Anchorage

JetBlue will take you to Anchorage and back for less than $300. Best of all, the deal runs from late spring till late summer, when the days are long and Anchorage is at its finest. Note that the $294 round-trip fare departs from Long Beach and includes all taxes and fees. It runs May 25-Sept. 3. No minimum stay. Info : JetBlue , (800) 538-2583 Source: Airfarewatchdog.com

SEATTLE - As they talked with him in a conference room at the federal courthouse in Anchorage, agents already were confident they had Samantha Koenig's abductor. They had surveillance footage of Israel Keyes' truck parked outside of the lonely coffee stand where Koenig was working when she was kidnapped one frozen night in Anchorage. They had the ATM withdrawals the 34-year-old construction worker had made with her bank card. They had a ski mask found in the trunk of his vehicle.

Serial killer Israel Keyes had already slain Anchorage barista Samantha Koenig and left town to go on a cruise more than two weeks before he began demanding ransom for her release, authorities said. Officials said the 34-year-old self-employed construction worker kidnapped Koenig at gunpoint Feb. 1 from a Common Grounds coffee shop in Anchorage because it stayed open later than others. He sexually assaulted and asphyxiated her, leaving her body in a shed. When he returned Feb. 17, Keyes posed Koenig's corpse with a newspaper in a ruse to show she was alive, then dismembered the body and dumped it in a nearby lake, according to a statement released Tuesday by the FBI. Keyes was arrested in Texas in March, and authorities had withheld the details of the kidnapping attack for months while they extracted partial confessions regarding as many as eight killings he may have committed since 2001.

Serial killer Israel Keyes had already slain Anchorage barista Samantha Koenig and left town to go on a cruise more than two weeks before he began demanding ransom for her release, authorities said. Officials said the 34-year-old self-employed construction worker kidnapped Koenig at gunpoint Feb. 1 from a Common Grounds coffee shop in Anchorage because it stayed open later than others. He sexually assaulted and asphyxiated her, leaving her body in a shed. When he returned Feb. 17, Keyes posed Koenig's corpse with a newspaper in a ruse to show she was alive, then dismembered the body and dumped it in a nearby lake, according to a statement released Tuesday by the FBI. Keyes was arrested in Texas in March, and authorities had withheld the details of the kidnapping attack for months while they extracted partial confessions regarding as many as eight killings he may have committed since 2001.

The Anchorage Aces defeated the Long Beach Ice Dogs, 4-2, before a crowd of 2,991 at Anchorage, Alaska. John Lilley gave Long Beach a 1-0 lead at 9:20 in the second period, but the Aces rallied with four goals in the final period. The Ice Dogs' second goal by Dimitri Kirilenko came on a power play at 18:21 of the third period. Anchorage goaltender Dan McIntyre stopped 30 of 32 shots on goal.

The mayor of Anchorage plans to run for the Senate seat held by Republican Ted Stevens since 1968. Mark Begich, a 46-year-old Democrat, said he planned a formal announcement today. The 84-year-old Stevens is popular, but his legacy was tarnished last year when the FBI and IRS raided his home.

SEATTLE - As they talked with him in a conference room at the federal courthouse in Anchorage, agents already were confident they had Samantha Koenig's abductor. They had surveillance footage of Israel Keyes' truck parked outside of the lonely coffee stand where Koenig was working when she was kidnapped one frozen night in Anchorage. They had the ATM withdrawals the 34-year-old construction worker had made with her bank card. They had a ski mask found in the trunk of his vehicle.

Anchorage, Alaska, was chosen Saturday as the proposed site for the 1992 Winter Olympics by the U.S. Olympic Committee. USOC President Robert Helmick did not disclose the runner-up city but said Anchorage got the vote on the first ballot and was several votes ahead of the runner-up. Helmick said he believed "fresh new ideas" gave Anchorage the edge over the three competing sites--Lake Placid, N.Y., the Lake Tahoe-Reno area and Salt Lake City.

When International Olympic Committee members selected the site for the 1992 Winter Games, only one city among the seven candidates received less votes than Anchorage. But the frontier spirit of the city's supporters made a favorable impression. So Anchorage has received the nod to try again for '94. Officials from Reno-Lake Tahoe, Salt Lake City and Portland, Ore., did not exactly disagree that Anchorage has the best chance of any U.S. city to win the bid for the 1994 Winter Olympics.

Lee Sentinella's naivete has apparently been as winning as his left hook. The clear-eyed innocent, who in the hope of becoming a boxer left his home in Anchorage to set up housekeeping in Westminster for himself, his two small children and his father, has found financial support beyond his dreams. It appears that several doctors were sufficiently impressed with Sentinella's story to stake him to $2,000 and to consider forming a syndicate to keep him going for the next two years.

Dan Sullivan just became first mayor of Anchorage to take the oath of office while on vacation in Hawaii. On Monday afternoon, a robed Anchorage judge stood at a lectern in Anchorage before a group of city officials, interns and reporters and delivered the oath to Sullivan via a Skyped-in image of the mayor. Sullivan, who wore a Hawaiian floral-printed shirt to the ceremony, held up his hand and took the oath as the ceremony was projected on a screen back home. “Congratulations, Mayor Sullivan," said District Court Judge Brian Clark.

On Tuesday morning, 80-year-old Bobby Salisbury took the last of his items from his boat moored at Colonial Yacht Anchorage in Wilmington and stuffed them inside his gray Nissan off-road truck. "I'm the happiest guy today," he said sarcastically. For years, Salisbury has lived at the marina. Then last month, the Los Angeles Harbor Department ordered him and more than 90 other tenants to leave by May 1, calling the dock and 138 slips in Berth 204 too dilapidated to be safe.

Harold Hazelton can't imagine living on land. For more than 30 years, the 76-year-old and his wife, Donna, 75, have resided on their 43-foot Grand Mariner at Colonial Yacht Anchorage in Wilmington. That soon will end, however. "I don't know what we're going to do," he said. "I don't like living on land. I've been on water all of my life. " The Hazeltons are among 95 tenants who face eviction May 1, the result of port officials having labeled the marina's dock and its 138 slips in Berth 204 as too dilapidated to be safe.

Authorities are weighing whether to charge an Alaska man, now in federal custody, in connection with the kidnapping and death of Anchorage barista Samantha Koenig. Her body is believed to have been recovered Monday from a local lake. Tests are still being conducted on the remains found by a team of divers in Matanuska Lake north of Anchorage, but authorities are confident the body is that of Koenig, police spokesman Lt. David Parker said by telephone Tuesday. The family has been notified, he said.

For 35 years - since Anchorage was a city, really - there have been attempts to pass an ordinance banning discrimination against gays and lesbians. Several times, such measures have been on the brink of adoption, only to be repealed or vetoed at the last minute as Alaska's ardent conservative Christian community cranked into gear. But antidiscrimination advocates say a new initiative on the April 3 municipal ballot - gaining almost more attention in Alaska these days than the U.S. presidential race - has won unprecedented support from faith leaders, including the Episcopal bishop and some 50 other churches and religious groups.

JetBlue will take you to Anchorage and back for less than $300. Best of all, the deal runs from late spring till late summer, when the days are long and Anchorage is at its finest. Note that the $294 round-trip fare departs from Long Beach and includes all taxes and fees. It runs May 25-Sept. 3. No minimum stay. Info : JetBlue , (800) 538-2583 Source: Airfarewatchdog.com

you look at coffee-table books of San Diego, you'll always find a glossy shot of boats at anchor in Coronado," says Ray Ashley, skipper of the Rowdy, a 45-foot Alden yawl. "It's obviously one of the more picturesque things about San Diego. And yet the Establishment wants to remove the anchorage. It's odd." Ashley's life centers on the sea.

This is no bull; you can take part in the inaugural Running of the Reindeer. In an homage to Spain's Running of the Bulls, visitors to downtown Anchorage's annual winter festival, the Fur Rendezvous, will get the chance to run shoulder-to-shoulder with reindeer. About a dozen reindeer will be set loose Feb. 24 on snow-packed, fence-lined 4th Avenue, and joined by people who will pay $20 to run with the reindeer. "I think we'll have to turn people away," said Bob Lester, a local disc jockey who came up the idea.

Chained to posts on a half-acre lot, the 29 wolf dogs languished for years behind stockade fencing at a roadside attraction near Anchorage. The wolf hybrids were unable to touch one another except when they were bred through chain-link fences. Several had sore backs and legs because they had never been able to move more than a few yards at a time. The animals were seized by Alaskan authorities as evidence in an ongoing criminal investigation and scheduled for destruction before the Lockwood Valley Animal Rescue Center intervened.

JetBlue Airways will start seasonal service from Long Beach to Anchorage on May 23, with fares as low as $139 each way if you book by Thursday. The deal : The airline's daily nonstop service runs until Sept. 5. The fare of $139 plus tax each way requires a 14-day advance purchase and is available for flights on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. When : The offer is good for travel from May 23 through June 29. You must book by 8:59 PDT Thursday to get the deal. Tested : I found the $139 one-way fare available for a June 14-21 round trip.