirmed he ‘made every decision’ on his own.

Bernal is the fourth former White House aide to sit for questioning in Comer’s Oversight probe. He and his lawyer left the committee room less than an hour after entering.

Comer and Donalds said Bernal argued that invoking the Fifth Amendment was not an admission of guilt, though the GOP lawmakers pushed back on the assertion.

Donalds said it was a ‘stunning’ move.

So far, three Biden aides have been subpoenaed in the investigation. Like Bernal, former White House physician Dr. Kevin O’Connor invoked the Fifth Amendment. Former deputy Chief of Staff Annie Tomascini was also subpoenaed at her lawyer’s request.