Gravina Island
Gravina Island is an island in the Gravina Islands of the Alexander Archipelago in southeastern Alaska. It is long and about wide, with a land area of . The island had a population of 50 people at the 2000 census. The Spanish explorer Jacinto Caamaño named the Gravina Islands group in 1792. George Vancouver applied the name to Gravina Island itself in 1793. The name honors Federico Carlos Gravina y Nápoli which was originated in the town of Gravina in Puglia, Italy. Ketchikan International Airport is located on Gravina Island across the Tongass Narrows (½ mile) from Ketchikan and is reached by a ferry service which takes between three and seven minutes and runs at least every half-hour. Early on the morning of October 18, 2016, a fire was detected in a dwelling on Gravina Island. The fireboat ''Harry Newell'' responded. Firefighters were unable to save the building, but prevented the fire spreading. Demographics Gravina Island first appeared on the 1940 U.S. Census a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Crater Lake Newt
The Crater Lake newt or Mazama newt, ''Taricha granulosa mazamae'', is a subspecies of the rough-skinned newt. Its type locality is Crater Lake, Oregon. Similar newts have been found in Alaska, but their identity is unclear. The Crater Lake newt population is under threat due to predation from crayfish Crayfish are freshwater crustaceans belonging to the clade Astacidea, which also contains lobsters. In some locations, they are also known as crawfish, craydids, crawdaddies, crawdads, freshwater lobsters, mountain lobsters, rock lobsters, mu ... and rainbow trout that have been introduced into the lake. References Crater Lake Newts Amphibians of the United States {{Salamandridae-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Senate Appropriations Committee
The United States Senate Committee on Appropriations is a standing committee of the United States Senate. It has jurisdiction over all discretionary spending legislation in the Senate. The Senate Appropriations Committee is the largest committee in the U.S. Senate, with 30 members in the 117th Congress. Its role is defined by the U.S. Constitution, which requires "appropriations made by law" prior to the expenditure of any money from the Treasury, and the committee is therefore one of the most powerful committees in the Senate. The committee was first organized on March 6, 1867, when power over appropriations was taken out of the hands of the Finance Committee. The chairman of the Appropriations Committee has enormous power to bring home special projects (sometimes referred to as "pork barrel spending") for their state as well as having the final say on other senators' appropriation requests. For example, in fiscal year 2005 per capita federal spending in Alaska, the home state ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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United States House Committee On Transportation And Infrastructure
The U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. History The Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure was formerly known as the Committee on Public Works and Transportation from 1975 to 1994, and the Committee on Public Works between 1947 and 1974. Under the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 the Committees on Public Buildings and Grounds (1837–1946), Rivers and Harbors (1883–1946), Roads (1913–46), and the Flood Control (1916–46) were combined to form the Committee on Public Works. Its jurisdiction from the beginning of the 80th Congress (1947–48) through the 90th Congress (1967–68) remained unchanged. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Don Young
Donald Edwin Young (June 9, 1933 – March 18, 2022) was an American politician from the state of Alaska. At the time of his death, he was the longest-serving Republican in congressional history, having been the U.S. representative for for 49 years, from 1973 until his death in 2022. Born and raised in California, Young moved to Alaska in 1959 after a stint in the U.S. Army. He worked various careers, including sailing and teaching, in the small city of Fort Yukon, where he was elected mayor in 1964. He entered state politics two years later, when he won a seat in the Alaska House of Representatives, and advanced to the Alaska Senate in 1970. In 1972, he ran for a seat in the House of Representatives against incumbent Democrat Nick Begich. Weeks before the election, Begich disappeared and was presumed dead in a plane crash, though he still posthumously won the vote. Young ran in a special election to fill the vacant post the following year, defeating Democrat Emil Notti. H ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Earmark (politics)
An earmark is a provision inserted into a discretionary spending appropriations bill that directs funds to a specific recipient while circumventing the merit-based or competitive funds allocation process. Earmarks feature in United States Congress spending policy, and they are present in public finance of many other countries as a form of political particularism. Etymology "Earmark" comes from the livestock term, where the ears of domestic animals were cut in specific ways so that farmers could distinguish their stock from others grazing on public land. In particular, the term comes from earmarked hogs where, by analogy, pork-barreled legislation would be doled out among members of the local political machine. Definitions In 2006 the Congressional Research Service (CRS) compiled a report on the use of earmarks in thirteen Appropriation Acts from 1994 through 2005 in which they noted that there was "not a single definition of the term earmark accepted by all practitioners and obser ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Revillagigedo Island
Revillagigedo Island ( es, Isla Revillagigedo, , , locally Revilla, ) is an island in the Alexander Archipelago in Ketchikan Gateway Borough of the southeastern region of the U.S. state of Alaska. Running about 89 km (50 mi) north-south and 48 km (35 mi) east-west, it is 2,754.835 km² (1,063.65 mi²) in area, making it the 12th largest island in the United States and the 167th largest island in the world. Its center is located near . The island is separated from the Alaska mainland to the east by Behm Canal, from Prince of Wales Island to the west by the Clarence Strait, and from Annette Island to the south by Revillagigedo Channel and Nichols Passage. The island is traditional Tlingit territory, and by the nineteenth century was divided between the Saanyaa Ḵwáan and Taantʼa Ḵwáan tribes or subdivisions. The first European recorded as having sighted it was Spanish explorer Jacinto Caamaño in 1792; it was named the following year by Br ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ketchikan
Ketchikan ( ; tli, Kichx̱áan) is a city in and the borough seat of the Ketchikan Gateway Borough of Alaska. It is the state's southeasternmost major settlement. Downtown Ketchikan is a National Historic District. With a population at the 2020 census of 8,192, up from 8,050 in 2010, it is the sixth-most populous city in the state, and thirteenth-most populous community when census-designated places are included. The surrounding borough, encompassing suburbs both north and south of the city along the Tongass Highway (most of which are commonly regarded as a part of Ketchikan, albeit not a part of the city itself), plus small rural settlements accessible mostly by water, registered a population of 13,948 in that same census. Incorporated on August 25, 1900, Ketchikan is the earliest extant incorporated city in Alaska, because consolidation or unification elsewhere in Alaska resulted in the dissolution of those communities' city governments. Ketchikan is located on Revillagige ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gravina Island Bridge
The Gravina Island Bridge, commonly referred to as the "Bridge to Nowhere", was a proposed bridge to replace the ferry that currently connects the town of Ketchikan, Alaska, United States, with Gravina Island, an island that contains the Ketchikan International Airport as well as 50 residents. The bridge was projected to cost $398 million. Members of the Alaskan congressional delegation, particularly Representative Don Young and Senator Ted Stevens, were the bridge's biggest advocates in Congress, and helped push for federal funding. The project encountered fierce opposition outside Alaska as a symbol of pork barrel spending and is labeled as one of the more prominent "bridges to nowhere". As a result, Congress removed the federal earmark for the bridge in 2005. Funding for the "Bridge to Nowhere" was continued as of March 2, 2011, in the passing of H.R. 662: Surface Transportation Extension Act of 2011 [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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2005 Highway Bill
Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act: A Legacy for Users or SAFETEA-LU was a funding and authorization bill that governed United States federal surface transportation spending. It was signed into law by President George W. Bush on August 10, 2005, as and . History The $244.1 billion measure contained a host of provisions and earmarks intended to improve and maintain the surface transportation infrastructure in the United States, including the Interstate Highway System, transit systems around the country, bicycling and pedestrian facilities, and freight rail operations. The bill was named after Lu Young, the wife of Representative Don Young. Congress renewed its funding formulas ten times after its expiration date in 2009, until replacing the bill with the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act (MAP-21) in 2012. Support and opposition In 2006 Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert, championed a $207-million e ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ted Stevens
Theodore Fulton Stevens Sr. (November 18, 1923 – August 9, 2010) was an American politician and lawyer who served as a U.S. Senator from Alaska from 1968 to 2009. He was the longest-serving Republican Senator in history at the time he left office, though his record was later surpassed in January 2017 by Utah Senator Orrin Hatch. He was the president pro tempore of the United States Senate in the 108th and 109th Congresses from January 3, 2003, to January 3, 2007, and was the third U.S. Senator to hold the title of president pro tempore emeritus. He was previously Solicitor of the Department of the Interior from September 1960 to January 1961. Stevens served for six decades in the American public sector, beginning with his service as a pilot in World WarII. In 1952, his law career took him to Fairbanks, Alaska, where he was appointed U.S. Attorney the following year by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In 1956, he returned to Washington, D. C., to work in the Eisenhower Inter ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alaska Political Corruption Probe
The Alaska political corruption probe refers to a 2003 to 2010 widespread investigation by the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Internal Revenue Service into political corruption of nine then-current or former Alaskan state lawmakers, as well as Republican US Representative Don Young and then-US Senator, Republican Ted Stevens. Sometimes referred to as "The Corrupt Bastards Club" or the "Operation Polar Pen", the investigation focused on the oil industry, fisheries and for-profit prison industries. By the spring of 2006, the FBI set up in a Baranof hotel suite just three blocks away from the capitol building in Juneau. From their position in the hotel suite, they gathered evidence, such as a videotape of VECO's CEO Bill Allen arranging paper money for legislators, and made other observations. By August 2008, the investigation resulted in indictments against six sitting or former Alaska Republican state legis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |