Among some hikers in the San Francisco Bay Area, the quad-straining trail to the summit of 4,344-ft. Mount St. Helena near Calistoga, Calif., is known as "the stairway to heaven" for its panoramic views of the Napa and Sonoma valleys. These views, however, soon may be off-limits to visitors — the latest victim of the Golden State's staggering budget crisis. The trail sits within Robert Louis Stevenson State Park, one of up to 100 state parks in California that might be closed by Labor Day ...

Should struggling boat dealers get the same sort of bailout from the federal government that is being doled out to the flailing auto industry? The Small Business Administration thinks so. It has just started a program that offers loans to help boat dealers to finance their inventory. But at least so far, few dealers seem to be interested. The National Marine Manufacturers Association says the U.S. recreational boating industry contributed $33.6 billion to the U.S. Economy ...

Ninety-two years after the Russian Revolution and 20 years on from the fall of the Berlin Wall, Europe's last Soviet-style government is finally on its way out. In Moldova this week, four months after popular upheaval, the Communist Party accepted defeat in a national election. Four pro-Western opposition parties must now scrabble together a coalition which they say will distance the country from Moscow, more fully embrace democracy and integrate with Europe. "This is definitely the beginning of something ...

About 40 minutes into Chris Christie's talk July 27 at the Bethel United Methodist Church in Pennsauken, N.J., he got the question. The Republican candidate for governor is a former U.S. Attorney who made his name prosecuting corrupt Garden State politicians — 140 of them in seven years. So it's not surprising that Christie can hardly go an hour these days without someone asking him about last week's dramatic arrests of 44 people — including three mayors, two state ...

At 4 p.m. the Iranian government broke up an attempted memorial service at a cemetery, but very soon after, tens of thousands of protesters poured into the streets of central Tehran the night of July 30, overwhelming Iran's feared security forces. The crowds burned tires, honked horns, waved peace signs and chanted, "Death to the dictators." Because the demonstrators gathered in several neighborhoods throughout the capital as well as at the country's largest cemetery, 20 km south of the ...

"If your pictures aren't good enough," Robert Capa once remarked, "then you're not close enough." For more than 35 years, Capa's 1936 photograph "Death of a Militiaman" — arguably the most enduring image of the Spanish Civil War — commanded worldwide acclaim and helped establish Capa as the archetypal modern war photographer. But beginning in the 1970s, researchers and historians began to challenge the picture's veracity and raise questions about Capa's reputation: Did the famous photograph capture ...

For decades, the French have relished any opportunity to mock Americans for their supposed childish Yankee puritainisme when it comes to matters of sex. These days, though, France is experiencing its own blush of youthful prudishness as an entire generation of younger French women say "non, merci" to the summer tradition of topless sun bathing. Since France's summer vacation season kicked off in early July, the press has repeatedly sounded the alarm over the shrinking number of topless women on ...

Playground gibes are a rite of passage for most school-age kids, but for some children, teasing at school can turn into outright violence and abuse. Researchers say that as many as 1 in 10 children suffer physical attacks, name-calling and other social aggression at school, and a new study suggests that a child's risk of becoming a chronic victim of bullying may depend on factors that appear very early in life. "Studies also show that peer victimization becomes increasingly ...

In Washington there are bailouts to be had for banks and car companies, but what about Portland's Oregon Ballet Theatre? OBT's 20th anniversary season is around the corner, but its budget has dropped 28%. It's hard to celebrate in style when faced with a "very serious cash crunch," says executive director Jon Ulsh. And it's forcing arts groups to be ever more creative about where and how they look for support. President Barack Obama has asked the ...

The fortunes of Six Flags, the country's largest regional theme-park operator, have fallen more steeply than its roller coasters. It's not that the company's 20 parks across North America are all that bad. The current management team has worked hard to give the facilities a makeover and offer more family-friendly options. Attendance and revenues actually rose in 2008, despite the onset of the recession, and high gas prices, last summer. But the company's crippling $2.4 billion debt load led ...