Anchorage news

• North Korea tops agenda for Rex Tillerson’s China visit

  18-03-2017 21:20
  
  U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Saturday pushed for closer China-U.S. cooperation on dealing with North Korea’s nuclear program in his first face-to-face talks with top Chinese diplomats.
  When Tillerson arrived in the country, he stepped into an arena where the U.S. is facing a barrage of challenges from trade to the South China Sea, but America’s biggest foreign policy problem – North Korea – topped the agenda, CBS News correspondent Adriana Diaz reports. Tiller
  
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• Judge denies expedited hearing to allow invocation op-ed

  18-03-2017 20:46
  
  An Alaska Superior Court judge has denied a Kenai Peninsula Borough Assembly member’s request for an expedited hearing that would have allowed him to publish an op-ed supporting an ordinance that would remove prayer from the beginning of assembly meetings.
  The Peninsula Clarion reports that Homer assembly member Willy Dunne was challenging the assembly’s contract with a legal nonprofit that is representing the assembly against a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of
  
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• Troopers: Palmer man wanted for child pornography charges

  18-03-2017 20:38
  
  Alaska State Troopers have issued an arrest warrant for a Palmer man accused of possessing and distributing child pornography.
  Troopers charged 30-year-old Treyvon Johnson with 10 counts each of distribution of child pornography and possession of child pornography, as well as a single count of evidence tampering. 
  The investigation in Johnson’s alleged crimes began on Jan. 22, according to an online trooper dispatch.
  The warrant against Johnson set a bail of $50,000 with a t
  
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• Inside the Gates: Training for JRTC

  18-03-2017 20:18
  
  In June, the 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, known as the 4-25 Airborne Brigade Combat Team, will be going to the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) in Fort Polk, Louisiana. It was a last-minute training opportunity the brigade couldn’t turn down, so now the soldiers are scrambling to prepare.
  For three weeks, gunner Pfc. Elier Diaz and his fellow soldiers will basically be living on base, in the wilderness training area. A camouflage net tent and a truck se
  
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• Lion’s Club Gold Medal hoops begin Sunday

  18-03-2017 20:00 via ktoo.org
  
  When church ends this Sunday the religion of basketball will begin.
  “Gold Medal is the grandpa of all tournaments,” Lion Monarch Dr. Walter A. Soboleff (1908-2011) once said.
  Soboleff saw the first Gold Medal in 1947 when Petersburg came by fishing boat to take the championship.
  He would let teams sleep and eat at his ministry in the Presbyterian Memorial Church.
  “As long as they didn’t make too much of a racket bouncing balls all night,” Soboleff said.
  Soboleff kn
  
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• Musher deals with devastating news on the trail

  18-03-2017 08:02
  
  Iditarod competitors were allowed to carry and use cell phones for the first time during the race.
  For one musher a call home didn’t go as planned.
  Minnesota musher Gunnar Johnson was at the Galena checkpoint when he caught up with our KTVA crew. He was enjoying life off of the grid.
  “Since I started the race I haven’t had any cell service, I haven’t had any Wi-Fi,” he told Dave Goldman. “I’m living the wireless life and it’s refreshing. I feel a l
  
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• Sitka representative suggests citizen commission handle legislative per diem

  18-03-2017 05:00
  
  A day after the Alaska House majority changed its mind about cutting lawmakers’ per diem payments, a member of the Democrat-lead coalition introduced a bill that would place future decisions on the issue in the hands of a citizen commission — The State Officers Compensation Commission.
  “The per diem issue has been hugely politicized and it seems like a common sense approach,” said Rep. Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins (D-Sitka), who introduced House Bill 181 Friday.
  Kreiss-Tomkins
  
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• Wasilla lawmaker proposes moving legislative session to Anchorage

  18-03-2017 04:34
  
  It’s an idea that gets tossed around every few years — the possibility of moving the legislative session to Anchorage. A bill introduced by Wasilla representative Colleen Sullivan-Leonard hopes to make that happen permanently. 
  Sullivan-Leonard introduced House Bill 185 Friday. She said the goal is to make it easier for members of the public to watch over legislative action, participate in hearings and meet with their lawmakers during session.
  “My intent is to move the leg
  
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• House cuts $17 million for U-Med Road, Mayor wants the money for port

  18-03-2017 04:09
  
  After a week’s worth of work, the Alaska House is now poised to pass a budget. Missing from it is money Anchorage had its eye on — $17 million for the controversial U-Med Road project. The project has been stalled since Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz withdrew support in 2015.
  Democrats won support to give the money back to the state for education, killing the project.
  “Moving this $17 million of a project that has been delayed and has been told by the local municipal
  
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• Next phase of Seward Highway improvements to last 2 years

  18-03-2017 04:01
  
  Drivers along the Seward Highway may see big changes soon. Starting at the end of March, Homer Drive and Brayton Drive, the highway frontage roads between Dimond and Dowling, will be closed to regular traffic.
  Alaska Department of Transportation spokeswoman Shannon McCarthy said it’s part of the latest phase of highway improvements that’s expected to last for the next two years.
  McCarthy said widening the highway to six lanes between Dowling and Dimond will mean traffic must be shift
  
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• Josephine’s Dream: Mom forms scholarship in daughter’s memory

  18-03-2017 03:50
  
  An Anchorage mother is working to make her daughter’s dream come true, but for someone else.
  On June 19, 22-year-old Josephine Goodman was killed after falling from the top of a seven-story parking garage Downtown.
  The medical examiner ruled Josephine’s death a suicide, but her mother isn’t so certain.“I don’t believe it,” Josephine’s mother Ada Goodman said. “ I had to figure out the story for myself.”
  Goodman says Josephine struggled with d
  
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• Italian company submits plan to drill for oil in the Arctic

  18-03-2017 02:23 via ktoo.org
  
  Melting ice of the Beaufort Sea near where Eni hopes to drill for oil. (Photo courtesy NOAA)
  Italian energy company Eni this month submitted an exploration plan to drill for oil in federal waters in the Beaufort Sea.
  Last November, the Obama administration removed the Arctic Ocean from new oil and gas leasing for five years, but Eni secured its leases before that decision was made.
  The company currently holds 75 leases in federal waters in Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, according to its website.
  Eni
  
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• House passes deep cut to per diem allowances

  18-03-2017 01:35 via ktoo.org
  
  Rep. Tammie Wilson, R-North Pole, reads through a series of amendments to the state’s budget on March 7. She proposed cutting legislators’ per diem allowances. The House passed a similar proposal. (Photo by Rashah McChesney/Alaska’s Energy Desk)
  The House voted to cut the money to pay for lawmakers’ daily expenses during the legislative session by three-quarters.
  It was one of a dozen amendments to the budget that the House passed, while the body rejected more t
  
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• Feds worry oil pipeline near leaking Cook Inlet gas line also at risk

  18-03-2017 01:31 via ktoo.org
  
  Cook Inlet oil platforms are visible from shore near Kenai, Alaska. (Photo by Rashah McChesney/Alaska’s Energy Desk)
  Federal regulators are raising concerns about a second pipeline in Cook Inlet.
  It’s been more than a month since the oil and gas company Hilcorp discovered a leak in a natural gas pipeline fueling one of its offshore drilling platforms. That line continues to leak methane into the Inlet near Nikiski. The company has said, due to hazardous ice conditions, repairs are un
  
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• Travel ban legal battles continue, as administration appeals new injunction

  18-03-2017 01:20 via ktoo.org
  
  The Trump administration is appealing a federal judge’s decision to temporarily block the president’s second travel ban from going into effect — setting up another legal showdown in an appeals court.
  The first version of the ban, temporarily suspending the U.S. refugee program and barring entry into the U.S. from residents of seven majority-Muslim countries, was quickly blocked by a federal judge in Washington state. The Justice Department appealed that temporary restraining or
  
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• Lessons learned on the basketball court: You have to play defense

  18-03-2017 00:38 via ktoo.org
  
  
  Yakutat’s Martin Sensmeier (14) shoots over Angoon defenders during their B Bracket elimination game at the Juneau Lions Club 69th Gold Medal Basketball Tournament in 2015. (Photo courtesy Klas Stolpe)
  I once scored 32 points in a Gold Medal Tournament B bracket game. And we lost.
  You see, you have to play defense, too, if you want to advance in the week-long tournament.
  Defenses used against me at Gold Medal have resulted in my body being airborne on a layup and promptly undercut to
  
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