The Alaska State Museum is seeking entries for its biennial exhibition of Alaska photography.
The museum says in a news release that its Alaska Positive series encourages photography as an art form in the state.
The deadline for entries is Sept. 22. The exhibition will be juried by Portland photographer Holly Andres.
There will be a $300 Juror’s Choice Award and two $150 Awards of Recognition. Other photos will be selected for honorable mention. The exhibit will be shown at the museum and tour the state.
The competition is open to Alaska residents.
Photographers can find more details and the entry form here.
Poor advice from a car’s GPS unit led a man to drive off the ferry in Whittier and straight into the small boat harbor.
The man and his two dogs were fine, but a cat inside a carrier drowned.
The unnamed man had just arrived in Alaska from the Lower 48. He drove off the ferry but after about 400 feet, the GPS unit in the man’s car told him to make a hard right turn.
Whittier public safety director Dave Schofield says that was a misdirection, and it led the man down the ramp where people launch boats.
The car was fully submerged when a man jumped in the water and broke the window open, allowing the driver and his dogs to escape.
Hawaii needs natural gas and Alaska has plenty, but possible sales are years away.
That’s according to industry and government experts who spoke Thursday in Anchorage at a panel discussion assembled by Alaska U.S. Sen. Mark Begich.
Vast gas resources on Alaska’s North Slope still lack a means of getting to market.
Smaller fields of Cook Inlet south of Anchorage are seeing more drilling but continue to devote most of what they extract to the needs of Alaska.
Robert Isler of Hawaiian Electric Co. says his state isn’t ready to buy liquid natural gas as it converts from power generated by diesel. He says Hawaii must first answer questions on gas infrastructure such as docking facilities, regasification plants and pipelines.
Alaska’s governor has asked U.S. Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to reconsider a plan to let states seek major changes in how they meet federal welfare-to-work requirements.
Gov. Sean Parnell, in a letter released Wednesday, says he believes that in granting any waivers, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services “will in effect create a dangerous policy precedent and deter Americans from becoming more self-sufficient.”
Last month, the department issued a memo in which it said it was encouraging states to consider “new, more effective ways” to help families receiving assistance “successfully prepare for, find and retain employment.” The memo says states led the way on welfare reform in the 1990s, and the department is seeking to challenge states to engage in a new round of innovation.
Two Hot Spring County, Arkansas, teenagers were sentenced to prison Wednesday for the 2011 death of 19-year-old Kevin Thornton of Juneau. The youth entered negotiated guilty pleas to charges of second degree murder in adult criminal court.
A third teen charged in the case pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of aggravated assault and was placed on probation.
Thornton was a 2010 Thunder Mountain High School graduate, who was visiting in the south at the time of the assault.
Seventh Judicial District Circuit Judge Ed Koon sentenced Richard Shelby Whybark, 18, and Timothy Tyler Norwood, 18, to a term of 20 years each in the Arkansas Department of Correction. Koon sentenced 17-year-old Clinton Lavon Ross to serve five years of supervised probation.
The three were charged as adults with second degree murder after Thornton died from injuries one week after being assaulted on a country road near Glen Rose in July 2011. At the time of the incident, Whybark was 17 and Norwood and Ross were 16.
According to a probable cause statement accepted as fact by the court, Norwood struck Thornton one time and knocked him to the ground unconscious. Whybark then repeatedly kicked Thornton in the head and face and dragged him to a roadside ditch, according to the statement.
Thornton was assaulted on Traskwood Road in Glen Rose, Ark. It is close to the Glen Rose Baptist Church, where he was taken by a passerby, who saw him in the ditch. (Photo by Steve Good)
Thornton, 19, was visiting Malvern. He and a second victim, Jerry Haynes, were wallking down Traskwood Road when the boys stopped their truck and assaulted Thornton. The statement said Ross never struck Thornton, but chased Haynes, who was uninjured.
A then-14-year-old male, who was in the truck with the other three boys, was not charged in the incident because he did not participate in the assault.
Hot Spring County Sheriff’s investigators have called Thornton’s assault a case of complete random violence.
Seventh Judicial District Prosecutor Eddy Easley echoed the thought.
“It was just a senseless act of violence done to a young man that had never been in any trouble nor did he do anything to provoke this violence. They just picked him out at random,” Easley said. “Our plea today, our only hope is for the family. They are grieving, they’ve cooperated with us greatly, they’re good people. We hope that what happened today will bring them some type of closure and maybe just a little peace.”
Before the three were escorted from the courtroom, Darlene Thornton, Kevin’s mother, addressed the three teens. In a prepared victim impact statement, Mrs. Thornton spoke about how the Thornton family has been affected by Kevin’s death.
“Kevin’s death has been devastating to our whole family. It has hit us all emotionally, financially and some of us physically. You have taken away the life of our son, the wedding that we will never have, the grandchildren we will never hold, and the brother that his sister misses so strongly. Only in time will justice truly be served,” Mrs. Thornton said.
The maximum sentence Whybark and Norwood would have faced was 30 years. Under current Arkansas sentencing guidelines, they must serve half their 20-year sentences before they will be eligible for parole, less credit earned for good time as well as credit for time served awaiting trial and awaiting prison bed space.
NOAA officials say 10 beluga whales became stranded in Turnagain Arm south of Anchorage.
NOAA spokeswoman Julie Speegle says the report came in early Tuesday afternoon.
She says a plane with two NOAA officers was sent to try and find the whales. She says 10 were spotted stranded on the western side of Turnagain Arm near Hope.
Speegle says low tide was 6 p.m. She says when the tide started coming in the whales were able to swim free.
The Cook Inlet beluga whales are endangered. Whale experts say one of the dangers they face is the possibility of large numbers dying in a stranding on the mudflats.
A survey last year put their numbers at 284. That is about 20 percent fewer than the year before.
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