Ketchkan: Ketchikan's First Baby of 2018 - Ketchikan's First Baby of the Year arrived on January 2nd and was welcomed into the world by her parents just before 10:00 PM Tuesday.

Chelsea Weihing and Darren McKeehan are the proud parents of their seven pounds, two ounces daughter, Lyanna Raine McKeehan. Lyanna is 19.5 inches long and she joins big sister Harper who will be three later this month.

Her mother Chelsea is an Office Service Technician for the City of Ketchikan. And dad Darren is a lead welder at Vigor Shipyard. - More....
Thursday PM - January 04, 2018

Alaska - Nationwide: Justice Department Will Enforce Federal Marijuana Laws By MARY KAUFFMAN - The United States Department of Justice today issued a memo on federal marijuana enforcement policy announcing a return to the rule of law and the rescission of previous guidance documents. Since the passage of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) in 1970, Congress has generally prohibited the cultivation, distribution, and possession of marijuana. These statutes reflect Congress' determination that marijuana is a dangerous drug and that marijuana activity is a serious crime.

In the memorandum, Attorney General Jeff Sessions directs all U.S. Attorneys to enforce the laws enacted by Congress and to follow well-established principles when pursuing prosecutions related to marijuana activities. This return to the rule of law is also a return of trust and local control to federal prosecutors who know where and how to deploy Justice Department resources most effectively to reduce violent crime, stem the tide of the drug crisis, and dismantle criminal gangs.

"It is the mission of the Department of Justice to enforce the laws of the United States, and the previous issuance of guidance undermines the rule of law and the ability of our local, state, tribal, and federal law enforcement partners to carry out this mission," said Attorney General Jeff Sessions. "Therefore, today's memo on federal marijuana enforcement simply directs all U.S. Attorneys to use previously established prosecutorial principles that provide them all the necessary tools to disrupt criminal organizations, tackle the growing drug crisis, and thwart violent crime across our country."

U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan (R-AK) in a prepared statement said, “Although I did not support the 2014 ballot initiative to legalize marijuana [in Alaska], it strongly passed and I passionately believe in democracy and the principals of states’ rights. For these reasons, I have worked with federal officials and Alaskans to try to address a number of areas where our state and federal marijuana laws are in conflict." - More...
Thursday PM - January 04. 2018

Alaska: Research reveals evidence of new population of ancient Native Americans By MARMIAN GRIMES - Genetic analysis of ancient DNA from a six-week-old infant found at an Interior Alaska archaeological site has revealed a previously unknown population of ancient people in North America.

The findings, published in the Jan. 3 edition of the journal Nature, represent a major shift in scientists’ theories about how humans populated North America. The researchers have named the new group “Ancient Beringians.”

“We didn’t know this population existed,” said Ben Potter, one of the lead authors of the study and a professor of anthropology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “These data also provide the first direct evidence of the initial founding Native American population, which sheds new light on how these early populations were migrating and settling throughout North America.”

Genetic analysis and demographic modeling, which help scientists draw connections among groups of people over time, indicate that a single founding ancestral Native American group split from East Asians about 35,000 year ago. That group then split into two groups about 20,000 years ago: the Ancient Beringians and the ancestors of all other Native Americans. Lead authors J. Victor Moreno-Mayar, Eske Willerslev and the team at the Centre for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen’s Natural History Museum of Denmark completed the genetics work.

The DNA from the infant, named “Xach’itee’aanenh T’eede Gaay” (sunrise girl-child) by the local indigenous community, has provided an unprecedented window into the history of her people, Potter said. She and a younger female infant found at the Upward Sun River site in 2013 lived about 11,500 years ago and were closely related, likely first cousins. The younger infant has been named “Ye?kaanenh T’eede Gaay” (dawn twilight girl-child).

“It would be difficult to overstate the importance of this newly revealed people to our understanding of how ancient populations came to inhabit the Americas,” Potter said. “This new information will allow us a more accurate picture of Native American prehistory. It is markedly more complex than we thought.”

The findings also suggest two new scenarios for populating the New World. One is that there were two distinct groups of people who crossed over the Beringian land bridge prior to 15,700 years ago. A second is that one group of people crossed over the land bridge and then split in Beringia into two groups: Ancient Beringians and other Native Americans, with the latter moving south of the ice sheets 15,700 years ago.

Potter’s National Science Foundation-funded work at the Upward Sun River site has spanned a decade. He said that when the science team began the analysis of the genetic material, they expected it to match the genetic profile of other northern Native American people. Instead, it matched no other known ancient population. - More...
Thursday PM - January 04, 2018