Alaska Dispatch

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.