Anchorage news

• Alaska man unharmed after bear climbed on top of him

  02-07-2017 23:03
  
  JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – Wildlife officials say an Alaska man is unharmed after a bear climbed on top of him.
  Tom Schumacher with the Alaska Department of Fish & Game says the bear approached the man and his Rottweiler as they were walking near Dredge Lake in Juneau on Friday. According to Schumacher, the dog had been walking about 50 feet (15.24 meters) ahead of his owner when he returned being chased by the bear.
  The man led the bear away from his dog and sat down to avoid being knocked
  
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• US Forest Service extends public comment period for project

  02-07-2017 22:43
  
  KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) – The U.S. Forest Service has extended the public comment period for a proposed tree harvesting initiative.
  The Ketchikan Daily News reports people will have until July 13 to comment on the Forest Service’s plan to harvest young-growth timber on a parcel of land on the north end of Gravina Island, located 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) west of Ketchikan.
  A majority of the proposed area is owned by the Forest Service, but about one-third of it is owned by the Sta
  
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• Scientists alarmed by “mortality disaster” among whales

  02-07-2017 21:24
  
  In this Jan. 15, 2011 photo, a team cuts the ropes wrapped around a young North Atlantic right whale off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Fla. Researchers succeeded in using sedatives to calm down and free the endangered North Atlantic right whale tangled in fishing line. AP
  PORTLAND, Maine — Marine scientists are alarmed by the deaths of six endangered North Atlantic right whales in Canadian waters during the past three weeks and say humans must help protect them.
  North Atlantic right wh
  
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• E.coli outbreak hits polygamist Utah town

  02-07-2017 21:16
  
  This Dec. 16, 2014, file photo, shows Hildale, Utah, sitting at the base of Red Rock Cliff mountains, with its sister city, Colorado City, Ariz., in the foreground. AP PHOTO/RICK BOWME
  HILDALE, Utah — Utah health authorities say they are investigating an outbreak of E.coli after two children died in a city on the Arizona border that’s home to a polygamist Mormon sect.
  The Salt Lake Tribune reports that the Southwest Utah Public Health Department said Saturday that the investigation i
  
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• Update: Glacier visitor center reopened; police continue search for break-in suspect

  02-07-2017 19:31 via ktoo.org
  
  District Ranger Brad Orr standing behind the barricade blocking the Mendenhall Glacier Recreation Area to traffic, Sunday. (Photo by Quinton Chandler/KTOO)
  Update | 3:00 p.m. Sunday
  The U.S. Forest Service has reopened the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center and most of the trails connected to it.
  Forest Service spokesman Paul Robbins Jr. said every trail is open except for the Dredge Lakes trail system. Those trails were closed before the alleged break-in after a bear attacked a dog walker on Fri
  
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• Juneau police searching for suspect in possible break-in at glacier visitor center

  02-07-2017 19:31 via ktoo.org
  
  (Creative Commons photo by Jasperdo)
  Early Sunday morning, a security camera recorded a possible break-in at Mendenhall Glacier Visitor Center, according to the Alaska Region Forest Service.
  In a series of tweets, the Forest Service said that the road to the glacier was closed and that law enforcement is asking everyone to avoid the area. Police are currently searching for the suspect.
  PUBLIC NOTICE: PUBLIC NOTICE: Early Sunday morning, 7/2, there was a break in at the Mendenhall Glacier Visitor
  
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• Anchorage hosts changing of the guard for new police chief

  02-07-2017 05:22 via ktoo.org
  
  ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The Anchorage Police Department has sworn in its next chief of police.
  KTUU-TV reports the department had a changing of the guard ceremony on Friday, with Chris Tolley passing his spot at the helm on to Justin Doll.
  Tolley had been the department’s chief of police for roughly two years and says he plans to spend more time with his wife. He indicated he would be staying in Anchorage for some time.
  Doll was previously a captain with the department. He has worke
  
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• Bear crashes through window of Alaska’s boy’s bedroom

  02-07-2017 05:21 via ktoo.org
  
  ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A huge crash jolted 11-year-old Zach Landis awake in his Anchorage home, but it soon became clear this wasn’t an ordinary intruder or even his sisters playing a trick on him.
  A black bear had just broken through the garden-level window of Zach’s tiny bedroom and was whimpering like a scared dog in the room. The boy screamed, and the man-sized animal bolted out the window and disappeared.
  The boy scrambled over shattered glass and ran upstairs to tell hi
  
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• Coin to mark Alaska’s landmark 1945 civil rights law

  02-07-2017 05:20 via ktoo.org
  
  JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The U.S. Mint has proposed a new $1 coin with designs honoring a landmark anti-discrimination law that passed in territorial Alaska in 1945, years before the U.S. Civil Rights Act.
  The Alaska Native woman influential in the law’s passage, Elizabeth Peratrovich, is featured on most of the design options. The new coin, scheduled for release in 2020, is part of a mint program honoring Native Americans.
  Peratrovich’s powerful testimony is credited as pivotal i
  
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• Gunman who ambushed Baton Rouge officers searched for police home addresses

  02-07-2017 05:16 via ktoo.org
  
  A Baton Rouge police officer kneels at the casket of Cpl. Montrell Jackson, one of three officers ambushed and killed by a gunman July 17, 2016.
  Patrick Dennis/AP
  The gunman who set an ambush last summer for police in Baton Rouge, La., had written about killing officers before the attack, according to a new report released Friday by the local prosecutor.
  A surveillance camera image showing the gunman who shot three Baton Rouge police officers, killing three, last year.
  East Baton Rouge District
  
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• Research group finds toxin in Auke Rec butter clams

  02-07-2017 05:10 via ktoo.org
  
  Alexandrium is a genus of dinoflagellates that leads to paralytic shellfish poisoning. This cell was identified by a team of researchers at NOAA’s biotoxin testing lab in Seattle. (Photo courtesy of NOAA).
  Those butter clams you just found may not be safe to eat if you harvested them near Juneau’s Auke Recreation Area.
  In a new report released Friday, Southeast Alaska Tribal Ocean Research found high levels of biotoxin that causes Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning inside the butter clams
  
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• Nevada pot shops see green as sales of legal recreational marijuana begin

  02-07-2017 04:57
  
  LAS VEGAS — Nevada became the fifth state in the U.S. with stores selling marijuana for recreational purposes, opening a market early Saturday that is eventually expected to outpace any other in the nation thanks to the millions of tourists who flock to Las Vegas.
  People began purchasing marijuana shortly after midnight, just months after voters approved legalization in November and marking the fastest turnaround from the ballot box to retail sales in the country.
  Many pot shops have been
  
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• More than 4 in 10 Trump White House staffers earn six-figure salaries

  02-07-2017 04:52
  
  President Trump speaks on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Oval Office of the White House, on Jan. 28, 2017 in Washington, D.C. Also pictured, from left, White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, Vice President Mike Pence, White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, and Press Secretary Sean Spicer. Getty
  WASHINGTON— More than 40 percent of White House staffers earn in excess of $100,000 a year, according to new salary data the White House released Friday.
  A White Hous
  
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• Bread to beer, and back again

  02-07-2017 04:43
  
  As craft beer market competition has increased, brewers are looking to bump their sales in new ways.
  At brewer Toast Ale, the brewmasters are taking the phrase “reuse and recycle” to an entirely different level. They’re turning leftover bread into beer in an effort to combat food waste.
  The innovative beer company, founded in London, brews beer using leftover bread that would usually be discarded or in some cases turned into animal feed.
  The founders came up with the idea as a
  
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• Medication dating back to the 1800s stolen in Homer

  02-07-2017 04:37 via ktoo.org
  
  (Flickr photo courtesy scoutnurse)
  Tracking down antique vials of medication dating back to the late 1800s isn’t typically on the Homer Police Department’s agenda, but it is this week. A long-time Homer resident reported a box full of antique medical supplies stolen Tuesday. Some of the items taken were destined to return to the village of Wiseman, where they were collected nearly 70 years ago.
  Judith James has been gathering several items belonging to her deceased husband, Walter Jo
  
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• A Sitka mobile plant built to chill out the Bristol Bay fishery

  02-07-2017 04:36 via ktoo.org
  
  Pat Glaab, right, Ben Blakey, middle, and Roger aboard their processor at Sitka’s Gary Paxton Industrial Park. They’re staking around $2 million on the idea that fish buyers will pay a premium for Bristol Bay sockeye that’s been chilled down immediately after harvest. (Photo by Robert Woolsey/KCAW)
  Alaska’s Bristol Bay sockeye fishery is intense, lucrative — and also remote. Much of the fish landed there is frozen whole and shipped long distances for secondary
  
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• Studies shed light on teen mental health after concussions

  02-07-2017 04:34
  
  Most teen athletes don’t go on to suffer long term depression after concussion, two new studies suggest. CBS News
  Two new studies offer good news for any high school athlete who’s suffered a concussion: For most athletes, mental or physical effects may resolve themselves over the long term.
  One study involving more than 260 high school athletes who’d suffered a concussion found they had no bigger risk for depression within about two years after the injury, compared to peers who
  
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• Saturday parking enforcement begins on two-hour limits on downtown meters

  02-07-2017 03:38
  
   
  A new pilot program aimed at increasing turnover in downtown parking started Saturday morning, and lead enforcement officer Chris Kersbergen remains hopeful it will bring more customers to spend time in the area.
  Parking will remain free on Saturdays and Sundays, but, anyone who leaves their car parked at a meter for more than two hours will be issued a $20 citation.
  This month, people who leave their car at a parking meter downtown for more than two hours will only get a warning slip. K
  
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• Teen birth rate drops again to all-time low: CDC

  02-07-2017 01:45
  
  Teen births in the United States dropped to a record low last year, falling 9 percent from 2015, U.S. health officials reported Friday.
  The overall birth rate declined, too, dropping 1 percent between 2015 and 2016, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The total number of births in 2016 was 3,941,109.
  Moreover, the fertility rate declined to 62 births per 1,000 among women of childbearing age — a record low for the nation, researchers foun
  
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• The race to revive woolly mammoths using ancient DNA

  02-07-2017 01:38
  
  Like “Jurassic Park,” what if you could use the science of DNA to resurrect long-extinct creatures that once roamed the earth?
  Efforts to do that are actually underway.
  Led by Dr. George Church – “the Einstein of our times,” according to author Ben Mezrich – a lab at Harvard Medical School is working on bringing back the woolly mammoth through genetic engineering.The process is detailed in Mezrich’s new book, “Woolly: The True Story of the Quest to
  
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• Body of missing 5-year-old boy Aramazd Andressian Jr. found in California

  02-07-2017 01:27
  
  Aramazd Andressian Jr. CBS Los Angeles
  LOS ANGELES — The body of a 5-year-old boy missing since April has been found.
  The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department confirmed to CBS Los Angeles Saturday that the body of Aramazd Andressian Jr. was found after homicide detectives returned to the Lake Cachuma area of Santa Barbara County Friday “in an effort to locate additional evidence.”
  The exact location where the boy’s remains were located were not confirmed. Wh
  
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• In tweet blitz, Trump defends his use of social media

  02-07-2017 01:05
  
  BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (AP) – President Donald Trump escalated an intensely personal feud with two high-profile talk show hosts Saturday, suggesting without evidence that their network is biased against him.
  The president’s stream of insults has pained politicians from both parties who have appealed to him, without apparent success, to stop the 140-character bursts of character attacks and focus on running the country. Saturday evening, Trump was at it again.
  Crazy Joe Scarborough and dum
  
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• 11-year-old Alaska boy shoots bear charging fishing party

  02-07-2017 00:47
  
  HOONAH, Alaska (AP) – Alaska State Troopers say quick action from an 11-year-old boy saved a fishing party from a charging brown bear.
  The Juneau Empire reports Elliot Clark was walking through the woods near Game Creek last week with his three family members and three dogs when the bear came out and charged them.
  Elliot’s father says the bear ran through two of the men, leaving Elliot and his cousin left in its path. Elliott raised his pump action shotgun and shot the bear with bird
  
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• Running Mount Marathon with limited vision

  02-07-2017 00:24
  
  Running up and down Mount Marathon has become a yearly event for 12-year-old Rennick Heatwole. He first ran the Junior race in 2014.
  “It was hard because I was working to do my best and not fall off the trail,” he said.
  Rennick Heatwole finishing Mount Marathon in 2016
  Rennick is significantly visually impaired.
  “When I stick my arm out everything behind it is a blur, on the trail that’s kinda tricky,” he said.
  Rennick was born with an eye condition called optic ner
  
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