employee

When Kevin Hart announced in January that he’d licensed his name to Authentic Brands Group, the popular comedian was silent on a key detail: the future of his namesake media company.

Hart sold some ownership and oversight of his brand in exchange for an undisclosed sum of money and a stake in Authentic, a New York-based firm that manages the likenesses of Marilyn Monroe, Muhammad Ali, Shaquille O’Neal and David Beckham.

Hart used the partnership with Authentic to reset his relationship with the people around him and his company, according to six current and former employees. Hart’s employees say they worry that this deal marks the beginning of the end of Hartbeat, the comedian’s namesake media company that produces films, owns a network of short-form video channels and handles marketing for brands.

Though the announcement made no mention of Hartbeat, the agreement gave Hart money to buy out his private equity partner in the company over time and regain control of the use of his name, image and likeness. Hart’s endorsement deals, which had been a pillar of Hartbeat business, will now be handled by Authentic.

Once valued at about $650 million, Hartbeat has shriveled over the past few years. The company enacted its latest round of job cuts in December, firing the heads of its scripted TV division, as well as employees working across marketing, social media and brand partnerships, said the people. Earlier this year it let go the leaders of its podcast division and later sued them for breach of contract.

Hart has withdrawn from the company, leaving day-to-day management in the hands of a small group of executives. Staff meetings have been canceled. The development of new film and TV projects has slowed. A slate of new podcasts was pitched but never produced.

Hartbeat’s struggles reflected the challenging environment for many Hollywood production companies as media giants merge and cut spending. The company is also a cautionary tale in this age of the celebrity media mogul. Financial firms have plowed money into media companies led by high-profile figures, believing they could use their notoriety to build valuable businesses. Yet even seemingly successful ones have had a hard time.

Hartbeat, like many of its peers, has suffered from mismanagement and grappled with the tension between the needs of the star and his company. Hart, one of the hardest-working people in Hollywood, tired of subsidizing a company that relied so much on him

Hart declined to comment for this story, which is based on conversations with several current and former employees. On Sunday night, Hart, who hosted the widely viewed roast of NFL great Tom Brady two years ago, was the subject of his own roast on Netflix.

Building a Billion-Dollar Business

One of the most successful stand-up comedians and actors of his generation, Hart, 46, has always been entrepreneurial. In 2017, he started Laugh Out Loud, an online video comedy business that later grew to include branded entertainment. He also operated his own production company, Hartbeat Productions, that made programs for streaming services like Peacock, Quibi and Netflix Inc.

With Hollywood in the midst of a production boom, Hart watched his fellow celebrities get rich from their media enterprises. Reese Witherspoon sold her media company, Hello Sunshine, in a deal that valued it at as much as $900 million. Hart’s friend LeBron James raised money for his company, SpringHill, at a valuation of $725 million. Hart believed he could be next.

In late 2022, Hart merged his business interests under the Hartbeat banner and raised money by selling a 15% stake to the private equity firm Abry Partners. The deal valued the company at about $650 million.

The new business was predicated on three pillars: film and TV, short-form video and advertising. Hartbeat had a deal to produce movies for Netflix, a slate of podcasts for SiriusXM Holdings Inc. and original audio series for Audible. Hartbeat also developed relationships with advertisers such as Lyft Inc., Procter & Gamble Co. and DraftKings Inc.

While Hart would star in Hartbeat projects, the goal of the company was to develop projects and new business that didn’t involve its namesake founder. The company could leverage Hart to sell projects and secure broad programming partnerships. Hart would ask that Hartbeat be involved in producing his movies and any advertising campaign for which he was a spokesperson. His fees as a producer and brand ambassador would help pay the bills. The hope was he’d convince other celebrities to use Hartbeat as well. Thai Randolph, who had been running Laugh Out Loud, was named chief executive officer.

Hartbeat opened offices in New York and Atlanta and took over a 40,000-square-foot West Hollywood office once occupied by Oprah Winfrey. Hart redesigned the space and installed a world-class art collection.

The upper-level lobby featured a work by Ghanaian artist Serge Attukwei Clottey, while the conference room had a sculpture by Zimbabwean artist Moffat Takadiwa made of computer keyboard keys. A portrait of Kobe Bryant by Julian Pace hung outside a podcast studio.

Hart’s own office featured a dressing room, a series of paintings by South African artist Feni Chulumanco, multiple TVs and a desk from a prominent French designer. “He really has almost a full-service apartment in his suite,” Kai Williamson, who worked with Hart on the project, told Architectural Digest. Hart was interviewed for a story and also filmed an episode of the design magazine’s “Open Door” video series.

While Hartbeat expanded, Hollywood entered a recession. Economic uncertainty, rising interest rates and growing skepticism about the profitability of streaming caused major media companies to fire staff and pull back on buying new projects. Hartbeat was a little more insulated than most because talent like Hart could usually still get a project made. Still, producing projects without Hart in a starring role became more difficult.

Randolph left the company in late 2023 and was replaced by Jay Levine, who had spent much of his career at Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. Levine brought in a couple of other senior leaders with experience at major media companies.

A contingent of executives pushed Hart to scale back some ambitions, the people said. The company couldn’t afford to be working in so many different businesses at the same time, especially as areas like free, advertising-supported online video, and podcasts got more competitive. Hart was one of the most prolific and productive creative people in the world, starring in and producing movies, TV shows, comedy, short-form videos and advertisements. The point of the company was to relieve the stress on him, not add to it.

While Hartbeat closed its New York office, Hart was reluctant to scale back his vision or replace some long-time lieutenants. Levine negotiated his exit at the end of 2024 and was followed out the door by the company’s chief financial officer and chief content officer. Days before Thanksgiving, Hartbeat laid off about 20 people, nearly one quarter of its work force.

A year of chaos and conflict

In January 2025, Hart announced he would be the new CEO of Hartbeat and pledged to outline the firm’s strategy in the coming weeks. Instead, Hart went weeks and sometimes months without visiting the office, the people said, and empowered Jeff Clanagan and CFO Eric Stoneburner to run the company day to day. (Hart was on set to shoot at least a couple movies last year, in addition to his other work.)

A former concert promoter and movie producer, Clanagan had helped make Hart a major star. He had partnered with Hart to bring his stand-up specials to the big screen, producing shows such as 2013’s Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain, which grossed $32 million at the box office. Clanagan produced some of these specials under the banner of his own company, Codeblack Films, which helps promote, market and distribute video from Black creators.

Clanagan continued to operate Codeblack while serving in a senior capacity at Hartbeat, said the people. He pushed employees at Hartbeat to post its videos to the Codeblack channels as well, saying they could use the additional reach to raise awareness. The videos generated advertising sales for Codeblack.

Clanagan had employees at Hartbeat oversee Codeblack’s social media pages and asked to get those channels loaded into Hartbeat’s content management system. That gave Codeblack’s YouTube channels advantages over others because of Hart’s prominence and his company’s designation with YouTube. Employees raised concerns with human resources and the company’s lawyer.

Clanagan also became increasingly interested in video generated by artificial intelligence. He started a new app called Blktopia, a streaming service for Black viewers programmed with content from online creators and often made by AI. He urged employees to work on it, the people said. Clanagan initially responded to a request for comment and then retracted the text message.

Meanwhile, many of Hartbeat’s main businesses languished. Sales from the company’s YouTube channels fell and investment in new film and TV projects slowed. Hartbeat, once profitable, started to bleed cash. Hartbeat had hired Eric Eddings and Lesley Gwam to produce audio shows that didn’t involve Hart. While the pair developed a slate of projects, they never got approval to make them.

In mid-December, Hartbeat fired about a dozen employees, including some of those who were supposed to develop the podcasts. Eddings and Gwam then decided to start their own company and began trying to raise money. When Clanagan found out, Hartbeat fired them and sued for alleged theft of trade secrets and breach of contract.

A court approved a temporary restraining order but then rejected a preliminary injunction, saying Hartbeat had not demonstrated Eddings and Gwam had used proprietary information or trade secrets. The court said the request was “vague, ambiguous, and overly broad.” The case is ongoing.

Hartbeat also fired the heads of its TV division, Tiffany Brown and Mike Stein, who were in the middle of producing a TV show based on the film Barbershop for Amazon.com Inc. and a second season of the animated series Lil Kev.

The company made no official announcement explaining the cuts. The following week, senior leadership arranged a Zoom meeting. Hart remained off camera until it was his time to speak. He talked for a few minutes about changes at the company and took no questions. Hart changed his phone number in the weeks following the layoffs. (Some of his advisors had suggested he do this years earlier so that he wasn’t so available.)

A few weeks later, Hart announced the deal with Authentic Brands Group. Hart used some of the proceeds to buy out Abry Partners, freeing him to steer his brand deals to Authentic and outside of Hartbeat. A few of his employees and his publicist joined him at Authentic.

“This is a turning point for Hartbeat,” the company wrote in a subsequent email to employees, explaining that the deal would free Hart up to focus on what he does best, while allowing Hartbeat to stand on its own and grow beyond him.

“I know the past few months have been tough,” Hart wrote, adding that for too long the company had been too dependent on him. The email was said to be from “Kevin AKA Boss Man.” It was sent by Hart’s assistant.

Shaw writes for Bloomberg.

For Vince Gervasi, chief executive of Triscenic Production Services, it was yet another body blow.

His company, a leading supplier of set and scenery storage and transportation for the film industry, was poised for a turnaround after nearly three years of losing money.

Then, last week, he said a line producer on “Shark Tank,” one of his long-standing clients, called him to say the hit ABC reality show was relocating production from the Sony Pictures Studios lot in Culver City to Atlanta.

“They said it was too expensive here to do anything,” Gervasi recalled being told. “I said, ‘Are you kidding me?’ This show has money.’”

For the last six years, Triscenic had dedicated a 70,000-square-foot warehouse at its Santa Clarita facility to store the show’s items, transporting them in 30 custom made semitrucks between seasons.

Battered by the pandemic, the dual labor strikes, economic downturns and consolidations, Gervasi told The Times in 2024 that he had laid off 78 of his 85 employees and winnowed down his once-buzzing operations that housed sets and scenery across 2 million square feet in 41 buildings to half that, with the expectation that things would bounce back.

Like many other local film industry veterans, he is still waiting.

Vince Gervasi, at Triscenic Production Services, in Santa Clarita.

(Bob Doyle)

“I’ve been doing this for 41 years. I’ve seen the good and the bad — this is a complete decimation. It’s unprecedented.”

From florists to prop rentals to catering and beyond, production services and craft businesses are the hub and spoke of L.A.’s film and TV industry. But many of these businesses — some of which have been family-operated for generations — are struggling to weather a post-pandemic slump in film activity deepened by runaway production, media consolidation and the end of the streaming boom.

Film shoot days in the Los Angeles region have fallen nearly 50% since 2019, according to FilmLA data reviewed by The Times. Employment in Los Angeles County’s motion picture and sound recording industry has similarly plummeted, with a loss of some 57,000 jobs in the last four years, federal labor data show.

The slowdown has become a major issue in the L.A. mayoral race as evidence mounts of the economic toll on the city.

Just last month major industry vendor Quixote — whose Star Waggons trailers were once ubiquitous on the streets of L.A. — announced that it was winding down most of its sound stage business in Los Angeles, closing its operations in Atlanta and laying off 70 employees.

In a note to its clients and partners, Hudson Pacific Properties Inc., Quixote’s parent company, said that “we have persisted through the prolonged and ongoing slowdown in commercial, television and film production. But ultimately, industry conditions have forced difficult decisions.”

Between 2022 and 2025, more than 80 such businesses across Los Angeles have closed down, according to a list compiled by the ACME Directory, a production resource that connects TV and film professionals with specialized products and services.

“It’s, in many ways, a much bigger reflection of the contraction we’re seeing in the industry right now,” said Kevin Klowden, a senior fellow at the Milken Institute, focused on entertainment and technology. “The surge in demand for streaming and the consequential demand to catch up on content hid the fact that the industry was shrinking.”

Last October, the family-run Costume Rentals Corp. began liquidating its inventory after dressing film and television characters for 50 years. The North Hollywood firm provided costumes for “Forrest Gump,” “Apocalypse Now,” “Fast and Furious” and, more recently, the 2024 Bob Dylan biopic, “A Complete Unknown.”

A year earlier, Valentino’s Costume Group closed its doors after two decades in business and sold off its 400,000 items. At the time, Shon LeBlanc, the North Hollywood shop’s last owner standing, said he had endured a “perfect storm” of calamities and was drowning in debt following the cancellation of 15 shows in a single week.

Even the legendary Western Costume, which has been in business since 1912, has been hurt by the slowdown. During the 2023 strikes by writers and actors, Western Costume furloughed 43 employees, or about two-thirds of its staff. Recently, the North Hollywood costume mecca, which has supplied such classic films as “Gone with the Wind,” “The Wizard of Oz,” “The Sound of Music” and the TV series “Mad Men,” furloughed an unspecified number of its workers, said two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to speak publicly.

A representative of Western Costume did not respond to a request for comment.

Marc Meyer, the owner of Faux Library Studio Props, had strained to stay in business through the pandemic shutdown and the 2023 labor strikes — laying off 11 of his 13 employees.

By the start of 2024, Meyer, a set decorator who was credited with inventing the fake movie book, was drastically behind on rent, owing $500,000, he said.

Marc Meyer, closed the doors on Faux Library Studio Props in North Hollywood after almost 25 years in business.

(Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times)

Meyer’s landlord had given him a week to come up with more than $100,000 in unpaid rent or vacate the 89,000-square-foot warehouse in North Hollywood filled with props, books, antique furniture and other items that have decorated such film and TV sets as “Angels & Demons” and “The X-Files” for almost a quarter-century.

Meyer came up with $45,000 to mollify his landlord, garnering a month’s reprieve. A GoFundMe was set up during the strikes and a host of industry colleagues such as “Top Gun: Maverick” set decorator Jan Pascale stepped up, buying props to help fill his coffers.

A year later, Meyer was out of business, selling off Faux Library for parts in a massive auction. He died last July at 77.

“The change in our city is palpable,” said writer and director Sarah Adina Smith, a co-founder of Stay in LA’s, a grassroots campaign aimed at increasing film and television production in Los Angeles. “It’s not just that so many crafts and artists are out of work, but you see small businesses, too. In L.A., we’re an ecosystem fed in large part by creative jobs, and that is quickly vanishing.”

Marlon Gilbert still waxes nostalgic about the days his Commerce-based company, Gilbert Production Service, stored and transported scenery and props for TV shows including “Dancing with the Stars” and feature films like “Batman.” At one time, he said, he was handling seven active TV shows in a single season.

“When it was still on Fox, the ‘American Idol’ finale, we had like 20 semitrucks going in and out. Money was flowing like crazy,” he said. “But eventually times got hard for them, and they cut back on their production stuff.”

By last year, Gilbert was down to just three clients. “It wasn’t sustainable,” he said.

In December, after three decades, the family-owned business filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and shut down too.

“I couldn’t pay rent on our warehouse lease, I blew through my savings and my 401(k),” he said. After his wife was hospitalized following multiple strokes in 2023, he said, “I didn’t have the energy to beat the bush for new business.”

“I would’ve liked to have gone out with more panache and made a big splash and money selling the business. But there was nothing left to sell.”

Scott Niner, president and owner of Dangling Carrot Creative, checks on a robotic machine as it fabricates at his shop in North Hollywood.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

Scott Niner, president and owner of Dangling Carrot Creative, offers a case study in how production service businesses have navigated the tidal wave of upheavals.

After 18 years in business creating graphic signage, custom flooring and wallpaper to make sets look exactly as art directors dreamed up, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last April.

Before the pandemic, Niner’s Valencia-based business was thriving.

In 2014, he opened a Georgia satellite office to service the film and TV productions that had migrated to take advantage of the state’s generous tax credits. He steadily expanded his workforce to 32 employees in L.A. and Georgia.

Production was so plentiful that he even branched into the bakery business in 2018, delivering graphics and cupcakes in the same order. At its peak, Dangling Carrot generated $800,000 a month.

When the pandemic shutdown hit, Niner’s monthly revenue dropped to $50,000, he said. He kept his workers employed by making face shields that he donated to hospitals.

“I hung in there, and it was painful,” said Niner, who received some government assistance.

During the strikes in 2023, he drained his 401(k) and his union pension to keep his shop open and his workers employed.

Niner said he deployed a strategy of “pivoting and praying.” He shifted his business to focus more on fabrication, making giant 3-D-printed items for movie premieres, 25-foot-long, 8-foot-tall and 8-foot-deep ammo chests for a “Call of Duty” promotion and even graphics at airports.

Last last month, Niner sold off his Georgia business as filming in that state shifted to the U.K. He downsized his home and moved his business from Valencia to a much smaller building in North Hollywood. He is now down to 11 employees.

“I have a very bright outlook on the future, especially because we’re getting phone calls from people who never would have called us because all the other guys are out of business,” he said. “There’s something to be said about the last man standing. But I’m the last man standing on $2 million in debt. I’m more like lying down.”

The industry got a reprieve last week when CBS announced that it was relocating its hit drama “Tracker” to Los Angeles from Vancouver, Canada, after receiving a $48-million tax credit. Many view such moves, however, as small wins over comprehensive ones.

“There’s been a fundamental change happening here over the past five years,” said Cale Thomas, a makeup artist who has worked on “Guardians of the Galaxy 3” and the recent biopic “Michael.”

Thomas, who is a member of Stay in LA, acknowledges that California’s step last year to double its tax incentives has helped to spur an uptick in local production, but that has not stopped the outflow of productions or resolved a host of restrictions and costs that have hampered the industry.

He worked on “The Mandalorian” and other Lucasfilm series that stream on Disney+ for five years. “We shot in Manhattan Beach Studios,” he said, but noted that Lucasfilm has since moved one show to the U.K. and produced two others there.

“This has been devastating for our industry,” he said. “Hundreds of generational family businesses aren’t being used anymore.”

The pain points are not confined to Hollywood.

Last year, Marvel Studios — which had made Georgia, known as Hollywood of the South, its primary filming center for such major franchises as “Avengers: Infinity War” — relocated much of its production to the U.K.

The impact has meant even fewer domestic productions causing an even bigger ripple effect.

Among the high-profile casualties was Hackman Capital Partners, which aggressively snapped up studios, acquiring $10 billion in assets under management before production activity plummeted nationwide.

In January, the company defaulted on its $1.1-billion mortgage on Radford Studio Center, the historic lot where “Seinfeld” and “Gunsmoke” were filmed and which gave Studio City its name.

Earlier this year, Hackman Capital Partners defaulted on its $1.1-billion mortgage on Radford Studio Center, the historic lot where “Seinfeld” and “Gunsmoke” were filmed.

(Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)

Three months later, lender Deutsche Bank filed a foreclosure complaint on the also-historic Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, N.Y., home to “Sesame Street” and “Succession.”

Kaufman, also owned by Hackman Capital Partners, defaulted on an outstanding loan balance of $359 million that was due to be paid last fall, according to CRE Daily.

Gregg Bilson sold ISS Props, the Sunland-based company his father founded in 1977, to Manhattan Beach Studios, part of Hackman Capital Partners, five years ago, staying on as CEO to help run and expand the company.

After 40 years in the business, he retired last August with a little more than a year and a half left on his contract.

Bilson now sees himself as a Hollywood relic.

“Many of my contemporaries and I have had conversations where we say we saw the best of the film and TV industry when it was an art form,” Bilson said. “It will never be the same.”

Primm Valley Resorts, the last full-time casino among a cluster of three off Interstate 15 in Primm, at the California-Nevada border, is permanently closing, according to a termination notice sent to employees on Tuesday.

The letter, posted by Las Vegas insider publication Las Vegas Locally, noted that employees who worked at Primm Valley would be let go by July 4. It’s not known if the casino will close that day or before.

An email to Primm Valley Resorts owner Affinity Gaming was not immediately returned.

Primm Valley was the last of three operating casino resorts in Primm, formerly known as State Line. The castle-shaped Whiskey Pete’s opened in 1977, followed by Primm Valley in 1990 and Buffalo Bill’s in 1994.

In a letter to the Clark County Board of Commissioners, Erin Barnett, Affinity’s vice president and general counsel, wrote in October 2024 that “traffic at the state line has proved to be heavily weighted towards weekend activity and is insufficient to support three full-time casino properties.”

Along with Primm Valley Resorts, Primadonna Co. LLC, owned by Affinity Gaming, is closing the Primm Center gas station and the Flying J truck stop located at Whiskey Pete’s; that casino closed in December 2024.

The termination notice comes nearly a year after Affinity Gaming ended 24/7 operations at Buffalo Bill’s Resort on July 6. The casino opened on days in which its concert venue, the Star of the Desert Arena, hosted special events.

Lights glow on the Buffalo Bill’s Resort and Casino sign on July 6, 2025, in Primm, Nev.

(Bridget Bennett / For The Times)

It’s unclear what happens to music and magic acts booked until July 25.

It’s not known how long other Affinity-owned properties in the area, such as the popular Lotto Store on the California side of the border, will continue to operate. Nevadans have been known to drive for several miles and wait in long lines to buy Powerball tickets, particularly when jackpots creep into 10 figures.

The notice informed employees “this action is expected to result in the permanent termination of employment for all employees at these locations.”

As late as September, Primm Valley Resorts emailed media members promoting renovated rooms and signature experiences at its final resort.

Primm once shined as one of Nevada’s more popular gambling resorts. The three-casino complex served as a less expensive, less flashy, slightly more kitschy alternative to Las Vegas that benefited from being a good 45 minutes closer to Los Angeles than Sin City.

Several factors have contributed to Primm’s slow decline, including the COVID pandemic and increased competition from casinos popping up on tribal lands in California.

Those newer casinos are easier to get to than Primm from key Southern California population centers, reducing the value proposition.

BILLINGS, Mont. — President Trump is withdrawing his nomination of a hospitality company executive to lead the National Park Service, the White House announced Monday.

The withdrawal of nominee Scott Socha comes as the park service has been shaken by widespread firings as part of the Trump administration’s pledge to sharply reduce its size.

Socha said in a statement that he was dropping out of consideration for the post for personal reasons.

The park service is currently overseen by an acting director, agency comptroller Jessica Bowron. It did not have a Senate-confirmed director during Trump’s first term, when it was led by a series of acting directors.

Socha is president for parks and resorts at Buffalo, N.Y.-based Delaware North, which has service contracts with numerous parks and describes itself as one of the world’s largest privately owned entertainment and hospitality companies. A White House spokesperson had said when he was nominated in February that Socha was “totally qualified” to execute Trump’s plans for the park system.

But some conservation groups had questioned whether Socha’s private sector work provided the experience he would need to oversee hundreds of national parks and monuments that range from the Statue of Liberty and other cultural sites to remote sites in the Utah desert.

The Associated Press sent email messages to the White House and the Interior Department seeking comment on Socha’s withdrawal.

Thousands of employees have been fired or otherwise left the park service since Trump took office.

Emily Douce with the National Parks Conservation Assn., an advocacy group, said Monday that the next director for the service needs to “undo the damage.”

“It’s very unfortunate that our parks have gone more than a year without a permanent director at a time when they need strong, steady leadership the most,” Douce said.

The Republican administration’s proposed budget for next year would reduce staffing to 9,200 employees. That’s down almost 30% compared to 2025 levels.

The park service’s operating budget would be cut by more than $1 billion, to $2.2 billion, for the 2027 fiscal year that starts in October.

Similar cuts proposed for 2026 were blocked by lawmakers in Congress after park supporters and former employees warned the administration’s proposal would have effectively gutted the agency.

The administration also has faced blowback for the removal or planned removal of national park exhibits about slavery, climate change and the destruction of Native American culture. In February, a federal judge said an exhibit about nine people enslaved by George Washington must be restored at Washington’s former home in Philadelphia after the Trump administration had taken it down.

Administration officials have said they are removing “disparaging” messages under an order last year from Trump. Critics accuse it of trying to whitewash the nation’s history.

Under Trump’s interior secretary, Doug Burgum, the park service has started charging millions of international tourists who visit U.S. parks each year $100 each to visit sites including Yellowstone and Grand Canyon. The service also has put Trump’s image onto its annual passes for U.S. citizens, drawing a lawsuit from environmentalists who said the move was illegal.

Brown writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — When families flocked to Yosemite National Park during their recent spring breaks, some met two-hour waits at the entrance gates. At a lakeside spot in the North Cascades in Washington state, there hasn’t been enough staff to open the visitors center. And in Death Valley, water was shut off at two campgrounds.

National parks staff and advocates fear that such issues could only worsen this summer, as the park system faces the busy season with a dramatically reduced staff. At Yosemite, concerns are compounded by the National Park Service’s recent elimination of the park’s timed-entry reservation system, which led to the long spring-break lines.

“We’re definitely really nervous and anxious about the upcoming season, especially with the staff shortage we already have,” said a National Federation of Federal Employees union member at Yosemite who requested anonymity to speak candidly.

The National Park Service has lost nearly a quarter of its staff to buyouts, early retirements and other departures since the Trump administration took office last year, according to an estimate by the National Parks Conservation Assn. This month, the administration proposed cutting nearly 3,000 more positions in its 2027 budget. It also offered a recent new round of buyouts.

The push to cut the park system even further — ahead not only of peak season but of America’s 250th birthday, which the Trump administration has promoted in relation to national parks — has underscored ongoing questions about how smoothly parks can operate as warm weather and summer vacations draw tourists.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended the budget proposal on Capitol Hill last week, telling senators that the visitor experience to parks can be improved even while spending and staff reductions are made.

He said the agency plans to hire 5,500 seasonal workers and asked Congress to approve funding for those employees to work for nine-month stints rather than six months.

“All of that’s going to help us get this thing in shape, even with an overall reduction,” Burgum said Wednesday.

He was met with skepticism by Democrats, who confronted him over the spending proposal.

“That is just a recipe for disaster,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told Burgum.

Congress will have the final say on the proposed cuts, but in the meantime, the reductions that have already occurred presented challenges last season and appear likely to do so again, said Cheryl Schreier, a retired superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Memorial and chair of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks.

Whether the parks will get enough qualified candidates to hire the number of seasonal workers needed is also “a really big concern,” she said. “It’s really important to have all of those individuals to be able to operate a park in a good fashion.”

Campers prepare food in Yosemite Valley last December. 9, 2025 in Yosemite, CA.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

The lower staffing has prompted worry about parks’ capacity for emergency response, protection of the natural landscape and custodial maintenance. Fewer rangers could mean, for instance, fewer people to reach dehydrated, stranded or lost hikers, said Chance Wilcox, California desert director for the National Parks Conservation Assn.

A park service spokesperson said Friday that staffing decisions are made based on local conditions at each park and that the agency is “focused on ensuring parks remain open, accessible, and safe for visitors.”

About 323 million people visit America’s national parks annually, according to the Interior Department. While the parks can expect heavy traffic, a drop in international tourism and the rise in gas prices has injected additional uncertainty into the tourism industry this year.

The number of Canadians visiting the United States has dropped since Trump took office, according to the Canadian government — with the number of Canadians making car trips to the United States this March declining by 35% compared with March 2024.

The Interior Department also instituted a new $100-per-person fee for non-Americans entering 11 of the most popular parks, a move to raise money for the parks but an extra squeeze for Canadians coming across the border and other international visitors.

At the Senate and House hearings on the Interior budget, Burgum presented a vision of the national parks system as one where most employees should be working at a park and interacting with visitors, and said he was more focused on filling those roles than jobs in regional offices.

“Our goal is to have more people actually working in the parks,” he told senators.

An Interior Department spokesperson said the agency was “advancing high-priority improvements” across the system.

“Secretary Burgum has been clear that resources should be prioritized toward visitor-facing services, public safety, maintenance, and projects that improve the experience for the American people,” an Interior Department spokesperson said in a statement Friday.

Critics say that strategy displays a misunderstanding of how the 109-year-old agency functions. Employees who work on contracts, human resources, IT, communications and other organizational and administrative jobs are essential to keeping the parks running, Wilcox said.

“If everything were visitor- or front-facing, the entire agency would collapse from behind,” said Wilcox, of the National Parks Conservation Assn.

The decision to discontinue the reservation system at Yosemite — as well as at Arches and Glacier national parks — is another part of Interior’s mission to bring more people into the parks. The concept was “designed to expand public access” this summer, the park service said in announcing the policy in February. It kept the timed-entry reservation system in Rocky Mountain National Park for the peak season.

Visitors take pictures while walking through Muir Woods National Monument on July 24, 2025 in Muir Woods National Monument, California.

(Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

In addition to causing long lines, cramming too many people into the parks at once could lead to environmental damage, particularly if people park cars in natural areas, said Don Neubacher, a retired Yosemite superintendent and member of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks.

“It’s going to be mass chaos,” he said.

On a Saturday at the end of March, Jon Christenson of Coarsegold, Calif., drove to the park with his 38-year-old son. They were surprised to encounter a two-hour wait to get into the park, plus at least a half-hour hunt for parking after they made it through the gates, he said.

“It was almost like Disneyland. It was really uncomfortable from the standpoint of just so many people,” said Christenson, 82. “It’s kind of troubling to see that they’ve opened up the floodgates and now it’s kind of ruining the experience for everybody.”

Rangers there are doing multiple jobs, and last summer they helped clean bathrooms in the absence of custodial staff, the Yosemite union member said. Now they, too, are concerned about the potential for gridlock.

The worker asked summer visitors to bring patience: “The folks at the National Park Service … they will be grateful for any compassion and empathy.”

A former female staffer who worked for Beast Industries, the media venture behind the popular YouTube channel MrBeast, is suing the company, alleging she was sexually harassed and fired shortly after she returned from maternity leave.

The employee, Lorrayne Mavromatis, a Brazilian-born social media professional, alleges in a lawsuit she was subjected to sexual harassment by the company’s management and demoted after she complained about her treatment. She said she was urged to join a conference call while in labor and expected to work during her maternity leave in violation of the Family and Medical Leave Act, according to the federal complaint filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina.

“This clout-chasing complaint is built on deliberate misrepresentations and categorically false statements, and we have the receipts to prove it. There is extensive evidence — including Slack and WhatsApp messages, company documents, and witness testimony — that unequivocally refutes her claims. We will not submit to opportunistic lawyers looking to manufacture a payday from us,” Gaude Paez, a Beast Industries spokesperson, said in a statement.

Jimmy Donaldson, 27, began MrBeast as a teen gaming channel that soon exploded into a media company worth an estimated $5 billion, with 500 employees and 450 million subscribers who watch its games, stunts and giveaways.

Mavromatis, who was hired in 2022 as its head of Instagram, described a pervasive climate of discrimination and harassment, according to the lawsuit.

In her complaint, she alleges the company’s former CEO James Warren made her meet him at his home for one-on-one meetings while he commented on her looks and dismissed her complaints about a male client’s unwanted advances, telling her “she should be honored that the client was hitting on her.”

When Mavromatis asked Warren why MrBeast, Donaldson, would not work with her, she was told that “she is a beautiful woman and her appearance had a certain sexual effect on Jimmy,” and, “Let’s just say that when you’re around and he goes to the restroom, he’s not actually using the restroom.”

Paez refuted the claim.

“That’s ridiculous. This is an allegation fabricated for the sole purpose of sparking headlines,” Paez said.

Mavromatis said she endured a slate of other indignities such as being told by Donaldson that she “would only participate in her video shoot if she brought him a beer.”

“In this male-centric workplace, Plaintiff, one of the few women in a high-level role, was excluded from otherwise all-male meetings, demeaned in front of colleagues, harassed, and suffered from males be given preferential treatment in employment decisions,” states the complaint.

When Mavromatis raised a question during a staff meeting with her team, she said a male colleague told her to “shut up” or “stop talking.”

At MrBeast headquarters in Greenville, N.C., she said male executives mocked female contestants participating in BeastGames, “who complained they did not have access to feminine hygiene products and clean underwear while participating in the show.”

In November 2023, Mavromatis formally complained about “the sexually inappropriate encounters and harassment, and demeaning and hostile work environment she and other female employees had been living and experiencing working at MrBeast,” to the company’s then head of human resources, Sue Parisher, who is also Donaldson’s mother, according to the suit.

In her complaint, Mavromatis said Beast Industries did not have a method or process for employees to report such issues either anonymously or to a third party, rather employees were expected to follow the company’s handbook, “How to Succeed In MrBeast Production.”

In it, employees were instructed that, “It’s okay for the boys to be childish,” “if talent wants to draw a dick on the white board in the video or do something stupid, let them” and “No does not mean no,” according to the complaint.

Mavromatis alleges that she was demoted and then fired.

Paez said that Mavromatis’s role was eliminated as part of a reorganization of an underperforming group within Beast Industries and that she was made aware of this.

Their backgrounds stand out. And not in a good way.

Two bankruptcies and six law enforcement jobs in three years. An allegation of lying in a police report to justify a felony charge against an innocent woman — an incident that led to a $75,000 settlement and criticism of his integrity. A third job candidate once failed to graduate from a police academy, then lasted only three weeks in his only job as a police officer.

Their common bond: All were hired recently by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement during an unprecedented hiring spree — 12,000 new officers and special agents to double its force — after the agency received a $75-billion windfall from Congress to enact President Trump’s mass deportation campaign.

The president put a premium on swift action, and for ICE that meant rapid-fire recruitment and hiring, which in turn led to new employees with questionable qualifications. Their backgrounds and training have come under scrutiny after numerous high-profile incidents in which ICE agents used excessive force.

“If vetting is not done well and it’s done too quickly, you have higher risk of increased liability to the agency because of bad actions, abuse of power and the lack of ability to properly carry out the mission because people don’t know what they are doing,” said Claire Trickler-McNulty, who served as an ICE official during the Obama, first Trump and Biden administrations.

The agency has said the majority of new hires are police and military veterans. But evidence is mounting that applicants with questionable histories were either not fully vetted before they were brought on or were hired in spite of their past, an investigation by the Associated Press found.

ICE’s acting director, Todd Lyons, said during a congressional hearing in February that he was proud of the hiring campaign, which drew more than 220,000 applications. “This expansion of a well-trained and well-vetted workforce will help further ICE’s ability to execute the president’s and secretary’s bold agenda,” he said.

AP finds legal issues in new ICE hires’ backgrounds

Unlike many local law enforcement agencies, ICE said it shields the identity of employees to protect them from harassment, making a full accounting of the new hires impossible.

The AP focused on more than 40 officers who recently made public their new jobs as ICE officers on LinkedIn pages, using public records to check their backgrounds. All but one were male.

While most of them had conventional qualifications as former correctional officers, security guards, military veterans and police officers, it’s unclear how many should have potentially been disqualified because AP did not have access to their full personnel files. But several had histories of unpaid debts that resulted in legal action, two had filed for bankruptcy and three others had faced lawsuits that alleged misconduct in prior law enforcement jobs, the AP found.

Marshall Jones, an expert on police recruiting at the Florida Institute of Technology, said it’s hard to get a full picture of ICE’s new employee pool without more data. But he said ICE has likely hired some “less than ideal candidates” who meet minimum requirements but would be passed over in a normal hiring cycle.

“If you’re hiring hundreds or thousands of people, even with the best of background processes, there are going to be outliers,” he said. “The question is, are these normal outliers from human beings doing things, or is there a systemic challenge in properly vetting folks if there are issues?”

DHS says ‘vetting is an ongoing process’

The Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency, did not answer questions about specific hiring decisions. But it acknowledged some applicants received “tentative selection letters” and offers to begin working on a temporary status before they had been subjected to full background checks.

“ICE is committed to ensuring its law enforcement personnel are held to the highest standards and rigorously vets them throughout the hiring process,” the department said. “Vetting is an ongoing process, not a one-time occurrence.”

The process includes reviewing their criminal histories and credit scores and conducting background investigations that include interviewing prior employers and other associates, which can take weeks. But the deluge of hires has strained the agency, which promised signing bonuses of up to $50,000 and advertised that college degrees were not required.

An internal memo, first reported by Reuters in February, told ICE supervisors that if they receive “derogatory information about a newly hired employee’s conduct” they should refer the allegations to an internal affairs unit for investigation. Such information could include the employees’ termination or forced resignations, the memo said.

Two bankruptcies, six jobs before ICE hired him

Among the new hires is Carmine Gurliacci, 46, who resigned as a police officer in Richmond Hill, Ga., to join ICE in Atlanta in December, according to a resignation letter obtained by AP.

He filed for bankruptcy in 2022, saying he had no income and had been unemployed for two years after moving from New York to Georgia, court filings show. He said he was living with a friend and doing chores in exchange for housing, listing tens of thousands of dollars of unpaid loans, bills, child support and other debts. He also had filed for bankruptcy in 2013 in New York, when he listed $95,000 in liabilities, records show.

Serious financial problems are “a pretty big red flag” because they might make employees susceptible to bribes or extortion, which have been problems at ICE, Trickler-McNulty said.

After his 2022 bankruptcy petition was approved, Gurliacci rejoined the work force, hopping to six Georgia law enforcement agencies within three years, each time resigning before moving on, records obtained by AP show.

He left one campus security job in 2023, citing “unforeseen personal issues that render me unable to fulfill my duties,” a resignation letter shows. But he then began working for the Butts County Sheriff’s Office soon after.

He lasted months there before moving to the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office, where he quit after two months on the job, records show. The federal government recently obtained his Chatham County personnel file as part of a background check, two months after he started at ICE.

Reached by phone, Gurliacci told a reporter he would call back. He never did and did not respond to follow-up messages.

Critic says new ICE hire ‘abuses his power’

Another new hire is Andrew Penland, 29, who joined ICE after resigning in December as a sheriff’s deputy in Greenwood County, Kansas.

Penland had spent most of his career as a deputy in Bourbon County, Kansas, but left last year after facing a lawsuit alleging he arrested a woman on false allegations in 2022. The county’s insurer paid $75,000 to settle the case, the agreement shows.

The woman, June Bench, recounted in an interview what happened. One of her neighbors, a county official, claimed Bench had purposely made a wide turn and nearly hit him with her car.

Penland responded to the property. Body camera video shows he urged the neighbor to press charges and told the man Bench would go to jail but he would not have to testify in court because it would get resolved through a plea.

Bench denied the allegation and said it was part of a personal dispute. But Penland arrested her on a felony assault charge, took her to jail and seized her car. Penland wrote in a report that he watched surveillance video showing her neighbor jumping out of the way of her speeding car.

It took a week for Bench to get out of jail and more than a year to defeat the charge, which was dismissed for lack of evidence. When she obtained the video Penland cited as proof, it showed her car appearing to make a routine turn and no near-collision with the neighbor.

Bench said she was outraged to learn Penland had been hired by ICE.

“That’s scary to me. He abuses his power,” she said.

After being reached for comment, Penland deactivated his LinkedIn account and alerted ICE to the inquiry but did not respond to AP.

New hire struggled at police academy

A third new ICE hire, Antonio Barrett, initially failed to graduate from a Colorado law enforcement academy in 2020, one of two students who did not “complete portions of the academy” and received “an incomplete grade,” an email obtained by AP shows.

He finished the program after a community college arranged a special one-day training and test for him, and landed a job at the police department in La Junta, Colo., in July 2020. But he worked only three weeks before resigning and never worked in local policing again.

Previously, Barrett worked as a corrections officer at a Colorado prison.

He was accused in a lawsuit of excessive force for inflicting pain on a handcuffed inmate when he and another colleague forcibly removed the man from a wheelchair in 2017. But state officials argued their actions were not excessive and a court agreed, dismissing the case.

Barrett didn’t respond to a message seeking comment.

Ex-ICE instructor says training is inadequate

ICE has denied removing any training requirements, saying new recruits receive 56 days of training and 28 days of on-the-job training. The agency said that most of the new officers have already completed law enforcement academies.

But former ICE academy instructor Ryan Schwank testified in February that agency leaders cut training on the use of force, firearms safety and the rights of protesters. He said the new recruits include some as young as 18 who lack college degrees and whose primary language is not English.

“We’re not giving them the training to know when they’re being asked to do something that they’re not supposed to do, something illegal or wrong,” he said.

Foley writes for the Associated Press.