Anchorage Daily News

Note to readers: Newsreader will be on holiday Friday. See you next on Monday.

Don Young pays aide's legal fees. The Associated Press reports this morning that Rep. Don Young has paid $35,000 in legal fees for his longtime campaign manager Steven Dougherty.

Young has spent more than $1 million in campaign contributions on legal fees. He is represented by the Washington law firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld. His campaign finance reports also show $35,020 in fees to John W. Wolfe, a prominent Seattle white-collar defense attorney who represents Dougherty as well as Stevens' son, Ben.

The campaign has also paid about $196,000 since October to Tobin, O'Connor and Ewing, a Washington law firm, though it's unclear whom the firm represents.

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Newest sonar could prevent another Exxon Valdez. Imagine driving your car by staring at a hole in the floor. That's how developers of a new generation of sonar equipment - a project prompted by the Exxon Valdez fetching up on a rock and spilling oil in Prince William Sound - describe traditional sonar for vessels on the water. Today's sonar only checks depth directly below the vessel.

According to the Christian Science Monitor, a company named FarSounder is creating sonar that will let a ship captain ask: How deep is the water in front of me? FarSounder's new sonar combines all three dimensions - range, bearing and depth - in a real-time view of the whole volume of water ahead of the ship.

Developers say it could have prevented the grounding of the cruise ship Empress of the North off Alaska last year. The new sonar's quarter-mile range is still not sufficient for the giant oil tankers, though. Those "slothful ocean behemoths" need a two-mile range, but funding is now in the works for that next development.

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Alaska Airlines goes cashless in the air. Hungry over there in seat 13C? Longing for beer and a movie? Now your lack of cash won't hold you back. Starting Aug. 5, you can swipe your credit card for treats in the air, reports Cheapflights.com. Use an Alaska Airlines Visa and you'll get 10 frequent-flier miles for every dollar spent in the air.

What? You don't have a credit card? You can buy a $5 voucher for a limited amount of time.

Meanwhile, the airline is losing traffic, reports Forbes.com. The percentage of available seats filled by fare-paying passengers dropped 2 percent in June, attributed to higher ticket prices squeezing cash-strapped customers.

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Karl Rove criticizes Obama's Alaska TV ads. Opining at the Wall Street Journal online, Rove said Obama was overreaching in Alaska and seven other states.

"It would require a shift of between one-sixth and over one-quarter of the vote to win any of them. Shifts that large rarely happen."

Meantime, the TV ad spending in this campaign made news nationally. Reuters reports that the chief operating officer of a media analysis company pegs the figure at $800,000 million, both parties combined. TV stations, faced with cutbacks in auto, home and other forms of advertising, aren't complaining.

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Alaska Zoo snow leopard gives birth to two cubs. It happened Tuesday night, according to the Fairbanks Daily News Miner. One of the cubs born to mom Molly died Wednesday morning of complications from a cleft palate. The other cub, a female, is in critical but stable condition.

Update mid-day Thursday: Zoo spokeswoman Eileen Floyd says the other cub died Wednesday night from internal injuries.

The cubs were removed from their mother when she became aggressive toward one of them.

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Tens of thousands of escaped farmed salmon pose threat to wild stock. The Globe and Mail of Toronto reports that strong ocean currents shifted a net holding 30,000 salmon near the Campbell River in British Columbia, pulling down a corner of the cage and allowing all the fish to swim free. A company spokesman said the fish were healthy and had low levels of sea lice. But wild salmon advocates say they still pose a threat.

"You get juvenile Atlantics, they're not indigenous to the coast and they start competing with the wild salmon and they start putting the wild salmon at risk. Everything has to be done to stop having those Atlantic salmon in the ocean," said Jennifer Lash of the Living Oceans Society. "Any time you bring in an invasive species or a non-indigenous species ... it poses a threat to the existing biological diversity."

Environmentalists say the only way to farm fish safely is in closed off pens.

In California yesterday, 300 spring-run salmon that pooled up in Butte Creek near Chico and stopped swimming toward their spawning ground were caught in nets and trucked upriver. Fish and Game said warming water in the creek would have hurt them, OrovilleMR.com reports. Check out this underwater Photo of the Day, shot for National Geographic, of spawning salmon, shot on assignment for National Geographic.

Salmon news in Alaska was disheartening:

> Yukon River life takes a hit because of dismal king salmon run (Fairbanks Daily News Miner)

> Copper River reds continue weak run (KUAC)

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So, how does Sen. Lisa Murkowski as secretary of Interior grab you? Blogger Patriot City says, "She'd make an excellent steward of our land and national parks."

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More vitriol from Republicans over Young's Huckpac endorsement. The Alaska Politics blog gave you the news, and now reaction is rolling in.

The Arkansas Republican Assembly (which provides news for social, fiscal and national security conservatives who believe in God, family and country...) is spitting mad about the Alaskan porker. Second that, if a bit more politely, over at Libertarian Republican.

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Will the lights go out in Adak? The community of 300 only has 15 hours of electrical power left and has stopped buying more fuel because the city is $320,000 in the hole to its fuel supplier, Aleut Corp., reports KIAL.

Why? Because the city's main source of income is a codfish processing plant that had a terrible season and can't provide revenue to the city. The city hopes to get its credit extended to get through the crunch. Negotiations between the city and the fuel supplier continue today.

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Mark Begich's energy plan gets some attention, too. Sen. Ted Stevens' meeting with Gov. Sarah Palin over energy issues got a lot of attention yesterday, based on speculation over a rift between them, reported at Alaska Politics and the Associated Press.

Here are links to coverage on Begich's energy plan:

> The new-school scion (Anchorage Press)

> Mark Begich trots out his energy plan (APRN)

> How many Democrats in the Lower 48 can get away with this (Kodiak Konfidential)

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Other headlines of interest to Alaskans:

> Candidates weight in on Clean Elections (KTUU)

> DEC and EPA team up for cruise ship research (EPA)

> State settles lawsuit aimed at money scammers (KTUU)

> Rural communities, including Bethel, chase cheaper fuel (Tundra Drums)

> Two Fairbanks police officers file suit against city, police chief

(Fairbanks Daily News Miner)

> Kodiak nonprofit takes on ocean garbage problem (KMXT)

> Fairbanks lawmakers lean toward AGIA (Fairbanks Daily News Miner)

> McAllister named Palin communications chief, working in Anchorage (Juneau Empire)

> Governor charms Homer (Homer News)

> Homer fishermen think back on the Exxon Valdez (Homer Tribune)

> Recreational boaters could be exempt from discharge permits (Kodiak Daily Mirror)

> Homer Electric gets $200,000 for low-impact hydro study (Peninsula Clarion)

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