FAIRBANKS — Tanana Chiefs Conference has landed funding to convert a South Cushman Street hotel into a residential facility for the homeless.
The Fairbanks-based consortium of Interior tribes plans to open the facility by December, according to TCC Deputy Health Director Jacoline Bergstrom. TCC is purchasing a vacant 62,000-square-foot hotel for the purpose, which has previously been a Westmark Hotel and Best Western on South Cushman.
ANCHORAGE — Alyson McCarty speaks Latin. She knows a little Greek and few words of Spanish. But when the 14-year-old sings, she sings in her mother’s language of Yup’ik.
McCarty recently recorded her seventh CD of Yup’ik and English hymns. Of the 14 tracks, McCarty recorded four in Yup’ik. There’s a rendition of “Amazing Grace” called “Naklekuti Nitnirqekria” and a translation of the Lord’s Prayer. Even the thank-yous, “Quyana,” are in the Western Alaska language.
ANCHORAGE — A child welfare official has testified that social workers found no signs of maltreatment when they investigated an Alaska woman accused of punishing her adopted son by putting hot sauce in his mouth.
Virginia Moring, a supervisor in the Office of Children’s Services, testified Friday that the social workers decided not to remove the boy from the home of Jessica Beagley.
FAIRBANKS — The University of Alaska Fairbanks is building a dormitory it hopes will serve as a living laboratory to study renewable energy, gray-water recycling and elements of hyper-efficient design.
The $1 million project, called the Sustainable Village, is being designed to test efficiency and low operating costs, according to The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
The first phase of the village will house 16 students who will also serve as researchers. They will live in clusters that each house between 4 and 6 people.
ANCHORAGE — Consultants on a proposed billion-dollar bridge connecting Anchorage to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough over Knik Arm say the state of Alaska will be expected to pay the difference if tolls don’t cover costs of a private developer.
“Any difference between tolls and the (developer’s) payment — that is made up by the state,” said Grant Holland, vice president for Wilbur Smith Associates, at a technical committee for a city-state traffic planning board.
Mount McKinley is seen on a rare sunny day this summer on Friday in Denali National Park. Mount McKinley is the highest mountain peak in North America and the United States, with a summit elevation of 20,320 feet above sea level.
KODIAK — At first glance, the group isn’t different from any other collection of 20-somethings excited to be in Kodiak, experiencing the world-class fishing and taking in the sights. The men joke around, pull pranks on each other and engage in the verbal one-upmanship banter common among guys.
ANCHORAGE — Large herds of Pacific walrus have begun gathering on the northwest coast of Alaska, again forsaking sea ice for sand in what has become a symbol of climate warming in the region.
A contractor taking part in federal marine mammal aerial surveys over the Chukchi Sea spotted about 5,000 walruses Wednesday on a beach north of Point Lay. A second herd of 3,000 walruses rested a short distance away.
As late August brings night back to the far north, our old friend darkness is restoring our view of the aurora, stars and satellites, seen as pinpoints of light streaking through the heavens. In the last 50 years, researchers have blasted thousands of these devices into Earth’s orbit.
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — A Pennsylvania man and his son were arrested Thursday on charges of harassing Sarah Palin’s family and lawyers in a case a prosecutor said went beyond “merely creepy to truly threatening.”
Craig Christy, 47, and his son, Shawn Christy, 19, were placed under arrest at the FBI office in Allentown. The pair were indicted by a federal grand jury in Alaska on Wednesday.
