Apparently lost while trying to follow GPS directions, two men in a sedan tried to cut across a salt flat in Death Valley National Park, only to strand their car in the flat and land one of the two in a hospital suffering from the heat. The event, back on the Fourth of July, also led to a court appearance for the two for driving off-road and damaging the salt flat.

As the Civil War raged in the mid-1860s, a bucolic pocket of Kentucky stood out as a beacon of freedom for enslaved men and women, though it proved elusive as the nation struggled over what was morally right.

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A draft wilderness management plan crafted for Isle Royale National Park is open for public comment through September 26.