Friday
March 04, 2005
It's
Iditarod Race Year 33! a ghost story of
the southern route
By June Allen
Photo courtesy the Library of Congress Prints and
Photographs Division Washington, D.C.
Excitement has built to a feverish
pitch among mushers and fans as they ready for the 33rd running
of Alaska's world famous Iditarod dogsled race, scheduled to
start March 5. A "false spring" several weeks
ago rained away a little too much of the Wasilla area's snow
cover, so the start of the race has been moved about thirty miles
up the Parks highway to the small town of Willow, always
just a little colder and more dependably snow-covered.- Read
the rest of this story by June Allen....
Friday - March 04, 2005
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1256 Water Street Fire
Front Page Photo by Tracy Mettler
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Ketchikan: Home
on Water Street Burns - The Ketchikan Fire Department received
a 911 call at 10:25 Thursday morning reporting a house fire at
1256 Water Street.
The first units arriving reported
heavy smoke coming from the second floor window. According to
Public Safety Director Rich Leipfert, initial attack teams entered
the home and found a fire in the main living area and in the
attic spaced. Leipfert said the initial fire attack contained
the fire to the attic and second floor living area.
While fighting the fire, four
firefighter received chemical burns from chemicals that were
stored in the home. Leipfert said the injured firefighters were
treated and released from Ketchikan General Hospital. No other
injuries were reported. - More...
Friday - March 04, 2005
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Richard Hoover of NASA
takes ice samples from the permafrost tunnel in Fox, Alaska.
In these samples, he found bacteria not known to science that
began moving when he thawed the ice sample. Photo courtesy Richard
Hoover.
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Alaska: Mammoth-age
bacteria wriggle again by Ned Rozell - In a Fairbanks lab
not too long ago, a man squinted through a microscope at a slide
of melting ice from the Fox permafrost tunnel. Richard Hoover
knew he was looking at organisms that were alive when the wooly
mammoth and saber-toothed cat roamed Alaska, but he didn't expect
to see them born again.
"When they thawed out,
they immediately started swimming," said Hoover, an astrobiologist
with NASA's National Space Science and Technology Center in Huntsville,
Alabama. "These guys had been frozen since the Pleistocene,
and here they were swimming around." - More...
Friday - March 04, 2005
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Alaska: Notorious
Ponzi Schemes Are at the Top of the List Reflecting Back on the
Notorious Charles Ponzi - Annually NASAA, the North American
Securities Administrators Association, compiles a list of the
top ten scams, schemes and scandals. This list is developed from
a survey of state securities enforcement officers and regulators.
Number one on the 2004 list is the Ponzi Scheme.
Here in Alaska we have seen
more than our share of Ponzi Schemes that resulted in lost of
millions of dollars. The most notorious being RaeJean Bonham
of Fairbanks, an operator of a $50 million scheme. Another Ponzi
case with an Alaska connection was Mutual Benefits Corporation,
where in Florida, a federal judged ordered the Fort Lauderdale-based
Corporation to return $105 million to investors.
The Ponzi name came from swindler
Charles Ponzi who was born on March 3, 1882. Ponzi took investors
for million by promising high percent returns.
Ponzi Schemes are a perennial
favorite among con artists. The premise is simple, promise high
returns to investors and use money from new investors to pay
previous investors. Inevitably, the schemes collapse and the
only people who consistently make money are the promoters who
set the Ponzi in motion. -
More...
Friday - March 04, 2005
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