Associated Press

A 42-year-old North Pole resident suspected of shooting an Anchorage man to death last year at a North Pole home has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports Matthew Burton Davis entered the plea Thursday in Fairbanks Superior Court in the death of 34-year-old John Adam Chilcote.

Chilcote was staying with a woman at the North Pole home on Feb. 9, 2015.

Prosecutors say Davis that day sent text messages to the woman, threatening to kill Chilcote.

Prosecutors say Davis that night broke into the home and shot Chilcote with a handgun.

Davis summoned his brother afterward, said he had shot someone and turned himself into North Pole police.

A sentencing hearing is set for Nov. 28.

The Coast Guard base in Kodiak is beefing up its security with a new system that will affect the military installation’s civilian visitors.

Coast Guard exchange stores that sell firearms have stopped selling “assault-style” guns.

The chief operating officer for Coast Guard exchanges, John Riley, said the stores define assault-style weapons as semi-automatic guns with magazines with a capacity of at least 20 rounds.

In Alaska, the decision applies to exchange stores in Kodiak and Ketchikan.

The Kodiak Daily Mirror reports the decision was prompted by the June 12 killing of 49 people at an Orlando, Florida, night club.

Riley said that was the tipping point but the matter was something officials had been looking at.

He said it doesn’t make sense for the Coast Guard to continue selling assault-style weapons based on sales, profit numbers and the scrutiny the stores come under.

Authorities say a man has died after crashing his pickup truck into a Juneau home.

Officers had pulled an unconscious Craig Stephen Temanson from the vehicle Saturday morning. The 63-year-old Juneau victim was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.

Police say Temanson was the only occupant in the vehicle when he veered off the road and drove over a ditch, two driveways and a flower bed before slamming into the residence.

Homeowner Scott Philip and his son were the only two people in the residence at the time of the incident. Neither of them was injured.

The crash caused an estimated $80,000 in damage to the home, which was raised 18 inches off its foundation.

Police do not suspect alcohol to be a factor in the case.

Commercial and sport fishermen in Juneau are preparing for a limited king salmon season as officials recorded the lowest ever salmon returns on the Taku River.

The Juneau Empire reports that in the 27 years of recorded data on the Taku River, escapement numbers have averaged nearly 42,000 fish.

Alaska Department of Fish and Game officials expect only about 12,000 Taku River chinook salmon to make it to the spawning grounds this year, well below their goal of at least 19,000.

Wildlife officials have restricted gillnetters from setting their nets in the western half of Taku Inlet, cutting them off from a large portion of lucrative fishing grounds. Gillnet fishing opened Sunday.

Sport fishing on the Taku River was shut down June 2.

Correction: A previous version of this story was attributed to the wrong author. 

The Greater Fairbanks Community Hospital Foundation is working to raise $1.2 million to replace Fairbanks Memorial Hospital’s surgery center.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports that the $88 million project is scheduled to have seven surgery suites fully operational by April 2017. The project is being funded with $55 million in bond sales and $33 million from the foundation’s cash reserves.

Foundation president Jeff Cook says the fundraiser is aimed to put money back into the cash reserves and to maintain the foundation’s bond rating.

The current surgery suites were built with the hospital in 1972. Cook says they have been updated, but as technology improves the current suites are running out of room for equipment.