Ketchikan: Decades Old Mural Repainted by Original Artist By Louise Brinck Harrington - A big bash will be held soon at the Arctic Bar to celebrate completion of a mural by Lawrence "Snapper" Carson. Actually, this isn't the first time Snapper completed the mural... it was completed once before back in 1969. - More and photo gallery...
Thursday - April 28, 2005

Ketchikan Yacht Club - Wednesday Night Races Possum Fargo & Crew Front Page Photo & Photo Gallery by Carl Thompson

Ketchikan - Statewide: Attorney General Warns Alaskans That PIPS Is An Illegal Ponzi Scheme - Alaska Attorney General David Márquez issued a consumer alert Wednesday warning Alaskans against investing in an illegal Ponzi scheme that has surfaced in Alaska, called the People In Profit System (PIPS).

PIPS has been reported in Ketchikan, the Matanuska Valley, and may be in other parts of the state according to the Attorney General. Under this scheme investors are asked to 'loan' $450 to the company. From this payment, $25 is kept as an account set-up fee, with the remaining $425 characterized as a 'loan' to the company for 180 days. PIPS agrees to repay the investor with interest under a schedule depending on the type of plan the investor chooses. The interest payments on the loan can be as high as 5000%, with a $450 loan returning about $8,800 in 24 months.

"Everyone should be aware of these Ponzi schemes because they are essentially investment fraud," said Márquez. "If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is." - More...
Thursday - April 28, 2005

Section of road being built this summer across rough terrain on Annette Island, Alaska, by Soldiers of a joint task force

Ketchikan: Alaskan road project resumes on Annette Island By Maj. Richard C. Sater - Operation Alaskan Road is underway again as a joint task force resumes work this summer on a 14.5-mile road across the rugged terrain of Annette Island.

This seasonal project is in its ninth year, a continuing effort to make good on a 60-year-old promise by the Alaska Road Commission and the Army Corps of Engineers to the island's Metlakatla Indian Community.

Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps troops -- both active and Reserve -- are building the road to Alaska's only federally recognized Indian reservation. When completed, the road will connect the town of Metlakatla with the new ferry boat dock on the north end of Annette Island to provide quick and easy access to Ketchikan, Alaska's fourth-largest city, across the bay. - More...
Thursday - April 28, 2005

Alaska: Legislation Tightens Up Process for Issuing State IDs, Drivers Licenses - New legislation introduced Wednesday in the Alaska Senate will tighten up the rules for obtaining state driver's licenses and ID cards. SB 189 requires anyone applying for the state issued IDs to present documents proving they are a U.S. citizen, a legal permanent resident of the United States or a conditional resident alien of the United States. - More...
Thursday - April 28, 2005

National: Gore: 'Poison pill' for democracy in filibuster fight By RICHARD POWELSON - Former Vice President Al Gore assailed GOP efforts to end Senate filibusters on judicial nominees as a "poison pill" for democracy Wednesday and accused "extremist organizations" of threatening the independence of the judiciary.

"What is involved here is a power grab," Gore told about 500 activists connected to the MoveOn PAC organization. "They want to establish a system in which power is unified in the service of a narrow ideology serving a narrow set of interests." - More...
Thursday - April 28, 2005

A mussel shell with a drill hole from a predatory snail picked up on a beach at Barrow in 1995. Photo by Dave Norton

Alaska: Blue Mussels might not be messengers of warming By Ned Rozell - A few months ago, Dave Norton was up late listening to the radio when he heard a story that divers had found blue mussels in the high arctic, a sure sign of global warming.

Or was it? Norton, of UAF's School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, had lived in Barrow for a decade, during which time he'd roam the beach after storms and pick up mussels blown ashore. Though the Barrow mussels first seemed like newcomers to the area, Norton thinks the blue shellfish may not be the slam-dunk indicator of climate change that other scientists have claimed. - More...
Thursday - April 28, 2005

National: Slick idea? Bush proposes turning closed bases into refineries By TARA COPP - President Bush's proposal to turn shuttered military installations into new oil refineries caught military communities by surprise Wednesday, and analysts wondered how he would address environmental and closure laws that could block his plan.- More...
Thursday - April 28, 2005

National: Expect Congress to pass REAL ID package By MICHAEL DOYLE - With the Senate's top Democrat conceding the measure is inevitable and the White House offering its timely support, legislation deterring illegal immigrants from obtaining driver's licenses is almost final. It's scheduled for approval Thursday, along with several other immigration provisions attached to an Iraq spending bill. - More...
Thursday - April 28, 2005

Viewpoints Opinions/Letters It's Almost Too Late: Don't Let Them Give Moser Bay Away by Mary Hillberry - Thursday Temperance and modesty would go a long way by Bill Stewart - Thursday Snapper's Mural by Pam Wedekind - Thursday The Kitchen Test by Michael Woldu - Thursday More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter April 2005 Click on the date for stories and photos published on that day... S M T W T F S 27  28 29 30 31 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Front Page Archives

National: Intelligence chiefs credit act for smoother sharing of info By LAWRENCE M. O'ROURKE - While the FBI and CIA have successfully knocked down most of the "wall" that was partly blamed for failure to detect and thwart the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, the agencies are still at odds over who has a "need to know" top-secret intelligence reports.

More than three years after 9/11 and a shakeup of the U.S. intelligence network, "a lot has to be worked out" over who in government should have access to sensitive intelligence reports on suspected terrorists, CIA Director Porter Goss told the Senate Intelligence Committee Wednesday. - More...
Thursday - April 28, 2005

National: NFL gets its turn on steroid hot seat By DAVID NIELSEN - Appearing before the same congressional committee that grilled baseball officials last month, National Football League administrators emerged largely unscathed Wednesday after a six-hour hearing concerning professional football's steroid policy.

Nevertheless, the specter of congressional intervention arose as Committee Chairman Tom Davis, R-Va., and ranking minority member Henry Waxman, D-Calif., revealed that they and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., are drafting legislation calling for uniform testing standards for all professional sports leagues. - More...
Thursday - April 28, 2005

Mike Harden: When you really need to call in sick... The business of calling in sick for work is neither an art nor a science, though certainly a craft whose inventiveness makes a strong case for adding a Nobel category in short fiction.

When the TV meteorologist is calling for a 90 percent chance of sun, you need an excuse for hooky that is 100 percent convincing.

You could try the old wastebasket-and-Kleenex trick: Stuff the ends of a tissue in each nostril and place a metal wastebasket over your head before calling in to work. It's convincing when the lie you are about to tell suggests a sinus infection. - More...
Thursday - April 28, 2005