Anchorage news

• Alaska halfway house walkaway numbers show marked improvement

  14-01-2017 22:27
  
  Halfway houses are one of the final steps to freedom for inmates, where they can leave during the day to go to work or look for jobs.
  But early last year, an alarming number of inmates simply chose to walk away and become fugitives.The Alaska Department of Corrections touted a statewide turnaround in those numbers during a celebration Thursday at the Cordova Center, a halfway house program near Ship Creek in Anchorage.
  In December of last year, the statewide number of walkaways per month&nb
  
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• Chugach Electric Association says power is restored to Campbell Lake area customers

  14-01-2017 22:25
  
  Chugach Electric Association's outage map shows the Campbell Lake area outage
  Last updated at 12:55 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 14
  Chugach Electric Company issued a statement on social media saying that power should be back on for its customers in the Campbell Lake area, where more than 750 were without power briefly.
  “Snow and wind can be a challenge with powerlines,” the company wrote on Twitter.
  For more information on Chugach Electric Association outages, visit the utility’s we
  
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• Vehicle owners band together on social media, say Anchorage towing company illegally towed cars

  14-01-2017 22:12
  
  In many cities, it is illegal to park a car against the flow of traffic. However, except for in Downtown and on one-way roads, Anchorage is not one of those places. That is why Daniel Lee was surprised to find his GMC Yukon Denali towed from near his South Anchorage home last week.
  “I’m not sure exactly what time it got towed, but it looks like they were out around 4 or 5 in the morning,” he said.
  Lee learned his car and four others in the area that night were towed by Madilynn
  
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• Wearable sensors may soon alert you to sickness before symptoms show

  14-01-2017 21:14
  
  Robert Scoble/Flickr Creative Commons
  A next step for smart watches and fitness trackers? Wearable gadgets gave a Stanford University professor an early warning that he was getting sick before he ever felt any symptoms of Lyme disease.
  Geneticist Michael Snyder never had Lyme’s characteristic bulls-eye rash. But a smart watch and other sensors charted changes in Snyder’s heart rate and oxygen levels during a family vacation. Eventually a fever struck that led to his diagnosis.
  Say &
  
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• Anchorage police investigate hit-and-run involving pedestrian

  14-01-2017 20:58
  
  Eric Ruble/KTVA
  Last updated at 11:07 a.m. on Saturday, Jan. 14
  The Anchorage Police Department is investigating a hit-and-run involving a pedestrian on Elmore Road Saturday morning.
  Police issued their first Nixle alert about the collision at 5:43 a.m., asking the public to avoid the area while they investigated. Police initially closed Elmore Road between 72nd and 88th Avenues and later reopened the road.
  In a later Nixle, police said the vehicle involved was likely a metallic, dark grey, fou
  
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• Craig tribe gets Alaska’s first federal land trust

  14-01-2017 20:28
  
  About an acre owned by the Craig Tribal Association will be the first Alaska Native land to go into trust with the federal government.
  The Ketchikan Daily News reports the U.S. Department of the Interior announced the decision Friday.
  A July court decision ended a long-standing practice barring Alaska Native land from going into trust.
  Land trusts put tribes in an ownership partnership with the federal government. Some perks include the ability to tap into more federal funding.
  Craig Tribal Asso
  
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• City inspectors show what’s inside of the ‘vacant’ Northern Lights Hotel

  14-01-2017 06:47
  
  A midtown Anchorage hotel that’s sat vacant for more than 12 years hasn’t been vacant at all, according to the Anchorage Fire Department. Fire inspector James Gray said he inspected the Northern Lights Hotel in late-September and found signs that people had been living there recently.
  This week the municipality released video from the inspection that was conducted on Sept. 28. There was trash, clothing, bottles, food and broken glass. The video showed bathtubs full of garbage an
  
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• Inside the Gates: The importance of JBER’s sound system

  14-01-2017 06:29
  
  If you live near Joint Base Elmedorf-Richardson, you’ve likely heard the sounds of the military base in action; the guns firing, the planes taking off everyday like clockwork, and the base-wide sound system relaying everything from alert messages to the national anthem.
  The music and messages are broadcast all around the base by a network of speakers. Maintaining them is a year-round job.
  “When people hear I’m in the Air Force, the first thing they ask is what plane I fly, &rdq
  
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• Teen charged in Grunwald murder listed as ‘suspect’ in separate death investigation

  14-01-2017 06:19
  
  “New information” has prompted Alaska State Troopers to reopen the case of the death of 16-year-old Frank Woodford. The teen was found shot in the chest over the summer at a home in Wasilla, according to an AST incident report.
  The two people in the room with him at the time of the shooting were Austin Barrett and Damien Peterson, trooper Jared Noll wrote in the report.
  Barrett, 19, is one of the teens charged in connection with the death of David Grunwald. Peterson, 19, is the
  
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• Alaska sues federal agencies over hunting prohibitions

  14-01-2017 05:04
  
  ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – The state of Alaska is suing two federal agencies over game management on national refuges and preserves.
  The lawsuit filed Friday against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service challenges their prohibition of certain hunting methods and management techniques approved by the state.
  Among the “customary and traditional methods of harvest” the lawsuit says are prohibited by the agencies is the killing of black bears in dens using
  
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• Diverse Mountain View school celebrates Martin Luther King Jr.

  14-01-2017 03:39
  
  Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. would have celebrated his 88th birthday Sunday. While the rest of the national will honor his life and legacy Monday, students at William Tyson Elementary School got a head start during a school assembly Friday.
  Students at the Mountain View school performed songs, poems, and dances to honor King.
  According to school Staff, the school is among the most diverse in the nation.
  Students, such as fifth-grader A’jane’e Dickerson, s
  
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• ConocoPhillips’ big new find on the North Slope could help replenish pipeline

  14-01-2017 03:00 via ktoo.org
  
  Pipelines stretch twoards the horizon on NPR-A land leased by ConocoPhillips. The company announced it has found 300 million barrels of recoverable oil nearby. (photo by Elizabeth Harball/Alaska’s Energy Desk)
  ConocoPhillips today announced a major oil find in the National Petroleum-Reserve Alaska (NPR-A). The company is calling it the Willow Discovery. Experts say coupled with several other recent big discoveries in the region, it could portend a new wave of oil development on the North S
  
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• USDA Rural Development Alaska director warns of changing fiscal times

  14-01-2017 02:55
  
  In the midst of celebrating projects that have enhanced the quality of life in rural Alaska, the state director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development (USDA-RD) made it clear that the way Alaskans secure funding for those projects has to change.
  On Thursday, the state USDA-RD office released an eight-year progress report, detailing $2.16 billion in loans and grants to rural Alaska.
  The agency held a news conference the same day, where state director Jim Nordlund p
  
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• Nome woman found dead in Anchorage parking lot

  14-01-2017 01:33 via ktoo.org
  
  A missing person case for Anchorage police turned into a death investigation on Thursday.
  A graduate of Nome-Beltz Junior/Senior High School, Martina Painter, 25, was found dead Thursday afternoon. She was the only person in a blue four-door Dodge Dart located in a parking lot near University Lake Park in Anchorage.
  A family member had contacted Anchorage Police Department about 11 p.m. Wednesday and filed a missing person’s report, claiming Painter had gone out for the evening w
  
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• Mic Check in the Morning: Davinci Willz

  14-01-2017 00:58
  
  Fresh off releasing his latest track, “Old Me,” Alaska-born hip-hop artist Davinci Willz performed on Daybreak’s Mic Check in the Morning Friday. Willz started writing his own music in high school. Since then he’s joined a local record label, Def Legends, and is expected to release an EP soon.
  In high school, Willz was inspired to start writing his own rhymes by a live performance. As a young boy, he says he was influenced by a wide array of genres and has formed them int
  
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• Southwest Alaska community sees small outbreak of HIV cases

  14-01-2017 00:40
  
  Five new cases of HIV in one unnamed Alaska village have been reported to state health officials, according to a report released Thursday.
  The small outbreak, or cluster, began with one individual who tested positive in February of 2016. Two more cases were reported in October and November, and two additional people tested positive as officials began investigating.
  The cases were reported in an unnamed community within the Bristol Bay region, KDLG confirmed.
  There was concern that the HIV might
  
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• Conflict of interest, corporate tax bills proposed in Alaska

  14-01-2017 00:40
  
  JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – An incoming Alaska lawmaker has proposed legislation he says is aimed at greater transparency.
  The bill, from Rep.-elect Jason Grenn, relates to potential conflicts of interest and is among the measures released Friday ahead of the new legislative session, which starts Tuesday.
  Grenn, an Anchorage independent, says the bill will need to be accompanied by a change in legislative rules allowing for a vote of the House or Senate when a member asks to be excused from voti
  
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• Trump team: Top adviser talked with Russian ambassador before U.S. hacking response

  14-01-2017 00:16 via ktoo.org
  
  The man tapped to be national security adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, retired Gen. Michael Flynn, exchanged text messages and spoke with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, in December — around the time of the Obama administration’s response to Russian interference during the presidential campaign, a spokesman for Trump acknowledged Friday.
  But Sean Spicer, the spokesman and incoming White House press secretary, insisted all of this contact happened befor
  
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• 40 years later, John McPhee’s book still brings fans to Eagle, Alaska

  14-01-2017 00:10 via ktoo.org
  
  Post Office building in Eagle during spring ice break-up. John Borg was the postmaster and mayor of Eagle when author John McPhee came through in 1976. (Photo courtesy of Brad Snow & Lilly Allen Collection. Alaska and Polar Regions Collections, University of Alaska Fairbanks)
  John Borg was the mayor and postmaster of Eagle, Alaska, in the late 1970s when author John McPhee came through to research for his best-selling book “Coming into the Country.” For 40 years now, readers come
  
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