Anchorage Daily News

Northern Dynasty Minerals value shoots up after Prop. 4 defeat. The Financial Post reports that the small Vancouver, B.C.-based company, partnered with Anglo American in the Pebble project, saw a 20 percent gain on the Toronto Stock Exchange after Alaska said no to the "clean water" initiative.

"I didn't pop any corks or anything, but I'll tell you I was very pleased with the outcome. There's no question about that," said Northern Dynasty president and CEO Ron Thiessen, whose company is doing pre-feasibility work on Pebble and expects to seek permits in late 2009 or 2010.

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ANWR off the table in the GOP platform. CQ Politics reports that fearing a call to open ANWR might undercut John McCain at the Republican National Convention in September, the platform writers have abandoned it.

Alaskan Dan Boyle specifically proposed adding drilling language to the platform, but he was argued down.

"The goal is to not have this serve as a lightning rod," said Terry Strine of Delaware, a member of the platform committee's energy and environment subcommittee, which debated for more than four hours Tuesday.

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Gazprom silent over joining an Alaska pipeline project. Bloomberg News reports that Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller hasn't followed through with his June 5 statement in St. Petersburg that Gazprom had approached BP and Conoco Phillips on joining the project. Talks on liquefied natural gas are also stalled.

"It doesn't mean it's not possible, but all our efforts on Denali have been directly with BP and the State of Alaska to do the work we have been doing, and hopefully we can work toward an open season in the next several years," said Conoco Phillips Chief Executive Officer James Mulva.

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Fairbanks debates whether recent shooting events mean gang activity. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports on a civic discussion in the Interior city about whether gangs have arrived there. Two August shootings involving the same groups of people, plus an unloaded gun found at a local high school, spawned the discussion.

Fairbanks Police Chief Dan Hoffman says his force needs help. He has 44 officers serving a population of 31,182, not including military and borough residents. The lowest national average in the western U.S. calls for 56 officers for a city that size. A nationwide average is 2.3 officers per 1,000 residents, or 71 for the city.

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Homer City Council gets a grim financial report. The Homer News reports that the city's financial director sized up Homer this way: The population is getting older while wages, school enrollment, real estate sales and consumer spending are stagnant or in decline.

Like Fairbanks, Homer is calling for more police protection, the Homer Tribune reported. Mayor James Hornaday speculated that Anchorage's crackdown on criminals might be sending them south. But the city's declining revenue didn't make more police and a resident district attorney likely.

"I'm going to recommend more police, but you have to have the money to do it," he said.

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Don Young looks good with absentee ballots. So reports the Swing State Project, which posted all 40 of Alaska's House districts and how they voted on Young vs. Parnell, including whatever absentee ballots are counted so far.

Its analysis:

Young and Parnell's campaign have estimated there are around 4,000 absentee ballots left. Assuming the breakdown we saw with the nearly 5,000 counted absentee votes carries over, Young should exceed Parnell by approximately 40 votes among the remaining 4,000 absentee votes, and his lead should thus hold.

Assuming this comes to fruition, a lot will depend on the 5,000 to 10,000 questioned (provisional) ballots, which the Division of Elections says may end up coming in. We have no info on this load of potentially game-changing ballots.

But clearly, Young is running better than Parnell among absentee ballots than among the overall vote -- 0.16 percent to 1.0 percent. ... Still, it is unclear that Young would be able to gain a margin of greater than 0.5 percent.

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Young says he's willing to run as an Independent if necessary. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports this bit of conversation between Young and a reporter:

Asked if he would consider running as an Independent if he lost the primary, Young said he hadn't considered it. "It's a good idea; I might," he said. "But I don't expect him to win the primary."

CQ Politics says that Young' s campaign was not confident of Tuesday's outcome.

"We had three release statements crafted," campaign spokesman Mike Anderson said, one for a Young win, another for a loss, and one for a close contest. "We put out the close one."

A mid-August fundraiser for Young in Seward attracted the attention of the Seward Phoenix Log. It involved machine guns and targets and some level of complaint over noise to local authorities. Thirty Seward residents and Alaska Machine Club members attended.

It was nice," said party giver Dorene Lorenz. "People ate turkey and potato salad, and there was a fire pit with marshmallows and s'mores and homemade lemonade." Young was there and looking relaxed, she said.

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More national and local reaction to Alaska's Tuesday primary:

> The GOP's Alaska meltdown. The writer calls for Ted Stevens to step down. With Republicans in danger of falling below 41 Senate seats (from the current 49) and thus being unable to sustain a filibuster, Mr. Stevens' insistence on running again is especially damaging. There's still time for him to drop out of the race and let the party pick a new nominee, but his career has not been noted for such grace notes. (Wall Street Journal)

> Republicans have an appetite for cannibalism. It may be that what allowed Young to keep the race so close was that backlash against outsider involvement. (Wall Street Journal)

> Ivan Moore's election politics column. (Anchorage Press)

> Don Young is Alaska's hanging chad. (Christian Science Monitor)

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And, at the convention in Denver. Celtic Diva will be Twittering from Invesco Field. Cal Williams on Michelle Obama's speech for Alaska Dispatch. And a UAA student has joined the bloggers in Denver. Find Rich Stromberg's reports for KRUA and student newspaper The Northern Light here.

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