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JUNEAU - Police are investigating a Nov. 24 accident that sent a pedestrian to the hospital after he was hit by a car on Douglas Highway.

The driver allegedly hit a 50-year-old man who lives in the area, at about 9 p.m., police reported. The pedestrian said he had been dragged under the car. Police talked to him later, at Bartlett Regional Hospital, where he was taken by a Capital City Fire and Rescue ambulance.

The driver was described as a man, 42, who lives in Juneau.

Police reported that the officer at the scene cited him for failing to carry a valid driver's license or proof of insurance.

Homer to get skating rink

KENAI - An ice rink is coming to Homer. Construction of a multi-use ice facility is a matter of when, not if, courtesy of a $500,000 grant from the Rasmuson Foundation, according to the president of the Homer Hockey Association, Harry Rasmussen.

The foundation donated $450,000 outright plus a $50,000 challenge grant, with which it will provide a dollar-to-dollar match for money raised by the association elsewhere.

The Rasmuson grant represents more than a third of the construction cost.

The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, based in Vancouver, Wash., is expected to announce a grant of between $200,000 and $300,000 in February, Rasmussen said. Several smaller agencies have indicated they would donate as much as $30,000 once larger granting agencies were on board, Rasmussen said.

Kenai Peninsula Borough Mayor Dale Bagley said Wednesday he did not want to get too far ahead of Sen. Ted Stevens' office, but there could be federal money available to aid the Homer rink project.

The rink is important to Homer's hosting part of the 2006 Arctic Winter Games, Bagley said.

Rasmussen said the project still needs to raise another $200,000, but that should be easier with the addition of the Rasmuson grant.

Judge OKs plan for salmon lawsuit money

ANCHORAGE - A Superior Court judge has given preliminary approval to a plan to divide $40 million in settlements created by the Bristol Bay salmon price-fixing lawsuit.

The ruling by Judge Peter Michalski triggers a process in which 4,500 commercial fishermen will be notified that lawyers on both sides of the class-action case have agreed to the plan and that anyone with objections should speak up.

The $40 million came from settlements paid by 18 fish processing and Japanese importing companies. They were some of the defendants the fishermen accused of conspiring to pay artificially low dock prices for Bristol Bay sockeye salmon.

An Anchorage jury in May cleared the 12 remaining defendant companies after a nearly four-month trial.

The settlement money is being held in an Anchorage bank.

Under the plan to divide it, the fishermen would share $9.7 million, receiving an average of $2,145 apiece. The fishermen's lawyers would get $16.5 million, and the seafood companies and their lawyers would get $13.8 million.

Fishermen could receive the money by the middle of next year, said lawyer Parker Folse of Seattle.

Michalski this week temporarily denied a request from Gov. Frank Murkowski's administration to intervene in the case. The governor said $12 million of the sum sought by the fishermen's lawyers should be redirected to fishermen and processors as a way to help the state's economically depressed salmon industry.

The judge said he wouldn't consider the state's motion until after the class of fishermen is notified of the pending plan to divide the $40 million. He set another hearing for Feb. 5.

New trial ordered for day-care provider

ANCHORAGE - The Alaska Supreme Court on Friday ordered a new trial for an Eagle River day-care provider who was convicted of second-degree murder in the 1997 death of a 10-month-old child.

Michele Dague is accused of killing the baby, identified as K.T., while it was in her care.

During her Superior Court trial in 1998, Dague admitted being responsible for the child's death but said she didn't realize what she was doing.

"The only issue in dispute was whether Dague had acted 'knowingly' - with awareness of the nature of her act - when she swung or threw the child against a hard object," the justices said in a 34-page ruling.

"This is an element of the extreme indifferent second-degree murder charge against Dague."

At trial, defense lawyers wanted to question the state's expert witness about the dynamics of child abuse, the mental state of abusers, and the witness's opinion about Dague's mental state at the time.

The request was denied.

The Supreme Court ruled the exclusion of the testimony was not a harmless error and that Dague was entitled to a new trial.