ANCHORAGE — Alaska’s 477th Fighter Group can trace its roots directly to the famed Tuskegee Airmen of World War II. This heritage was honored when Lucasfilm gave select Reserve servicemen an early screening of the company’s new film “Red Tails.”

ANCHORAGE — Alaska’s home construction continues to follow national patterns: first up, then down, now maybe up again.

Alaska’s residential construction rose dramatically between 2000 and 2005, when about 3,000 new single-family homes were built annually in the state. Also during this time period, more than 8.5 million homes went up across the country. Alaska’s numbers dropped along with the rest of the nation’s as early as 2006 and reached a low-point in 2009. Now the decline has stopped and even reversed a small bit.

The Alaska Gasline Development Corp. (AGDC) has selected former Regulatory Commission of Alaska Chairman Dave Harbour as its new director of external affairs.

AGDC is a subsidiary of Alaska Housing Finance Corp. It sprung from House Bill 369 last year to study feasibility options for a pipeline plan to move North Slope natural gas from the Interior to Southcentral Alaska.

Harbour said his job will be interacting with stakeholders, legislators and the media concerning these developments.

Voters will have a choice Tuesday whether or not to impose a 15-cent plastic bag tax for stores with revenues greater than $15 million annually. Different people have different views on what the tax will mean.

Large retailers would charge the 15-cent tax to shoppers using store-supplied disposable plastic shopping bags. The alternatives to paying would be to use paper bags or bring one’s own reusable bags.