Dan Bross, KUAC - Fairbanks

Berries and trash are blamed for bears that have approached hikers on the Granite Tors Trail near Fairbanks. The popular 15 mile loop in Chena River State Recreation Area has been the location of 4 bear human runs ins this summer, including an incident this past weekend in which a black bear ripped a hole in a tent.

The Fairbanks North Star Borough School District is in the software business. The school board approved a licensing agreement Tuesday with two district employees who developed APPTrack, a program for managing Apple devices and applications.

Alaska firefighters are helping battle blazes in the Lower 48 again. Alaska Fire Service spokesman Mel Slater says a total of 200 firefighters headed south this week. The deployment includes village and regional crews managed by the State, Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service.

The Fairbanks Catholic Diocese is marking its 50th anniversary this weekend. Events including a Sunday mass, will recognize the roles, good and bad, the church has played in communities across a large area of the state.

Two bears continue to be a problem along a popular Fairbanks area hiking trail. One of the young grizzly siblings stalked a group of 3 hikers and their dog on the Granite Tors Trail in the Chena River State Recreation Area last month.

Longjumper Janay DeLoach of Eielson High School has a bronze medal. Wednesday she made a jump of 6.89 meters, which is 22 feet, 7 and a quarter inches to get third place in the event. Brittney Rose of Team USA took the gold, Elena Sokolava of Russia the silver.

Representative Don Young wants states to take over management of some National Parks. Young, a longtime critic of the National Park Service, says the proposal is a good fit for Alaska, where he says agency regulations unnecessarily limit access.

An Alaska case challenging National Park Service authority is working its way through the courts. Central resident Jim Wilde is appealing his misdemeanor conviction stemming from a 2010 run in with park rangers during a boat safety check on the Yukon River. The appeal challenges the Park Service’s authority to police navigable waters. Wilde’s attorney Bill Satterberg of Fairbanks says the appeal filed in the 9th Circuit Court in January has been thrown back to a lower court.

The Fairbanks North Star Borough is considering wood drying kilns to reduce smoke emissions from wood stoves and boilers. Dry wood burns cleaner and provides more heat. Borough Air Quality Manager Jim Connor says the current vision is to tap state and federal grant money to contract for the construction and operation of six kilns at three locations in the borough to serve local wood burners.

Former University of Alaska Fairbanks shooter Matt Emmons won a medal at the Olympics Monday. The 31-year-old New Jersey native, who trains in Colorado, placed 3rd in the men’s 3 position rifle event behind shooters from Italy and South Korea.

A new satellite dish will allow the University of Alaska Fairbanks to expand its work for NASA. The 11-meter dish on the campus’s west ridge will replace an older smaller one on the roof of the Elvey building. Alaska Satellite facility deputy director Scott Arko says the upgraded dish will provide the UAF, NASA funded center more transmission capacity.

A military jury has sentenced a Fort Wainwright based soldier in the death of a fellow Stryker brigade member. Sgt. Adam Holcomb of Youngstown, Ohio will forfeit about $1,200 in pay, have his rank reduced, and serve 30 days in confinement. He was convicted yesterday in Ft. Bragg North Carolina of maltreatment of a subordinate, and assault, in the death of Private Danny Chen last year in Afghanistan. Holcomb was found not guilty of negligent homicide.

Two former University of Alaska Fairbanks rifle team members are competing on the U.S. team at the London, Olympics. Matt Emmons is a two-time Olympian who won gold and silver at the games in 2004 and 2008. Jamie Beyerle Gray scored a 4th and 5th in 2008. Gray competed in the air rifle event Saturday, and finished 5th again, one spot behind Emmon’s wife Katerina, who shoots for the Czech Republic. Yi Siling of China won. Gray says the places in shooting are typically determined by shots just millimeters apart.

The state is out with an updated plan for managing a large swath of the central interior. The draft Yukon Tanana area plan encompasses over 9 million acres from the Denali borough north to the village of Rampart and from Fairbanks west to Tanana. Department of Natural Resources planner Brandon McCuthcheon says the document accounts for changes since its last update in 1991.

The court martial trial of a Ft. Wainwright based soldier is through a third day at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Sergeant Adam Holcomb is accused of physical and verbal abuse that drove a fellow soldier to suicide in Afghanistan last year. Holcomb of Youngstown, Ohio is charged with negligent homicide, assault and other offenses. He’s one of eight Fairbanks based soldiers charged in the death of Private Danny Chen.

The Army Corps of Engineers is expanding its permafrost tunnel north of Fairbanks. The Corp’s Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab has operated the tunnel, bored more than 350 feet into a hillside near Fox, since the 1960’s. Research civil engineer Kevin Bjella says the Corps. has begun digging a second longer tunnel.

New computer models predict climate and ecosystem changes for Alaska and western Canada. The “cliomes” models were produced by University of Alaska Fairbanks and U.S. Fish and Wildlife service scientists. One of the primary creators, forest ecologist Nancy Frescoe with UAF’s Scenarios Network for Alaska and Arctic Planning, says the models confirm climate driven change.

An interim voter district map is in place for this fall’s election, but the state’s redistricting process is far from over. Alaska Redistricting Board chairman John Torgerson says lawsuits challenging the redraw of Alaska voting districts remain in play.

The University of Alaska Fairbanks will become the nation’s first to have an on campus winter terrain park. It’s midsummer, but plans are in the works for the ski and snowboard facility.

The Alaska Fire Service is converting to a new lightning detection system. Lightning detection is used to target aerial surveillance of areas where strikes are likely to spark wildfires. The new system which has been tested against the technology it’s replacing has proven to be more accurate and have increased range. Alaska Fire service I,T. section chief John Palmer says it employs sensors around the state to identify individual lightning strikes.