If you're looking for some beary good news, look no further: Fat Bear Week 2021 is finally here.

Described as a "celebration of success and survival," Fat Bear Week spotlights the resilience, adaptability and strength of the brown bears at Katmai National Park & Preserve in Alaska, the park's Amber Kraft told NPR via email.

The annual competition, which started off as Fat Bear Tuesday seven years ago, shows how the bears get as fat as they can to prepare for winter hibernation.

Fat Bear Tuesday was such a success that it expanded into Fat Bear Week, said Kraft, who is Katmai's interpretation and education program manager.

In other words, it's the pawfect distraction from everything in life right now and gives us a chance to appreciate the wonderful nature offered by southern Alaska.

So, you may be wondering, how exactly does this contest work? It's simple.

The participating bears are matched against each other in a March Madness-style competition (single-elimination), where online visitors can vote for a Fat Bear Week 2021 champion.

In the end, the last two very fat bears will face off for the title of "Fattest Bear," which takes place on (yup, you guessed it) Fat Bear Tuesday.

Fans can vote for their favorite bear on Explore.org. And if you just can't get enough bear content, you can watch the bears every day via LiveCam on the Brooks River in Katmai.

The bear matchups will be open for voting 12 p.m.-9 p.m. ET (9 a.m.-6 p.m. PT).

"All bears are winners but only one true champion will emerge," NPS said.

There are some 2,200 bears in Katmai National Park & Preserve, as more bears than people are estimated to live on the Alaska Peninsula, the National Park Service said.

Where the park is located, according to the NPS, is a "wild region"— having the "largest, healthiest runs of sockeye salmon left on the planet."

Last year's Fat Bear Week winner, Bear 747, is in the competition this year. In September 2020, he weighed an estimated 1,400 pounds — and he's at least that big this year, according to Explore.org.

Fat Bear Week takes place from Sept. 29 to Oct. 5.

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They went pound for pound, gut to gut. Coming into the final round, both animals had fervent support online. But in the end, 480 Otis was crowned the winner of the Fat Bear Week tournament — a competition made all the more unique by the fact that none of its entrants have any idea it exists.

Fat Bear Week is put on in Alaska by the Katmai National Park and Preserve, explore.org and the Katmai Conservancy, as a way to highlight the park's natural beauty and to share the story of its large brown bear population.

The bears' annual hibernation cycle requires them to pack on pounds during the summer — which they do by feasting on salmon in the park's Brooks River. Their hunger is driven by months of starvation, as well as the impulse to prepare for another winter.

480 Otis took his fourth Fat Bear title by vanquishing 151 Walker, a younger bear who has impressive size but lacks the do-you-believe-in-miracles comeback story of 480 Otis. The older bear, believed to be around 25, emerged from hibernation a bit late this year, looking very thin and facing health problems.

"In particular, he is missing two canine teeth and many of his other teeth are greatly worn," Explore.org says in the bear's bio. "Otis must also compete with younger and larger bears who want access to his fishing spots. Otis is more likely to be displaced by these bears than he is to displace them."

In addition to his extraordinary ability to fill out his frame, 480 Otis' fans say they simply prefer the champ's more mellow personality, citing the patience he shows with other bears. Then there are the fishing skills, and his refusal to waste energy chasing salmon around.

480 Otis is admired for his perseverance and fishing skills

A commenter on the Fat Bear website sums up the bear's appeal: "His perseverance, will to live (he was having such difficulty walking at first; his hind legs had problems), and skill as an angler — plus his inter-bear communications — well, they just spoke to me."

Of the roughly 96,000 votes cast in the decisive final round, 480 Otis captured more than 51,000, compared to less than 45,000 for 151 Walker.

480 Otis' fans admit that he's no spring chicken. But as he's proven yet again, he is indeed a fall bear in full — one who's busy preparing for another winter hibernation.

The bear is not resting on his impressively stout laurels. Like a true champion, the "portly patriarch of paunch" is "still hard at work chowing down," the Katmai National Park said.

If you want to check in on the bears, you can watch a live video that's streamed from Brooks Falls, one of their favorite fishing spots. There are also other nature cams available showing views of the park and the animals who live there.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Lena Foss thought she got lucky when she salvaged a dryer from the dump in Akiak, a Yup'ik village in Western Alaska.

She knew it was broken, but figured she could fix it by looking at tutorials online.

"First thing I did was YouTube how to replace a belt," Foss said. "But the internet was so slow and I thought it was wasting gigabytes so I turned that off before I completely finished how to fix the dryer."

Akiak sits along the Kuskokwim River, which transforms into a frozen highway in the winter. The only other way to get there is on a four-seater plane.

The village's remote location has made high-speed internet, which is typically delivered through cables, a fantasy for its 460-some residents. Now, it's about to become a reality in Akiak and rural communities around the nation, thanks in part to the pandemic.

For Shawna Williams, getting broadband will mean being able to see her teachers and classmates. During the pandemic, Williams decided to get her college degree, while holding down her full-time job as a childcare worker, and raising five kids. She has the fastest internet plan available in Akiak, but she says it can't handle video all the time, which means she attends her remote classes by phone.

"The internet is so unreliable, and it's usually too slow, especially in the evenings when I get off of work, to load even a PowerPoint," Williams said.

She says she pays $314 a month for internet service now. But once Akiak gets high-speed broadband later this month, Williams' bill will become a quarter of what it is now, according to the tribal government, and her internet speeds and data limits will more than double.

Similar advances in broadband access are happening across the nation, largely because of Covid, says Blair Levin, a broadband expert and non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution, says the main reason is COVID.

"It really focused the mind of everyone, Democrats, Republicans, governors, Senators, on the importance of getting broadband everywhere and making sure that everybody can afford to get on," Levin said.

Since the pandemic hit, the federal government made billions of dollars available to expand broadband. It dedicated a large portion of the money to rural tribal lands, which are some of the least connected areas in the country. Akiak used the coronavirus relief funding to pay for its broadband project.

But money was only one piece of the puzzle for the village. The tribe is also relying on satellite technology that just became available in Alaska this year. Low-Earth orbit satellites, operated by a company called OneWeb, can deliver high-speed internet to rural areas that cables can't reach.

Akiak Chief Mike Williams, Sr. said his tribe was motivated to act quickly on these opportunities after seeing the pandemic's effect on learning in the village.

"The kids have lost between a year and a year-and-a-half of their education, because of no technology, no internet at the home, and no remote learning," Williams said. "We may be forced to do a lockdown again. But we're going to be prepared this time."

As technicians install broadband receivers in her living room, Lena Foss watches eagerly, standing next to her broken dryer.

"When I have internet, everything I need for this dryer will be ordered," she said, adding that she could learn to repair her neighbors' appliances too.

"All this broken stuff would probably be fixed by YouTube. I would probably start a small business calling it YouTube-Fix-It-All," Foss said.

That's just the beginning of her online goals. Foss wants to google the laws on her native allotment lands, research grants for her village and file her taxes online.

"Internet will open my eyes," Foss said. "I know it will."

Copyright 2021 KYUK. To see more, visit KYUK.

JUNEAU, Alaska — Nick Cline gets calls about all kinds of items people want to sell through the Anchorage auction house where he works. But he was caught off-guard by a call he got last fall from a man saying he had "one of the largest opals in the world."

"I was extremely skeptical but extremely excited," said Cline, a partner and appraisal specialist with Alaska Premier Auctions & Appraisals.

According to the auction house, the opal, dubbed the "Americus Australis," weighs more than 11,800 carats and is one of the largest gem-quality opals in existence. It also has a long history.

Most recently, it was kept in a linen closet in a home in Big Lake, north of Anchorage, by Fred von Brandt, who mines for gold in Alaska and whose family has deep roots in the gem and rock business.

The opal is larger than a brick and is broken into two pieces, which von Brandt said was a practice used decades ago to prove gem quality.

Von Brandt said the stone has been in his family since the late 1950s, when his grandfather bought it from an Australian opal dealer named John Altmann.

Von Brandt said the opal for decades was in the care of his father, Guy von Brandt, who decided it had been "locked up long enough, that it's time to put it back out in the world and see what interest it can generate."

"He entrusted me to figure out which direction we wanted to go to part with the stone," von Brandt told The Associated Press.

The family, with roots in California, exhibited the stone at gem shows for years, until the early 1980s, he said. His father then branched out into furniture and displayed it at his shop. Guy von Brandt eventually moved to Oregon and kept the stone "kind of tucked away" for many years, von Brandt said.

Von Brandt said he brought it with him to Alaska over a year ago as he weighed the best approach to a possible sale. He said he went with Alaska Premier Auctions & Appraisals because he thought it would get more attention from the newer company than a larger auction house. The sale is set for Sunday.

Cline said the family has documentation surrounding the provenance of the opal. As part of his research, he contacted Fiona Altmann, granddaughter of John Altmann and general manager of Altmann + Cherny in Sydney, Australia.

Altmann said her grandfather, in his business dealings, made regular trips to Europe and the U.S.

Altmann said when Cline emailed her, she was skeptical; the name of the stone, in particular, threw her. But she said she started digging and discovered "something with my grandfather's handwriting with the picture of the opal with the word 'Americus Australis.'"

"I with 100% certainty know that their provenance information is 100% accurate" because it lines up with information she has, she said.

The auction house said the stone was discovered in the same field in Australia as the opal known as the "Olympic Australis," which weighs 17,000 carats and is on permanent display in Altmann's shop. The Olympic had been among the stones that John Altmann and partner Rudi Cherny acquired in 1956, according to Altmann's company.

The auction company is seeking minimum bids of $125,000 during Sunday's auction. Cline said it's a "calculated risk," with the company going with what it sees as a conservative approach in hopes of garnering the most attention. It has targeted a sales price of $250,000 to $350,000, Cline said.

The sale includes a smaller piece of the opal that von Brandt said his father cut off to be worn or displayed.

A spokesperson for the Gemological Institute of America said they could not comment on the opal as they had not seen it. The AP reached out to others who did not respond or were unfamiliar with the stone.

Altmann and von Brandt said they would love to see the opal end up in a museum. Von Brandt said he thinks the auction will be "both exciting and difficult, more for my dad than myself."

His father was a child when the family acquired the stone, and he has a "deeper connection than even I do," he said.

They both have "nervous excitement," von Brandt said. "I think it's going to be good, and we're optimistic."

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Don Young, a blunt-speaking Republican and longest-serving member of Alaska's congressional delegation, has died. He was 88.

His office announced Young's death in a statement Friday night.

"It's with heavy hearts and deep sadness that we announce Congressman Don Young (R-AK), the Dean of the House and revered champion for Alaska, passed away today while traveling home to Alaska to be with the state and people that he loved. His beloved wife Anne was by his side," said the statement from his spokesperson, Zach Brown.

Young, who was first elected to the U.S. House in 1973, was known for his brusque style. In his later years in office, his off-color comments and gaffes sometimes overshadowed his work. During his 2014 reelection bid, he described himself as intense and less-than-perfect but said he wouldn't stop fighting for Alaska.

Born on June 9, 1933, in Meridian, Calif., Young grew up on a family farm. He earned a bachelor's degree in teaching at Chico State College, now known as California State University, Chico, in 1958. He also served in the U.S. Army, according to his official biography.

Young came to Alaska in 1959, the same year Alaska became a state, and credited Jack London's "Call of the Wild," which his father used to read to him, for drawing him north.

"I can't stand heat, and I was working on a ranch and I used to dream of some place cold, and no snakes and no poison oak," Young told The Associated Press in 2016. After leaving the military and after his father's death, he told his mother he was going to Alaska. She questioned his decision.

"I said, 'I'm going up (to) drive dogs, catch fur and I want to mine gold.' And I did that," he said. In Alaska, he met his first wife, Lu, who convinced him to enter politics, which he said was unfortunate in one sense — it sent him to Washington, D.C., "a place that's hotter than hell in the summer. And there's lots of snakes here, two-legged snakes."

In Alaska, Young settled in Fort Yukon, a small community accessible primarily by air at the confluence of the Yukon and Porcupine rivers in the state's rugged, harsh interior. He held jobs in areas like construction, trapping and commercial fishing. He was a tug and barge operator who delivered supplies to villages along the Yukon River, and taught fifth grade at a Bureau of Indian Affairs school, according to his biography. With Lu, he had two daughters, Joni and Dawn.

He was elected mayor of Fort Yukon in 1964 and elected to the state House two years later. He served two terms before winning election to the state Senate, where, he said, he was miserable. Lu said he needed to get out of the job, which he resisted, saying he doesn't quit. He recalled that she encouraged him instead to run for U.S. House, saying he'd never win.

In 1972, Young was the Republican challenger to Democratic U.S. Rep. Nick Begich. Three weeks before the election, Begich's plane disappeared on a flight from Anchorage to Juneau. Alaskans reelected Begich anyway.

Begich was declared dead in December 1972 and Young won a close special election in March 1973. He held the seat until 2022, and was running for reelection in November.

In 2013, Young became the longest-serving member of Alaska's congressional delegation, surpassing the late U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, who served for 40 years. That year, he also became the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. House.

In 2015, nearly six years after Lu Young's death, and on his 82nd birthday, Young married Anne Garland Walton in a private ceremony in the U.S. Capitol chapel.

"Everybody knows Don Young," he told the AP in 2016. "They may not like Don Young; they may love Don Young. But they all know Don Young."

Young said he wanted his legacy to be one of working for the people. He counted among his career highlights passage of legislation his first year in office that allowed for construction of the trans-Alaska pipeline system, which became the state's economic lifeline. With that successful pipeline fight, "I found a niche in my life where I enjoy working for the people of Alaska and this nation — primarily the people of Alaska," Young said in 2016, adding later: "I like the House."

During his career, he unapologetically supported earmarks as a way to bring home projects and build up infrastructure in a geographically huge state where communities range from big cities to tiny villages; critics deemed earmarks as pork.

Young branded himself a conservative and won support with voters for his stances on gun and hunting rights and a strong military. He made a career out of railing against "extreme environmentalists" and a federal bureaucracy that he saw as locking up Alaska's mineral, timber and petroleum resources. He said his word was a "gold bond."

He said he was happy every time he could help a constituent. "And I try to do that every day, and I'm very good at that," he told AP in 2016. At that time, he said he'd had 190 of his bills pass the House and had 77 of them signed by a president.

His career was marred by investigations and criticism about his off-the-cuff and often abrasive style.

In 2008, Congress asked the Justice Department to investigate Young's role in securing a $10 million earmark to widen a Florida highway; the matter was dropped in 2010, and Young denied any wrongdoing.

In December 2011, the U.S. House Ethics Committee said it was revising its rules to impose new contribution limits on owners who run multiple companies following questions raised by the nonpartisan Office of Congressional Ethics about donations made to Young.

In 2014, the ethics committee found that Young had violated House rules by using campaign funds for personal trips and accepting improper gifts. Young was told to repay the value of the trips and gifts, totaling about $59,000, and amend financial disclosure statements to include gifts he hadn't reported. The committee also issued a "letter of reproval," or rebuke. Young said he regretted the "oversights" and apologized for failing to exercise "due care" in complying with the House's Code of Conduct.

Fresh off a reelection win in 2020, Young announced he had tested positive for COVID-19, months after he had referred to the coronavirus as the "beer virus" before an audience that included older Alaskans and said the media had contributed to hysteria over COVID-19.

He later called COVID-19, for which he had been hospitalized, serious and encouraged Alaskans to follow guidelines meant to guard against the illness.

Despite the controversies, voters kept sending him back to Washington, something Young said he didn't take for granted.

"Alaskans have been generous with their support for me because they know I get the job done," he said in 2016. "I'll defend my state to the dying breath, and I will always do that and they know that."

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Sarah Palin, the former governor of Alaska and Republican vice presidential candidate, filed Friday with the Federal Election Commission for the special election to fill out the term of the late Alaska Rep. Don Young.

"America is at a tipping point. As I've watched the far left destroy the country, I knew I had to step up and join the fight," Palin said in a statement announcing her candidacy.

Palin filed an hour before Friday's filing deadline to join a 50-candidate field.

Young, who was the longest-serving Republican in the history of the U.S. House, died at age 88 on March 18. He was first elected to the House in 1973.

Sen. John McCain selected Palin to be his running mate in his 2008 presidential campaign against Barack Obama. Palin was elected governor in 2006 after serving on the city council and as mayor of her hometown of Wasilla.

She resigned as governor in 2009, citing the financial pressures of fighting off a number of ethics complaints filed against her.

Since then, Palin has been a political contributor on Fox News and appears regularly on conservative media outlets. She endorsed Donald Trump in the 2016 Republican presidential primary.

In 2020, she appeared as a contestant on "The Masked Singer."

In mid-February, Palin lost her defamation suit against the New York Times that stemmed from a June 2017 editorial that wrongly claimed a link between an ad from her political action committee and the shooting at a constituent event being held by then-Rep. Gabby Giffords that killed six and wounded several others, including Giffords.

The special election for Young's seat will be the first to employ Alaska's new voting system. It begins with an open primary on June 11 with all candidates on one ballot. The top four finishers will appear on the general election ballot in August.

Alaska Public Media's Liz Ruskin contributed to this report.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, Republican Nick Begich and independent Al Gross have advanced to the August special election for the state's only U.S. House seat.

Palin and Begich, both Republicans, and Gross, an orthopedic surgeon, were among 48 candidates in last Saturday's special primary for the seat, which was left vacant following the death in March of Republican Rep. Don Young. Young had held the seat for 49 years.

The top four vote-getters in the special primary advance to a special election, set for Aug. 16, in which ranked choice voting will be used. The winner of that race will serve the remainder of Young's term, which ends in January.

State elections officials were releasing additional vote counts on Wednesday, the first day since the special primary in which counts were conducted. Additional counts are planned for Friday and for next Tuesday.

With 132,730 votes counted, Palin had 28.3%, followed by Begich with 19.3% and Gross with 12.8%. Democrat Mary Peltola had 8.7% and Republican Tara Sweeney, 5.5%.

The election was unusual in that it was conducted primarily by mail. It also was the first election under a system approved by voters in 2020 that ends party primaries and institutes ranked voting for general elections.

The election went on as scheduled following a tense legal fight over ballot access issues, with the state defending itself against accusations that the manner in which the primarily by-mail election was held discriminated against voters with visual impairments.

Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, held significant name recognition in a field that also included current and former state legislators and a North Pole city council member whose name is Santa Claus. Many of the candidates were relative unknowns.

Begich comes from a family of prominent Democrats, which includes uncles Mark Begich and Tom Begich, who have both held elected office. Gross unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate in 2020 with the endorsement of state Democrats. Alaska Democratic party leaders in this race urged voters to pick a Democrat.

Peltola, who was one of six Democrats on the ballot, is a former state lawmaker. Sweeney was an assistant secretary of Indian Affairs in the U.S. Department of Interior during the Trump administration.

Palin released a statement on election night, saying she was grateful to her supporters "who voted to make Alaska great again!"

She said she looked forward to the special election so that she could "highlight our ideas for fixing this country by responsibly developing Alaska's God-given natural resources, getting runaway government spending under control, protecting human life, protecting the right to keep and bear arms, and restoring respect for individual liberty and the Constitution."

Palin, making her first bid for elected office since resigning as governor partway through her term in 2009, touted endorsements from a number of national figures, including former President Donald Trump. Palin was an early supporter of Trump during his 2016 presidential bid, and he participated in a telerally for her the week before the election.

An August primary and November general election will decide who serves a two-year House term beginning in January. Palin, Begich and Gross are running in that race.

An email seeking comment on the special primary was sent to Begich's campaign manager Wednesday.

Begich's grandfather, Democratic U.S. Rep. Nick Begich, had the House seat before Young. In 1972, the elder Begich was running against Young when Begich's plane disappeared on a flight from Anchorage to Juneau. Begich was nonetheless reelected.

He was later declared dead and Young in 1973 won a special election for the seat. Young held the seat until his death at age 88.

The younger Begich had ties to Young, too. He was a co-chair of Young's reelection campaign in 2020.

He began running for the House seat last fall and cast himself as someone who could bring new energy to the role. He has been endorsed by a number of conservatives and by the Alaska Republican Party.

Begich, during a campaign forum with three other Republican candidates last month, acknowledged people might be surprised that a Begich is a Republican. He said he was raised "conservative" by grandparents in Florida.

Begich said he wants to make a "business case" for the state, including the need to develop the state's vast natural resources.

Gross got crosswise with some Democrats earlier this year after an interview in which he did not commit to caucusing with Democrats if elected. He later said he would.

Gross' campaign has said that Gross does not plan to seek endorsements from either the Democratic or Republican parties.

Gross noted that the largest bloc of registered voters in Alaska identify as independents and said Alaska needs a "new leader who represents all of Alaskans, not just a part of Alaska. And I believe I'm that guy."

During his 2020 run, Gross sought to play up his Alaska bona fides, notably with an ad that said he "killed a grizzly bear in self defense after it snuck up on him." His campaign also ran a cutesy ad referring to Gross as the "bear doctor."

This time, Gross is playing it differently. He has a campaign leadership team that includes Republicans, independents and Democrats, including former Gov. Tony Knowles.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

SITKA, Alaska — An Alaska family had given up hope of finding their blind, elderly golden retriever who wandered away from their home three weeks ago, but a construction crew found Lulu in salmonberry bushes after initially confusing her for a bear.

Lulu was barely alive after being found Tuesday, but she is being nursed back to health and is back home with her family, the Daily Sitka Sentinel reported.

"She means everything," owner Ted Kubacki said. "I have five daughters and they're 4 to 13 years old, so they've spent every day of their life with that dog."

The Kubacki family searched for weeks after Lulu wandered off June 18.

"She's just so helpless, and you kind of imagined that she can't get real far because she can't see," he said.

It didn't help when the family was the subject of a terrible joke when someone claimed they found Lulu a few days into the search.

"We put the kids to bed and got a text saying, 'We found your dog,' or 'I have your dog,' and we're like, 'Oh my god, this is incredible,'" he said. "Then the person texted me, 'Just kidding.' This happened, yeah, that was all part of this terrible story."

After searching weeks, the family had given up hope.

How Lulu was found

But then a construction crew this week spotted Lulu lying in the brush alongside a road not far from the Kubacki's home. She was about 15 feet (4.57 meters) down an embankment, and at first the crew thought it was a bear.

"They got a closer look and they realized that it was a dog, and they got her out of there," Kubacki said.

All the sadness melted away when he got the call that Lulu had been found.

"I called my wife from work and it was just screaming... She just starts yelling, then she yells to the kids. And I just hear them screaming like crazy," Kubacki said.

Although alive, Lulu was in bad shape. The 80-pound (36.29-kilogram) dog had dropped 23 pounds (10.43 kilograms) since she was lost; she was dehydrated, dirty and her fur was matted.

"I just expected to come back and be like 'Hey, here's my dog.' She's going to jump up and wag her tail and kiss my face, and she couldn't even pick up her head," he said. "She'd been through the wringer."

Lulu's condition has markedly improved with medical care, food and rest.

"Slowly but surely she started eating and she was kind of able to pick her head up," Kubacki said. "But then yesterday, she propped herself up on her front paws by herself, like nestled into me and gave me a kiss and wagged her tail and it was just so great."

A day later, she was able to stand on her own.

Kubacki, a grocery store employee and the sole provider for his family of seven, then worried about the veterinarian's bill.

Those fears were unfounded as Sitka residents donated hundreds of dollars to cover Lulu's recuperation bills.

"We have our family member home," Kubacki said.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

JUNEAU, Alaska — Alaska Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski advanced from her primary along with Kelly Tshibaka, her GOP rival endorsed by former President Donald Trump, while another Trump-backed candidate, Republican Sarah Palin, was among the candidates bound for the November general election in the race for Alaska's only House seat.

Murkowski had expressed confidence that she would advance and earlier in the day told reporters that "what matters is winning in November." Tshibaka called the results "the first step in breaking the Murkowski monarchy's grip on Alaska." Tshibaka also said she was thankful "for the strong and unwavering support President Trump has shown Alaska."

A Murkowski has held the Senate seat since 1981. Before Lisa Murkowski, who has been in the Senate since late 2002, it was her father, Frank Murkowski.

Under a voter-approved elections process being used for the first time in Alaska elections this year, party primaries have been scrapped and ranked choice voting is being used in general elections. The top four vote-getters in a primary race, regardless of party affiliation, are to advance to the general election.

The other two places in the Senate race were too early to call.

Murkowski voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Trump was acquitted. But he has had strong words for Murkowski, calling her "the worst" during a rally last month in Anchorage.

Murkowski said that if Tshibaka derives her sole strength from Trump's endorsement, "what does that really say about her as a candidate with what she has to offer Alaska? Is it just that she will be a rubber stamp for Donald Trump? I don't think that all Alaskans are really seeking that. Not the ones that I'm talking to."

Kevin Durling, a co-chair of Tshibaka's campaign, said Trump's endorsement of Tshibaka was an added bonus for him. He said Tshibaka's commitment to business and family and her values were important to him. He expressed frustration with Murkowski for the impeachment vote and for her support of the nomination of Interior Secretary Deb Haaland.

In the House primary, Democrat Mary Peltola, Palin and Republican Nick Begich advanced to the November election. It was too early to call the fourth spot. The winner of the November race will be elected to a two-year term.

Peltola, Begich and Palin were also competing in a special election to serve the remainder of the late-Rep. Don Young 's term, which ends early next year. Young died in March.

The special election was voters' first shot at ranked voting in a statewide race. The winner of the special election may not be known until at least Aug. 31. If successful, Peltola would be the first Alaska Native woman elected to the House.

There also were several write-in candidates in the special election, including Republican Tara Sweeney, who was also competing in the House primary. Sweeney was an assistant secretary for Indian Affairs in the U.S. Interior Department during the Trump administration.

The special election was on one side of the ballot; the other side contained primary races for U.S. Senate, U.S. House, governor and lieutenant governor and legislative seats.

Palin, in a statement Tuesday evening, called this "the first test case of the crazy, convoluted, undesirable ranked-choice voting system."

Supporters of ranked voting have said it encourages positive campaigning but the House race has at times taken on harsh tones.

Begich, a businessman from a family of prominent Democrats, has come out hard against Palin, seeking to cast her as someone chasing fame and as a quitter; Palin resigned during her term as governor in 2009.

In one Begich ad, the narrator says Alaska has faced "years of disasters," including fires and COVID-19. "Sarah Palin is one disaster we can actually avoid," the narrator says.

A narrator in one of Palin's ads refers to Begich as "negative Nick" and says Palin wants to serve in Congress "to carry Don Young's torch."

Peltola, a former lawmaker who most recently worked at a commission whose goal is to rebuild salmon resources on the Kuskokwim River, has cast herself as a consensus builder.

She said one thing that would help her be a good representative is that she is "not a millionaire. I am just like every other regular Alaskan, and I understand the economic struggles that Alaskans face first-hand. My priorities are the priorities of everyday Alaskans."

In a statement early Wednesday, she said while the results of the special election won't be known for some time, "we are moving forward into the general election. We are going to build on this momentum and build a coalition of Alaskans that can win in November."

In the race for Alaska governor, Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy advanced, as did former Gov. Bill Walker, an independent, and Democrat Les Gara. It was too early to call the fourth spot.

Dunleavy and his running mate, Nancy Dahlstrom, in a statement said this "is only the start of the race. We'll dig into all the numbers as they come in over the next few days to find out where we need to shore up our campaign, and we're looking forward to reaching every Alaskan and earning their vote between now and November."

Walker is running with Heidi Drygas and Gara with Jessica Cook.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

In 1979, researchers unearthed the mummified body of a 55,000-year-old Steppe bison in the Alaskan tundra. Shortly after, they sliced off a piece of its neck — to eat!

Here's a news story told in rhyme:

This is not a traditional story.
Not many names or dates, so don't worry.

It's also not incredibly timely,
But it's about an ice age Steppe bison
And a man whose thought process defies me.

Let's start with the creature, lived more than 55,000 years ago
Was brought to his knees by a lion-ancestor foe.

Down went the bison on permafrost ground,
Which kept him from being eatenor found.

Neither predator nor man disturbed the behemoth mass
As it remained encased in a protective frozen glass.

Leaping forward to1979,
a team of explorers venture out to mine

Gold is what they are on the lookout for,
on the spot where the bison hit the floor

With a hydraulic mining hose, they melted away,
Some frozen sludge, 'til someone said, Whoa! Stop! Hey!

They reported their findings to University of Alaska Fairbanks officials
Dale Guthrie, led the excavation, limiting interstitials.

The skeleton, the skin, the muscles — all in near-impeccable condition,
Guthrie named it Blue Babe, then sliced off a piece for a culinary mission.

"You know what we can do?,"he asked
Host a dinner party and with cooking the meat, I'll be tasked.

The Blue Babe neck steak served eight,
With veggies and spices, and lots of booze they ate

Years later, writing about the taste,
Guthrie said, When thawed, one could mistake

The aroma for beef, not unpleasantly earthy.
But once in the mouth, his wife, Mary Lee Guthrie,
Told podcasters from Gimlet, it was worse than beef jerky.

Still, it was a great party, she fondly remembered,
A dreamy symbolism of the meal that endured.

It was a feast; by all counts a true celebration
An "imagining of the human experience on earth!,"
She said, with elation.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.