By BETH BRAGG, Anchorage Daily News

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The black bear wanted a free meal. The homeowners wanted their house back. Both got what they wanted, but as homeowner David Tisch said, there were no winners in the latest tale of Anchorage's big, wild life.

Their food almost gone but their mood upbeat, 10 young Japanese tourists stranded for a week on Ruth Glacier returned to Talkeetna, Alaska on Sunday.The group, which included a 10-year-old boy, got more than it bargained for during a trip to Mount McKinley that was supposed to end a week earlier.

A snow safety expert renowned for his expertise on avalanches was swept to his death on an Alaska mountain by just such a giant slide of snow.A lifelong Alaskan skilled in backcountry survival, Mike O'Leary died when an avalanche buried him under 18 feet of snow on Mount Eyak where he and three others skied Saturday.

Maggie is ready to join the gang. And the gang is ready for her.Now if it would just stop raining.Mud is the only thing keeping the fence up between Maggie and the four other African elephants at the Performing Animal Welfare Society sanctuary in Northern California.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A registered sex offender who served more than a year in prison for sexually abusing minors is wearing robes that signal he has taken a first step toward priesthood in the Russ

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- This one is sure to make somebody's list of the dumbest things to do before you die: