Eli Martin

After curbing some of the effects of a major 2008 spike in gonorrhea and chlamydia cases, Alaska state health officials are growing concerned about a rebound. Part of the problem lies in small, tight-knit villages in rural Alaska where private health matters can become public knowledge.

Longtime Whittier Mayor Lester Lunceford lost his post Tuesday night -- the culmination of several months’ political intrigue in the town of 220 residents and one condominium nestled along Alaska’s Prince William Sound.

The eight active cases of tuberculosis in a rural Alaska village on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta is the biggest in eight years. Health officials said Monday it is under control and poses no further risk to residents or visitors.

The 77-foot vessel ran into trouble after encountering heavy waves and an especially high tide, causing it to crash into floating chunks of river ice from Alaska's Seal River.

Records released concerning Peter and Marilyn Tony’s foster care profile refer to five reports of alleged sexual abuse by Peter prior to the report in 1998 that caused the couple’s foster care license to be revoked.

Holders of Alaska student loans currently pay 7.3 percent interest, and certain so-called “borrowers exceptions” can lower that rate to 6.8 percent. HB 17 would reduce loan principal by 2.5 percent a year.

Prosecutors in the southwestern Alaska hub city of Bethel have filed additional charges against a local former foster parent being investigated for child sexual abuse stretching back 40 years, this time for the alleged abuse of a 12-year-old girl in 1998.

Officials at Alaska’s Office of Children’s Services are still reviewing archives to try to determine how allegations against a Bethel man accused of sexually abusing children may have been handled by the agency years earlier.

A possible romantic history between a Bethel social worker and Peter Tony -- now accused of sexually abusing a 4-year-old and possibly numerous other children over the years -- raises questions about how a report in 1982 that Tony was abusing his stepdaughters fell through the cracks.

The stepdaughter of a Bethel man charged with sexually assaulting a 4-year-old speaks of the legacy of abuse he allegedly gave her and two sisters decades ago. Her sisters both committed suicide in the 1990s.

Police say that the 69-year-old man admitted to abusing the girl for almost a year and numerous others over the course of many years in his capacities as foster parent and unlicensed day care provider.

A 33-year-old Anchorage cabbie charged with attempted sexual assault posted his $10,000 bail, but he's had his chauffeur's license suspended.

A 69-year-old former foster parent and daycare operator -- described as an active and helpful community volunteer -- has been arrested in Bethel, Alaska, for allegedly sexually abusing a 4-year-old child. Police said numerous other victims, possibly dating back decades, may exist.

While the victim is believed to have escaped serious physical harm during the alleged assault on Anchorage's Northern Lights Boulevard, Myren said she may have endured significant “psychological trauma.”

In the end, the Whittier City Council postponed until next month a vote on its ethics committee's recommendation that the mayor of the small Alaska town resign.