By GEORGE BRYSON, Anchorage Daily News

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Alaska infants are twice as likely to be born with major birth defects as infants in the U.S. as a whole, according to a new study by the state Department of Health and Social Services -- and officials are at a loss to explain why.

Rural Alaska Natives in homes without running water experience far higher rates of pneumonia and other serious lower-respiratory-tract infections than do Natives in homes where water is readily available for bathing and hand-washing, a new study by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has found.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- A panel of respected linguists who met in Anchorage recently is hailing new research that links the Old World language of Ket to the sprawling New World family of Na-Dene languages.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The odds are it will miss. Still, there's a huge asteroid -- a massive rock about 160 feet long -- hurtling toward Mars.