A new state study suggests a link between air quality and the hospitalization rate in the Fairbanks area for people with health problems. The study released Monday by the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services was based on five years of records from Fairbanks Memorial Hospital. It showed a 6 percent to 7 percent increase in the risk of hospitalization for conditions related to heart disease, stroke and respiratory illness when higher than average amounts of particulates were in the air.
A standoff is under way in a tiny southeast Alaska village after a man fatally shot two of the village's four full-time police officers, then barricaded himself in his home. Acting Hoonah city administrator Bob Prunella says Officers Tony Wallace and Matt Tokuoka died after the shooting late Saturday. It's not clear what led to the shooting. Wallace's mother, who was visiting from Florida, and Tokuoka's wife and children witnessed the killings. The suspect is identified as 45-year-old John Marvin Jr., who has barricaded himself in his home.
Anchorage police say they're investigating a home-invasion robbery that left an intruder dead and a resident seriously injured. It happened early Sunday when the intruder was shot and killed in the 800 block of West 23rd Avenue. A tenant at the residence was seriously injured when a blunt object struck him. That victim was hospitalized. Investigators say they're interviewing witnesses and the victim. No identities have been released.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Alaska State Troopers have released the names of two people who were killed in a small plane crash near Mount Susitna. Troopers say 28-year-old Brandon C. Reiley and 29-year-old Seth D. Holden, both of Anchorage, died when the 1947 Piper PA-11 crashed Tuesday along the Susitna River, about 25 miles northwest of Anchorage. The wreckage was discovered by an Alaska Air National Guard crew on a training mission that night in the Big Lake area near the mountain, also known as "Sleeping Lady." Troopers say Reiley owned the plane.
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
A conservative Alaska lawyer credits his primary vote lead over U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski largely to "common-sense" voters dissatisfied with the direction the federal government has taken. Forty-three-year-old Joe Miller of Fairbanks has stunned political pundits this week with his 1,688-vote lead over Murkowski in the Republican primary. Murkowski was heavily favored to win, and still could. She's banking thousands of absentee ballots still to be counted. Miller says his campaign also was boosted by the endorsement of former Alaska Gov.
Former NASA head Sean O'Keefe and his son, Kevin, have returned home to the Washington, D.C., area after surviving the Aug. 9 plane crash that killed former Sen. Ted Stevens. A statement issued Thursday by Paul Pastorek on behalf of the O'Keefe family said Sean O'Keefe was transferred this week from Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage "to an undisclosed hospital." His son was released from the Anchorage hospital on Aug. 17.
Alaska's U.S. senators are urging the Obama administration to get Arctic Ocean offshore drilling back on track. Republican Lisa Murkowski and Democrat Mark Begich spoke Thursday in Anchorage at a forum put on by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. The agency is conducting fact-finding meetings as Interior Secretary Ken Salazar considers whether to lift a moratorium on deep-water drilling. Murkowski says Alaska leases were suspended even though they were not in deep water.
Two people have been found dead after a plane crash in Alaska was discovered in the area of Mount Susitna. The crash was discovered Tuesday night. An Alaska State Trooper Rescue Coordination Center flight crew found the wreckage, and it was reported to troopers about 8 p.m. Tuesday. Trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters said two bodies were recovered but little was known about the flight. Troopers and a National Transportation Safety Board investigator were on their way to the crash site Wednesday.
A fifth day of searching has yielded no clues to the location of a plane missing in Alaska's Katmai National Park and Preserve. Incident management team spokeswoman Kathleen Kavalok of the Alaska National Park Service says eight aircraft were used Wednesday to fly a grid pattern and look closely at likely flight routes. The small plane with the pilot and three Park Service employees was reported missing Saturday afternoon in bad weather. Authorities say 47-year-old Marco Alletto of King Salmon was flying the plane.
A hiker missing since Sunday in Denali National Park has been found after he walked into a camp. Fifty-four-year-old John MacGregor of Jasper, Ga., was the focus of an intensive search effort. He walked into the Toklat Road Camp shortly after noon Wednesday with hikers he'd encountered earlier in the day. Park officials say MacGregor was cold and tired, but otherwise uninjured. After recuperating some, MacGregor was to be taken to park headquarters so rangers could question him about what occurred after he left the Eielson Visitor Center on Sunday morning.