How do you adequately weigh the pros and cons of a 225-mile road proposed to cross some of the wildest country left in the United States, a landscape with rich cultural ties and natural resources, when the purpose of the road is to enable an open-pit copper mine?

The National Park Service is preparing to begin a test an experimental laser removal treatment of the biofilm affecting the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, most evident on the dome. The project will clean a test area of 1,000 square feet on the northeast side of the memorial that will allow the National Park Service to evaluate the effectiveness of the technique. The results of this cleaning test will be used to determine how the remainder of the biofilm on the memorial’s dome and pediment might be cleaned.

A report from Virgin Islands National Park in the wake of Hurricane Irma describes the island of St. John as suffering "total devastation."

Deciding that there are too many bison on the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park, officials there have decided to cull the population from an estimated 400-600 animals down to fewer than 200.