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February 27, 2004
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Bringing float across... Chuck Slagle is the employer of the workers pictured and is the owner of the skiff and logs. The raft was assembled to replace the one at Pro Mech Air, which was due for replacement after several tough storms this past winter. - More photos... Front Page Photo by Chris Wilhelm
Ketchikan - Statewide: Alaska's January Unemployment Rate 8.9 Percent; Ketchikan's Rate 11.8 percent - Alaska's unemployment rate climbed to 8.9 percent in January, up five tenths of a percentage point from December's revised rate of 8.4 percent which was earlier reported by the Alaska Department of Labor as 8.0 percent. According to the Alaska Department of Labor, the state's rate historically reaches its high point for the year in January or February and then begins to fall as seasonal employment picks up. The comparable national rate (not seasonally adjusted) for January was 6.3 percent. Dan Robinson, an economist with the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, reported the numbers. Five of the state's six economic regions recorded higher rates in January, the exception being in the Gulf Coast where seasonal jobs related to Kodiak's January crab fishery pushed the rate lower. Anchorage's unemployment rate remained substantially lower that other areas in the state, increasing from 5.6 percent in December to 6.0 percent in January. Fairbanks saw a larger increase, from 7.1 percent to 8.0 percent. At 7.5 percent, Juneau's rate remained well below those of other Southeast boroughs and census areas. Sitka is the only other community in Southeast that does not have a double-digit unemployment rate. The Ketchikan Gateway Borough's unemployment rate for January was reported at 11.8 percent, up from December's 9.6 percent. (For more information about Ketchikan's Labor Force, click here). January's unemployment rate
for Prince of Wales was 20.2 percent, up from December's 16.0
percent. - Read
more... Ketchikan: Coast
Guard terminates fishing vessel voyage for safety violations - A
Coast Guard boarding team terminated the voyage of a fishing
vessel for safety violations after a routine at-sea boarding
in the Tongass Narrows, near Ketchikan, Wednesday. - Read
more... |
Alaska Science: Polar Bears at Risk in a Changing Arctic by Ned Rozell - If the north continues to warm, polar bears may disappear within the next century, according to a man who has studied them for the last 20 years. Andrew Derocher is a biology professor at the University of Alberta in Edmonton who visited Fairbanks recently. In a lecture he gave on the UAF campus, Derocher said that the places where the globe is warming fastest are where polar bears live, such as the Beaufort Sea coast north of Alaska. A warmer north is a bigger threat to polar bears than toxic chemicals or oil development, Derocher said, and sea ice is the reason. Polar bears rely on sea ice, and as the amount of sea ice shrinks with increased warming, so will the world's numbers of polar bears. Sea ice is important to polar
bears because it is home to their main prey-ringed seals that
weigh up to 140 pounds and bearded seals that can reach 750 pounds.
Polar bears will also eat beluga whales trapped in confined areas
and other animals that overlap with their range of sea ice and
arctic coastal areas, but seals are their number one food. |
Science: Evidence of a 'lost world': Antarctica yields two unknown dinosaur species - Against incredible odds, researchers working in separate sites, thousands of miles apart in Antarctica have found what they believe are the fossilized remains of two species of dinosaurs previously unknown to science. One of the two finds, which were made less than a week apart, is an early carnivore that would have lived many millions of years after the other, a plant-eating beast, roamed the Earth. One was found at the sea bottom, the other on a mountaintop. Working on James Ross Island
off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, veteran dinosaur hunters
Judd Case, James Martin and their research team believe they
have found the fossilized bones of an entirely new species of
carnivorous dinosaur related to the enormous meat-eating tyrannosaurs
and the equally voracious, but smaller and swifter, velociraptors
that terrified movie-goers in the film "Jurassic Park."
- Read
more... |
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Stories in the News ©1999 - 2003 Ketchikan, Alaska |
August 2000 |
