Historic North Rim Grand Canyon lodge destroyed by wildfire
The Grand Canyon Lodge, on the canyon's North Rim, was consumed by flames on Saturday night, the second time it had been razed in its near 100-year history, the National Park Service said.
A visitor centre, gas station, wastewater treatment plant, administrative building and a number of historic cabins were also destroyed. The fires have forced the closure of the North Rim to visitors for the remainder of the 2025 season.
The lodge as it stood and, below, the devastation of the fire
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE/MICHAEL QUINN/REUTERS
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE/REUTERS
'As stewards of some of our country's most beloved national treasures, we are devastated by the loss of the Grand Canyon Lodge,' Aramark, the company that operated it, said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Budget airline abandons California market in East Coast growth push
Californians will soon have one less flight option. Avelo Airlines, the Texas-based budget carrier known for its sub-$30 fares and West Coast roots, is pulling out of California. Its decision comes amid mounting backlash over its cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security and increasing business pressure in the region. The company announced Monday that it will shutter its base at Hollywood Burbank Airport and shift focus to its 38 other destinations, largely concentrated on the East Coast. 'We are in the planning phases of relocating the three planes to the East Coast, so [these are] only positive outcomes for our East Coast airports,' Avelo added. Before the decision, Avelo flew into 10 cities on the West Coast. Budget fliers could connect to destinations spanning the region — including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Portland, and Kalispell, Montana. Those services will end by December 2, 2025. It's a major retreat from the first airport the company ever served. Avelo's inaugural flight departed Burbank and flew to Northern California in 2021. 'This was not an easy decision,' the company's top boss, Andrew Levy, said in a statement. 'Our company's deepest operational roots are in BUR, having launched our first flight there over four years ago during the Covid pandemic. ' But the company said those roots weren't deep enough to weather the region's competitive pressures. The spokesperson said executives made an 'investment of significant time, resources, and efforts' to make the West Coast routes work, but the venture did not produce 'the results necessary to continue our presence there.' Avelo plans to redeploy its California aircraft to the East Coast, where it sees 'more efficient longer-term growth prospects,' Levy said. The airliner signed a contract with the US Department of Homeland Security in April to transport migrants to detention centers inside and outside the US. It maintains that protests had no influence on the decision to leave California. 'Protests nor our contract with DHS had any effect on our decision and have not impacted our business,' a spokesperson for the company told Opposition has cropped up across the country — from outside Burbank Airport to the company's hub in New Haven, Connecticut — with demonstrators urging Avelo to end its partnership with DHS. Nancy Klein, a California-native, told Reuters she had organized seven protests against the company. She believes the company's decision to end their service at the airport is partially due their calls to boycott the airline. 'This change in Avelo's business operations is some evidence that being on the right side of history, while being principled and persistent, can make a difference,' she said in a statement. Klein said she is planning the next protest against the carrier at Burbank Airport on July 27.
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
US issues new travel advisory to the most unlikely destination
The State Department has issued an updated travel advisory for Canada amid a period of elevated tensions between the two countries. The advisory follows a steep decline in Canadian tourism to the US and mutual criticism over immigration enforcement and environmental fallout. While Canada remains designated as a low-risk country where only 'normal precautions' are advised, the June update highlights increased environmental hazards and urges travelers to monitor local alerts and follow emergency guidance. The new guidance carries an urgent tone that would have once seemed unthinkable between two countries and marks a rare moment of public friction between the neighboring allies. The relationship has been strained in recent months by political rhetoric and cross-border air quality concerns linked to Canada's record-breaking wildfires. 'In Canada, wildfires are common in forested and grassland regions from May to September,' the US Embassy and Consulates in Canada now cautions. 'In 2024, Canada was affected by record-breaking wildfires affecting all 13 provinces and territories.' American travelers are being urged to stay alert, follow local guidance, and monitor air quality conditions closely. The reminder may sound routine but it comes at a time as the two allies are grappling with a growing sense of mutual unease. Last week, Trump threw a grenade on the tariff negotiations between the United States and Canada with a blistering letter to Prime Minister Mark Carney. The two nations had been trying to settle the tariff war that broke out when Trump returned to office and announced plans to reorganize world trade . Canadian officials had hoped a deal was close, but Trump's latest letter - which he shared to Truth Social on Thursday night - set negotiations back to square one. The letter revealed he would raise tariffs on Canadian products to 35 percent from August 1 - a 10 percent increase on the current levy. Trump said the tariff hike was in part due to the fentanyl crisis and Canada's 'failure to stop the drugs from pouring into our country '. 'I must mention that the flow of fentanyl is hardly the only challenge we have with Canada, which has many tariff, and non-tariff, policies and trade barriers ,' Trump wrote in the letter. Carney, who took office this year in a liberal win partly powered by Trump's trade actions and threats to make Canada the 51st state, his back in an online posting. 'Throughout the current trade negotiations with the United States, the Canadian government has steadfastly defended our workers and businesses,' Carney wrote. 'We will continue to do so as we work towards the revised deadline of August 1. Canada has made vital progress to stop the scourge of fentanyl in North America. We are committed to continuing to work with the United States to save lives and protect communities in both our countries. That came after Trump mentioned fentanyl in his trade letter, and called out Canada for a 'failure' to control it . 'If Canada works with me to stop the flow of fentanyl, we will, perhaps, consider an adjustment to this letter,' Trump added. 'These tariffs may be modified, upward or downward, depending on our relationship with your country,' he added. The latest round of tariffs are in addition to previously imposed sectoral tariffs on steel, copper and aluminum, which came into effect for most countries on June 4 at a whopping 50 percent. The latest travel advisory follows years of quietly simmering friction that boiled over earlier this year when President Trump repeatedly mocked former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, referring to Canada as America's '51st state,' and demoting Trudeau to the title of 'governor.' The introduction of tariffs between the two countries and Trump's hardline immigration policies have also seen Canadian travel to the US plunge by up to 40 percent this spring, as stories of tourists caught in the web of US immigration enforcement made headlines across the border. In response to the spike in travel-related incidents, the Canadian government has since revised its own advisory for citizens visiting the US, bluntly stating that travelers must 'comply and be forthcoming in all interactions with border authorities' and warning that visitors 'could be detained while awaiting deportation.' Last month the US Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra attempted to tamp down concerns, calling the fears 'unfounded' and the high-profile detentions 'isolated.' But those reassurances did little to stem the unease especially as smoke from Canadian wildfires once again began spilling across the border. The immediate concerns outlined in the new US travel advisory is environmental: smoke, fires, and increasingly unbreathable air. This month, a fresh round of wildfires erupted in Manitoba, sending smoke billowing eastward and triggering air quality alerts from Toronto to Nova Scotia. Americans haven't forgotten what happened in June 2023 when smoke from Canadian blazes shrouded major US cities. The skies over New York City turned an apocalyptic orange, with the city suffering some of its worst air quality on record. In a sharply worded letter, Republican representatives Tom Tiffany, Glenn Grothman, and Michelle Fischbach called on Canadian Ambassador Kirsten Hillman to take more aggressive action. 'We write to you today on behalf of our constituents who have had to deal with suffocating Canadian wildfire smoke filling the air to begin the summer,' the lawmakers declared. The Canadian Embassy, in response, told the BBC that its government 'takes wildfire season very seriously' and emphasized that Canadian communities were facing even more severe impacts.
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
The US city foreign tourists aren't snubbing amid Trump boycott
As cities across the US attract a dwindling numbers of foreign tourists upset over Donald Trump 's presidency, America's biggest and brightest metropolis has managed to keep drawing visitors in. New York City's tourism sector is not only surviving a boycott by non-citizens, but thriving. The Big Apple is expected to see 12 million foreign tourists this year, roughly the same as in 2024, according to the Wall Street Journal. During roughly the first half of the year, hotels in the Big Apple had an 82 percent occupancy rate - nearly 20 percent above the national rate. NYC's major attractions are even outdoing their numbers from 2024, when the city hosted a near–record 64 million tourists. Broadway shows are pulling in the most audience members since 2019, before the industry was rocked by pandemic restrictions, and museums in the city are also welcoming more visitors, the WSJ reported. 'In terms of overall demand, New York is holding up well nationally,' Gabe Buerkle, senior analyst at real–estate investment firm Cohen & Steers, told the WSJ. 'New York has remained an outperformer, benefiting from domestic tourism and business demand.' By comparison, Los Angeles - the next most popular US city among international tourists in 2024, according to a report by Euromonitor - is projected to see a decrease in international tourists this year. 'The LA Tourism and Convention Bureau is anticipating year-over-year reductions in total international visitors to LA by between 25 and 30 percent,' LAWA CEO John Ackerman told NBC. The third most popular US city for foreign travelers, Las Vegas, has also seen fewer tourists, with visits falling 7.8 percent from March 2024 to March 2025, according to Travel Weekly. Shrinking numbers of foreign tourists in the US can be at least partly attributed to Trump's presidency . Foreign travelers say they are finding it hard to secure visas under the Trump administration's policies. Canadian travel to the US was down 13 percent year-over-year in June, according to airport traffic through customs data, and European visitors were down 3 percent, analyst Buerkle said. Visits to the US are expected to decline by 5.1 percent in 2025, which will ultimately contribute to a $64 billion loss for the domestic tourism industry, according to Tourism Economics. The research firm originally forecasted a nearly 9 percent tourism jump this year, a prediction that was revised late last month because of 'polarizing Trump Administration policies and rhetoric.' 'There's been a dramatic shift in our outlook,' Adam Sacks, president of Tourism Economics, told the Washington Post. 'You're looking at a much weaker economic engine than what otherwise would've been, not just because of tariffs, but the rhetoric and condescending tone around it.' Regardless of national struggles, New York City appears to be on the up and up.
