News

Kookesh hospitalized after heart attack; physical evidence led to Kake suspect; Kodiak suspect to appear in court this week; board must redo maps; gas line update; Yukon Quest Red Lantern Award handed out; Feature: Ilisagvik College; Celebrating Peratrovich Day

Bells jingled as Dyan Bergen pulled her team across this year’s Yukon Quest finish line. "They’re really bear bells," she said. "We always put bells to let the buffalo and moose and wolves know we’re coming. The one time I didn’t have the bells this year, we got chased by a wolf, so I put the bear bells back on.” Bergen, from Yellowknife in Canada’s Northwest Territories, was the 20th and final musher to arrive in Fairbanks.

The Alaska Supreme Court is ordering that the state's redistricting plan be redrawn for the 2014 elections. In a opinion released Friday, the court denied the Alaska Redistricting Board's petition for rehearing on a December court decision. The Alaska Supreme Court had ordered the board to redraw the state voting map to be in line with the Alaska Constitution.

Former state senator Albert Kookesh was medevaced to Anchorage Monday morning after suffering a heart attack. His eldest daughter Elaine says the 64-year old Kookesh was in Juneau preparing for a trip out of state, when he called his wife saying he was having chest pains and was going to the hospital. He was stabilized and flown to Providence Hospital and Medical Center.

The wife of an Alaska man arrested Friday in last year's shooting deaths of two employees at a Coast Guard air station on Kodiak Island says her husband is innocent.

Governor Sean Parnell gave an update in Fairbanks Friday on what he called a significant milestone in plans for building a gas pipeline in Alaska. In his state of the state address a few weeks ago, the governor had given the companies, BP, ConocoPhillips, Exxon and Transcanada a deadline of February 15th to come forward with details of their proposed project. A letter from the companies, delivered on Friday, stated they had made a project concept selection. The governor called that an important phase in building a line.

A 14-year old boy from Kake has been identified as a suspect in the homicide of a young girl in Kake earlier this month and has been taken to a Department of Juvenile Justice holding facility in Ketchikan, according to a statement released Saturday by the Alaska State Troopers. The statement did not identify the suspect nor offer any additional details of the investigation or charges against the suspect.

A dozen states across the country have school voucher programs. Now, some legislators are trying to bring vouchers to Alaska. APRN’s Alexandra Gutierrez reports that push for directing state funding to private schools has more momentum than it’s had in the past.

Since his election to the Alaska State Legislature last year, Senator Peter Micciche has found himself neck-deep in oil and gas issues, something he knows about as a long-time employee of Conoco Phillips.

The State Department of Health is investigating an outbreak of a food borne illness linked to raw milk. Officials have confirmed four cases of Campylobacter infection in people who drank raw milk on the Kenai Peninsula. The illness causes diarrhea, vomiting and fever.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management says it has found no misconduct in research by an Alaska scientist who wrote a 2006 paper on drowned polar bears and was subsequently investigated.

The state has set a contamination threshold for sulfolane in North Pole ground water. The standard reflects years of research on the chemical which has polluted the aquifer in an area surrounding a local oil refinery.

The National Park Service is considering increasing winter vehicle access into Denali National Park. The agency is taking public comment on proposals to plowing farther out the road. Park spokeswoman Kris Fister says access would be increased beyond the mile 3 visitor center where plowing currently stops.

They are often overshadowed by the larger Bering Sea fleets, but Unalaska has a handful of small boat commercial fishermen who make their living in the waters around the Aleutian Islands. During the recent tanner crab fishery, KUCB’s Stephanie Joyce headed out to see what it’s like to be a small boat in big boat territory.

This week, we’re going to the Pribilof Island community of St. Paul, off the west coast of the state in the Bering Sea. Connie Newman is superintendent of the School District for the Pribilof Islands of St. Paul and St. George.

Rick Swenson won't make the trip to Nome this year. Race officaials say Swenson withdrew from the Iditarod on Thursday. Swenson, the only five-time champion in the history of the race, cited personal reasons.