Alaska Dispatch

NEWS & FEATURES



Snowzilla lives again! Print E-mail
December 23, 2008

Snowzilla sprouted up in Anchorage overnight, its owner, Billy Ray Powers, defying a city order to halt construction on his snowman. Speaking to reporters Tuesday morning, Billy Ray said he wasn’t sure how Snowzilla rose from the dead. “There must have been some magic in that big silk hat,” he said.

 
The Grinch who stole Snowzilla Print E-mail
December 19, 2008

By Tony Hopfinger

All Billy Ray Powers wanted for Christmas was to build a snowman. Not just any old snowman but his famous, two-story-tall Snowzilla—that national attraction that sprouts up around this time of year in his East Anchorage yard. A couple weeks ago, he and his seven kids began packing the first giant ball. They’d planned to make Snowzilla bigger than ever, that is until the city ordered them to cease and desist.

 
Daily News will send reporter to Juneau Print E-mail
December 18, 2008

By Tony Hopfinger

Ten days after we reported that the Anchorage Daily News was planning to close its Juneau bureau to save money, an editor now says that’s just a “rumor” and that the paper will cover the legislative session that starts Jan. 20.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that as I was writing this post early Thursday, McClatchy's stock was tanking fast, hitting a new 52-week low of $1.27 a share with several hours left in the trading day.

 
Federal law turns nation’s public schools into 'no-think zones' Print E-mail

By Alyssa Roy

Under The No Child Life Behind Act, public schools have neglected many of the time-honored learning experiences long considered staples of a well-educated person. The act requires that every child’s performance from grades 3rd through 12th be measured by standardized testing. And this has placed enormous pressure on teachers to raise test scores, or as it's known, "teaching to the test."

 
Economic crisis could worsen food crunch it eclipsed Print E-mail

By David Montero

Call it crisis eclipse. The global food crisis that dominated headlines earlier this year has been overshadowed by this fall's financial crisis, but it continues to exact a crippling toll on the world's poor.

 
Best short stories of 2008 Print E-mail
The Monitor’s annual gift guide to the best short stories of 2008.
 
Best novels of 2008 Print E-mail
The Monitor’s annual gift guide to the best fiction books of 2008.
 
The voices behind a half-century of Alaska’s governors Print E-mail

By Joe Holbert

On Jan. 3, 2009, Alaska will officially celebrate its 50th anniversary as a state. Thousands of Alaskans across distant geographic and often different ethnic and economic regions will commemorate the half-century birthday with festivities and ceremonies recognizing the historic celebration.

Those thousands will include seven Alaskans who dusted off memories recalling their personal opportunity in government service to witness and participant in public policy decisions by their boss at the time: the chief executive officer and governor of Alaska.

 
Anchorage Daily News shutters Juneau bureau as parent company flounders Print E-mail
December 08, 2008

By Tony Hopfinger

As its parent company struggles to stay afloat, the Anchorage Daily News is shutting down its Juneau bureau and again scaling back its print version, managers told employees last week. The cutbacks come on top of dozens of layoffs, wage freezes and other attempts this year to trim expenses, such as reducing reimbursements on cell phone charges to reporters.

 
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Talk of the Tundra

Could nuclear reactors solve the energy crunch in rural Alaska?

By Mark Clayton

Hundreds of miles from the nearest power plant, the roughly 700 residents of Galena, Alaska, depend on costly generator-supplied electricity for their homes. But now, they want to go nuclear.

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Happy New Year, Tripp

By Amanda Coyne

It’s 9 a.m. right now. The sun’s already high in the clear blue sky—the kind we only see a few times a year in Alaska. The rolling mountains covered in a soft white and deep green.

In a café in Santa Fe, NM, I look at what the bloggers have to say about Tripp and his mother, but I don’t have the stomach for it. People out there can be mighty mean. Santa Fe seeps into me. On New Year’s Eve, I want to say enough to the meanness and pettiness plaguing Alaska.

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America’s economic crisis: learning from Alaska’s bust

By Ray Metcalfe

The economic collapse our nation is experiencing today was experienced before by the oil producing states when the price of oil fell below $10 per barrel in 1986.

Louisiana and Texas were hit hard but Alaska was the state hit the hardest. On average, between 1986 and 1990, real property across Alaska fell to less than half of its former value. Rental properties fell by two-thirds. Some condos fell to 20 percent of their original cost.

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Death knell sounding for print papers

By Tom Brennan

"Icy blast cancels global warming rally." Headlines like that will always be with us, but the days when they are delivered to your door (or thrown into your hedges) are sharply numbered.

Print newspapers are having a difficult time surviving and some are dropping all or part of their print editions. For the most part, it's not the result of their sins, however significant. Technology has simply made them obsolete and awarded the race to broadcast and online news outlets.

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Snowmen picket City Hall

A group of disgruntled snowmen spent Christmas protesting in front of Anchorage City Hall. The snowmen were upset with the city’s threats to hurt Snowzilla, the most famous snowman in Alaska. The city used its heated sidewalks to disperse the snowmen. The ACLU is investigating the alleged unfair treatment of Alaska snowmen.

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A whistleblower’s gift

By Cliff Groh

Ted Stevens just got the biggest Christmas present he will receive this year. An FBI agent who has worked on the Alaska public corruption investigation has alleged that at least two members of the prosecution team against Sen. Stevens engaged in various acts of misconduct.

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Alaska Press Club renames award in honor of influential journalists

By Susan B. Andrews and John Creed

KOTZEBUE—Alaska’s largest press association has renamed its esteemed First Amendment Award after two crusading journalists who changed the course of state history in the latter half of the Twentieth Century.

In 1962, Tom Snapp and Howard Rock started a modest statewide newspaper, Tundra Times, which would prove central to the run-up and then passage nine years later of the largest Native American land claims in U.S. history.

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What did I know about an alleged plot to kill Bill Allen's nephew?

By Tony Hopfinger

U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens was convicted almost two months ago in federal court, but it seems nearly every day a new allegation of misconduct is leveled against the government’s handling of the case.

The latest came on Tuesday when Stevens’ lawyers filed a motion for a hearing to explore allegations by Dave Anderson, the nephew of Bill Allen, who insists in a letter that the government promised him, his family and friends immunity in exchange for him testifying at Stevens’ trial.

In the letter, Anderson mentions yours truly, saying I was aware of a plot by Allen and his son to have Anderson murdered.
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FBI whistleblower alleges misconduct in Feds' Alaska corruption probe

By Amanda Coyne

An FBI agent-turned whistleblower has cast suspicion on the Feds’ political corruption investigation in Alaska, alleging that another agent broke agency rules and committed “possible criminal violations” in the FBI’s pursuit of Sen. Ted Stevens.

The whistleblower revealed in a complaint made public Monday by a federal judge that the corruption probe has at times been run much like Alaska at its most corrupt: Inappropriate relationships with key witnesses, reporters and others; exchanges of inside FBI information with witnesses; gifts and artwork allegedly given to an FBI agent by a witness or source. Along the way, evidence and witnesses were mishandled and suppressed, all of which, if true, could have impacted Stevens’ right to a fair trial.

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A Canadian-American-Pakistani in Alaska

By Iqbal Ahmed

Who am I? Am I a Pakistani-Canadian-American, an American-Canadian-Pakistani, or a Canadian-American-Pakistani? Maybe a Canmeristani. Actually, I am none of these. Broad labels can tell you very little about a person. I am Iqbal Ahmed, born in Pakistan, raised in Canada, now living in Alaska. I am a culmination of the past, the future, and the present. 

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