Alaska Dispatch's Best of the Week: Jan. 5-11 | Alaska Dispatch

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Alaska Dispatch

Alaska Dispatch's Best of the Week: Jan. 5-11

Alaska Dispatch

January 11, 2013

Alaska news week in review: Here are a few of the stories that Alaska Dispatch staff explored the second week ot January 2013.

1 Polar bear gives Arctic wildlife filmmaker the scare of a lifetime (+VIDEO)
Nothing cute or cuddly about this hungry mama polar bear: she's out for lunch and she’ll be damned if a Plexiglas cage is going to prevent her from getting to the juicy human inside to feed herself and her hungry cubs.
2 Reconstructing a 14-year-old Pacific gray whale skeleton takes an Alaskan village
In 1999, a 38-foot Pacific gray whale beached and died in Homer, rallying the community in response. Fourteen years later, Homer has turned reconstruction of the whale's skeleton into a community project that will soon be on display in a Pratt Museum exhibition.
3 High winds impaled Alyeska ski tram on tower
There was ample warning of strong winds on New Year's Eve, the night of an accident that involved the Alyeska Resort aerial tram. The National Weather Service had cautioned about "a powerful cyclone" moving into Southcentral Alaska.
4 'Bering Sea Gold' suicide: Who dies in 2013 season of Alaska TV show?
The second season of the Discovery Channel's show about rough-and-tumble Nome gold prospectors is under way -- what does it mean for Alaska's reality TV scene? And who died on "Bering Sea Gold?"
5 Schaeffer Cox: Pleas for leniency do not sway judge in Alaska militia leader's sentencing
Claims of mental illness and pleas for leniency did not save the Alaska Peacemakers Militia leader, Schaeffer Cox, described by the government as a "manipulative, conning and self-aggrandizing individual with severe sociopathic tendencies" who conspired to commit murder.
6 Minnesota climber on McKinley, aiming for historic winter ascent
To date, a trio of tough and seasoned Russians are the only ones to stand atop the 20,320-foot top of North American in January.
7 Piers Morgan's fairy-tale thinking won't end US gun violence
OPINION: The CNN talk show host can conduct an unhinged interview with every Texan in the world, and he'll still be crazy to suggest European-style gun control is even possible in the US, let alone a way to reduce violence.
8 Canadian authorities mount rescue of orcas trapped in ice (+Video)
The killer whales are stuck in ice about an hour from Inukjuak, Quebec, on the eastern shores of Hudson Bay, according to Canadian broadcasters.
9 In Old Harbor, hitting the rock
An oil rig grounded: In small town Alaska, how politics and power create opportunity amidst a nationally-watched marine mishap.

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