Anchorage Daily News

NOME HAS A SUNNY MIDNIGHT SUN FESTIVAL (Nome Nugget): Nomeites and visitors alike were likely catching their breath Monday after a sun-drenched weekend brought out hordes of revelers to a marathon of events for the annual Midnight Sun Festival. See more photos here and here.

HOMER THE BEAR EUTHANIZED (KATU, Portland/Oregon Zoo): Homer, a beloved 20-year-old black bear at the Oregon Zoo named after the Alaska town where was he was found orphaned, was euthanized this week after veterinarians determined his quality of life had been severely compromised by advanced age and debilitating arthritis.

100-STUDENT MAGNET SCHOOL IN WORKS FOR KOTZEBUE (The Arctic Sounder): The proposed $29 million Star of the Northwest boarding school in Kotzebue is intended to give career-oriented students of late high school and early college age a chance to work toward employment in the most common professional occupations in village Alaska.

Walk into any Alaska village, says Norman Eck, and you will almost certainly find three kinds of professionals - the teachers at the school, the health care workers at the clinic and the people who work in mining or oil and gas production. These are jobs in Bush Alaska that will not disappear. At least, that is the concept behind a new boarding school that is in the works for Kotzebue. "These jobs offer good pay and good futures. No matter what the economy does, these jobs are there," said Eck, who is superintendent of the Northwest Arctic Borough School District. "There's a real need a place for students who are high flyers, who really want to achieve and go and have an opportunity to do something significant and career oriented." ... Eck said the school would help launch students who may not have the advanced courses they need for their chosen career fields at their village schools.

RURAL SCHOOLS FACE CLOSURE FOR TOO FEW STUDENTS (Fairbanks Daily News-Miner): At least six schools in Interior-based school districts are in danger of closing next year because of low enrollment. The endangered schools include those in Central, Stevens Village, Takotna, Beaver, Anvik and Shageluk. School districts in Alaska see a dramatic drop in state funding when enrollment levels drop below 10 students at a school.

POINT LAY GETS READY FOR FIRST BOWHEAD FEAST IN 72 YEARS (Bill Hess, Wasilla By 300 blog): Wasilla photographer and blogger Bill Hess is in Point Lay on the northwest Alaska coast, where villagers today are having their first whale feast and blanket toss in 72 years. The villagers, denied a subsistence whaling quota for decades until last year, finally landed a bowhead on May 5. Yesterday, Hess photographed the preparations and posted many pictures and some background text on his blog. Visitors from neighboring villages are expected to help in the celebration. Check Hess' blog this weekend for pictures from today's feast. ALSO:

> Point Lay celebrates first whale in 72 years (Anchorage Daily News)

DOWNTOWN SITKA IS GOING FULL WIRELESS (KCAW): Thanks to the city of Sitka - and the cruise ship tax - you can now update your MySpace page from the lawn at Totem Square or download music while leaning on the wall across from Ernie's. Last week, the city launched a public Internet program, and soon free wireless will be available downtown from Pioneer Square to Crescent Harbor. But don't cancel your DSL service just yet. Bandwidth has been limited to avoid competition with private Internet providers. "It is intended for the small handheld devices and ... laptops," says a city spokesman.

JUNEAU'S ANNUAL LOGGING AND MINING COMPETITION RETURNS (Capital City Weekly): After a year hiatus, the Gold Rush Days celebration is returning to Juneau, with two days of logging and mining events for the whole family. Now in its 19th year, the event celebrates Juneau's mining and logging past and present with competitions like hand mucking, spike driving, log rolling, ax throwing and pole climbing. Professionals and amateurs alike will compete in the events, said event coordinator Jane Sullivan. Includes photos

RIFLES AND PASTELS: CHOOSE YOUR FLAVOR OF FRESH ALASKANA FILM (Anchorage Press): The digital Sitka featured in chick flick director Anne Fletcher's "The Proposal" won't be the only chance for moviegoers to see Alaska on the big screen this year. Two set-in-Alaska films emerged on the festival circuit in June, both featuring Alaskans in lead roles. Neither one-thankfully-bills itself as a wacky, fish-out-of-water tale, a la "Northern Exposure" or "Men in Trees" or the aforementioned romantic comedy. .. Both ["Godspeed" and "Dear Lemon Lima"] have a buzz about them.

PALIN RESPONDS TO KERRY "MISSING GOVERNOR" JOKE (Political Ticker, CNN): She's visiting troops on a peacekeeping mission, but Gov. Palin signaled today she's ready to go to battle with John Kerry, who reportedly made a joke this week at her expense. "Too bad if a governor had to go missing it couldn't have been the governor of Alaska," he said, according to the Boston Herald. Palin, speaking to U.S. troops in Kosovo, responded with a shot aimed straight for the face - literally. "But the way he said it, he looked quite frustrated, and he looked so sad, and I just wanted to reach out to the TV and say, 'John Kerry, why the long face?'" UPDATE: Kerry "clarifies" joke. ALSO: Raw video of Palin speech to troops in Kosovo; Palin press release on Kosovo trip.

SARAH PALIN: REVENGE OF THE VAGINA (MONOLOGUES) (Stuart Schwartz, American Thinker): Sarah Palin is Eve Ensler's worst nightmare. That's all you need to know to understand the dramatic impact of the individual who continues to be the target of a cultural and political elite that looks for "anything that will criminalize and/or humiliate Palin and her family." Sarah Palin ... is unapologetically traditional and Christian in her politics and values. And Eve Ensler is the feminist who wrote the play "The Vagina Monologues" and has been enshrined by our cultural elite for her bizarre, sometimes depraved, and often just plain silly promotion of a sexual organ as the font of all wisdom. To understand the Palin hatred, almost always expressed in sexual terms (the David Letterman assessment of her as "slutty" is fairly mild in the Palin-hater scheme of misogynistic insults), you have to understand the profound absurdity of our leftist culture. ALSO:

> Sarah Palin will soon condemn, bomb entire Internet (Wonkette)

ALASKA IS TOPS IN FATAL CARGO PLANE CRASHES (Fairbanks Daily News-Miner): Alaska led the nation in fatal air cargo accidents during the past decade, according to a report issued Wednesday by the federal Government Accountability Office. Alaska had 18 of the nation's 93 fatal air cargo accidents from 1997 through 2008, the GAO report found. The report blamed Alaska's high crash rate on the state's unique challenges, such as relatively heavy air traffic because of a lack of roads, poorly maintained and substandard rural airports and unusual weather conditions.

Return to Alaska Newsreader later in the day for new links.

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HIGHLIGHTS FROM RECENT NEWSREADERS:

Inlet fishermen report more shark encounters (Redoubt Reporter)

Village of 46 to get $21 million airport (Fairbanks Daily News-Miner)

Hero dog done in by tumor (Mat-Su Frontiersman)

Fashion lessons for Levi: Shopping in L.A. with Tank (The Daily Beast)

Creating a digital Sitka for the movie "The Proposal" (Boston Globe)

Video: Plane crash on Lake Spenard (Dustin Koehler, YouTube)

UAF student survives Outback train ordeal (Sunday Mail, South Australia)

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