Temperature Records Fall Across Alaska
Temperature records fell across the state yesterday. With highs in the 40s, 50s and 60s, much of the state is experiencing weather that feels more like May or June than January.
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Warm Winter Brings Open Water To Y-K Delta
Record warm temperatures have depleted Alaska’s snowpack and melted river ice. And residents of the YK Delta have noticed more open water in recent weeks. It’s not technically breakup, but in many places, it sure looks and feels like it.
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Biofuel Could Help Lessen Rural Energy Costs
The community of Tok hosts a thick, growing forest of spruce trees, and a thinning, shrinking population of people and businesses. Like elsewhere in rural Alaska, high-energy costs and a lack of jobs are causing people to leave. But the trees may be the solution to bringing people back.
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NIOSH Tackling Fishing Industry Injuries
For more than 20 years, NIOSH has been working to prevent accidental deaths in the fishing industry. Now, these safety experts are tackling injuries – the kind fishermen are used to getting every season.
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High Tech Trackers Gather Info On Cook Inlet Kings, Reds
The Alaska Board of Fish will begin deliberations on the Cook Inlet fisheries in Anchorage next week. One of the more difficult issues before the board is the declining King salmon runs and demands by sports fishing interests to shut down the commercial catch of reds to let every precious king into the Kenai River system.
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Alaska News Nightly: January 28, 2014
Begich Pushing To Restore Veteran Benefits; USDA Under Secretary Patrice Kunesh Visits Bethel Region; Drug Court Could Offer Jail Alternative; Temperature Records Fall Across Alaska; Warm Winter Brings Open Water To Y-K Delta; Biofuel Could Help Lessen Rural Energy Costs; NIOSH Tacking Fishing Industry Injuries; Board Of Fish Ponders Low Salmon Run Solutions
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9 People Apply For Alaska House Vacancy
Nine people have applied to fill the vacancy in the Alaska House left by last week's resignation of Beth Kerttula, a Juneau Democrat.
Sea Lion Lunges At Sitka Fisherman
A 19-year-old Sitka man had a run-in with a sea lion at Seafood Producers Cooperative on Saturday. Alaska State Troopers say the man was sitting on the railing of a fishing vessel when a large bull pounced. The sea lion jumped out of the water and attempted to bite him — on the behind, causing the man to fall forward into the vessel.
Alaskan Wishes Granted by the Alaskan Community
Meet three-year-old Owen from Salcha, Alaska. Owen is battling Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis (LCH), a life-threatening blood disorder.
During treatment, his port for chemotherapy prevented him from taking baths at his grandparents' house—something he once loved to do.
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Lawmakers Begin Review of Gasline Project
Gov. Parnell's bill taxes natural gas at a rate of 10.5 percent starting in 2022. It allows for those taxes to be directly paid in gas instead of money. It expands the powers of the natural resources commissioner and the revenue commissioner to work out a deal with all the other parties involved.
State, Valdez Officials Assess Richardson Highway Avalanches
Valdez remains cutoff by road from the rest of the state due to avalanches and flooding over the weekend. Progress has been made in clearing some of the debris on the Richardson Highway, but crews still have a long way to go.
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Sullivan, Treadwell Address Variety of Topics At Anchorage Chamber of Commerce
Two of the Republican candidates vying for U.S. Senator Mark Begich’s job, presented their records and thoughts on a range of issues for the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce lunch crowd today.
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Researchers Explore Polar Vortex
With unseasonably warm weather reaching all the way up into the Brooks Range in Alaska and bitterly cold weather dipping deep into the Lower 48 states, everybody wants to know more about the Polar Vortex – the jet stream that wobbles around the Arctic. Last month in San Francisco a team of scientists with the Byrd Polar Research Center came out with a study that takes one more step toward better understanding that wobble by putting a lot more detail into high-latitude weather records of the past.
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Admiral Ostebo Discusses Future of Port Clarence
The U.S. Coast Guard owns Port Clarence, and many entities want a piece of the property, but the Coast Guard intends to hold on to at least some of the real estate.
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PILT: Local Municipal Officials Hope Congress Will Fund Federal-Aid Program
City and borough government officials here in Alaska are a bit on edge about Congress’s failure to provide funding for the PILT program, which helps local governments with a lot of federal land in their areas. The program is especially critical to smaller communities like Delta Junction.
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Western Alaska Residents Await Disaster Relief Money
President Obama has declared November’s storms in Western Alaska a natural disaster. The storms inflicted heavy damage on Kotlik and Stebbins, and created problems in other Bering Straits communities.
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Program Could Loosen Water Pollution Regulations
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and the federal Environmental Protection Agency are joining in a new program that allows water polluters to gain clean water credits without reducing the amount of effluent they produce. The deal is not used in Alaska yet, but it allows a permitted facility to purchase pollutant reduction credits from other users within the same watershed. And clean water advocates in the state say the arrangement is missing the point of the Clean Water Act.
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Chythlook-Sifsof Left Off Olympic Roster
A snowboarder with deep ties to the Bristol Bay region will miss out on a return trip to the Olympics. Girdwood's Callan Chythlook-Sifsof had hoped to make the U.S. snowboardcross team but when the team was announced on Saturday she was left off.
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Alaska News Nightly: January 27, 2014
State, Valdez Officials Assess Richardson Highway Avalanches; Hearings Begin For LNG Pipeline; Sullivan, Treadwell Address Variety of Topics At Anchorage Chamber of Commerce; Researchers Explore Polar Vortex; Admiral Ostebo Discusses Future of Port Clarence; PILT: Local Municipal Officials Hope Congress Will Fund Federal-Aid Program; Western Alaska Residents Await Disaster Relief Money; Program Could Loosen Water Pollution Regulations; Chythlook-Sifsof Left Off Olympic Roster
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2014 Yukon Quest Set to Start Despite Warm Weather
Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race Officials are keeping a close eye on the weather and trail conditions as they prepare for the starts of the 1000 mile race this Saturday.