Updated: Sat, May 18, 2013

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Sunbathers flocking to Southern California beaches are used to feeding the meter or paying a parking attendant. Not so along the less developed north coast where it's customary to ditch cars on the shoulder of Highway 1 to surf, swim or picnic. That sandy line that long...

Updated: 38 min ago

O'BRIEN, Ore. (AP) — Jennifer Phillippi's grandparents started producing lumber in this corner of Oregon timber country in 1922, when a man could set up a mill, log the trees within range of a team of horses and move the mill to a new stand when those trees ran out. In those days the forests...

Updated: 53 min ago

CHICAGO (AP) — Seeking to keep pace with changing technology, Illinois toughened penalties Saturday for those who use social media and text messaging to organize violent "flash mobs" like those that have occurred on Chicago's Michigan Avenue and in other tourist areas. Gov. Pat Quinn signed...

Updated: 53 min ago

WEST POINT, Miss. (AP) — It's not so often a grown man gets to report to work and play with trains. For Terry Craig, though, it's a weekly joy. As curator of the Sam Wilhite Transportation Museum on West Point's Depot Drive, he is not only conductor of the largest working stationary train of...

Updated: 1 hr ago

NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — A Rhode Island woman who was injured in the Boston Marathon bombings is preparing to attend a welcome home party at Rosecliff, a Newport mansion featured in the film version of "The Great Gatsby." Heather Abbott of Newport had gone to Boston on to watch the Red Sox play...

Updated: 1 hr ago

GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Mark Udall is asking for the public's help in crafting legislation to create a national monument that would include 22,000 acres on both sides of the Arkansas River between Salida and Buena Vista in south-central Colorado — an area renowned for its whitewater...

Updated: 5 hr ago

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The National Airline History Museum is trying to raise $3.2 million to restore its Lockheed Constellation propeller-driven aircraft and recreate multimillionaire aviator Howard Hughes' record-setting cross-country flight in the plane that transformed commercial air...

Updated: 5 hr ago

GRANDE RIVIERE, Trinidad (AP) — Giant leatherback turtles, some weighing half as much as a small car, drag themselves out of the ocean and up the sloping shore on the northeastern coast of Trinidad while villagers await wearing dimmed headlamps in the dark. Their black carapaces glistening,...

Updated: 6 hr ago

MASON, Ohio (AP) — The Beach water park in southwest Ohio has reopened under new ownership and plans to honor season passes from last year, when the attraction was closed. The water park near Kings Island amusement park north of Cincinnati was closed for the 2012 season after managers decided...

Updated: 7 hr ago

OCEAN CITY, Md. (AP) — Officials in Maryland and Delaware beach towns are hoping renovations, good publicity and activities pegged to historical events will help usher in a strong summer beach season, and they say the states are on track to receive more visitors this year. While the...