Anchorage Daily News

Judge orders polar bear decision. A federal court judge in California has ordered the Interior Department to decide by mid-May whether polar bears should be listed as a threatened species because of global warming, an Associated Press story reports.

The judge rejected the department’s request that it be given until the end of June to make the decision, which has been awaited since early this year.

“The court decision is a victory for conservation groups that claim the Bush administration has delayed a polar bear decision to avoid addressing global warming and to avoid roadblocks to development such as the transfer of offshore petroleum leases in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast to oil company bidders,” according to the story.

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Sir Elton due in Fairbanks. Elton John, who plans to perform in Anchorage May 28 (see today’s front-page ADN story), will be performing the next night in Fairbanks, a Fairbanks Daily News-Miner story today says. Sir Elton will perform at Carlson Center.

“This is by far the biggest concert that I can ever remember coming to Alaska,” Joe Wooden, regional general manager for SMG of Alaska, told the newspaper. The Carlson will be configured in an arrangement that should make for about 6,500 seats, according to the story.

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Power woes. Juneau’s energy crisis, which grew out of an avalanche that knocked out its source of cheap hydroelectric power, continues to dominate the news in Alaska’s capital city, and community leaders are still trying to find ways of dealing with it. Today’s Juneau Empire has stories:

> Reporting that state regulators have approved an emergency rate increase, which could quintuple residential electric bills in May.

> Reporting that the city Assembly turned down a proposal to loan $3 million to the local electric utility. The loan proposal was seen as a means of spreading the huge rate hike, caused by the necessity of generating power with diesel generators, over 12 months.

> Answering a list of questions on the latest problems. The Q-and-A notes that the return of normal electric rates is not expected until hydro power is restored, which could take three months.

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Impersonating Sitka. Rockport, Mass., is cashing in on pretending to be Sitka, according to a story in the Gloucester Daily Times. Filming of the Sandra Bullock movie “The Proposal” (which is set in Sitka) is proving to be a “boon for downtown businesses” and “financially good for the town,” a city official told the paper.

Still, some Alaskans are wondering why an Alaska movie couldn’t be filmed in Alaska, and the story reports on an e-mail that came in to city offices from Rich McClear, a Sitka native, complaining: “I feel like the victim of identity theft. I am curious if you feel likewise violated, having your town's identity changed into my town’s identity. Just curious about reactions in Rockport.”

Town administrator Michael Racicot responded, politely, that the decision wasn’t Rockport’s but Hollywood’s. “This is Hollywood magic at work, and the producers made the decision. From all accounts, Sitka is a lovely community and I hope someday to visit your town.”

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Curtain goes up on whale migration. The Seward Phoenix LOG reports that the gray whale migration has returned to the waters off Alaska, with several having been spotted outside Resurrection Bay. The migration route near Seward can include more than 20,000 whales, according to the story, as the animals make their 10,000-mile annual journey from Mexico's Baja California north to feed in the Bering Sea.

“Those were the first gray whales I have seen,” the story quotes tour captain Mike McKern saying of the early sightings. “But everything is starting to show up now. It’s springtime.”

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Still hoping. The NFL passed once again this draft season on Cole Magner, onetime Alaska high school football player of the year. But a story in The Grand Rapids Press from Michigan says the former Colony High student still wants a shot.

Magner, who starred at Bowling Green State University and who’s currently playing for the Grand Rapids Rampage of the Arena Football League, told the newspaper: “I was recruited a lot more for basketball in high school, but there’s no sport like football. I just love it. I really love the physical contact.”

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The dental therapist will see you now. A New York Times story looks at the arguments on both sides on the controversy involving the use of dental therapists to perform basic dental work in parts of rural Alaska. The practice has long been the bane of professional dental groups, which argue that they want to protect patients from inadequately trained dental practitioners.

The story details the work of the Alaska program that trains dental therapists and says studies of the program are finding that it works. The therapists are a low-cost way to provide care to people who might not otherwise have access to it, Dr. Ron Nagel, a dentist and consultant for a nonprofit group that provides medical and dental care to tribal communities, says in the story. “There’s a huge need for these basic services,” he said.

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Hayes backers weigh in. Former Fairbanks Mayor Jim Hayes and his wife are up for sentencing in federal court on Friday, and a handful of Fairbanks residents have written U.S. District Judge John Sedwick urging him to show leniency, according to a Fairbanks Daily News-Miner story. Hayes stands convicted of helping steal money from federal social services grants to use for his church and for personal spending.

Twenty-two letters from residents, church leaders and elected officials have come in to Sedwick vouching for Hayes’ character, according to the story. “Some noted his public service and others pointed to his church involvement and to the positive benefits the now-closed tutoring center had in the South Fairbanks neighborhood,” the story says.

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New discovery. A Greenpeace research project in the Bering Sea (click here to read an ADN story on it) has turned up a new species of sponge, according to a story posted at FishUpdate.com. The conservation organization, which was exploring two of the world’s deepest underwater canyons in the area, anticipates that the discovery will help in the campaign “protect the Bering Sea, one of the richest marine ecosystems on Earth.”

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eBay suit. A KTVA Channel 11 story says that an Anchorage woman, who left negative comments about an eBay seller on the popular Internet site, has been sued by the seller for defamation. The suit, according to the story, grew out of Sonya Smith’s purchase of a wine rack, which she had problems with and which inspired her to post the comments.

Smith subsequently got a notice from Virginia that she had been sued in that state. “It is very sad. I feel if you buy a product, you should be able to say how you feel about it,” said Smith.

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Like the old days. A Kansas City Star story features one of the families that will be at the center of a Discovery Channel series beginning tonight that follows four groups of Lower 48 residents who set out to live in the wilds of Alaska. The reality series, called “The Alaska Experiment,” aims to re-create something of the homesteading experiences of Alaska frontiersmen of 100 years ago, according to the story.

The Prairie Village, Mo., family featured in the story was dropped off and left to live for three months in a cabin on the edge of Southeast Alaska’s Icy Bay. “In the end,” according to the story, “the most daunting challenge may have been avoiding cabin fever during the 19 hours of the day when the Alaska sky was pitch black. They couldn’t exactly ask each other, ‘How was your day?’ since they’d done everything together. So that left cards and games that required no lighting at all.”

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