Recent News

WASILLA, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska Department of Corrections has launched an investigation after an inmate at Goose Creek Correctional Center died while in custody, KTVA TV reports .

Officials tell KTVA and other media outlets that at 10 a.m. Saturday, Daniel Mark Brusehaber, a 60-year-old inmate, told corrections officers and medical staff he was having trouble breathing. Officials say that despite efforts to save Brusehaber, he was pronounced dead by emergency first-responders more than an hour later.

KTVA reports that the inmate had been in Goose Creek since mid-April on a probation violation and a DWI charge.

The station says his death marks the second in-custody death for 2017.

Alaska State Troopers and the Medical Examiner’s Office will conduct an investigation, as is standard procedure. The Department of Corrections Professional Conduct Unit will also conduct an investigation.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The U.S. Coast Guard says it rescued two kayakers who were near an island off the coast of southern Alaska and became separated as the weather deteriorated.

The Guard says in a news release that two MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crews rescued the kayakers near Chichagof Island Saturday evening.

The Guard says both kayakers were hoisted by the aircrews and transported to Sitka, Alaska. There were no injuries reported.

The weather at the scene was reported as 40 mph winds and 2-foot seas.

KODIAK, Alaska (AP) — The U.S. Navy will be searching for World War II-era explosives on the ocean floor near an Alaska island in June.

The Kodiak Daily Mirror reported Friday that the Navy will be looking for any munitions and explosives that may have been behind left in the water surrounding Kodiak Island.

Navy Public Affairs Officer Leslie Yuenger says the move is part of an environmental restoration program that assesses potential issues that may have resulted from past operations and activities. The water surrounding Kodiak Island was named a Naval Defensive Site on March 22, 1941.

Yuenger says another Alaska survey has discovered WWII munitions or explosives in the water surrounding Dutch Harbor.

She says the survey findings will be made into a public site inspection report.

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — An Alaska man was sentenced to 64 months in federal prison for illegal possession of 32 guns.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports 49-year-old Floyd Julius Stuck of Tok was also sentenced to three years of probation Friday.

Alaska State Troopers and the Fairbanks Statewide Drug Enforcement Unit raided Stuck’s home last year. They got word of large amounts of methamphetamine, stolen guns, jewelry, vehicles and trailers reportedly at his home.

According to charging documents, officers found drugs and guns as well as 49 grams of heroin and 49 morphine and OxyContin tablets.

Stuck was indicted by a federal grand jury last May on one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm. A U.S. Attorney’s Office news release says he pleaded guilty to the charge in March.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — An Alaska man says he didn’t have problems with authorities after he reopened a strip club on his converted crabbing boat as a way to protest his conviction on federal charges.

Darren Byler launched the first nightly protest Thursday in a harbor near the island town of Kodiak. He says about 35 people showed up to watch eight exotic dancers aboard the 94-foot Wild Alaskan.

Byler was fined and sentenced to probation in January for disposing human waste off the same vessel. He says the federal “poop” charges were retaliation from authorities and others who disapprove of the exotic-dancer business.

He’s not serving alcohol or charging admission, but people have to pay $25 for a round-trip water-taxi ride.

Coast Guard and Kodiak police didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska Police Standards Council has decided officers and prison guards in the state should not be getting involved in the marijuana industry.

KTUU-TV reports the council voted earlier this month to ban police from “owning or operating a marijuana business.”

The council had cited the ongoing federal ban as a contributing factor to its decision.

Council director Bob Griffiths had said the matter needed to be addressed as the marijuana business continues taking hold in Alaska.

Any certified police officer found to be operating a marijuana business since the rule has passed will lose their ability to work for a police department or any other law enforcement agency across the state.

Alaska voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2014. Retail sale began in late 2016.