Anchorage Daily News

United Airlines to pull out of Anchorage. The last flight, from Anchorage to Denver on Sept. 20, will leave 35 employees looking for work, according to KTUU.

"Earlier this year we announced we would have to take the steps to resize our business because of record-high fuel costs," airline spokesman Megan McCarthy said.

Hard-knock news for airlines is everywhere these days. A mutual fund reporting service announced that a stock index fund "completely dumped" its shares of Alaska Air Group, parent company of Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air.

If you're starting to wonder whether your frequent-flier miles will really still be there when you need them, Travel Daily News reports on an effort to quantify just how available mileage-plan seats really are. The good news is the report proves the free seats really do exist, and it scores airlines on their availability. That news turns out to be pretty good for consumers.

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Alaska lines up to protest California's green light on gay marriage. The Los Angeles Times reports that Alaska was one of 10 states to file a protest against California's decision to approve same-sex nuptials beginning May 15. The California state attorney general on Thursday urged the state's Supreme Court to enforce the start date, arguing against a petition that would delay it until after the November elections, when a ballot measure would ask voters to reinstate the ban.

Alaska joined Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska, New Hampshire, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah to protest that their states, which restrict marriage to unions of a man and a woman, would be inundated by litigation seeking to have them recognize same-sex nuptials in California.

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Kohring headed to prison in California, not Oregon. The Frontiersman reported today that convicted state legislator Vic Kohring will do 42 months at a minimum-security prison in Taft, Calif., about 120 miles north of Los Angeles.

Originally, Kohring said he was scheduled to serve time at a federal prison in Sheridan, Ore., a 10-minute drive from where his estranged wife lives and easier for Kohring's aging parents to visit.

"Life is not good for me right now," Kohring said at the Palmer courthouse. He would only say he was there to help a friend.

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Japanese remains found on Attu. A Kodiak Coast Guardsman, along to document the joint U.S.-Japanese search for soldiers' remains on Attu recently, ended up putting down his camera and helping on the search, reports KMXT in Kodiak.

Within a few minutes, he and his team uncovered bones and a skull. Later, a full coffin encased in concrete. The coffin contained the remains of a fully intact body with a bag of Japanese medicine in a pouch at its waist. The remains were reburied and marked.

"I have never personally seen any type of remains of any kind," the public affairs officer said. "It was a weird feeling knowing I was holding someone else's skull in my hand."

The effort to locate remains of up to 2,300 Japanese and 1,500 U.S. soldiers will continue next year.

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Will drilling for Alaska oil now really ease the energy crisis? In the face of $4-plus-per-gallon gas, it seems almost every politician running for U.S. office is calling for offshore and ANWR oil drilling now. CNN.Money tackled the question of whether that would really help. Their short answer: No.

Their analysis: Using estimates for available conventional crude from several government agencies, lifting the bans might boost the nation's oil production by 1 or 2 million barrels a day by sometime next decade. The Energy Information Administration estimates that if Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge were opened for drilling tomorrow, oil wouldn't flow at full tilt until 2025.

"By 2025, world consumption, currently at about 85 million barrels a day, is expected to swell to well over 100 million barrels a day. That makes 2 million barrels a day look pretty small."

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And is that oil and gas available, anyway? The Fairbanks News-Miner reports that environmentalists are arguing with a Bush administration contention that available energy resources in Alaska are locked up and off limits. A Bureau of Land Management report, requested by Congress, says 60 percent of federal lands in Alaska are closed to leasing due to government mandates. Opponents of opening more areas to drilling insist the industry already has a large amount of federal land under lease that it's not developing.

"The report tries to paint the picture that the oil industry is limited as to where it can drill, but it's just not the case," said Eleanor Huffines, Alaska regional director for the Wilderness Society. The environmentalists unpack the numbers, property by property.

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Nunavut opposes save-the-polar-bear movement in U.S. Nunavut Premier Paul Okalik said the U.S. decision this month to list the polar bear as a threatened species is "unfortunate" and a "concern" to his government and people, reports the Calgary Herald.

The premier of Nunavut, a huge territory in northern Canada, is worried the U.S. move will hurt his economy and lucrative polar bear hunt as Americans will no longer be able to bring home pelts and heads.

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DNA findings in Greenland link Eskimo cultures from 4,500 years ago. A New York Times science story tells how scientists unraveled a migration mystery that links the first Paleo-Eskimo people of 4,500 years ago to the Thule culture of present-day Inuit peoples.

A swatch of hair preserved in a museum gave up DNA from a comb. Its closest match was to ancestors living in the Commander Islands, the two westernmost islands of the Aleutian chain. Because the Commander Islands are at the Siberian end of the Aleutians, the new finding indicates a heretofore unknown migration from Siberia to the New World.

The Thule culture, which originated in Alaska, developed the technology for hunting bowhead whales. That enabled it to expand across the northern coast of Canada, eventually reaching Greenland.

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Books by three Alaskans get attention. Books by Sherry Simpson, John Straley and Seth Kantner are getting reviews and notice this week. What they say in interviews reveals what they think about Alaska.

Straley, an investigator for public defenders whose new book is "The Big Both Ways," says most of the people he meets have no idea he's written seven books and is currently the Alaska writer laureate, according to The Oregonian.

They are, however, big drinkers. "Not a lot of whodunits," Straley said. "...Alcohol is the biggest problem in Alaska."

Simpson tells the Seattle Times that in her latest book, "The Accidental Explorer," she set out to answer a tourist's question: "How far do I have to go before I can say I've been there?" She fills the book with tales of early Alaskans' adventurous trips, but says of herself:

"I will never climb any mountains ... never make the cover of Outside magazine. At most, I can hope to become an accidental explorer whose only wish is to bust away the maddening brittle Styrofoam of daily life, to be creative through the simple act of pulling on my boots and walking out the door."

And finally, Kantner is in Anchorage before launching an Outside three-week book tour. APRN interviewed Kantner, who said the message in his new book of photos and essays, called "Shopping for Porcupine," is how valuable Alaska really is.

"I am saying this land is really beautiful and wonderful and valuable to me and I wish we were taking better care of it. ... It's a strong push to make people aware of the potential for the devastation of Alaska."

Kantner says he doesn't romanticize the state. "I have my radar out at all times for untruth, and so I put mouse turds in the oatmeal, ice on the inside of the windows, trying to tell it like it is."

Other headlines of interest:

< Chinese scientists, citing 1957 Alaska quake, link recent devastating China quake to astronomical phenomena

< Aviation blog: Exxon can afford to buy failing airlines but can't afford the fuel to run them

< Postage increases make Bush groceries more expensive

< Togiak police chief and tribal court at odds

< Craig's wood-waste burner is up and running

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