Alaska News

AK Beat: Don Young's health checks out after experiencing 'minor chest discomfort'

Rep. Don Young gets all-clear after minor health scare: The office of Rep. Don Young, Alaska's sole member of the U.S. House of Representatives, reported that Young has received a clean bill of health after experiencing "minor chest discomfort" while traveling in Southeast Alaska earlier this week. The 80-year-old Young visited the Wrangell Medical Center after experiencing the discomfort, and had further tests conducted Saturday in Anchorage. Young's office said the congressman sought treatment "out of caution" and that the tests that were conducted are "standard procedure for someone who has had major heart surgery, which Congressman Young underwent in 1997."

Shooting outside Anchorage bar leaves two injured: A shooting outside of a bar in Midtown Anchorage early Sunday left one woman wounded and a man in critical condition, the Anchorage Police Department reported. Police said that they received "numerous" 911 calls just after 2 a.m. reporting the shooting outside of the Office Lounge bar, located at 545 E. Northern Lights Blvd. Some callers had seen the shootings, while others heard gun shots, APD spokeswoman Jennifer Castro said. The shooting took place on the east side of the building. The injured man and woman did not know each other. They were just "two separate people in the same place at the same time," Castro said. Both were taken to a local hospital, where the man remains in critical condition, and the woman is reported in stable recovery. Police are working to identify the suspect, or multiple suspects, involved in the shooting. Anyone with info is asked to call 907-786-8900 or 907-561-STOP.

Rough weather keeps pounding Alaska: After an unusually long autumn in the Last Frontier, winter had arrived with a vengeance by Sunday, as much of Alaska remained shrouded in weather advisories, according to the National Weather Service. As the Bering Sea and much of the Aleutians remained under a gale warning, things were about as bad in the Interior and Western portions of the state, where a winter storm warning was in effect until at least Sunday evening and expected to bring snow, wind and freezing rain. Much of the North Slope was also under a coastal flooding advisory until Monday morning. In Anchorage, the first measurable snowfall of the year at the National Weather Service office in West Anchorage on Saturday had turned into freezing rain by Sunday, with icy roads causing accidents around the city and a flood advisory also in effect until Sunday afternoon.

Denali Park Road gets street view (kind of): For anyone who's ever wanted to take a trip to Alaska and drive the legendary Park Road in Denali National Park, the road has gotten the "Google Street View" treatment -- in a way -- according to LiveScience. While not exactly Google-sanctioned, a geologist with four GoPro cameras mounted to his vehicle has snapped hundreds of thousands of pics captured while driving the 92-mile Park Road. The geologist, Anchorage-based Ron Karpilo, captured the images in hopes of providing ongoing context for environmental changes over the years, and hopes to potentially drive the road every year, or at least a couple of times per decade, in order to compare one set of photos with another. Read more, at LiveScience.

Craig Medred

Craig Medred is a former writer for the Anchorage Daily News, Alaska Dispatch and Alaska Dispatch News. He left the ADN in 2015.

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