Heather Bryant

A nonpartisan group, formed in 1999 to fight an oil merger in the state, is expressing support for the Alaska Senate’s bipartisan coalition.

Leaders of Backbone held a news conference in Anchorage on Thursday, in which they lauded the coalition’s stand against Gov. Sean Parnell’s oil tax-cut plan. Some Republicans, including Parnell, have expressed a desire to break up the current coalition.

The group does not plan to register as an independent expenditure group or to endorse candidates but rather intends to draw attention to the importance of this year’s Senate races

Vince Beltrami, of Backbone, likened the coalition’s efforts in the oil tax fight to keeping the fox out of the henhouse.

Six of the Senate’s 10 Republicans have joined with the chamber’s 10 Democrats to form the coalition.

Update July 27, 2012 11:48 am

The Coast Guard says an 84-foot fishing vessel sank near southern Prince of Wales Island.

All four crew members were rescued and reported no medical issues.

The Coast Guard in a release says the Mary Kay began taking on water late Thursday night.

It then sank in about 600 feet of water near Dixon Entrance, about 275 miles south of Juneau.

The Coast Guard will monitor for any pollution from the estimated 2,500 gallons of fuel on board. The vessel likely won’t be recovered because of the depth of water where it sank.

Several Good Samaritan vessels and an Alaska Wildlife Troopers skiff responded. The troopers were able to take the four crew members, who were wearing immersion suits, aboard from a life raft.

July 27, 2012 6:20 am

Four people were rescued when their fishing vessel sank Friday morning in southern Southeast.

The crew of the ‘Mary Kay’ issued a mayday call before eleven o’clock Thursday night while it was in northern Dixon Entrance.

Lt.(jg) Eddie Michno of the Coast Guard Command Center in Juneau says the vessel sank about three o’clock Friday morning about ten miles south of Prince of Wales Island.

A Canadian rescue aircraft, a Coast Guard H-60 helicopter from Sitka, the Alaska State Trooper vessel ‘Enforcer’ headed to the scene along with two good samaritan vessels.

Four people abandoned the ‘Mary Kay’ into a life raft. They were picked up by the fishing vessel ‘Northwind’ and are now being taken to Ketchikan.

No major injuries were reported.

About 2,500 gallons of diesel were reported on board the ‘Mary Kay.’ Michno says the Marine Safety Detachment in Ketchikan plans to check out the scene for any pollution.

Editor’s note: The Mary Kay was initially reported by the Coast Guard as being a 78-foot vessel.

The Federal Communications Commission says thousands of rural Alaskans will have access to affordable, higher-speed Internet through its “Connect America Fund.”

The fund is intended to connect millions of unserved rural Americans to broadband. And FCC says Alaska Communications accepted nearly $4.2 million to increase broadband access in this state.

FCC says more than 14,000 rural Alaska should benefit once the build-out is completed. Alaska Communications must complete two-thirds of its new broadband commitments within two years, and the remainder by the third year.

Officials are investigating the crash of a U.S. F-16 fighter jet that went down in the Pacific after taking off from a base in Japan. The pilot ejected and was rescued after six hours in the water.

The F-16 with the 35th Fighter Squadron at Misawa Air Base crashed Sunday about 250 miles off the coast of Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost main island.

Officials at Misawa said Thursday that an investigation into the cause of the crash was under way. The aircraft was en route to Alaska.

The pilot, who has not been identified, ejected safely and was retrieved after about six hours by a combined Japanese and U.S. rescue mission. Base officials say he is in stable condition.

This week, the famous Katmai bears got a much bigger audience via a new series of webcams that deliver the bears to your screen.

Katmai National Park and Preserve teamed up with Explore.org’s Pearls of the Planet program to set up four live webcams around Brooks Camp.

The cameras will deliver footage from four locations.

Roy Wood, the lead interpreter at Katmai National Park, says the webcams are a dream come true for the park which had been trying to install cameras since 2008.

When funding and staffing put the plan just out of reach, the idea didn’t go away though.

“That idea was still lingering there. We felt there was this demand for seeing the bears and that people would really enjoy it and it would be somewhat enlightening and educational for people to be able to watch the bears day in and day out as they struggle to survive here in the park,” Wood said.

Wood’s idea is shared by Charles Annenberg, the creator of Explore.org. Annenberg is an avid filmmaker and adventurer. He started Explore as a philanthropic multimedia organization that shares live video and documentaries from around the world. Annenberg describes the organization’s mission as championing the selfless acts of others, creating a portal into the soul of humanity and to inspire lifelong learning.

Annenberg said that the live cams at Katmai have always been a dream of his.

“You’re really in the most pure intact ecosystem environment you can be in right there at Katmai. I mean you’re really at nature working at its most harmonious self, uninterrupted. And that’s really what’s at stake in Alaska. You have this land that’s probably as raw and pure as it gets,” Annenberg said.

This past winter Explore approached Katmai Park about teaming up to install the cameras and plan the interactive web presence that accompanies the video streams.

“It was just truly one of the greatest days of my professional career. I had been struggling with this for years and to get this call out of the blue saying hey we got this idea and we’re interested to know if you’re interested in it as well. So it was a partnership match made in heaven,” Wood said.

Annenberg accompanied the crew to Alaska for the installation of the cameras last week.

Wood describes the system as a spectacular feat of technical engineering that doesn’t disturb the bears or the environment. Explore hired a team of engineers to install solar powered systems in a number of locations and built a system to transmit the video signal to King Salmon.

The videos went live online Tuesday.

Wood is happy with the response that the project is getting both from online visitors and those in the park.

Visitors to the site have already left hundreds of comments. Wood says the excitement is shared by visitors in the park as well, who look forward to using the live cam to follow the bears they’ve connected with in person.

“Ultimately, our goal is to provide more than just a novelty experience of watching a bear and to go beyond that by scheduling periods of time where rangers will be doing live chats with the public at large or with individual classrooms around the country or the world where they could ask us questions about what we’re seeing,” Wood said.

There are no roads to Katmai Park. (Map) Getting there requires first getting to King Salmon by plane or boat and taking a charter to Brooks Camp. Visitors can camp or stay at the lodge but space is limited.

“The majority of the people on the planet cannot afford the time or the money to make a visit to Katmai, and that doesn’t mean they’re not interested in learning about the bears, the salmon, and this magnificent landscape. This is a way of opening that up to everybody, pretty much regardless of their location or their financial means,” Wood said.

The website will run the video 24 hours a day and the project is being completely funded by Explore. Visitors to the site won’t see any advertisements or corporate sponsorships. Annenberg said that’s just the way he wants the site to be. He wants visitors to the site to have a pure experience with a site that is just about observation.

“I know it sounds corny, but I hope it’s gonna just kind of make you fall in love with the world again. Because when you develop an emotional connection everything else takes place,” Annenberg said. “We live in such a culture where you’re almost told you’re not a good person if you don’t give money. But really what they forget is the real value is the investment of emotion and time. So just by reconnecting with nature through technology and observing these bears and these moments. I believe you’re going to become a better steward of this planet.”

You can view the live cam at Explore.org. The site also features a number of other live cams of osprey, pandas, and polar bears as well as documentaries and photo galleries.

U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski sees the hire of another worker in the Skagway post office as a step toward getting residents “the kind of postal service they can count on.”

Murkowski raised concerns about staffing and mail delays following a visit to Skagway in May. Since then, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service says things have changed.

Ernie Swanson says deliveries are being made on time, and complaints have subsided. He says an employee is being transferred from Juneau to Skagway, and the agency will continue to bring additional workers from Juneau, as needed. He says the agency also is looking to hire employees locally, if possible, for temporary positions.

The Skagway post office is authorized for four positions, including the postmaster. The summer tourism season is especially busy.