National: Crowds filing for bankruptcy before tough law takes effect By MARY DEIBEL - There's a run on the courthouse with 10,000 Americans a day seeking bankruptcy protection before a tough new bankruptcy code kicks in at 12:01 a.m. Monday, Oct. 17.

"It's very, very late to file if you want to beat the clock, given the amount of paperwork involved and the fact most bankruptcy attorneys are busy handling the record 1.6 million personal bankruptcies filed the last year, " says University of New Mexico law professor Nathalie Martin, author of "The New Bankruptcy Law and You." - More...
Friday - October 07, 2005

National: Medicare ad blitz in full swing By LEE BOWMAN - With Carol Burnett, "Brady Bunch" mom Florence Henderson and even Fred and Ethel Mertz getting into the act, the ad blitz is well under way to sell the nation's 43 million Medicare beneficiaries on new prescription-drug coverage insurance plans.

On television and in videos, senior celebrities are star hucksters for various plans. - More...
Friday - October 07, 2005

International: U.S. passport plan draws fire By ALAN FREEMAN - Prodded by the Canadian embassy, a growing informal coalition of politicians, including Sen. Hillary Clinton and New York Gov. George Pataki, is pushing for the U.S. government to drop its plan to require passports to cross the Canadian border.

"I think the idea that we're going to secure our border by imposing this burden is ludicrous," Clinton told a business group in upstate New York this week as members of Congress from Maine to North Dakota spoke out against the plan, expected to come into effect in 2008. - More...
Friday - October 07, 2005

Alaska: Salmon ad on jet lures federal fund questions By LIZ RUSKIN - The Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board, created by U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens in 2003, made a big splash this week with a high-profile project: a $500,000 grant to Alaska Airlines, mostly to paint a giant king salmon on one of its jetliners.

But what else the marketing board has bought with the $29 million in federal funds it has received isn't so clear.

The law that created the board says AFMB must submit an annual report detailing its expenditures to the secretary of commerce. But the board's executive director, Bill Hines, said he is not allowed to release the report to the public. - More...
Friday - October 07, 2005

Coast Guard, Good Samaritan respond to vessel fire Front Page Photo by Petty Officer Second Class Chuck Bennett

National: Experts debate future of charter schools By ISAAC WOLF - In orchestra class, violins are held upright, bows are cocked and postures are proper. The 30 student-musicians are conspicuously silent.

But teacher Sarah Hanks demands more attention. "You're in a jokey mood this morning," Hanks says. "Focus. I want to see perfect orchestra position." - More...
Friday - October 07, 2005

National: Anti-Bush T-shirt hits no-fly zone By TODD MILBOURN AND LISA HEYAMOTO - Save the vulgarity for the floor of the U.S. Senate; the F-bomb doesn't fly when it comes to the friendly skies.

In a case that has grabbed headlines and hit the blogosphere, Southwest Airlines this week booted a Washington woman off a flight in Reno after she refused to cover up a T-shirt some considered to be in poor taste. - More...
Friday - October 07, 2005

Ketchikan Columnist Dave Kiffer: Tie-breakers - Well, the local elections are all over but the shouting. Some of my friends won, some of my friends lost. So it goes. One of the races appears to have been decided by six or seven votes. Two years ago, one of races was decided by five. We all think that our votes don't count but that's not the case. A few years back, the Alaska governor's race was decided by about a hundred votes and we all know what happened in Florida in 2000. - More... Friday - October 07, 2005 Viewpoints Opinions/Letters Naming public facilities By Samuel Bergeron - Saturday Name the bridge after Don Young By Patrick Jirschele - Friday PM Flying fish By David Hull - Friday PM Salmon Thirty Salmon By Andrew Gichard - Friday PM YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME By Bob Allen - Friday PM Thank you By Sharyl E. Whitesides - Friday PM Bridges in Alaska By Don Hoff Jr. - Friday PM RE: Mr. Ciminel's Alaska Airlines comments By Neil Gray - Friday PM Poor Voter Turnout -Then Get With The Program! By Rick Watson - Friday PM "Salmon-Thirty-Salmon" By Jennifer Brewer - Friday PM Consolidation - Annexation By Stephen Smeltzer - Friday PM More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Political Cartoonists Democratic Doormat ©Jeff Parker, Florida Today Distributed exclusively to subscribers by Cagle Cartoons, Inc. Political Cartoonists E-mail a political cartoon Ketchikan Calendar, Meetings, Events Today's Forecast City Police Report AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Classifieds & Announcements October 2005 Click on the date for stories and photos published on that day... S M T W T F S 25 26 27 28 29 30 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 31           Front Page Archives

National: Gene detectives reducing odds of another flu pandemic By LEE BOWMAN - The 21-year-old Army private went into the hospital at Camp Jackson, S.C., feverish and congested on Sept. 19. He was dead from the flu little more than a week later.

In mid-November, a mail carrier arrived by dogsled at Brevig Mission, Alaska. In less than a week, 72 of the village's 80 residents were dead from the flu he brought with the mail. Missionaries buried the victims - including an obese, middle-aged Inuit woman - in a mass grave.

The soldier and the villager were just two of as many as 50 million victims of the "Spanish flu" pandemic that swept the globe in 1918-19. What makes the two notable, however, is that 87 years after they died, scientists have used virus particles from preserved samples of their lung tissue to sequence the genetic blueprint of the deadly flu, reducing the odds that a worldwide flu outbreak will ever kill so many again. - More...
Friday - October 07, 2005

Washington Calling: The myth of Columbus ... sick day excuses ... other items By LANCE GAY - Christopher Columbus is riding the waves of historical revisionism that in recent years have torn up the reputations of many one-time American heroes like Thomas Jefferson. But surprisingly, American Indians are still embracing the myth of Columbus.

Among American Indians, whose ancestors were decimated by the diseases and depredation that followed Columbus' arrival, only 42 percent in a University of Michigan survey felt Columbus was a villain. But such is the power of myth that half shared the belief with non-natives that Columbus discovered America. - More...
Friday - October 07, 2005

The Week In Review: Bush picks Miers for Supreme Court

President Bush nominated White House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. Social conservatives objected to Miers, saying Bush should have picked someone more like Justices Antonin Scalia or Clarence Thomas. Bush said he was confident of her conservative views and judicial philosophy, although later he conceded that he had never had a substantive discussion with his longtime associate about such matters as abortion.

DeLay indicted again

A grand jury indicted Rep. Tom DeLay again, accusing the Texas Republican and two aides of campaign money-laundering. DeLay called his second indictment in as many weeks "an abomination of justice." The first indictment, also centered around possible illegal corporate campaign contributions, forced DeLay to surrender his position as House majority leader.

Nobel Prizes awarded

Mohamed ElBaradei and the International Atomic Energy Agency won the Nobel Peace Prize for trying to stop the spread of nuclear weapons through diplomacy with Iran and North Korea. The Nobel Committee's decision was viewed as a rebuke to the Bush administration, which opposed ElBaradei's appointment to another term.

Americans John L. Hall and Roy J. Glauber and German Theodor W. Haensch won the Nobel Prize in physics for their work in applying modern quantum physics to the study of optics. Through their observations, laser and Global Positioning System technologies have been improved. Americans Robert H. Grubbs and Richard R. Schrock and Yves Chauvin of France won the prize in chemistry for showing how to create drugs in a more environmentally friendly way.

Twenty killed in boat's capsizing

A boat capsized on New York state's Lake George, killing 20 elderly tourists on a fall-foliage tour. Police blamed the capsizing on a wave from a passing boat and a sudden shift of passengers' weight on the boat's long benches. The owner of the boat could face a fine as low as $25 for failing to have enough crew members on board, police said. Twenty-eight people on the boat survived. - More...
Friday - October 07, 2005