Steve Heimel, APRN Contributor

A discovery of large blooms of plankton under sea ice off the coast of Alaska is forcing scientists to re-think their theories about the food web of the Arctic Ocean.

A fellow airman has now been charged in the death of Clinton Reeves. Airman First Class James Devinn Thomas, 24, was indicted for first and second degree homicide. Reeves, 22, failed to show up for duty in mid-April after collecting an insurance settlement.

Twenty-seven million dollars will be going to rural Alaska communities this year for schools and government services provided to areas where the federal government holds lands. That's a new record high Payment in Lieu...

Top Pentagon officials at a Senate budget hearing today were grilled about the plan to move an F-16 squadron from Eielson Air Force Base to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. Senator Lisa Murkowski asked Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and General Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to try to get the Air Force to abandon the plan until it was better studied. Panetta defended the plan as necessary to meet Congressional mandates to reduce spending. Dempsey said he’d been hearing a lot from Alaska’s Senators about the plan and promised to look into it.

A hiker was mauled by a Brown Bear on a trail along Turnagain Arm yesterday. Ben Radakovich, 30, of Eagle River, came across a cub on a trail about three miles from the Bird Creek Trail early in the morning and was chased by a sow. He eventually was able to climb a tree and contact help by cellphone. A helicopter was used to lift him out.

So far all efforts to curb speculative trading in the oil futures market have run into partisan opposition or are hung up in the courts. Democrats in the U.S. Senate have sponsored several bills to put limits on how much oil can be held by any trader for the purposes of buying and selling to profit from price fluctuations.

Wednesday in the U.S. Senate there is a committee hearing that may mark the beginning of a new effort to ratify the Law of the Sea treaty. With the Secretaries of Defense and State speaking to the Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, it appears that the Obama administration is ready to make that push.

Investigators say this year’s subsistence seal hunters are being very helpful in the ongoing effort to find the cause of a mysterious ailment that is bringing about hair loss and lesions. In the Nome area, about 20 animals with signs of the illness have been reported, but they don’t appear to be new cases.

The identity was released yesterday on the climber who died in a fall on Denali. He was Steffen Machulka, 49.

The first results are beginning to come in from the International Polar Year – a global effort to collect scientific data on the Arctic and Antarctic that began in 2007. The National Research Council published a summary last week.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has personally intervened in the Air Force's F-22 fighter jet problem. He has ordered flight restrictions that will keep the planes close to their bases and he has sent other fighters to Alaska to deal with longer distance maneuvers.

Monday at the tourist rail terminal at the Anchorage airport, six professional chefs compete in The Great Alaska Seafood Cook-Off. The event is not open to the public.

The King Salmon school district office reported an envelope containing white powder Friday. The National Guard and a postal inspector responded and the powder was taken for analysis. The offices were evacuated and are being tested.

Next Friday is “Bike to Work Day,” and participation is likely to be heavy, at least in Anchorage, where bicycle trail use use goes up each year, including 2011, when it happened on a rainy day.