Why does it use present tense?

well, I had to think on this a bit. I believe that you are discussing the "efforts" as being current in the main conversation. the new york times said that these efforts include x and y; presumably the efforts have not changed since last week. That is, one can consider last week's report to be still applicable, still current, If you use the past tense, it would imply that what the Times reported is no longer true (or may no longer be true).