News

Alaska is approaching its centennial anniversary for aviation. The first flight took off out of Fairbanks in 1913. Since then Alaska has maintained deep roots in air travel. And this Saturday, Anchorage will celebrate its history with the Arctic Thunder Air Show.

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.

Notable Alaskans with strong ties to state policies of past decades crowded into a tiny room on the 10th floor of Anchorage’s Captain Cook Hotel for a press conference Thursday to announce the group Backbone’s support of the Senate Bi-Partisan Working Group. The Senate coalition has stalled legislation backed by the Parnell administration – aimed at giving Alaska’s oil producers hefty tax breaks.

The Chikuminuk Lake Hydropower project in Southwest Alaska has hit a road block early on. A permit request for field studies has been denied by the State Department of Natural Resources because the project is in the Wood-Tikchik State Park.

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.

Alaska has a few athletes competing in the summer Olympics in London. The two athletes with the strongest connections to Alaska are trap shooter Corey Cogdell who grew up in Eagle River and long jumper Janay DeLoach, who went to high school at Eielson in North Pole. Two other Olympic athletes attended the University of Alaska Fairbanks, Matt Emmons and Jamie Beyerle-Gray. Both are shooters.

Watch Up Heartbreak Hill - Trailer on PBS. See more from POV.

Erica Scharf's Up Heartbreak Hill is a moving look at a new generation of Americans struggling to be both Native and modern. Thomas and Tamara are track stars at their rural New Mexico high school. Like many teenagers, they are torn between the lure of brighter futures elsewhere and the ties that bind them to home. For these teens, however, home is an impoverished town on the Navajo Reservation, and leaving means separating from family, tradition and the land that has been theirs for generations. Alaska Public Television. Thursday, July 26. 9:00 pm

Watch Lift Like a Girl! on PBS. See more from Independent Lens.

Olympian Cheryl Haworth is on a mission to defend her champion status as her lifetime weightlifting career inches towards its inevitable end, challenging popular notions of power, strength, beauty, and health. Alaska Public Television. Thursday, July 26. 8:00 pm

This spring, Hilcorp, Alaska announced plans to reopen the Drift River Terminal oil storage facility on the west side of Cook Inlet. Hilcorp’s announcement raised concerns about the safety of the terminal because it’s at the base of Redoubt Volcano. Calls have been made for construction of a pipeline to transfer oil to the east side of the Inlet for processing, most recently by the Cook Inlet Regional Citizens Advisory Council or CIRCAC.

The committee that handles the year-round business affairs of the legislature approved money for an in-depth inspection and report on the structural integrity of the state Capitol in Juneau on Wednesday. The Legislative Council agreed to pay $149,000 for design development to follow up on studies done in 2006 and 2010. Those studies found problems with the old masonry and were heightened recently when a legislative staff employee was nearly hit by a falling piece of the building.

Public Policy professor and former Clinton Labor Secretary Robert Reich is in Anchorage this week. The Berkeley economist is a prolific author and commentator on the current plight of the global economy. He has some thoughts about Alaska’s economy too. He thinks natural gas is set to become a primary energy source for developed nations. And given that, he doesn’t think Congress should ban natural gas exports, as one Democratic Representative has proposed.

New data released by the Alaska Department of Health continues to show that Alaska has among the highest work-related fatality rates in the nation.

A 50-year-old Eagle River man is listed in critical condition Wednesday, three days after he was mauled by a bear. His injuries are more serious than first believed.

A report commissioned by a private non-profit suggests that seniors in the Matanuska Susitna Borough are not getting adequate access to care facilities. Many of the Borough’s small town senior care centers are banding together to help cut costs and facilitate deliveries, but those efforts are not enough in the face of a rapidly growing senior citizen population.

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.

The U.S. House passed a bill this morning that would replace President Barack Obama’s outer continental shelf drilling plan. The bill would speed up existing lease sales in Alaska.

The Air Force has lifted the flight restrictions on the F-22 fighter, saying it has resolved the problems that were depriving pilots of sufficient oxygen during maneuvers and at altitude. A large part of the F-22 fleet is based at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson.