Anchorage news

• US Attorney for Alaska Karen Loeffler submits resignation

  13-03-2017 23:35
  
  Karen Loeffler spoke at a joint press conference on Florida shooter Esteban Santiago, along with APD and FBI officials
  The U.S. attorney for Alaska has submitted her resignation.
  President Donald Trump on Friday requested the resignation of Karen Loeffler and 45 other U.S. attorneys appointed by President Barack Obama.
  Loeffler submitted her resignation letter Monday.
  Loeffler worked for the U.S. Department of Justice for 29 years, including the last eight as U.S. attorney for Alaska.
  She says
  
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• CBO releases analysis of House GOP health care bill

  13-03-2017 23:18
  
  Last Updated Mar 13, 2017 5:39 PM EDT
  The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its analysis of the Republican health-care bill Monday.
  CBO says that by 2018, 14 million more people would be uninsured under the legislation than under current law.
  According to the CBO analysis, the legislation would reduce federal deficits by $337 billion over the next decade, with the largest savings coming from reductions in Medicaid outlays and the reduction of Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies.
  HHS Sec
  
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• Update: Tied-up ferry Taku is for sale

  13-03-2017 23:02 via ktoo.org
  
  The state ferry Taku is for sale. The minimum price for the 54-year-old ship is $1.5 million.
  The ferry Taku waits to load passengers in Sitka while it was still sailing. It’s been tied up and now is for sale. (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld/CoastAlaska News)
  Alaska Marine Highway officials announced theinvitation to bid Saturday. The deadline for proposals is May 9.
  The Taku is tied up at Ketchikan’s Ward Cove. It was taken out of service in June of 2015 due to budget cuts and other fa
  
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• Tied-up ferry Taku is for sale

  13-03-2017 23:02 via ktoo.org
  
  The state ferry Taku is for sale to the highest bidder. The minimum price for the 54-year-old ship is $1.5 million.
  The ferry Taku waits to load passengers in Sitka while it was still sailing. It’s been tied up and now is for sale.  (Photo by Ed Schoenfeld./CoastAlaska News)
  Alaska Marine Highway officials announced the invitation to bid Saturday. The deadline for proposals is May 9.
  The Taku has been tied up at Ketchikan’s Ward Cove for more than a year. It’s built for lo
  
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• Alaska ferry for sale, state seeks at least $1.5 million

  13-03-2017 22:53
  
  The state of Alaska is offering for sale a ferry that it says it no longer can afford to maintain and operate.
  The state transportation department, in a release, says the minimum bid price for the Taku will be $1.5 million. Sealed bids are due by May 9.
  The department says it’s selling the Taku “As Is/Where Is,” to the highest bidder. The vessel is at a mooring facility at Ketchikan.
  The department previously offered to give the vessel to other state agencies or to local govern
  
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• Bearss Blog: Can Mitch Seavey be caught?

  13-03-2017 22:52
  
  Mitch Seavey at the Kaltag checkpoint. (David Poyzer / KTVA) (David Poyzer / KTVA) Mitch Seavey arrives in NulatoMegan Edge/KTVA (David Poyzer / KTVA)
  Mitch Seavey has proclaimed he is likely on his way to winning his third Iditarod. His competitors — Dallas, Joar and Wade — concede they are vying for second best barring a Mitch mistake or Mother Nature intervening with a storm. Only one musher who remains within reach of even contemplating a surge to the front has yet to concede an
  
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• School buses stuck in snow, district pushes on despite parents’ disaproval

  13-03-2017 22:50 via ktoo.org
  
  A school bus drives down Front Street on Monday morning, March 13, 2017, in downtown Juneau. (Photo courtesy Tripp J Crouse)
  Update | 2:10 p.m. Monday
  The National Weather Service in Juneau reports 10.6 inches of snow has fallen at their office in Mendenhall Valley since midnight Monday.
  Original Story | 1:50 p.m. Monday
  Several school buses were stuck in the snow Monday morning.
  David Means, director of administrative services for the Juneau School District oversees busing services.
  “Ther
  
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• School buses stuck in snow, district pushes on despite parents’ disapproval

  13-03-2017 22:50 via ktoo.org
  
  A school bus drives down Front Street on Monday morning, March 13, 2017, in downtown Juneau. (Photo courtesy Tripp J Crouse)
  Update | 2:10 p.m. Monday
  The National Weather Service in Juneau reports 10.6 inches of snow has fallen at their office in Mendenhall Valley since midnight Monday.
  Original Story | 1:50 p.m. Monday
  Several school buses were stuck in the snow Monday morning.
  David Means, director of administrative services for the Juneau School District oversees busing services.
  “Ther
  
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• Iditarod’s mid-pack mushers prepare final pushes to Nome

  13-03-2017 22:42 via ktoo.org
  
  Iditarod mushers face a grueling next few days.
  Not just those fighting tooth-and-nail at the top of the pack but, also, everyone else with competitive ambitions jockeying for spots in the top 10, 20 and 30.
  At this point in the race, the leader board is hardly set in stone. At the Kaltag checkpoint, a lot of mid-pack mushers are getting ready to make moves.
  This is the fourth Iditarod for Katherine Keith of Kotzebue, but she’s not where she wants to be.
  “I had hoped for a top 15 or
  
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• Alaska Weather Forecast – March 13, 2017

  13-03-2017 22:41
  
  The sunshine continues today in Anchorage, along with breezy conditions. We can expect afternoon highs near 30 degrees, but the wind will keep it feeling chillier in most spots.
  We’ll see north winds of 10 to 20 mph, with gusts of 30 to 35 mph at times. We’ll see the breeze stick around through at least Wednesday.
  Today we gain 5 hours and 44 minutes of daylight, making our day 11 hours and 36 minutes long. Sunset this evening will be around 8 p.m.
  Iditarod Weather
  Conditions along t
  
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• Haines manager shortlist down to 3 after candidate withdraws from consideration

  13-03-2017 22:12 via ktoo.org
  
  Patrick Jordan, Debra Schnabel, and Brad Ryan are the three candidates remaining on the assembly’s shortlist.
  The list of finalists for the Haines borough manager job is one person shorter.
  Gene Green has withdrawn his name from consideration. He was one of four applicants the borough Assembly shortlisted last week.
  Green is currently a project manager in Oregon City. He has more than 30 years of municipal administration experience, including a stint as Unalaska assistant city manager in t
  
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• Teacher of the Week: Vani Pillai

  13-03-2017 22:06
  
  Vani Pillai may be a teacher, but she prefers to act more like a facilitator in her Bioscience Career Academy classes at Service High School.
  By guiding her students to figure things out for themselves, she believes their curiosity will be piqued and they’ll better understand the lessons. One way she does this is by not directly answering her students’ questions.
  “So if you ask me, ‘What is the function of this?’, I lead you in other ways to find that function,&rdqu
  
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• Snowmachine strikes dog sled during race in Fairbanks

  13-03-2017 21:58
  
  A man who seemed headed for the winning spot in a Fairbanks sled dog race ended up in second place after his sled was struck by a snowmachine during the final stretch.
  The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports (http://bit.ly/2mk53un) the incident happened Sunday during the Annamaet Limited North American Championships.
  Kourosh Partow of Chugiak had been leading the eight-dog mushing class for the first two days of the event when he was struck by a snowmachine driver during the 12-mile final heat.
  P
  
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• Video: Is the Cook Inlet gas leak contributing to global warming?

  13-03-2017 21:25 via ktoo.org
  
  A natural gas pipeline in Alaska has been leaking methane into the atmosphere since at least early February. Dr. Katey Walter Anthony from the University of Alaska Fairbanks helps to put the size of that leak into perspective.
  
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• Iditarod changes dropped dog transport standards following Friday death

  13-03-2017 20:58 via ktoo.org
  
  Update | 12:37 p.m. Monday
  The Iditarod Trail Committee said it’s changing protocols for how it transports dropped sled dogs after an one died Friday while in the organization’s care.
  An early necropsy on the dog showed it had overheated, dying of hyperthermia while on board a plane.
  Scott Smith is lighting a crumpled pile of straw to get a fire going in his cooker.
  His team is spread out on straw in the warm sunshine as he talks about Smoke, the young dog that died.
  Even though Smi
  
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• Ask the Energy Desk: What happens when our hydropower sources are frozen?

  13-03-2017 20:56 via ktoo.org
  
  Snow falls on the Governor’s mansion in Juneau. The capital city is under a winter storm warming, as of Monday, March 13. (Photo by Elizabeth Jenkins/Alaska’s Energy Desk)
  Parts of interior Alaska, like Fairbanks, have been seeing record cold temperatures this winter. But in Southeast Alaska, the frigid conditions have had a direct impact on the way people power their homes.
  I haven’t seen any icicle beards around town, but Juneau has been noticeably cold. We’ve had
  
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• Police find 2 dead dogs in Chugiak home; woman arrested on animal cruelty charges

  13-03-2017 20:30
  
  Anchorage police have arrested a woman on animal cruelty charges after finding two deceased dogs inside her home and another underweight dog in her office.
  The Anchorage Police Department got a call from someone in Chugiak on March 6 who expressed concern for a neighbor with health problems “who had not been seen in quite a while,” according to a release.
  When officers responded to the home on the 21600 block of Oberg Road, “through the window police could see a lifeless d
  
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• Rep. Steve King stands by controversial tweet about ‘somebody else’s babies’

  13-03-2017 20:02 via ktoo.org
  
  Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King, who has a history of controversial statements on immigration and race, is drawing condemnation for a Sunday tweet in support of a right-wing Dutch politician, in which King wrote, “We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies.”Wilders understands that culture and demographics are our destiny. We can’t restore our civilization with somebody else’s babies. https://t.co/4nxLipafWO
  — Steve King (@SteveKingIA)
  
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• Old Muldoon Road standoff underway after report of armed roommate

  13-03-2017 19:40
  
  SWAT has been involved in a standoff in the Muldoon area since 8:30 a.m. after getting a report of an armed roommate inside a home at the 3400 block of Old Muldoon Road, according to a release from the Anchorage Police Department.
  Just after 5 a.m., police received a report that a residential alarm had been triggered at a home. When they arrived to the scene, APD received a second call from a female living in the home.
  “The female stated she was woken up by her male roo
  
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• ‘We’re just out’: Bergmann tenants turn to Salvation Army

  13-03-2017 19:05 via ktoo.org
  
  
  http://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/ktoo/2017/03/11BergmanEDIT.mp3Closing the Bergmann Hotel left some of its tenants homeless and now they’re wondering what they’ll do next.
  The Glory Hole soup kitchen is the only short-term shelter open to men, women and children in Juneau. It’s the perfect place for Charlie Joseph to stay warm and wait out the day.
  Charlie Joseph at the Glory Hole on Saturday. (Photo by Quinton Chandler/KTOO)
  Joseph was at a barbecue the night police and othe
  
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• Alaska’s Bogoslof Volcano erupts again, spewing ash cloud

  13-03-2017 18:54
  
  An Alaska volcano that has erupted more than 35 times since mid-December has sent up another ash cloud.
  The Alaska Volcano Observatory says Bogoslof Volcano erupted just after 3:30 a.m. Monday.
  The eruption at the Aleutian Islands volcano lasted 12 minutes and satellite data indicated an ash cloud formed.
  The observatory says winds would have pushed an ash cloud southwest. The magnitude of the eruption was being monitored.
  An eruption of the volcano last week prompted authorities to issue an avi
  
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• Iditarod 45 Race Blog: Lead mushers continue up the coast

  13-03-2017 15:00
  
  View the 2017 Iditarod Trail Map
   The post Iditarod 45 Race Blog: Lead mushers continue up the coast appeared first on KTVA 11.
  
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• Tribal members express concerns over Bethel alcohol sales

  13-03-2017 09:14 via ktoo.org
  
  BETHEL, Alaska (AP) — Tribal members who live near Bethel are asking the City Council to require Bethel liquor stores to only sell alcohol to customers with Bethel IDs.
  KYUK-AM reports that representatives from more than a dozen tribes in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta met in Bethel this week to discuss the impact Bethel’s alcohol sales are having on their villages.
  Many tribal members say they have seen an uptick in domestic violence, drunken driving and other alcohol-related offenses si
  
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• Mitch Seavey, first to Kaltag, is confident yet cautious

  13-03-2017 09:10 via ktoo.org
  
  Mitch Seavey travels on the Yukon River toward Kaltag after leaving Nulato. (Photo by Ben Matheson/KNOM)
  Mitch Seavey is the first Iditarod musher to reach Kaltag. He arrived at the Yukon River checkpoint at 7:40 pm Saturday after running his team from Koyukuk. Seavey blew through Nulato in the heat of the afternoon and declared his eight-hour rest upon checking into Kaltag, the last possible spot. As the race leaves the Yukon River for the 85-mile portage trail to the coast, Seavey was con
  
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• Federal funds encourage Tribal emergency preparedness plans

  13-03-2017 08:59 via ktoo.org
  
  Tribes in Southeast will soon have more say in their emergency preparedness plans. The Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska is the recipient of a $240,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.
  The funding is part of FEMA’s Emergency Management Performance Grant, a national effort to encourage state, local, territorial, and tribal governments in planning for disasters. The Central Council will work alongside Alaska’s Division of Home
  
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• Winter weather continues in southeast Alaska, dry in Southcentral

  13-03-2017 08:18
  
  Winter storm warning in effect for southeast Alaska
  While much of the state continues to see clear and mild weather, the same cannot be said for the Southeast.
  An area of low pressure is delivering snow and rain to the area. The National Weather Service in Juneau reported 6 inches has fallen since 7 a.m. on Douglas Island and 10.25 inches of new snow in Hoonah.
  The snow will continue overnight and through most of Monday. A winter storm warning is in effect until 1 p.m. Monday for Juneau, Haines,
  
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• Intruder arrested after entering White House grounds

  13-03-2017 05:44 via ktoo.org
  
  A member of the Secret Service walks the perimeter of the North Lawn of the White House in Washington, last March. On Friday night, an intruder entered the White House grounds while the President was home. Andrew Harnik/AP
  This story was updated at 5:50 p.m. EDT.
  An intruder carrying mace and a letter for President Trump made it onto the grounds of the White House shortly before midnight Friday, according to the Secret Service.
  President Trump was in the building at the time. The man was taken i
  
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• Boston’s gay veterans will march in St. Patrick’s Day parade

  13-03-2017 05:44 via ktoo.org
  
  OutVets founder Bryan Bishop wears the logo of his group while speaking in Boston. The group has been invited to participate in the city’s privately-run St. Patrick’s Day parade.
  Michael Dwyer/AP
  Updated: March 11, 2:46 p.m. ETAccording to member station WBUR, the OutVet group has accepted the invitation to march in the parade.The organizers of the privately run St. Patrick’s Day parade in Boston have reversed course and will invite a group of LGBTQ veterans to participate in t
  
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• A judge orders one Syrian family’s asylum request be processed

  13-03-2017 05:44 via ktoo.org
  
  A federal judge temporarily blocked enforcement of President Trump’s revised travel ban on Friday, but only as it applies to a family of Syrian asylum seekers.
  The ruling, issued by U.S. District Court Judge William M. Conley, said the wife and 3-year-old daughter of a Syrian Muslim man living in Wisconsin faced the possibility of “suffering irreparable harm” if the executive order forced them to remain in Aleppo. It marks the first legal setback for Trump’s revised order
  
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• Great moments in Iditarod history: Rick Swenson claims fifth win

  13-03-2017 05:41
  
  No one has won more Iditarod wins than Rick Swenson. In 1991, he made history when he took his fifth title.Photos from  Iditarod: The First Ten Years – Rob Stapleton and Frank FlavinThe post Great moments in Iditarod history: Rick Swenson claims fifth win appeared first on KTVA 11.
  
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• Lawmakers demand evidence for Trump’s wiretap claim

  13-03-2017 04:13
  
  The House intelligence committee is asking the Trump administration for evidence that the phones at Trump Tower were tapped during the campaign as its namesake has charged.
  President Donald Trump asserted in a tweet last week: “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” He continued the allegation against former President Barack Obama in other tweets but offered no evidence.
  On Sat
  
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• The business of booties: Anchorage company helps protect paws on the Iditarod trail

  13-03-2017 03:14
  
  An Anchorage business is helping mushers take on the challenge of keeping dogs comfortable and safe during the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race.
  Louise Russell, the owner of dogbooties.com, moved to Anchorage from Duluth, Minnesota three years ago. She creates as many as 300,000 dog booties in her Anchorage warehouse and factory each year.
  “I’ve always sewn all my life, so that comes pretty natural,” Russell said.
  While she has an assistant and an additional staff member one day a
  
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• Zirkle, King pass through Nulato, near site of 2016 snow machine attack

  13-03-2017 03:01
  
  The nearly full moon was glowing through the clouds as Aliy Zirkle pulled into Nulato at 4:21 a.m. on Sunday morning.
  She stayed for barely a minute—just long enough to receive a packet of children’s drawings wishing her luck on her quest to Nome.
  “That’s kind of special,” she said.
  It was one year ago to the day she and her dog team were attacked outside Nulato by a drunken snowmachiner, Arnold Demoski. 
  When asked how she felt being back at the checkpoin
  
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• Wade Marrs first into Unalakleet

  13-03-2017 02:41
  
  Last updated at 5:49 p.m. on Sunday, March 12
  Wade Marrs was the first musher to reach Unalakleet, earning the Wells Fargo Gold Coast award.
  Marrs arrived at the checkpoint at 4:05 p.m. with 13 dogs, according to a release from the Iditarod Trail Committee. He was still in Unalakleet on a rest as of 5:45 p.m.
  Close behind him was Nicholas Petit at 4:08 p.m. He also chose to stay in Unalakleet for the time being.
  Mitch Seavey, who arrived in the checkpoint at 4:23 p.m., didn’t stay long, ta
  
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