Alaska

When you shoot photos on the train, the most important step is to turn off your flash, or somehow cover it. Otherwise, the reflection from the train window will frost every shot. The best photo perches are the vestibules, or open spaces, between cars, or the outside platforms in first class. Take a jacket and stake out a place early. The dome cars also provide great vantage points.

In a state with more tundra than turnpikes, Alaska's Ted Stevens is a political force. The former chairman and now ranking Republican on the influential U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, Stevens is known as a master of pork barrel politics, with a record of channeling billions of federal dollars to his home state. He has brought home so much federal funding, in fact, that the cash has been given a special name: Stevens money.

The indictment of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) on corruption charges Tuesday throws into question his grip on a Senate seat he has held for decades and offers Democrats a chance to strengthen their hold on Congress. Stevens, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate and a towering figure in Alaska's political history, was indicted by a federal grand jury here on charges that he concealed hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from one of the state's most powerful employers.

In the first week of October 1999, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) had the government of Pakistan in a delicate position. The Pakistanis were desperate for the removal of powerful military and economic sanctions imposed after the country conducted nuclear tests in 1998. Many hundreds of millions of dollars in trade was at stake. Stevens was the chairman of the conference committee that was considering allowing that change.

Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) pleaded not guilty Thursday to seven counts of making false statements on his Senate financial disclosure forms by failing to report hundreds of thousands of dollars in gifts from one of his state's most powerful employers. U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan set a tentative trial date for Sept. 24. Stevens, 84, is running for reelection and requested an expedited trial so the matter would be over before election day.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's husband refused to testify in the investigation of his wife's alleged abuse of power, and key lawmakers said Thursday that uncooperative witnesses were essentially sidetracking the probe until after election day. Todd Palin, who participates in state business in person and by e-mail, was among 13 people subpoenaed by the Alaska Legislature. His lawyer sent a letter to the lead investigator saying he objected to the probe and would not appear today to testify.

During an election year in which Democrats and Republicans are in a bare-knuckled fight to gain seats in Congress, Hawaii Democrat Daniel K. Inouye is traveling far and wide to work for a fellow senator's reelection. But the colleague Inouye is trying to help is a Republican, Ted Stevens of Alaska. Stevens, who has been indicted on corruption charges, has become a top Democratic target in a race that could be crucial to the party's hopes of securing a filibuster-proof majority.

The telephone conversation between the two businessmen concerned an old friend, Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, and the subject was money -- or at least Stevens' feelings about it. "Ted gets hysterical when he has to spend his own money," said one of the callers. "I know," replied the other. In a corruption case where the core issue is whether Stevens knowingly accepted gifts in violation of federal law, the conversation, secretly recorded by federal investigators, could be crucial evidence.

Soon after Sarah Palin was elected mayor of the foothill town of Wasilla, Alaska, she startled a local music teacher by insisting in casual conversation that men and dinosaurs coexisted on an Earth created 6,000 years ago -- about 65 million years after scientists say most dinosaurs became extinct -- the teacher said.

There is no shortage of reminders in Ted Stevens' hometown that the 84-year-old dean of Senate Republicans is running for reelection. Along the road in Girdwood, an oversize campaign sign stands in front of a shop selling candles carved from crude oil into the shapes of bears and otters. Posters are staked into lawns of cabins that dot the yellow birch-filled hillsides.