Alaska

More than 3 million acres of pristine wilderness in Alaska's Tongass National Forest would be open to logging and road building under a new management plan released Friday by the U.S. Forest Service. At 17 million acres, roughly the size of West Virginia, the Tongass National Forest in southeastern Alaska is the country's largest national forest and the world's largest intact coastal temperate rain forest.

Environmentalists want you to buy organic roses, and human rights groups tout conflict-free diamonds. Now, just in time for Valentine's Day, jewelry retailers are stepping up a campaign that aims to discourage the mining and sale of "dirty gold." A group of prominent jewelers including Tiffany & Co.

The Interior Department wants 10 more weeks to decide whether polar bears should be listed as threatened or endangered, a delay that conservation groups condemned as tied to the transfer of offshore petroleum leases in the animal's habitat. On Jan. 9 the department missed a deadline for a final decision and three conservation groups sued. In the government response Thursday, Assistant Interior Secretary Lyle Laverty said the department needed until June 30 to complete a legal and policy review.

A Juneau utility has agreed to pay $125,125 in fines for destroying a bald eagle's nest. Alaska Electric Light & Power Co. reached the agreement with the U.S. attorney's office, which accused the private utility of showing a "wanton disregard" in destroying the nest. The utility is accused of damaging the nest and then destroying it months later while blasting during construction of the Lake Dorothy hydroelectric project in 2006 and 2007. The lake is about 25 miles southeast of Juneau.

Oil production at Prudhoe Bay, the nation's most prolific oil field, halted when a vehicle clearing snowdrifts damaged the power supply to processing centers. Prudhoe Bay had been sending about 380,000 barrels of crude oil a day down the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, said Steve Rinehart, spokesman for field operator BP. Rinehart said production for the day would be "way down" and would ramp back up over the next several days. BP's Northstar field also went offline as a result of the power outage.

Staff writer Chris Erskine, on assignment in Alaska, blogged a letter to Santa about reindeer appearing on local menus (latimes.com/reindeer). Here are comments we received: I'm just back from Alaska and noticed that what they're selling as reindeer sausage is made up mostly of beef. Richard Miller -- We're planning a trip to Alaska in July. Is there anything else to eat besides reindeer and salmon? Laura Ridnor -- Yes, some of us eat moose, salmon, caribou, bear.

Passengers aboard a cruise ship were left high and dry Monday for about nine hours after the vessel went aground near Glacier Bay National Park in southeastern Alaska. A Coast Guard boat towed the 207-foot Spirit of Glacier Bay on a rising tide to the middle of the bay late Monday afternoon, said Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Eric Eggen. The cruise ship, with 24 passengers and 27 crew members, ran aground at 7:12 a.m., said Jerrol Golden, spokeswoman for Cruise West Enterprises, which owns the ship.

The Alaska Railroad slices up the middle of the state like a bolt of blue and yellow lightning, into the belly of a place that is camera-ready and bountiful beyond belief. The rail line begins in the little seaport of Seward, chug-a-lugs up to Anchorage, past Denali National Park and Preserve and finally to Fairbanks, an almost 500-mile jaunt of day trips throughout Alaska's short, short summer. Why the train?

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.