Alaska: Fifty-four Attend Annual Summer Superintendents Conference - Fifty-four superintendents and other administrators from about 40 of Alaska's 53 public school districts including the Ketchikan school district met with Department of Education officials August 8 and 9 in Juneau for the annual Summer Superintendents Conference for an update on the activities and priorities of the State Board and Department of Education & Early Development. - More...
Wednesday - August 10, 2005

Alaska: Juneau Access Preferred Alternative Changed - The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities today announced today that it has changed its preferred alternative for the Juneau Access project. The preferred alternative identified in the Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) would have constructed a highway all the way into Skagway from the current end of the Glacier Highway at Echo Cove, 40 miles northwest of Juneau. The new preferred alternative, designated "2B," would terminate the highway north of the Katzehin River. From there, shuttle ferries would provide connections to the road system. - More...
Wednesday - August 10, 2005

Alaska - Carriers of avian flu could migrate to Alaska By DOUG O'HARRA - Deadly avian influenza has been found among migrating geese in Asia.

Once associated only with domesticated fowl, a virus thought to have the potential to trigger a pandemic among humans may now be leapfrogging across the globe in wild flocks. - More...
Wednesday - August 10, 2005

National: Food waste costing economy $100 billion, study finds By LANCE GAY - It's just a matter of time before those staggering hikes in oil prices are translated into higher costs for food, reflecting the higher costs farmers pay for running diesel harvesters and using oil-based fertilizers and pesticides.

Timothy Jones, a University of Arizona archaeologist, says that makes the results of his studies of how much food is lost and thrown away very timely. - More...
Wednesday - August 10, 2005

Susan Walsh making her famous blueberry crepes. A huge line formed all day in front of this booth. The crepes were wonderful.... the photographer can testify to that!! Photograph by Melva Olson ©2005 Ketchikan Arts & Entertainment   Sharon Allen: CHASING THE SUMMERTIME BLUES AWAY WITH BLUEBERRY ARTS! A 2005 Blueberry Arts Festival Review - There's an event that occurs late every summer in Ketchikan, Alaska that is always a "Berry" good time and a bushel of fun! It's the Blueberry Arts Festival and in case you missed it, it took place last weekend here in Ketchikan. The Blueberry Festival is always a much-loved, well-attended event and the 2005 edition was no different. It was filled with over 100 festival participants, demonstrations and activities, including food venders, booths of fine artwork, crafts, arts organizations, community groups, games, and commercial businesses promoting their products. It also featured a spelling bee, several contests and races, a poetry slam, a car show, several opportunities for local bands and musicians to show off for the crowds with an eclectic mix of tunes and talent and the ever-popular Gigglefeet dance festival. - More... Wednesday - August 10, 2005

National: Error at Los Alamos spreads nuclear material By KEAY DAVIDSON - The apparent mishandling of a potentially hazardous radioactive substance by an employee of the University of California-run Los Alamos National Laboratory has resulted in contamination of sites in four states, according to a report released Monday.

Traces of the substance have been found in homes in Colorado and Kansas that the Los Alamos employee visited, his own home in New Mexico, and also at the Pennsylvania laboratory where the employee apparently shipped a contaminated package via FedEx. - More...
Wednesday - August 10, 2005

National: Nevada officials call new EPA radiation standard 'outrageous' By SUZANNE STRUGLINSKI - Nevada opponents of the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear dump said they were shocked by the "outrageous" new radiation protection standards announced by the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday. - More...
Wednesday - August 10, 2005

National: The Red Planet isn't coming By ANSLEY HAMAN - Fooled by an Internet hoax, many Americans are planning to grab lawn chairs and watch for Mars to be as big as the moon in the Aug. 27 night sky.

"Share this with your children and grandchildren," says the e-mail fueling the hoax. "NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN." - More...
Wednesday - August 10, 2005

National: Safe return, uncertain future for shuttle By KEAY DAVIDSON - After Discovery's somewhat ill-starred two-week flight, it remains uncertain how NASA will continue to launch humans into space: via the shuttle or by dumping the shuttles - currently grounded - for good and waiting several years until a new generation of safer rockets can be deployed? - More...
Wednesday - August 10, 2005

International: Despite armor, more Iraq troops dying in Humvees By LISA HOFFMAN - It was a ferocious bomb, two 122mm-artillery shells wired together and detonated from afar by an insurgent north of Baghdad.

A Humvee carrying Pennsylvania National Guard soldiers had no chance against the improvised explosive hidden on the shoulder of the road, even though the vehicle was protected with added-on armor. - More...
Wednesday - August 10, 2005

Viewpoints Opinions/Letters Vote YES on Proposition 1 By Chris Parks - Wednesday Vote yes for Proposition One By Marty West - Wednesday Ketchikan dock expansion By Karen Lybrand - Wednesday  Ketchikan Port Berth Expansion Bond By Rick Grams - Wednesday Read the fine print, VOTE NO. By William Tatsuda - Wednesday Ketchikan Dock Expansion: Vote Yea By Robert McRoberts - Wednesday Whoo-ey: Smell the pork! By Rob Glenn - Wednesday Dock expansion By Thomas Ferry - Wednesday More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Highway Robbers Tab, The Calgary Sun Distributed exclusively to subscribers by Cagle Cartoons, Inc. Political Cartoonists Ketchikan Calendar, Meetings, Events Today's Forecast City Police Report AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Classifieds & Announcements August 2005 Click on the date for stories and photos published on that day... S M T W T F S   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: Despite U.S. policy, women fighting and dying in Iraq By JENNIFER LEVITZ - She busted down doors of Iraqi arms dealers in house-to-house raids in Fallujah. She seized caches of weapons and took prisoners. She fired her machine gun from a Humvee and was shot at while wearing the uniform of the United States military. She still can't hear thunder without thinking of incoming mortar fire. - More...
Wednesday - August 10, 2005

National: Study shows why some seniors maintain more mobility By LEE BOWMAN - Doctors encourage all older adults to keep moving as much as possible as they age, but a new study suggests that a genetic variation gives some seniors an advantage in how their bodies respond to exercise.

While the findings don't mean that people who don't have the variant should give up on exercising, it does show why some older adults may maintain better physical function than others. - More...
Wednesday - August 10, 2005

Jason Love: Poison Oak - Sometimes nature not only calls; she makes an emergency breakthrough.

I was hiking far from civilization -- so far that you couldn't see McDonald's -- when something stirred below. It came from the grumpy part of the lower intestine where everything's a crisis. I could have run for the car, but it was a crap chute.

Turning slowly round, I wondered what the bears do.

Where I live, there is a type of tree that we, as youngsters, are taught to avoid. It looks like any other tree but is crawling with poison oak. Boy Scouts can spot it by vibration. - More...
Wednesday - August 10, 2005

Ryan Reynolds: Tighten your seat belts, high-school freshmen - Millions of American children will soon be back to school - if they're not already, in this era of early-August starts to the educational calendar.

The youngest of them will be tackling kindergarten and, by extension, elementary school for the very first time. - More...
Wednesday - August 10, 2005

Dale McFeatters: Where credit is due - The old rule of politics is that, deserve it or not, presidents get the credit when times are good and the blame when times are bad.

Well, economically, at least, the times are really good. Economic growth is so robust that the Fed raised interest rates this week for the 10th time in 14 months to keep it under control. The economy is so strong that even high gas prices haven't fazed it. Productivity is surging, and unemployment is at a relatively low 5 percent. - More...
Wednesday - August 10, 2005

James Glassman: Is fear driving too much of U.S. economic policy? - Congratulations, Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Lou Dobbs of CNN, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., of the Midwest isolationist caucus ... and to all the rest of the xenophobic crew.

By misleading and frightening the U.S. public, you've managed to erect enough obstacles to force the Chinese oil company CNOOC to withdraw its bid for a tiny U.S.-based oil company called Unocal. - More...
Wednesday - August 10, 2005

Jay Ambrose: An imagined confession - Paul Krugman said he was resigning as a professor of economics at Princeton University because he was absolutely, 100 percent wrong about consequences of the Bush administration's tax cuts, and he could no longer pretend to professional competence.

"It was, I guess, ideological madness that drove me to all those errant conclusions," he confessed as he simultaneously announced he would no longer be a ranting, spittle-spouting columnist for The New York Times. - More...
Wednesday - August 10, 2005

John Hall: Caution on terror laws - British human-rights advocates despair that their country is becoming just like America in its zeal to fight terrorism.

That's not the problem. The problem is that America, in its zeal to fight terrorism, will begin to emulate Britain's headlong rush to overturn free-speech protection.

Britain should not despair of bad American influence. In the first place, the British are long overdue for reforms in their criminal-justice system, which has allowed Islamic militants to plot almost openly to commit acts of sabotage and violence. - More...
Wednesday - August 10, 2005