It's that time of year: Crisp air, occasional snows, that autumnal scent of dried leaves, and the bugling of elk in the Rockies. And the annual warning from Glacier National Park officials to hunters that they can't hunt in the park or pursue game into the park without the assistance of a ranger.

If you look at a map of the National Park System, you'll find a glaring omission in the northeastern United States. There is no large expanse of wilderness protected by a national park. Proponents of a "Maine North Woods National Park and Preserve" want to change that.

Greenpeace activists were able to scale to the top of the iconic Mount Rushmore in July and unfurl a banner of protest over the U.S. approach to global warming because of a number of glaring security lapses, breakdowns and shortcomings at Mount Rushmore National Memorial, according to a National Park Service investigation.

Some good news out of the South Pacific today. The tsunami wave train that smacked the National Park of American Samoa last month didn't damage park artifacts as much as first thought. And that's largely because of the park staff's efforts to rescue the items from the waters that inundated park headquarters.