Ketchikan Port Berth Expansion Bond Initiative Unofficial Election Results of the Canvas Board Meeting Wednesday am - Aug. 17th

Ketchikan: Fake Anthrax Attack Kicks Off Alaska Shield/Northern Edge Drills By DICK KAUFFMAN - Ketchikan residents along with residents in other Alaska communities are seeing an increase in emergency response and law enforcement activity this week as operation Alaska Shield/Northern Edge is in full swing.

According to Lieutenant General Howie Chandler, commander of Joint Task Force-Alaska at Elmendorf Air Force Base, this exercise will provide a wide range of simulated natural disasters and terrorist events in 21 communities, ranging from Barrow to Ketchikan, that are designed to challenge and provide exceptional training for civilian and military "first responders" and test organizational and integration skills at all levels of government. - More...
Wednesday - August 17, 2005

Alaska: Training exercise may shock a few By TATABOLINE BRANT - Alaskans may see some wild and alarming episodes this week as some 5,000 military and civilian personnel gear up for a massive, statewide emergency training exercise.

Among the scenarios scheduled: fighter jets escorting a civilian plane into Anchorage, the Coast Guard roping out of a helicopter onto a state ferry near Whittier, and a large fire and police response at a government building in Palmer.

The events are part of Alaska Shield/Northern Edge, intended to test the ability of local, state and federal agencies to respond together to a major disaster. - More...
Wednesday - August 17, 2005

Alaska: Thawing permafrost gives Alaska city sinking feeling By DOUG O'HARRA - Interior Alaska's permafrost has warmed in some places to the highest level since the ice age ended 10,000 years ago, its temperature now within a degree or two of thawing.

Earth frozen since woolly mammoths and bison wandered Interior steppes has been turning to mush. Lakes have been shrinking. Trees are stressed. Prehistoric ice has melted underground, leaving voids that collapse into sinkholes. - More...
Wednesday - August 17, 2005

Viewpoints Opinions/Letters PUBLIC MONIES? By Walt Bolling - Wednesday A Sad Day By Chuck and Gillian Moon - Wednesday Last probably hasn't been heard... By Tom LeCompte - Wednesday Only 23% Turnout! By Ken Levy - Wednesday Tourism.... By Jill Hockema - Wednesday More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Chances of Iran Using Nuclear Technology Cam Cardow, The Ottawa Citizen Distributed exclusively to subscribers by Cagle Cartoons, Inc. Political Cartoonists Ketchikan Calendar, Meetings, Events The Ketchikan City Council is scheduled to meet Thursday, August, 18, 2005. The meeting begins a 7:00 pm in the City Council Chambers. Agenda & Information Packets. 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: Can Bush win back public support for Iraq war? By BILL STRAUB - Public support for the war in Iraq has eroded substantially over the past few months and doubts are mounting over President Bush's ability to stop the bleeding and recapture the hearts and minds of the American people.

With the military death count approaching 2,000 and the operation's price tag settling in at $300 billion, support for the war is at low tide. In a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll this month, 54 percent of respondents felt it was a mistake for the United States to send troops to Iraq. Back in November 2001, when hostilities were first contemplated, the same poll showed 74 percent favoring action. - More...
Wednesday - August 17, 2005

International: China, Russia join forces for war games By GEOFFREY YORK - When China and Russia launch their first joint military exercise Thursday, their neighbors will be wondering why long-range strategic bombers and amphibious landing craft are being deployed in what is supposed to be an anti-terrorism drill.

The two countries are calling it Peace Mission 2005, but it looks more like a rehearsal for full-scale war. The 10,000 Russian and Chinese soldiers will be practicing a variety of standard combat techniques: long-range bombing runs, cruise-missile attacks, a naval assault on a coastal beachhead and a parachute landing by paratroopers. - More...
Wednesday - August 17, 2005

National: Back to school: PC or not PC? By DAN FOST - As students get ready to go back to school, with the tools of technology stuffed in their backpacks alongside paper and pencils, a growing number of critics are urging caution in the rush to computerize.

Schools that place too much emphasis on technology, particularly in the early grades, risk diverting resources from other critical aspects of education, such as art and physical activity, critics say. - More...
Wednesday - August 17, 2005

Jay Ambrose: Sheehan's poor arguments - Suppose President Bush had not gone to war in Iraq. Saddam Hussein could then have continued trying to bribe his way out from under sanctions. He could have pursued his self-confessed plans to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction. And he could someday have abetted the killing of possibly a half-million of our citizens or more.

Maybe, then, we would have the victims' relatives - thousands and thousands of them - lining the road to Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, asking why the president had ignored Saddam's past use of these weapons, his genocidal slaughter of hundreds of thousands of his own people, his undeniably close ties to terrorists, his repeated acts of reckless aggressiveness, his insane ambition, his violent hostility to the United States of America. - More...
Wednesday - August 17, 2005

John Hall: No quick exit despite Iraq fatigue - Despite the exasperation over developments in Iraq, there is no real movement to force withdrawal of American forces.

This is a major difference with another unpopular war fought by the United States in Vietnam four decades ago. The popular resistance to the Vietnam War, and the draft that nourished it, rose to such a level that Congress cut off funding for fighting in, over and around it, providing no loopholes. Former secretary of State Henry Kissinger noted the other day that even American air power could not be used to help the South Vietnamese army it left behind. - More...
Wednesday - August 17, 2005

Dale McFeatters: A tide of kids and cash - In what has become an annual American ritual, almost engrained now in our national DNA, in late May and early June a huge tide of tykes, teens and 20-somethings flows out of our school and then in late August and early September flows back in.

It's that time of year when the tide of scholars floods back again. This fall there will be 74.9 million students, nursery school through college, which means, as the Census bureau points out, that more than one-fourth of our population is going to school. That's kind of what America does, go to school. - More...
Wednesday - August 17, 2005