National: Forty years after creation, Medicare faces crisis By LAWRENCE M. O'ROURKE - Political deals sometimes come back to haunt you, and that is the case with Medicare.

So says Joseph Califano, who 40 years ago sat at the elbow of one of the great wheelers and dealers in presidential history at the creation of the federal health insurance system that now serves 41 million Americans. - More...
Monday - August 08, 2005

National: NASA's next generation of spacecraft in the works By KEAY DAVIDSON - Eager to keep U.S. astronauts in space after the last space shuttle is mothballed and to realize half-century-old dreams of human bases on the moon and Mars, NASA is overseeing an industrial competition to build the next generation of manned space rockets.

In light of this week's trouble-haunted space shuttle mission, space agency officials are eager to finish developing the shuttle's proposed successor: the Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV), a part of President Bush's "Vision for Space Exploration" announced last year. - More...
Monday - August 08, 2005

Washington Calling: No worries about overseas travel ... GOP targets Byrd ... More By LANCE GAY - Americans are vacationing overseas in numbers that are expected to exceed the nearly 62 million who went abroad last year. Commerce Department statistics show that 38 percent of those going overseas in 2004 were vacationing, 33 percent were visiting friends or family and 22 percent were on business. A majority spent three weeks on their trips.

Top five destinations: Mexico, Canada, the United Kingdom, France and Italy. - More...
Monday - August 08, 2005

Alaska: Governor Signs SeniorCare Legislation to Continue Assistance to Low-income Seniors - Today at the Anchorage Senior Center Governor Frank H. Murkowski signed into law legislation that extends and expands the SeniorCare program.

"House Bill 106 will extend and strengthen SeniorCare," said Murkowski. "It will continue to provide a cash benefit to the neediest of Alaska's seniors; and will dovetail with the federal changes to Medicare in January 2006 so low-income seniors will have help with the federal prescription drug plan." - More...
Monday - August 08, 2005

Viewpoints Opinions/Letters "The gift of time" By Yeda Hicks - Monday Vote YES By Thomas Ferry - Monday Daily Show By Rob Glenn - Monday Another "outsider" opinion By Neil Gray - Monday Valid Point By Kara (McElroy) Steele - Monday Gravina Cedar By Mike Sallee - Monday "Invasive Species" is Junk Science By Julie Kay Smithson - Monday Found property procedures By John Maki - Monday Special Election Dock Bond By Jessica Mathews - Monday Baseball By Jan Cadero - Monday The bridge...once again. By David Rettke - Monday Missouri weighs in on Ketchikan Bridge... By Brian Gray - Monday Dock expansion By Rob Glenn - Monday More Viewpoints/ Letters Publish A Letter Mission Iraq Recess RJ Matson, Roll Call Distributed to subscribers exclusively by Cagle Cartoons, Inc. Political Cartoonists Ketchikan Calendar, Meetings, Events Today's Forecast City Police Report AK Troopers Daily Dispatch Classifieds & Announcements August 2005 Click on the date for stories and photos published on that day... S M T W T F S   01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30          Front Page Archives

Laine Welch: Pollock donated for sea lion research - Few people know that many of the sea creatures residing at the Alaska Sea Life Center (ASLC) at Seward are fed on fish that is donated by Bering Sea boats, and delivered free of charge by Unalaska shipping companies.

It's a collaborative effort that began about five years ago, after huge swaths of traditional fishing grounds in the Bering Sea, Aleutian Islands and Gulf of Alaska were shut down by federal managers. The closures stemmed from a lawsuit supporting environmentalists' claims that boats were taking too much pollock, thereby adding to the population drop of endangered sea lions which began occurring in the 1980's. "It was an unanswered question when the new regulations went through. There was no clear point at which you could say A was causing B. So the pollock industry decided to do something to find answers. They said we might not like what we find out, but at least we'll know," said Shirley Marquardt, Unalaska Mayor. - More...
Monday - August 08, 2005

Dave Kiffer: One of the "Big Three" - Like many Alaskans I have a Jay Hammond story to tell.

Hammond - who died last week at 82 - was one of the "big three" Alaskan governors. I don't necessarily mean that he, Bill Egan and Wally Hickel were the best Alaskan governors, just that they dominated Alaskan politics even when they weren't in sitting in the governor's office. They cast bigger shadows. And Hammond - with his rugged Alaskan Central Casting outdoorsman image - clearly cast the biggest.  

Part of that image, "The Man of the People," led to him being remarkably approachable for a politician. I first met Jay Hammond in 1980 by walking up to his office in the state Capitol building and asking to speak to him. Try doing that California's Governor Arnold or Jeb Bush of Florida. To quote Jeb's brother "It aint gonna happen."

I was scrounging around trying to find a "career" after washing out of music school and I had talked myself into a "job" volunteering in the news department at KRBD FM. My duties mainly involved occasionally reading the news for the evening newscast, writing up some sports stories and hanging about filing things and making sure the tape deck batteries were charged. In the spring, I decided to go to Juneau for a few days to visit an ex-girlfriend (hope springs eternal!). - More...
Monday - August 08, 2005

Robert Denerstein: Capsule reviews of current movies - A LEAGUE OF ORDINARY GENTLEMEN (B) A documentary about efforts to revive the professional bowlers tour, which has fallen on hard times since ABC dropped bowling from its schedule in 1997. The personalities of a new generation of bowlers create a mixture of upbeat and gloomy notes in a movie about a sport that has seen better days.

Unrated.

BAD NEWS BEARS (C) Billy Bob Thornton earns some laughs in this somewhat shabby remake of the 1976 original, which starred Walter Matthau. Thornton takes the Matthau role of Morris Buttermaker, a reprobate ex-ballplayer who takes over a youth baseball team. This remake - directed without distinction by Richard Linklater - has nothing more to say than the original, but manages to be much more foul-mouthed in saying it. An excess of profanity makes the movie inappropriate for younger children.

Rated: PG-13. Profanity, adult subject matter. - More...
Monday - August 08, 2005