YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. – On busy days, more than 8,000 cars pass through Yosemite Valley in the third most-visited national park in the U.S. But, there are only 1,100 parking spaces.

(10-31) 12:48 PDT Albany, N.Y. (AP) — When Billy Joel sang about “a bottle of white, a bottle of red” 40 years ago, the Long Island native probably wasn’t in a New York state of mind. But the wine universe is growing…

The scarcity of visitor parking in the narrow glacial valley is just one of many challenges facing Yosemite National Park officials say as they launch their third attempt at a master plan to protect its heart, the Merced River.

A stalled California State Parks plan to restore habitat and water quality to pollution-choked Malibu Lagoon by dredging the wetland and reshaping it with bulldozers can go forward, a judge has ruled. San Francisco County Superior Court Judge Ernest Goldsmith…

Only about 1% of the nearly 4 million people who visit the national park each year are black, and the park system remains largely the province of whites. So officials were elated earlier this month when two groups of African Americans were touring Yosemite the same day. Their Yosemite Valley tour was nearing its end, and the church ladies and gents from South Los Angeles had heard enough. Almost.