Morning News: War In Yemen Worsens, Horse Racing, Spain’s Civil War

The Saudi-backed government is hobbled; separatism is spreading; a humanitarian crisis grows by the day. A rebel advance on a once-safe city will only prolong a grinding war. 

We look at the scourge of doping in horse racing ahead of this weekend’s Belmont Stakes. And the last surviving foreign fighter in Spain’s civil war was a revolutionary to the end.

California Views: Joshua Tree National Park (4K)

Joshua Tree National Park is an American national park in southeastern California, east of Los Angeles and near Palm Springs. It is named after the Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia) native to the Mojave Desert.

Originally declared a national monument in 1936, Joshua Tree was redesignated as a national park in 1994 when the U.S. Congress passed the California Desert Protection Act. Encompassing a total of 790,636 acres (1,235.4 sq mi; 3,199.6 km2) – slightly larger than the state of Rhode Island – the park includes 429,690 acres (671.4 sq mi; 1,738.9 km2) of designated wilderness.

Straddling San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, the park includes parts of two deserts, each an ecosystem whose characteristics are determined primarily by elevation: the higher Mojave Desert and the lower Colorado Desert. The Little San Bernardino Mountains traverse the southwest edge of the park.SHOW LESS