The National Park Service is launching a study into whether there are wilderness quality lands at Valles Caldera National Preserve in New Mexico and is seeking public comments to help with the assessment.

Aerial bombardments, bulldozers, hand tools, and even artificial clouds of humidity are being used at Yosemite National Park to combat the Washburn Fire, which continues to grow in size, fed by acres and acres of dead and down trees and thick ground layers of combustible forest litter.

For more than two years the upper portion of Beach Drive through Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C., has been closed to motorized vehicles, and now the National Park Service is proposing to allow vehicles to return for nine months of the year in a move it describes as "the best way to protect park resources and strike a balance of different users..."

Mike Reynolds, a third-generation National Park Service employee, is leaving his role as regional director of the agency's intermountain office for Washington, D.C., to serve as deputy director for Congressional and external relations.