Man allegedly tortured to sign confession
• Investigators uncertain if attackers had the right perpetratorBy Layton Ehmke
Homer Tribune
Nineteen-year-old Mihay Kalugin, Homer, was reportedly badly beaten last Tuesday night in what may have been revenge for a car-burning the evening prior. According to officers, Kalugin was kidnapped, brutally assaulted near the Homer Ferry Terminal, then eventually dropped near his home in the [...]
Water, sewer rate increase may be on tap
• Stark condemned for ethics violationBy Carey James
Homer Tribune
More lines, stricter standards, and a needed increase in staff may result in an increase in water and sewer rates next year.The city council discussed increasing the rates to cover the cost of maintaining and servicing the city’s water and sewer facilities at Monday night’s budget worksession. [...]
The SAD truth
• For many, Seasonal Affective Disorder increases as daylight decreasesBy Sean Pearson
Homer Tribune
Whether the bleakness of winter pelts you in the face like an ice-studded snowball, or creeps up on you in a shadowy pelt of warm and wooly sheepskin, there’s no denying that chilly slide into brief bouts of sun and long, snowy nights. [...]
Energy expert urges conservation
By Layton Ehmke
Homer Tribune
The days of dancing in oil around exploding derricks is over, and it’s past due time to think about conserving crude consumption, said Scott Waterman. Waterman, who works as the State Energy Programs Manager for Alaska Housing Finance Corporation, is looking to find ways to build more energy-efficient homes as he speaks [...]
FYI
Floating Leaf Sanga welcomes Buddhist teacherTibetan Buddhist teacher Khentrul Rinpoche is coming back to Homer to spread the word, methods and practice of Buddhism next week in lecture. Rinpoche will give three lectures in Homer as he explains the meditation of loving kindness. Rinpoche’s three lectures are next week including, “Teaching on the Heart Essence [...]
Bird flu flies in with cranes
GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (AP)—
In any given spring, curious motorists can be seen pulling over along Interstate 80 to gawk at the 500,000 or so sandhill cranes that stop along the Platte River in Nebraska on their way to the northern climes of Canada, Alaska and Siberia.But some fear than when the birds return again next [...]
‘Bearing’ the cold for a cause
By Sean Pearson
Homer Tribune
While many of us enjoyed our Thanksgiving dinner nestled in warmth and the company of friends and loved ones, Homer residents Daniel, Lisa and Eli Zatz spent their holiday in sub-arctic temperatures, surrounded by polar bears. Luckily, they didn’t become the Thanksgiving meal. The Zatz family is finishing work on a six-week [...]
The Polar Sea travels south
Maggie Wall
What is it about the cold Arctic regions that resonates so much with us here in Alaska? We could move somewhere warmer, but we stay here and even fantasize about going to someplace colder and whiter—the Antarctic.I’m vicariously living my fantasy by following the story of the Coast Guard Cutter Polar Sea, an icebreaker [...]
State forecasts 48,000 more employed in eight years
By Layton Ehmke
Homer Tribune
If state economists are right, Alaska will employ 48,000 more people eight years from now — most of which, they predict, will come in the way of the gas pipeline, mining and healthcare. No surprise there, given the state’s history as a dominant export state and a now-heightened status of retiree population [...]
CIRI agrees to pay $85 million in tax case
Anchorage AP—
An Anchorage-based Native corporation has agreed to pay $85 million to settle a dispute with the Internal Revenue Service on taxes owed on land it owned on the Kenai Peninsula.The IRS claimed last fall that Cook Inlet Region Inc. owed $174 million in back income taxes on 55,000 acres of subsurface land that it [...]
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