US residents will be able to enter its national parks like the Grand Canyon and Yosemite for free on President Donald Trump’s birthday in the latest move by his administration to elevate his profile.But Americans will lose the current privilege of doing the same on two national days commemorating civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr and the end of slavery.The Trump administration says the changes, which take effect January 1, are part of the president’s push to put Americans first. The National Park Service is also increasing entrance fees for non-residents.Critics say changes to the list of what the administration calls “patriotic fee-free days” serve to promote the president while downplaying the US history of slavery and its civil rights struggle.In 2025, the list of free days included Martin Luther King Jr Day, which falls on the third Monday of January, and Juneteenth on June 19, which commemorates the day in 1865 when the last enslaved Americans were emancipated.A Department of the Interior statement said the eight free days in 2026 will include Trump’s June 14 birthday — he turns 80 next year — which also happens to be Flag Day, which marks the adoption of the US flag in 1777.Cornell William Brooks, a former president of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People, said that it was an insult to Martin Luther King Jr.”The raw & rank racism here stinks to high heaven,” he wrote on X.Trump, who often trumpets how his support grew among Black voters in the 2024 election, has a long history of self-promotion that is gathering steam as he approaches the end of the first year in his second term.Last week, the Washington-based United States Institute of Peace was named after him.The White House has also recently suggested naming a new stadium for the Washington Commanders NFL team after Trump, and some Republican lawmakers even support putting his face on the $100 bill.The United States has 63 national parks, which are congressionally designated protected areas under government control. Last year, more than 330 million people visited.From 2026, the cost of an annual entry pass will be $80 for US residents and $250 for nonresidents. Nonresidents without a pass will have to pay $100 per person to enter 11 of the most visited parks in addition to the standard entrance fee.

Boeing announced Monday that it completed an acquisition of aerospace supplier Spirit AeroSystems, saying the move will allow for more seamless operations and enhance quality control.Closure of the deal, first announced in July 2024, comes at a “pivotal” moment for the aviation giant, said Boeing Chief Executive Kelly Ortberg. The deal is worth $8.3 billion, including Spirit debt assumed by Boeing.”As we welcome our new teammates and bring our two companies together, our focus is on maintaining stability so we can continue delivering high quality airplanes, differentiated services, and advanced defense capabilities for our customers and the industry,” Ortberg said.Wichita, Kansas-based Spirit manufactures fuselages for commercial planes, as well as key parts for defense and space projects.The deal’s closure follows antitrust approvals in the United States and Europe that included the sale to Airbus of all Spirit’s businesses that currently supply the European aerospace group — Boeing’s main competitor.The transaction restores Spirit to Boeing about two decades after Boeing sold the assets in a move executives said would lower procurement costs and enhance Boeing’s focus on “large-scale systems integration,” which Boeing saw at the time as a strategic priority.But Boeing has stumbled badly in recent years, first with pair of fatal 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 caused in part by a flawed flight stabilizing feature, then by a January 2024 incident in which an Alaska Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing after a window on a 737 MAX blew out.Since the Alaska Airlines incident, Boeing has tightened quality control practices under close scrutiny from US air safety officials and replaced key leaders, including the CEO and head of commercial aviation.Boeing Commercial head Stephanie Pope described a gradual integration in a letter to the two companies’ commercial aviation employees that emphasized the need for teamwork to produce some 6,000 planes through the early 2030s.”As we start this next chapter, I encourage you to keep an open mind, support your teammates, and give each other grace,” Pope said. “While our teams did extensive work to prepare for this transition, it is not easy to integrate two companies, multiple sites and more than 15,000 teammates.”While the deal means that Spirit Defense will be part of Boeing for financial reporting purposes, the unit will have independent governance and operations. Such a structure is employed in defense, where suppliers serve multiple clients that are sometimes partners and sometimes competitors.The structure “preserves and protects Spirit Defense’s ability to perform work for any defense or space prime, including Boeing and its competitors, by implementing strict operational boundaries -– or ‘firewalls’ -– that ensures the protection of competitive information and avoids conflicts of interest,” said a Boeing spokesman.Shares of Boeing rose 1.9 percent in mid-morning trading.