Clearwater Lodge Burns Down
The Clearwater Lodge near Delta Junction burned to the ground this morning. The rustic lodge was a popular gathering place for fishermen, birders and others who come to the Clearwater River.
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Sealaska Reports $35 Million Net Loss Last Year
Southeast Alaska’s regional Native corporation says it had a net loss of $35 million last year. Sealaska’s 2013 annual report says three-quarters of the loss came from its construction subsidiary. It badly underestimated the cost of two building projects in Hawaii.
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Skagway Man In Custody After Slashing Police Car Tires
A Skagway man is in custody after allegedly on a vandalism spree and slashing the tires of most of the squad vehicles on the town’s police force and setting a police dispatcher’s car on fire.
Copper River Commercial Salmon Fishing Kicks Off Thursday
The Copper River commercial fishing season kicks off Thursday morning.
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Diesel Fuel Spilled Into Nushagak River
A vessel transiting the Nushagak River apparently hit something overnight that punctured a fuel tank. An estimated 2,000 gallons of diesel fuel leaked from the vessel.
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Old And Bold Pilots: Chuck Sassara
Alaska is celebrating a century of aviation. As part of an occasional series on Alaska aviators, we’re gathering stories of flying. Chuck Sassara came to Alaska in 1955 after graduating from UCLA. He and his wife Ann drove the Alaska Highway in a VW bus. He got a job the day they got to Anchorage with Pacific Northern Airlines.
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With Wedding On The Line, Plaintiffs Prep For Same-Sex Marriage Challenge
Five gay couples are behind the lawsuit challenging Alaska’s ban on same-sex marriage. The suit was filed Monday in federal court. And in this case, the political is especially personal.
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East High grads reflect on diversity
Seniors from most of Anchorage’s high schools are graduating this week and next. The district's high schools rank among the most diverse in the nation. East high tops that list with more than 2000 kids from every corner of the world. Grads spoke about how all that diversity affected their education.
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Alaska News Nightly: May 14, 2014
Couples’ Decision To Fight Alaska’s Same-Sex Marriage Ban A Personal One; Diesel Fuel Spilled Into Nushagak River; East High School Most Diverse In Nation; APICDA Tries to Draw Graduate Students Back Home; Unalaska Tallies Cost of Blasting Issues at Wastewater Plant, Landfill; Copper River Salmon Fishing Kicks Off Thursday; Old And Bold Pilots: Chuck Sassara
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Bethel Novelist Wins Rasmuson Grant
Don Rearden has won a Rasmuson Project Award grant of $7,500 to turn his novel, The Raven’s Gift, into a screenplay. Rearden says he painstakingly filled out paperwork for a handful of applications and survived years of rejection before he finally won the Rasmuson grant.
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After Growing to 50,000 Acres, Officials May Recharacterize Prescribed Burn As Wildfire
A prescribed burn on the Oklahoma Range in the Donnelly Training near Delta Junction has grown to more than 50,000 acres. The burn was ignited in dry grass last Saturday. Alaska Fire Service Spokesman Mel Slater says officials are considering whether to change its characterization from a prescribed burn to a wildfire.
Spotted Seal Pup Found Near Clarks Point Taken to the Alaska SeaLife Center
The Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward has taken in the first stranded marine mammal of the year. The one-week-old spotted seal pup was picked up on April 30th in Clarks Point and flown by Grant Aviation and PenAir to Anchorage. From there the pup was taken to the SeaLife Center in Seward.
As State Advances Unprecedented Mining Road to Ambler, Local Support in Question
The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, AIDEA, meets in Kotzebue today with a game management group to discuss a proposed 220-mile road to a copper deposit in the Northwest Arctic Borough that’s potentially valuable.
Old And Bold Pilots: Warren Polski
Alaska is celebrating a century of aviation. As part of an occasional series, we’ve invited seasoned aviators to tell us about their adventures at the controls. Retired Anchorage pilot Warren Polski came to Alaska with his family when he was 9 and got his pilot’s license at age 16. He flew with the Civil Air Patrol for the next 50 years on search and rescue missions. One memorable flight was right after the 1964 earthquake. Polski took the first plane into Whittier, flying in two workers from the department of public safety. He says the ground was covered in debris and he needed to attempt to land on an airstrip maintained by the railroad.
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The Billionaire Behind Alice Rogoff
If you’ve heard anything about Alice Rogoff, the woman who recently bought the Anchorage Daily News, you’ll likely know that she’s married to a billionaire who co-founded the Carlyle Group, a Washington, D.C.-based private equity firm. David Rubenstein is making headlines with big examples of what he calls "patriotic giving."
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Alaska News Nightly: May 13, 2014
State Supreme Court Hears Same-Sex Survivor Benefits Case; Rubenstein Reforming Face Of Carlyle Group; Shishaldin Volcano Rumbling To Life; Bethel City Council Fires City Manager Lee Foley; Fish and Game Expects Low Yukon Chinook Run; Old And Bold Pilots: Warren Polski; Kuskokwim Elders React To This Year’s Breakup; The Dauenhauers Teach Tour Guides How To Teach Tourists
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The Dauenhauers Teach Tour Guides How To Teach Tourists
Two of greatest living scholars on Sitka’s Russian and Tlingit past were in town last week to train National Park rangers on the historic battles that took place here. Park rangers give programs, of course, but sometimes they’ll interact with visitors for only a few minutes at a time. So the challenge is: How do you teach visitors about the culture in a way that will have impact – when the most commonly-asked question is “Where’s the bathroom?”
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Shishaldin Volcano Rumbling To Life
Shishaldin Volcano is rumbling to life in the Aleutian Islands. The Alaska Volcano Observatory detected long tremors and an increase in surface temperatures at Shishaldin earlier Tuesday.
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State Supreme Court Hears Same-Sex Survivor Benefits Case
The Alaska Supreme Court listened to oral arguments Tuesday in a case that challenges whether or not same-sex couples should receive survivor benefits.
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Kuskokwim Elders React To This Year’s Breakup
This year, residents along the Kuskokwim River experienced a rare breakup when the river seemingly broke up in reverse. While elders say this year was a unique event they also believe it could be sign of things to come.
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