Town Bans Lights to Save Milky Way

President wraps up packed weekend in Maine

(AP) - President Barack Obama and the first family bid farewell to Maine today after an ambitious weekend vacation full of hiking, biking, boating, tennis, eating out, and maybe just a little ice cream. From the moment they arrived on Friday, it was clear they were determined to make the most of their time, much of it spent in Acadia National Park, as their motorcade zipped from one outing to another. More»

Christopher Schwartz: It was all an April Fools' joke

(NEWSER) - Maryland's Batman is a superhero—but Maine's caped crusader is a little different. A Bar Harbor man who has created a Batman alter-ego was arrested for threats he made on Facebook Sunday (that's April 1) that he says were satirical jokes. "I demand payment of 1 million dollars or I will blow up the hospital," wrote Christopher Schwartz on his character's Facebook page . "Once the funds are secured, private message me for further instruction." More»

(NEWSER) - In the recession, international air travel is down and national park attendance is way up. Forbes runs down the crème de la crème of America’s national treasures, but be warned: “It's been incredibly hard to get camping space at most national parks,” one travel agent says.

• Volcanoes National Park, Hawaii: Home to Mt. Kilauea, the most active volcano in the world. The park is "an exhilarating up-close crash course in the forces that shape the earth's profile," one travel author raves.

Star Droid helps cellphone astronomers with GPS, maps, tags

(NEWSER) - Budding astronomers will soon have a new cell-phone tool that spots the stars they’re looking for, the Telegraph reports. Google’s Star Droid helps stargazers navigate the night sky using GPS technology that cross-references the user’s position with existing space maps, and adds identifying tags to the heavenly bodies that can be seen through the phone’s viewfinder. No release date has been announced. More»