Anchorage Daily News

New to the world. Gov. Sarah Palin’s fifth child has been with us for just a few days, yet he’s already getting a fair share of publicity in Alaska and Outside. (ADN’s story today reports that the youngster has Down syndrome and looks at the governor’s decision to fly from Texas to Alaska to give birth.) Celebrity Baby Blog took note of the birth and later updated its post with a picture of young Trig. Wonkette, a D.C. gossip blog, topped its post with the headline “BREAKING: HOT DISH SARAH PALIN GIVES BIRTH, KID HAS WEIRD NAME.”

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Haines and Kenai are two of the three Alaska grizzlies now residing at the Minnesota Zoo. See item below. (Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center)

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RightPundits.com (you might guess which way it leans politically) drags out the well-traveled phrase “America’s hottest governor” in its birth announcement and also puts up a collection of Palin pictures and video, some reaching back to her high school days. The posting also included this political opinion from the author: “Her pregnancy pretty much did away with speculation that she might be a vice presidential candidate because many people feel she would not want the job with a brand-new baby.” Squidoo likewise looks at the question whether the birth boosts or damages her vice presidential chances and asks for reader views on the issue.

Calling its story an “exclusive,” KTVA Channel 11 reports that its reporter talked with the Palin family and, among other things, got this quote from First Gentleman Todd on the child being born in Alaska rather than Texas: “Can’t have a fish picker from Texas.”

A Fairbanks Daily News-Miner story says the governor’s decision to make the eight-hour flight from Dallas to Anchorage “has some people wondering about the possible safety hazards of flying while in the late stages of pregnancy.” The story notes that Palin told staffers she knew something about what she was doing after four previous births and she “felt that neither she nor her baby were in any danger, and so she flew home as scheduled.”

Many newspapers and broadcast media picked up The Associated Press story from Monday reporting that the governor was back on the job three days after the birth. A spokeswoman in the story is quoted as saying Palin will be working on a limited basis for a while.

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Living longer. Believe research reported in a USA Today story and you’ll believe Trig Palin has a shot at living somewhere between 74.3 and 75.3 years, which is on the high side compared to the rest of the country for males. The story reports that while most Americans saw life expectancy jump between 1960 and 2000, some areas — primarily in the South — saw life expectancy fall.

Looking further into the research findings, Male Pattern Fitness says most of the states with lower life expectancy vote Republican, yet it doesn’t follow that those with high life expectancy vote Democrat. And the story points to Alaska, with its relatively high life expectancy and its entire congressional delegation and governor being Republican, as a case in point.

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And then there’s the Senate race. Getting almost as much ink as Trig is Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich’s announcement that he’s in the Senate race for Ted Stevens' seat. (Today’s ADN story reporting on his decision to stop exploring the question and get in is here.) Here’s how some others are reporting Begich’s move:

> Let the race begin (KTUU Channel 2)

> Mayor Mark Begich officially throws his hat in the ring (KTVA Channel 11)

> Begich makes it official (Real Clear Politics)

> State by State: Alaska (The Hill)

> Anchorage mayor enters Alaska Senate race (CQ Politics)

> Anchorage mayor seeks seat in U.S. Senate (The Associated Press)

> Anchorage mayor to challenge Stevens (UPI)

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Caution: Falling rocks. Depending on the season, the Seward Highway holds its share of hazards. But spring melting of snow and ice on the cliff faces along Turnagain Arm in recent days is dropping rocks onto the highway, according to a KTUU Channel 2 story.

“I would suspect that the springtime, now, when we're getting a lot of sun on that rock face is when we're going to see the peak of the rock fall,” DOT spokesman Rick Feller told the station. The rolling rocks can be threat to motorists and bicyclists who travel the highway.

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Power woes a “disaster?” Gov. Sarah Palin’s Disaster Policy Cabinet will review Juneau’s electric power situation later this week and decide whether it qualifies the city for a “disaster” declaration, which would help in getting emergency funding, according to a Juneau Empire story. The capital city lost its main source of power last week when an avalanche took out transmission lines.

Other Empire stories on the situation report that the transmission line repair costs will be a hefty blow to Alaska Electric Light & Power Co. and take note of what the city is doing to cut its own electric consumption in the emergency. “It’s an opportunity to change the way we do business overall,” Mayor Bruce Botelho told the newspaper. (An APRN story on Juneau’s problems echoes that sentiment, saying officials see more attention to energy efficiency as a possible silver lining in the outage.)

And a story reporting from Monday night’s Juneau Assembly meeting says that an Alaska natural gas company has offered to provide fuel to run generators at up to half the price of diesel. But converting the generators, which have been supplying most of Juneau’s power in the wake of the avalanche, will be problematic, officials said.

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Tundra fire dangers climb. The Environmental Research Letters web site reports on new findings that show the Arctic tundra thousands of years ago contained more shrubs and consequently burned more often than previously thought. “The finding has implications for today’s tundra, which appears to be increasing in shrub density as global temperatures rise and could undergo more frequent forest fires in the future,” according to the story.

The findings stem from research that looked at pollen grains found in Arctic sediments that date back 10,000 to 14,000 years. Researchers aim to reconstruct “fire history and vegetation over the past 6,000 years in two of the Alaskan tundra regions that have seen most burning over the past 50 years. They hope to improve understanding of ‘modern’ tundra fire regimes, and how climate and vegetation interact to affect tundra burning,” according to the story.

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“Yukon is the real deal.” “Today's gold rush is all about investment opportunities in a business-friendly territory that has some of the lowest personal and corporate taxes in the country.” Such is Yukon Premier Dennis Fentie’s stand, as quoted in an Edmonton Journal story, on what his region has to offer investors. Fentie told a group of business people in Edmonton: “Our territory is one of the last great frontiers and we have an abundance of natural resources and untapped potential.”

The territory “has an estimated potential of 20 billion cubic feet of natural gas and 800 million barrels of oil, and Fentie said both the Alaska Highway and Mackenzie Valley pipelines need to be built to meet the demand for a secure energy supply,” according to the story.

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Late snowfall aids aerial wolf hunters. Spring snow in the Interior is helping hunters involved in the state’s aerial predator control program, according to a Fairbanks Daily News-Miner story. Over the past 3½ weeks, hunters have killed more than 30 wolves, boosting the total take for the season to 117, according to the story.

The story reports: “The harvest so far this winter brings the number of wolves killed to 784 since the state initiated an aerial wolf control program on state land in five areas in Southcentral and Interior Alaska in 2003. The program was created to to increase the number of moose and caribou for subsistence and sport hunters. Last year, hunters participating in the program killed 97 wolves.”

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Trio of Alaska grizzlies arrives at zoo. Three orphaned Alaska bears have arrived at the Minnesota Zoo near Minneapolis and are due for a public debut in June, according to a short item in The Star Tribune. The grizzlies — Sadie, Kenai and Haines — were found in Alaska on three different days in 2006.

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