Alaska: Dividends to be Deposited on Wednesday; Governor urges Alaskans to keep needs of children in mind - The 2005 Permanent Fund Dividend checks will be deposited in the bank accounts of Alaskans who selected the direct deposit option on Wednesday, October 12th. Checks will be mailed beginning October 26th for all others.

"As we approach the time of year when Alaskans receive their annual dividend checks, I encourage Alaskans to think about the wise decisions made in the past that have resulted in these checks today," said Governor Frank H. Murkowski. "Especially in a year that saw the passing of the 'Father of the Dividend,' Gov. Jay Hammond, it is appropriate to reflect on the benefits of our natural resources and the way those resources work to improve the quality of life for Alaskans."

'Houghtaling Deer' Front Page Photo by Mimi Eddy

The governor noted the tremendous economic impact of the dividend program on Alaska. This year, $372.1 million will be transferred to Alaska banks and credit unions on Wednesday through direct deposits. Nearly 73 percent of Alaskans receive their dividends through direct deposit. - More...
Tuesday PM - October 11, 2005

Alaska: Alaska's Deep Impact on the North Slope By Ned Rozell - In the early 1950s, workers for the U.S. Navy drilled test wells in an area of the North Slope known as the Naval Petroleum Reserve. The drillers sent core samples of rock to Fairbanks, where Florence Weber and Florence Collins, both geologists with the U.S. Geological Survey, noticed something odd. The samples, taken from an area where the surrounding rock was lying flat, were tilted upright. Some of the rocks were shattered.

The strange rocks seemed vaguely familiar to Weber and Collins, two of the first women geologists in Alaska. Both recently had attended a field trip to Indiana to see an impact crater, the massive divot left behind after a meteorite hit the ground. Looking at the pulverized rocks from the petroleum reserve, they thought the Navy diggers may have tapped into an impact crater on the North Slope. Weber and Collins followed their hunch and wrote a USGS paper on what has become known as Avak, the only impact crater confirmed in Alaska. - More...
Tuesday PM - October 11, 2005

National: Dobson: No secret knowledge about how Miers would vote By M.E. SPRENGELMEYER - Focus on the Family founder James Dobson dared U.S. Senators Tuesday to subpoena him to testify, saying he does not know any big secrets about how Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers would vote on the court.

"If they want to do that, then I just suggest that they quit talking about (it) and just go do it," Dobson said, in a pre-recorded radio program scheduled for broadcast Wednesday. "But I won't have anything to say that I haven't just told millions of people."

Dobson dedicated the broadcast to trying to debunk the impression that President Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, gave him secret information about Miers' legal opinions on issues like abortion during a conversation prior to her nomination last week. - More...
Tuesday PM - October 11, 2005

Brent Stewart, a researcher from Hubbs SeaWorld Research Institute, checks the glue on a satellite transmitter before releasing the instrumented adult female ribbon seal. Photo courtesy NOAA

Science: First Satellite Tags Placed on Ribbon Seals - NOAA Fisheries researchers traveled to Russia this summer and successfully attached satellite-linked dive recorders to ribbon seals, Histriophoca fasciata, for the first time. The recorders are collecting information on the seals' individual locations and on the timing and depths of their dives.

"We are analyzing the data to learn about the seasonal migrations, foraging behavior, and haul-out locations of ribbon seals ," said Dr. Michael Cameron, a wildlife biologist in the Polar Ecosystems Program at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center's National Marine Mammal Laboratory. "We are taking some of the initial steps towards developing the basic understanding required for the assessment and management of this poorly-understood species." - More...
Tuesday PM - October 11, 2005

Health/Fitness: Study: Muscles of obese programmed to collect fat By LEE BOWMAN - In a new finding that may help explain why heavy people have so much trouble keeping weight off after they shed pounds, researchers report that muscles of the obese are genetically programmed to amass fat.

The scientists found that a particular fat-building enzyme is three times more abundant in the muscles of obese people than in the muscles of people who are lean, and that this propensity continued even when the cells were removed from the body and forced to grow in a lab. - More...
Tuesday PM - October 11, 2005

Health/Fitness: Seeing red might be a warning sign By LEE BOWMAN - Slight damage in the blood vessels of the eyes in older people may indicate an increased risk of stroke later on, according to a new study published Tuesday.

In a study of more than 3,600 Australians age 49 and older, researchers found that those with damage to eye blood vessels were 70 percent more likely to have a stroke during a follow-up period than those who did not have such damage. - More...
Tuesday PM - October 11, 2005

Viewpoints Opinions/Letters Goodbye and Thank You Ketchikan By Richard S. Cropp - Tuesday PM Offensive T-shirt beyond the limits By Neil Gray - Tuesday PM Just live with it! By Tom Carlin - Tuesday PM Open letter to Alaska Airlines By Michael Nelson - Tuesday PM Salmon-Thirty-Salmon and Funding By Mark Vinsel - Monday PM Airport name change? By Rick Grams- Monday PM Open Letter to Rep. Young: Save the US Merchant Marine By Norbert Chaudhary - Monday PM Maybe we should play the "Kurd card"? By Mark Neckameyer - Monday PM Schoenbar By Diana Chaudhary - Monday PM Salmon Thirty Salmon By Mark Gatti - Monday PM Anti-Bush T-shirt Hits No-fly Zone By Morgan Doubleday - Monday PM No-fly T-shirt By Carol Ann Faulkner - Monday PM Naming public facilities By Samuel Bergeron - Saturday 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

Laine Welch: Alaska Produces Over Half Of All U.S. Seafood - October is National Seafood Month - a distinction proclaimed by Congress 20 years ago to recognize one of the nation's oldest and most important industries. Nationwide, the seafood industry directly employs more than 250,000 people and contributes roughly $62 billion each year to the U.S. economy.

Alaska deserves special merit, as it produces over half of all U.S. Seafood - more than all the other states combined. The seafood industry is Alaska's number one private employer, and each year generates revenues second only to oil. For 15 years in a row, Dutch Harbor has ranked as the nation's #1 port for seafood landings, with more than 900 million pounds crossing those docks. - More...
Tuesday - October 11, 2005

Linda Seebach: Charter schools as punishment? - Charter schools can be many things; a safety-valve for dysfunctional school districts, a laboratory for testing new educational models or new ways of implementing existing ones. But charter schools as a punishment for educational failure? Tell me again how that's supposed to work.

Under the federal No Child Left Behind law, forced conversion into a charter school is one of several possible remedies for a school that fails to meet standards. In Colorado, it's essentially the only one. State law provides that a persistently failing school, that is one that over a period of several years earns "unsatisfactory" state ratings, will be converted into a charter school. The definition is so lenient that it has been invoked only once, for Cole Middle School in Denver, which reopened in August as Cole College Prep, a part of the KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) network of charter schools. - More...
Tuesday - October 11, 2005

John Hall: Will the Sunnis rise? - Now, a real Iraqi election.

Iraq's Sunni Arabs, who sat out previous contests, have a chance to show that they can make the democratic process work for them. By turning out in a show of strength at the polls, they can reject their country's new constitution next Saturday or at least make a statement. - More...
Tuesday - October 11, 2005

Dale McFeatters: McCain, not your stealth candidate - While President Bush seems to be losing his political touch, the man he beat in the 2000 GOP primaries seems to be at the top of his game.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., goes into mandatory coy mode when asked about a 2008 presidential run - he's seriously considering it and will decide after the 2006 elections - but he's obviously off and running and doing a good job of it. He will not make the mistake of 2000 and get into the race late. - More...
Tuesday - October 11, 2005

Martin Schram: Bush White House resembles Alice's Looking Glass - The only way for journalists to cover the Bush White House these days is to view it through Alice's Looking Glass. Suddenly, all the familiar images appear reversed. Clocks are running backwards. Outcomes are preceding events. And Tweedledum and Tweedledee are big in the news.

A reversal of images: The battle royal that has erupted over President Bush's selection of Harriet Miers to be a Supreme Court justice has gone topsy-turvy. Battles over court nominations have become routine, even expected, in Washington. But this one is backwards. - More...
Tuesday - October 11, 2005