Recent News

FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — A North Pole couple charged with starving and beating a 6-month-old puppy reached a plea agreement with prosecutors.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports 22-year-old Denise John-Carroll pleaded guilty Thursday to one felony count of knowingly inflicting prolonged suffering to an animal.

John-Carroll was ordered to pay $1,300 to a veterinary hospital that treated the dog. She’s banned from owning an animal.

Twenty-two-year-old Leonard Kriska pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of the same charge.

An Alaska State Trooper found the injured puppy Nov. 7 during a call to their home. The dog was extremely underweight and had puncture wounds.

The dog was found tucked into a ball with his face hidden in a gap between a wall and a kitchen cabinet.

The dog has been adopted.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska Energy Authority will continue with its plans for a $46.4 million expansion at its Bradley Lake hydroelectric plant near Homer following the approval from its board of directors.

The Alaska Journal of Commerce reports the board unanimously voted in favor of the expansion at their Aug. 10 meeting in Anchorage. With the board’s approval, the Alaska Energy Authority can look at developing and financing options for its Battle Creek diversion project.

The energy office has said the project would add roughly 37,300 megawatt hours per year to Bradley Lake’s current power production, equivalent to about 10 percent of its average annual output.

Executive Director Michael Lamb says the project has also received approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and is “shovel ready.”

KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) — Voter in an Alaska city are getting the chance to decide whether or not they want ride-sharing companies such as Uber and Lyft to operate in their city.

The Ketchikan City Council voted on Thursday to place a proposed city ban of ride-hailing companies on the upcoming Oct. 3 ballot.

Ketchikan Daily News reports the action comes after Gov. Bill Walker in June signed legislation allowing ride-sharing companies to operate statewide.

Council members and Mayor Lew Williams III are skeptical of ride-sharing because they say companies are not responsible as a whole for collecting or reporting local sales taxes, even though individual driver are required to do so.

The ban proposal was voted on the same day that two of the city’s three taxi services were OK’d to merge.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — After pleading guilty in a poaching case, three men were ordered to pay restitution for illegally killing three musk oxen in northwest Alaska.

At their Wednesday sentencing, 33-year-old Thomas Tazruk, 30-year-old Billy Bodfish and 58-year-old Willie Bodfish were ordered to pay $3,000 restitution for each of the three kills, for a total bill of $9,000 to be split among them.

The men are residents of the small Inupiat Eskimo village of Wainwright.

The men also were ordered to pay $500 fines each and forfeit their firearms. They pleaded guilty in June to misdemeanor charges that they took the animals during a closed season and failed to salvage the meat.

Prosecutors say only a hind quarter from one of the animals was salvaged and the rest was left as bait.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Abortion-rights advocates and the state of Alaska are seeking to dismiss a lawsuit after the state medical board adopted new regulations for abortions after the first trimester.

Attorneys for Planned Parenthood of the Great Northwest and the Hawaiian Islands and for the state jointly filed a motion asking a judge to dismiss the case brought by Planned Parenthood last year. They say the new regulations render the lawsuit moot.

The state medical board, prodded by the lawsuit, addressed provisions that Planned Parenthood challenged as outdated and unnecessary.

That included eliminating a requirement that two doctors weigh in when a woman wants an abortion after the first trimester.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A new six-year study on guns in Alaska shows the state has one of the top rates of gun deaths and injuries in the U.S.

The Juneau Empire reports the study was published on Wednesday by the Alaska Section of Epidemiology. It examined three statewide databases and found almost 1,500 people were injured or killed by firearms from the start of 2009 to the end of 2015.

Figures compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show Alaska’s firearm deaths is the second-highest in the country behind Montana.

Deborah Hull-Jilly, the public health expert who coordinated the study, says the main reason for gun deaths in Alaska is suicide. But the study left unclear whether the presence of firearms contributes to Alaska’s suicides, or if other factors are causing the high rate.