Two Juneau attorneys and a Juneau judge were honored this week for their work.

The Alaska Bar Association, holding their annual convention in the Capital City this week, presented the Robert K. Hickerson Award to Juneau private attorney Vance Sanders. That’s an award presented each year by the ABA’s Board of Governors for lifetime achievement in pro bono work, or work for low income or indigent clients.

Another individual pro bono award presented by legal services providers went to Sitka attorney Teka Lamade. The Anchorage firm of Feldman Orlansky & Sanders was recognized for their pro bono work over the last year, Dario Borgehsan with the Attorney General’s Office in Anchorage was recognized for pro bono work as a state government employee, and the lifetime achievement award went to the Pacific Northwest and Alaska-based firm Perkins Coie.

Juneau District Court Judge Keith Levy was also recognized for his community outreach. Formerly the head of the Therapeutic Court in Juneau, Levy is starting a new Mental Health Court. He is also organizing the Success Inside and Out program for Juneau which helps offenders get on their feet when they get out of prison.

Juneau attorney Dick Monkman was also presented with the ABA’s Distinguished Service award.

Sitka attorney David Voluck was recognized for his outstanding professionalism.

Former legislator and chief clerk to the Constitutional Convention Katie Hurley was presented with the Jay Rabinowitz Award for her life’s work devoted to public service.

An estimated 400 attorneys from around the state are attending the annual convention that usually rotates between Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Juneau.

The three-day event includes seminars that are part of attorneys’ continuing education. Subjects range from an analysis of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions to the role of science in predicting psychopathy.

Host Country Agreement Signing Ceremony January 2013 (Photo courtesy The Arctic Council)

The Arctic Council – the association of the world’s polar countries – has agreed to grant observer status to six non-Arctic nations.

Some people fear the countries are trying to secure long-term commercial interests.

The Arctic Council will now allow China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, India and Italy observer status.

U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski attended the biennial Arctic Council Ministerial this week in Kiruna, Sweden. She says the new observer countries will not vote on policies and agreements, but they will have a voice in negotiations.

“It allows you to be in the discussions, to help formulate the papers that will be reviews,” Murkowski said. “It is more than allowing you to sit in a room with a credential pass around your neck.”

Voting on new partnerships, like the one on oil spill prevention agreed to this week, remains in the hands of the eight polar countries.

And alongside those are six permanent participants – groups representing Arctic natives.

Charlie Ebinger directs the Energy Security Initiative at the left-leaning Brookings Institution. He says people are justifiably concerned that these new countries are using observer status as a stepping stone.

“Obviously those countries want observer status because they believe they have long term commercial interests,” Ebinger said. “The Chinese have interest in mineral deposits in Greenland, both rare earths and uranium.”

And it’s not just mining the countries are interested in. James Collins is a former ambassador to Russia. He says the Arctic is still an emerging market, and more resources will become available as climate change opens the ocean.

“There’s shipping, there’s energy, there’s resource extraction,” Collins said. “And exactly which companies are going to actively pursue those is only beginning to be defined.”

Canada takes over the chair of the Arctic Council this week. And the United States follows suit, so for the next four years, the chair will be in North American control.

Luke Coffey is a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, and he says it’s a good sign of U.S. involvement that both Secretary of State John Kerry, and his predecessor, Hillary Clinton, attended the Arctic Council meetings. They are the first two Secretaries of State to do so.

But it should not stop there. He says the United States should start to consider a diplomatic post to handle Arctic negotiations.

“For the U.S. to show they are serious about the Arctic it needs to be at a very senior level, which very well may mean a more senior level than ambassador,” Coffey said.

Coffey suggests a deputy secretary of state for the Arctic. Both Senator Murkowski and Senator Mark Begich have called for an Arctic ambassador. Senator Murkowski says the administration does not support the position.

As for the expanding council, Senator Murkowski says the observer issue is resolved after it dominated much of this week’s gathering.

She says no countries will be added to the list of observer states, nor will the European Union, which is seeking the designation.

Still, there are major global players located far from the north that will now have a hand in Arctic policy.

“There’s a lot of discussion about ‘well what do you think their motives are?’ I look at it and say they see that the Arctic is filled with opportunity and promise. Things are happening up there. They want to know what’s going on. They want to be on the inside,” Murkowski said.

She says a country’s observer status is up for review every four years, though she acknowledges no country has lost it since the Arctic Council formed in 1996.

The Hawaii Tribune-Herald reports that the adventurous family so far has navigated more than 60,000 nautical miles and climbed the highest peaks on five continents. After the Mauna Kea volcano, they will sail for Alaska where they will climb Mt. McKinley, North America’s biggest mountain at 20,320 feet.

Dario Schwoerer and his wife, Sabine, began their odyssey in Switzerland in 2000. The family travels aboard a solar-powered, 50-foot sloop. They plan to spend the winter in Alaska and then sail the Northwest Passage to the Atlantic Ocean. They expect that their journey will end in 2017 after 18 years of ocean adventures.

The Department of Law says the drugs resulted in false or fraudulent claims being submitted to Alaska’s Medicaid program.

According to a release, the company, Ranbaxy, agreed to pay the states and federal government $350 million in civil damages and penalties, as well as $150 million in criminal fines and forfeitures.

Alaska is expected to recover more than $376,000.

Terms of the deal were announced by Michigan’s attorney general on Thursday.

The Homer News reports 18-year-old Zachary Fraley and a 16-year-old boy were arrested Thursday after being identified by school officials as those behind the prank.

Police say an object looking like an explosive device was left in a stairwell. The school’s 370 students were temporarily evacuated Thursday morning.

Homer Police Chief Mark Robl says it was a metal coffee can with wires protruding from it. A battery was found inside the can, but police say it wasn’t a viable explosive.

Fraley was being held at the city jail, and the younger boy was released to his parents. Both face a charge of terroristic threatening.

Alaska Airlines used to have a plane nicknames the Salmon-30-Salmon which donned a large fish painted on each side. (Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons)

The first planeload of Copper River salmon from Cordova, Alaska, landed Friday morning at Sea-Tac Airport and the Alaska Airlines pilots carried a 40-pound king to waiting chefs.

The annual cook-off among local chefs this year includes Master Sgt. Robert Schulman, a 31-year Air Force Reserve chef representing the 446th Airlift Wing at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

The arrival of fresh Copper River king and sockeye salmon is a rite of spring in Seattle where the fish are prized for their flavor. They typically bring the highest prices at restaurants and fish markets.

The plane carried 24,600 pounds of fish, and Alaska Airlines scheduled three more salmon flights Friday. The airline says it will ship more than 2 million pounds of salmon this year across its 95-city network.

Berkowitz’s attorney says the musher plans to fight to the keep the dog, Wizard, who is under quarantine at the borough animal shelter.

Attorney Myron Angstman says there was no reason for the child to be in the kennel last Friday.

Mike Patterson, an attorney for the family of Elin Shuck, says the girl had been at the dog yard before.

The Anchorage Daily News says the girl was unresponsive when medics arrived. The child was flown by helicopter from Berkowitz’s Apex Kennels to an Anchorage hospital.

During a summer survey, NOAA Fisheries scientist, Dave Withrow, took this aerial photo of harbor seals basking on a sandbar on Iliamna Lake, Alaska. Photo: NOAA Fisheries

A federal agency says it will consider a petition seeking to list a population of harbor seals living in a freshwater Alaska lake as a threatened or endangered species.

The National Marine Fisheries Service says it has accepted a Center for Biological Diversity petition to list seals that live in Iliamna Lake 200 miles southwest of Anchorage.

The agency has a Nov. 19 deadline to perform a status review of the seals, estimated to number estimated 250 to 350 adults, and can propose a listing or reject it.

A listing would present a potential environmental hurdle to the Pebble Mine.

The proposed open-pit copper and gold mine would require a 140-mile road to Cook Inlet. About 50 miles would pass along the lake shore, where seals hunt for salmon.

Maj. Matt Komatsu, Chief Master Sgt. Paul Barendregt, Tech. Sgt. Kyle Minshew, Staff Sgt. William Cenna and Staff Sgt. Brett Wilson spent two weeks ascending the mountain as part of a training exercise in winter survival skills.

Two men on the team had been on Denali before. Barendregt had summited twice before and Cenna had previously climbed. For Komatsu, Minshew and Wilson, it was their first trip up Denali.

“We were dropped off by the 210^th Rescue Squadron in a HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter on April 25 and began our training the next day to enhance our high altitude winter rescue and glacier skills,” Komatsu said in a press release.

“The nature of climbing Denali provided our team the training we needed in terms of being able to survive in those types of climates. We went out there to train, with the added benefit of summiting Denali if possible.”

The group started their ascent on April 26 and climbed for approximately 6-8 hours each day. The group had 4 storm days where they had to stop climbing and stay in their tents. The worst weather happened in the lower altitudes while the group was making their way up the glacier.

“Our daily plan was pretty predictable,” Komatsu said. “You wake up when the sun hits your tent, spend a couple hours getting something to eat and drinking plenty of water before preparing for the day’s movement. Nothing super spectacular, but sort of the patient approach to the route is the best way to avoid getting altitude sickness.”

Since it’s still early in the season, the team benefitted from the lack of people on the mountain and allowing them to train in isolation. By the time the team came back down, they say that people were starting to fill up camps.

“Nowhere else can we experience true winter environments, true glacier environments to help facilitate our training for overland movement, rope travel, glacier techniques so we’re more confident in the mountains and traveling through them to assist with rescues…This training is absolutely essential and borderline mandatory for guys to get up there and experience,” Cenna said.

“I had never been on a mountain like that with any kind of altitude. I’m the new guy up here,” said Minshew. “You’re living it day in and day out. You’re constantly immersed in that environment. It just forces you over time to just adapt.”

The Guardsmen are part of 212^th Rescue Squadron, also known as Guardian Angels. Two more teams from the squadron will head to Denali this season to train in rescue and climbing operations.

Three members of the squadron are assisting National Park Service climbers in rescue operations on the mountain as part of the Volunteers-in-Parks program.

This year is the 100th anniversary of the first successful ascent of Denali.

Note: The article has been updated to include comments from Tech. Sgt. Kyle Minshew and Staff Sgt. William Cenna

Regent Dale Anderson, left, explains the award before making the presentation to Jan during the UAS Sitka Campus Commencement Ceremony on May 3.

Associate Professor of Marine Biology, Jan Straley, was recognized with the University of Alaska’s Meritorious Service Award on May 3 during the Sitka campus graduation ceremony.

The Board of Regents selected Straley for her work in marine research and education.

Straley has worked with the National Park Service in Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve’s monitoring program and also studies humpback whales at the NOAA lab in Juneau. She’s been based at the Sitka campus since 1994.

“I am truly honored and humbled by this award presented to me by the Board of Regents,” Straley said. The letters of support were so glowing it was hard to realize that they were talking about me. It seems that when you work with great colleagues who are equally passionate about what they do it creates an enjoyable and productive team effort. I think of this award belonging to that team of researchers and educators, including my students and my incredibly supportive and creative family,” said Straley in a press release.

Straley has been studying whales in Alaska for more than 30 years and founded the Sitka WhaleFest and the Sitka Sound Science Center.

Straley is the first person to receive the award since 1995 according to the release.