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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

Obamas' Yosemite Visit Prompts Call for Cultural Diversity in Parks

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Friday, June 17, 2016   

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, Calif. -- President Obama, the First Lady and their daughters are visiting Yosemite National Park this weekend, and a group known as the "Next 100 Coalition" is hoping he'll touch on the need for cultural diversity in managing the nation's public lands. The visit comes ahead of the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service this summer.

Xavier Morales, executive director of the Praxis Project, a nonprofit group that promotes environmental justice, praised the president for creating Cesar Chavez National Monument in the nearby Central Valley, but said there's much more to be done.

"By not protecting areas of significance of diverse histories," Morales said, "we're really not telling the full story of the United States."

Rangers at Yosemite tell the story of Chinese cook Tie Sing, who fed members of the U.S. Geological Survey in the early 1900s as they explored Yosemite Valley. They also recall the work of the Buffalo Soldiers, an all-African-American regiment stationed in the park around that same time.

Steve Dunwoody, California director of the Vet Voice Foundation, said the nation is increasingly diverse, and the parks ought to reflect that.

"We'd love for the president to really take up the cause of advancing diversity in our public lands that cover all the groups that enjoy them," he said, "Native Americans, Latinos, African Americans, veterans, young, old -- everyone."

Coalition members said they also would like Obama to issue a presidential memorandum on the occasion of the Park Service's centennial on Aug. 25.


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