Anchorage News

I wrote my first column in September 1984 and this is my last. I am adjusting my real estate brokerage practice to selected projects to have more time for family, travel and other activities.

Visiting Churches: Chris Thompson is an amateur Alaskan biblical scholar and student of religion, especially as it relates to popular culture.

Representative Bob Herron is being fined for ethics violations, dating back to when he was first elected to the Legislature in 2009.

One person has died in a car accident on Seward Highway just north of McHugh Creek Saturday morning, according to Anchorage police dispatch.

Time to hit the slopes - areas around the country are experiencing Decembrrrr, which means that there is plenty of incoming rain and snow.

The Assembly is poised to award a $1.1 million annual contract to a law firm to defend people being prosecuted by the city who can't afford their own attorneys.

The airline is honoring the university's two main campuses by painting one 76-seat Bombardier Q400 turboprop with an Anchorage theme and another with a Fairbanks theme, said UAA spokeswoman Jessica Hamlin.

Police were called to a Bethel home early on a morning last week and found the toddler with visible facial wounds and a broken clavicle that would require medevac to Anchorage.

The controversial Ambler Road was the focus of the Western Arctic Caribou Herd Working Group meeting in Anchorage on Thursday.

David Wigglesworth pulls a kick sled with Talven, 3, and Kestrel, 7, while ice skating at Westchester Lagoon on Sunday, Nov. 17, 2013.

Judge Michael Spann handed down a sentence of 50 years with 20 suspended and 10 years of probation to Lawrence Lobdell for the 2009 murder of Jimmy Lockery in the Nesbett Courthouse on Friday, December 6, 2013.

University of Alaska Anchorage engineering student and President of the UAA chapter of the Society of Women Engineers Andrea Hulman signs the ceremonial last beam at the Topping Out Ceremony for the new Engineering & Industry Building on the campus of the University of Alaska Anchorage in Anchorage, Alaska Friday, Dec. 6, 2013.

Gov. Sean Parnell is proposing putting $3 billion from a state savings account toward paying down Alaska's roughly $12 billion pension shortfall.

Schools in Anchorage, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough and on the Kenai Peninsula are open on Friday after freezing rain made a mess of roads in the region on Thursday.

"There's an old saying among fans of cold-weather activity: cotton kills. In heavy snow or heavy activity, cotton will get wet and stay wet, and so will you."

Visiting Churches: Chris Thompson is an amateur Alaskan biblical scholar and student of religion, especially as it relates to popular culture.

WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE ANCHORAGE AK 433 AM AKST THU DEC 5 2013 AKZ125-052100- /X.EXT.PAFC.ZR.Y.0017.000000T0000Z-131205T2100Z/ WESTERN PRINCE WILLIAM SOUND- INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...WHITTIER...SEWARD...GIRDWOOD... MOOSE PASS 433 AM AKST THU DEC 5 2013 ...FREEZING RAIN ADVISORY NOW IN EFFECT UNTIL NOON AKST TODAY FOR THE ... (more)

In this file photo, Assemblyman Chris Birch meets supporters at McGinley's Pub in downtown Anchorage on Tuesday, Apr. 5, 2011.

Bob Hallinen/Anchorage Daily NewsShort-Eared Owls stand about 15 inches high and often hunt over open areas during the day.001109 Without its feathers, an owl would look like the ugliest bird in the world, combining the big beak, crooked neck and sloping brow of a naked buzzard with the posture of a dumpy chicken.

In this early 1920's file photo, Gunnar Kaasen poses with his dog Balto, who led the dog team that Kaasen drove through a blinding blizzard to help deliver life-saving serum to Nome, Alaska.