Webcams provide us with windows on the world. They allow armchair travelers to follow activity outside a Dublin pub, monitor traffic on San Francisco’s Bay Bridge, and check on what’s happening at the International Space Station. Webcams also provide windows on nature, some of the best of which comes by way of cameras stationed in our national parks.

Failure by Congress to avert a sweeping budget cut across all government agencies stands to will cut your views of the Grand Canyon, limit your access to Cape Cod National Seashore's beaches, and delay the opening of Yellowstone National Park this spring.

Will expanded wireless service for cellphones and the Internet enhance your national park experience, or will it clutter it with a technological Disneyification of the parks, one that will detract from, not add to, the national park experience?

Yellowstone National Park officials are monitoring the proposed listing of the wolverine as a threatened species, and will determine whether they need to reconsider snow travel over Sylvan Pass if the listing becomes formal.