Thursday
January 06, 2005
Stewart
B.C & Hyder, AK
Front Page Photo by Dennis Moody
National: Several
factors behind surge of aid to tsunami victims - In 1991,
when a cyclone and tidal surge took the lives of more than 130,000
people in Bangladesh, Americans, like most others elsewhere in
the world, barely took note.
Now, after an earthquake and
tsunami killed a comparable number in the Indian Ocean region
last week, donations from the U.S. public are pouring in at the
rate of more than $1 million a day.
The difference? Experts in
humanitarian disasters credit a perfect storm of factors that
have converged to spawn an extraordinary - and likely unprecedented
- wave of generosity for victims of a tragedy on the other side
of the world.
"This is definitely a
watermark," said Margaret Carrington, spokeswoman for the
United Nations World Food Program.
And it's only just begun.
NBC has scheduled a telethon
Jan. 15. An expanding roster of movie, music and sports stars
are drumming up contributions. Former Presidents George H.W.
Bush and Bill Clinton are embarking on a joint campaign to solicit
even more. The White House announced Wednesday that President
Bush was chipping in his own check for $10,000.
Already at $200 million, the
public pledges are close to matching the $350 million the American
government has promised to spend. - More...
Thursday - January 06, 2005
Alaska: Governor
Meets with Interior Secretary Norton - Alaska Governor Frank
H. Murkowski met Tuesday with Secretary of the Interior Gale
Norton to discuss a variety of issues significant to Alaska.
"The Interior Department
controls vast areas of Alaska and thus impacts the lives of Alaskans,"
said the governor after the meeting. "I am gratified by
the secretary's openness to resolving conflicts and to working
cooperatively on issues affecting us all. I am committed to protecting
the rights of Alaskans, and I am glad to have a secretary in
Washington willing to listen." - More...
Thursday - January 06, 2005
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Engines parked along
Tongass Highway Wednesday as firefighter responded to a home
fire. A steep gravel road made accessibility to the home owned
by Dan Michalsen difficult. (The home in this picture is not
the home that experienced the fire.)
Photograph by Jerry Cegelske
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Ketchikan: No
one injured in house fire - With a steep gravel road making
accessibility difficult, traffic along the North Tongass was
blocked Wednesday as firefighters responded to a house fire at
4742 North Tongass Highway. - More...
Thursday - January 06, 2005
Alaska: Senator
Stevens Named Chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation
Committee; Will Continue to Serve as Senate President Pro Tempore
and on Appropriations and other Committees - Senator Ted
Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the history of the
Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, was elected
Wednesday by the Senate Republican Conference as the next Chairman
of the Committee. Stevens has been a member of the Senate Commerce
Committee since 1971 (with the exception of two years when he
served on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee). During
his tenure on the Committee, Stevens has served as the Chairman
or Ranking Member of the Oceans and Atmosphere Subcommittee,
the Aviation Subcommittee, the Merchant Marine Subcommittee,
the National Ocean Policy Study Group, and the Subcommittee on
Oceans and Fisheries. - More...
Thursday - January 06, 2005
Alaska: Stolworthy
Announces Resignation, Accepts Position In Iraq - Don Stolworthy,
Deputy Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Corrections,
announced Wednesday he has accepted a position in Iraq, working
as a Warden for the United States Department of Justice. - More...
Thursday - January 06, 2005
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A member of an Ohio
State University glacier research team gathers samples of a moss
from the genus Breutelia recently uncovered as the Quelccaya
ice field in the Peruvian Andes retreated. Carbon-dating provided
an age for the plants of at least 50,000 years. Photo courtesy
of Lonnie Thompson.
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Alaska: The
message within the moss by Ned Rozell - An ancient clump
of moss has something to tell us, says the scientist who found
it last summer in Peru - the planet is warmer now than it has
been since ice covered that plant 50,000 years ago.
Ohio State University glaciologist
Lonnie Thompson delivered that message to a few hundred scientists
who crowded a lecture hall at the December 2004 American Geophysical
Union meeting in San Francisco. More than 11,000 scientists attended
the annual meeting where Thompson gave several presentations
(including one about drilling an ice core from the saddle between
Mounts Bona and Churchill in Alaska) and was a featured speaker
on National Public Radio's Science.
In his lecture, Thompson, who
holds a record for most days living above 18,000 feet, told about
visiting Quelccaya ice cap in the Peruvian Andes, a tropical
glacier system that formed at high elevation with its summit
at about 18,600 feet. In 2002, he and his colleagues found a
bed of plants recently exposed by melting of the ice cap. They
sent the plants to be carbon-dated, and lab results suggested
that the plants were alive about 5,200 years ago, when a growing
Quelccaya entombed them in ice. - More...
Thursday - January 06, 2005
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'Our Troops'
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