WASHINGTON — Pres-i d e n t - e l e c t D o n a l d Trump on Thursday abruptly called for the United States to “greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability” until the rest of the world “comes to its senses” regarding nuclear weap-ons.

Hi s c o m m e n t s o n

Twitter came hours after Russian Presi-dent Vladimir Putin said strengthening his country’s nuclear capa-bilities should be a chief military objective in the coming year.

The president-elect’s statement also followed his meetings a day ear-lier with top Pentagon officials and defense con-tractors.

Trump, who is spend-ing the holidays at his

palatial private club in Florida, did not expand on the actions he wants the U.S. to take or say why he raised the issue Thursday.

Spokesman Jason Mill-er said the president- elect was referring to the threat of nuclear pro-liferation “particularly to and among terrorist organizations and unsta-ble and rogue regimes.”

‘OLD-SCHOOL,FORCE-ON-FORCE WARFARE’

One dollar

w

SOURDOUGH JACK:

“After hours, the only place I’m landing is in bed.”

Classified » C1-4 | Comics » C6 | Dear Abby » C5 | Faith: » B3 | Opinion » A6 | Outdoors » B1 | INSIDE

• • •

• • •

Bipartisan efort to repeal North Carolina anti-LBGTQ law fails amid distrust. » B4Inside Today

The weather.

Today: Mostly cloudy.

Scattered snow show-

ers in the afternoon

and patchy freezing

fog. Highs 5 to 10

above. Tonight: Most-

ly cloudy. Snow accu-

mulation of as much

as 1 inch.

High today ................4

Low tonight ............. -1

WEATHER » A5

GOODMORNING

Aurora forecast.

Auroral activity will

be high. Weather per-

mitting, highly active

auroral displays will be

visible overhead from

Utqiagvik to Bethel, Dil-

lingham and Ketchikan,

and visible low on the

horizon from King

Salmon.

This information is provid-

ed by aurora forecasters at

the Geophysical Institute

at the University of Alaska

Fairbanks. For more infor-

mation about the aurora,

visit http://www.gi.alaska.

edu/AuroraForecast

NY FALLS SHORTEagles beat Giants in

NFC East showdown.

SPORTS

Page D1

newsminer.comFRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2016

T H E V O I C E O F I N T E R I O R A L A S K A

Stryker brigade heads to monthlong training

By Sam FriedmanSFRIEDMAN

@NEWSMINER.COM

The Interior’s larg-est military unit is leaving soon for a monthlong training exercise in Southern California.

Starting on Jan. 10, Fort Wainwright’s 1st Styker Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division will begin fighting a simulated war in the Mojave Desert. The exercise at Fort Ir w i n’s Na t i o n a l Training Center is the culmination of the brigade’s train-ing. This month’s trip will be the Stryker brigade’s first time at the National Train-ing Center s ince

spring 2011. The training center

and the exercise will look substantially different this time. In 2011, the Stryker bri-gade was headed to Afghanistan. Sol-

diers practiced fight-ing insurgents who used such tactics as roadside bombs. Next month, the Fort Wainwright soldiers will train for a con-ventional war.

“We’re doing what we’re calling DATE — Decisive Action Train-ing Environments — which is Army-speak for the old-school force-on-force war-fare that we’ve gotten away from since Sept. 11,” Cpt. Adam Bowen, a brigade spokesman who will be partici-pating in the exercise, said. “So guys we’re going up against at the National Train-ing Center will have tanks, they’ ll have aircraft, they’ll have drones, they’ll have it all.”

The brigade will have its eight-wheeled Styker vehicles and parts of Fort Wain-wright ’s aviat ion units.

Airlines to pay for after-hours landingsBy Matt BuxtonMBUXTON

@NEWSMINER.COM

Starting next year, airlines landing their planes after hours at rural airports could find themselves footing the bill for overtime pay.

The state Depart-ment of Transportation is working with airlines on the pending change

caused by budget cuts, Deputy Commission-er John Binder said Thursday.

“ With the budge t cuts, we’ve had our overtime budget essen-tially zeroed out,” he said.

B i n d e r s a i d t h e change is driven large-ly because the Depart-ment of Transporta-tion’s state general fund

budget has been cut by some 22 percent during the past two years, and overtime at state-owned rural airports is one of the many cuts.

He said every state-owned airport outside Fairbanks Internation-al Airport and Ted Ste-vens Anchorage Inter-national Airport will be affected by the changes.

For the most part,

B i n d e r s a i d , t h e Department of Trans-portation is working with airlines to adjust each airport’s operating hours or rework flight schedules to avoid over-time.

“The first part of this is working with the different air carriers to verify and confirm what their daily flight schedules are so we can

make sure our normal operating hours that we are covered for match up with their schedule as much as possible,” he said. “We’ve been able to do that with almost all of our airports. But there are a few where the airlines have flights outside of those sched-uled hours.”

Transportation Department says change

affects every state-owned rural airport

A Stryker armored vehicle is loaded onto a C-17 Globemaster III on Dec. 13 at Eielson Air Force Base. A contingency response team was sent to Eielson to support the Army’s Rapid Alaska Airlift Week exercise. U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTOS/STAFF SGT. ROBERT HICKS

ONE MONTH IN THE MOJAVE DESERT

OVERTIME » A3

An airman from the 821st Contingency Response Squadron, and a soldier from the 1st Attack Reconnaissance Battalion, 25th Combat Aviation Brigade perform a joint inspection on an AH-64 Apache helicopter Dec. 11 at Eielson Air Force Base.

Federal rule for mines draws rebukes

By Kevin BairdKBAIRD@NEWSMINER.COM

Usibelli Coal Mine and Alaska’s congressional delega-tion are taking strong stanc-es against the Final Stream Protection Rule, which the Department of the Interior published Dec. 19.

Alaska’s U.S. Sens. Dan Sul-livan and Lisa Murkowski also have spoken against the new rule.

The Department of the Interior’s Final Stream Pro-tection Rule updated 33-year-old regulations of the estab-lish “clear requirements for responsible surface coal min-ing that will protect 6,000 miles of streams and 52,000 acres of forests,” according to a DOI news release. The new rules are scheduled to go into effect Jan. 18.

Included in the Final Stream Protection Rule is a definition of “‘material damage to the hydrologic balance outside the permit area’ for the first time,” according to the DOI’s Office of Surface Mining Rec-lamation and Enforcement.

Lorali Simon, a Usibelli mine spokeswoman, said the update to the stream protec-tion rule takes a “one size fits all” approach to mining, and

Alaska delegation slams stream protection order, which goes into effect Jan. 18

RULE » A3

Trump: US must ‘greatly strengthen’ nuclear capabilityBy Julie PaceAP WHITE HOUSE

CORRESPONDENT

President-elect Donald Trump takes a question from the media Wednesday at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump on Thursday called for the United States to “greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability” until the rest of the world “comes to its senses” about the weapons. AP

PHOTO/ANDREW HARNIK

TRAINING » A3

TRUMP » A5

A3Friday, December 23, 2016 Fairbanks Daily News-Miner

does not consider Alas-ka’s geology, permafrost and ecology.

“Back in 1977, Congress originally passed the Sur-face Mining Control and Regulation Act. There’s a section (708) that specifically talks about why Alaska is unique and must be considered separately,” Simon said. “This rule completely robs the states of their regional discretion. We have argued this (Final Stream Protection Rule) is a rewriting of SMRCA. This is a way of not going through Congress.”

UCM President and CEO Joe Usibelli Jr. said in a news release he has spoken about enacting a Congressional Review Act to disapprove the Final Stream Protection Rule with Sens. Murkow-ski and Sullivan as well as Rep. Don Young.

“We’re pretty confident that Congress will move on a review act. Of course our congressional delega-tion is supportive,” Simon said.

“This rule creates a blanket national regu-lation that will serious-ly limit the availabili-ty of energy to power the lights and heat our homes in Interior Alaska and other regions across

the country,” Sullivan said in a written statement. “I hope that my colleagues in Congress and the incoming administration can work swiftly to kill this last gasp of bureau-cratic overreach. We need to reduce and modernize regulatory requirements, not create a maze of duplicative, conflicting, and industry-killing reg-ulations.”

In a written statement, Murkowski said, “This rule was written behind closed doors, ignores nearly all input from state regulators and is spe-cifically intended to put coal miners out of work. I can assure Alaskans that Congress will work to

overturn this rule, and we will urge the new admin-istration to follow the law as it considers next steps.”

“The fact that the Obama administration’s own calculations praise the expected annual loss of coal mining jobs while increasing bureaucratic jobs for additional regu-lators shows an absolute disconnect with the real-ity of a productive econ-omy,” Usibelli said in a written statement.

The Usibelli Coal Mine is Alaska’s only coal oper-ation, employing 115 peo-ple. It provides coal for six Interior power plants. Contact staff writer Kevin

Baird at 459-7575. Follow

him on Twitter: @FDNMcity.

Christmas Eve Services7pm& 9pm

ChristmasDay Service10am

915 SecondAvenue

Fairbanks, AK 99701

907-452-2956

fairbanksfirst.org

First United Methodist Church

F11514209

Call today for your FREE consultation!

907-479-CAREwww.tlcathomecare.com

Tender Loving Care At HomeYou’re in Very Good Hands!

In-home services designed to help clients function more

effectively in their own environments to services provided outside of their

homes while in the community. We provide weekend care, over night care,

and 24 live in rates. We also have 24 hour on call ofice staff as well.

Services We Offer:

• Alzheimer/Dementia Care • Music & Memory Program • Personal Care Worker

• Meal Preparation •Medication Reminder • After Surgery Care

• Grocery Shopping • Transportation & Escort to Appointments lllll

• Housekeeping • Companionship

Santa’s MailbagA young girl writes

Dear Santa,I’m 13 and mother says I’m too old towrite to Santa.Do you have another name, anaka? Do you text?

Santa’s reply,Merry Christmas to all, and to all

please write!Santa Claus (aka Kris Kringle)1 Santa Claus LaneNorth Pole, AK 99705Can’t text, it’s the mittens!Facebook Santa’s Mailbag.

INTERIOR

In cases where the air-lines can’t work out a schedule within the bud-geted hours, he said the department is working on what a fair fee struc-ture would be. He said it will depend on what kind of planes are landing, the locations and the sched-ules. He said larger air-craft, for example, require greater safety measures and more carefully main-tained runways than smaller aircraft.

Wr i g h t A i r S e r -vice Director of Opera-tions Ken Michaelis said it won’t affect that air-line’s operations.

“We put everything to bed by 6 o’clock here,” he said.

The change is unlikely to affect flights to rural Interior, said Warbelow’s Air Ventures co-owner Matt Atkinson, because most flights in the Inte-rior occur during regular daytime hours. Atkinson is also the president of the industry group Alaska Air Carriers Association, and from that perspective he

said he’s concerned just how the potential fees for after-hour flights will be determined so they’re fair across the board.

“I certainly understand the need to generate revenue and I think it’s appropriate to have the users of those services pay for those services, but the actual billing and execu-tion of that would be pret-ty difficult,” he said.

Binder said the regula-tions are still in the works and likely will be put out for public comment in the first half of 2017. He said the regulations prob-ably would go into place around the start of the 2018 fiscal year, which starts July 2017.Contact staff writer Matt

Buxton at 459-7544. Follow

him on Twitter:

@FDNMpolitics.

OVERTIMEContinued from A1

They will face profes-sional adversaries from the Army’s 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment.

Except for about 500 soldiers that stay at Fort Wainwright as a rear detachment, almost all

of the Styker brigade’s 4,000 soldiers will trav-el to Fort Irwin, Bowen said.

Some of the soldiers have left Alaska to spend leave in the Low-er 48 before the exercise begins. Others will leave the first week of January.

Most of the brigade’s Stryker vehicles left

Fairbanks aboard rail-cars. Last week, two Strykers and 10 Apache helicopters took an express ride to California aboard large Air Force cargo planes. To prac-tice loading equipment quickly in the cold, two C-17 Globemaster IIIs flew to Eielson Air Force Base near North Pole

last week and carried the equipment to Califor-nia. It’s the first time the Apache helicopters have been deployed outside Alaska since their unit was activated in Septem-ber 2015. Contact Outdoors Editor Sam

Friedman at 459-7545. Follow

him on Twitter:

@FDNMcrime.

TRAININGContinued from A1

RULEContinued from A1

Wright Air

Service Director

of Operations

Ken Michaelis

said it won’t

afect that

airline’s

operations.

The Public Safety Report is compiled from crimi-nal complaints filed in state and federal courts, as well as some police blotter information, trooper dis-patches, fire department reports and interviews with public safety offi-cials. Individuals named as arrested and/or charged with crimes in this report are presumed innocent until proved guilty in a court of law.

DUI• Cory Jacobs John-

son, 21, of Fairbanks, was charged with driving under the influence Dec. 11 after he lost control of his vehicle at the Mitch-ell Expressway on ramp near Chena Pump Road. According to charging documents, Johnson was driving erratically and went into a ditch while being followed by an Alas-ka State Trooper. John-son smelled like alcohol and told the trooper he drank two beers. He failed field sobriety tests and his breath-alcohol content registered 0.207.

• Drew Curtis Ander-son, 24, of Fairbanks, was charged with driv-ing under the influence Dec. 11 after Alaska State Troopers stopped him for speeding on Chena Pump and Geist roads. Ander-son said the reason he was going 15 mph over the speed limit was because his entire dash was not working, including the speedometer, according to charging documents. Anderson failed field sobriety tests and his breath-alcohol content registered 0.095.

• Sidney Collier, 21, of North Pole, was charged with driving under the influence Dec. 10 after North Pole police stopped him for speeding, running a stop sign and driving on the wrong side of the road. Collier smelled like alco-hol, appeared intoxicated

and admitted to drinking six beers in the previous four hours, according to charging documents. Col-lier told police he was tak-ing numerous medications including Atarax, Loraz-epam, Seroquel and Neu-rontin. He said he took a double dose of Seroquel that night while he drank and was feeling so tired he could barely keep his eyes open.

Atarax is used to treat anxiety and skin allergies, Neurontin is a nerve pain medicine and anticonvul-sant, Seroquel is an anti-psychotic and Lorazepam is an anti-anxiety drug and sedative.

Collier failed field sobri-ety tests and his breath- alcohol content registered 0.068.

• Taylor Brian Vance, 25, of Fairbanks, was charged with driving under the influence Dec. 10 after Alaska State Troopers stopped him for speeding on the Parks Highway and not using his turn signal on Chena Pump Road. Vance smelled like alcohol and admitted to drinking two beers, according to charging documents.

When asked to perform field sobriety tests Vance unable to maintain his balance and “was holding his foot up like the man on the Captain Morgan bottle” during the one-leg stand test, according to charging documents. His breath-alcohol content registered 0.153.

• Rene Stropich, 53, of North Pole, was charged with driving under the influence Dec. 12 after Alaska State Troopers stopped her for speed-ing on the Richardson Highway near the weigh station. Stropich smelled strongly of alcohol and had very red, watery eyes and told troopers she drank about eight beers the night before, accord-ing to charging docu-ments. Stropich said she was speeding because she was late for work.

Stropich failed field sobriety tests and her b r e a t h - a l c o h o l c o n -tent registered 0.095. She refused to provide a breath sample and was

taken to Fairbanks Memo-rial Hospital for clearance before being remanded to Fairbanks Correctional Center.

• Chalmer Myers, 34, of Fairbanks, was charged with driving under the influence and two counts of child endangerment Dec. 10 af ter Alaska State Troopers found him passed out behind the wheel of an idling vehi-cle near Parks Highway and Cripple Creek Road. When contacted Myers said he shot several shots of 100 proof alcohol in the parking lot of Justa Store before attempting to drive home. Myers’ 2-year-old and 4-year-old sons were in the back seat of the vehicle, according to charging documents.

Myers failed field sobri-ety tests and his breath- alcohol content registered 0.159.

Multiple chargesJulio A. Cardona III, 25,

of Fairbanks was charged with driving under the influence, driving with a suspended license and felony first-degree assault Dec. 5 for a May 13, 2015 incident. According to charging documents, a caller reported a vehi-cle rollover on Birch Hill Road and said the driv-er was trapped and the passenger fled the scene. Fairbanks police respond-ed and found a maroon Chevrolet upside down on its roof. The driver, Car-dona, was taken to Fair-banks Memorial Hospital ant the car impounded. Police obtained a blood sample from Cardona before he was transported to Anchorage for further treatment, according to the charges. They received the results in June and Cardona’s blood-alcohol level registered 0.114. A records check showed Cardona did not have a valid Alaska license and his Oregon driver’s license was suspended in 2013.

Cardona’s passenger suffered broken ribs and a head injury in the acci-dent, according to the charges.Dorothy Chomicz

PUBLIC SAFETY REPORT

Inquiry: Snowden in touch with Russia spy agencies

WASHINGTON — For-mer National Securi-ty Agency contractor E d w a r d S n o w d e n remains in contact with Russian intelli-gence services, accord-ing to a bipartisan congressional report released at a time when Russia is con-sidered a top national security concern.

The two-year inquiry focused on Snowden’s 2013 leak of classified U.S. material about America’s surveillance programs. It conclud-ed that Snowden com-promised national security by these dis-closures and is avoid-ing prosecution while living in a country that is considered one of the top U.S. adversar-ies. In recent months, U.S. intelligence agen-cies have been outspo-ken about their beliefs that Russia actively interfered in the U.S. political process by hacking into private email accounts.

The report sends a strong message to P r e s i d e n t B a r a c k Obama during his final days in office: Do not pardon Edward Snowden.

O b a m a h a s n o t offered any indication that he is considering pardoning Snowden for the leaks that embarrassed the U.S. and angered allies. Lisa Monaco, Obama’s adviser on homeland security and counter-terrorism, said last year that Snowden “should come home to the United States and be judged by a jury of his peers — not hide behind the cover of an authoritarian regime.”

However, there has

been a push by priva-cy advocacy groups to pardon the former NSA contractor who they herald as a whis-tleblower for leaking documents that dis-closed the extent of the data the U.S. col-lects on Americans in its efforts to fight terrorism. After the disclosures, Obama reined in some of the surveillance author-ities and put in place additional measures to provide more trans-parency to the classi-fied programs.

The House intel-l igence committee released the report to provide what the pan-el’s chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., called “a fuller account of Edward Snowden’s crimes and the reck-less disregard he has shown for U.S. nation-al security.”

The 33-page unclas-sified report pointed to statements in June 2016 by the depu-ty chairman of the defense and secu-r i ty committee in the Russian parlia-ment’s upper house, who asserted that “Snowden did share intelligence” with the

Russian government.The report said,

“Since Snowden’s arriv-al in Moscow, he has had, and continues to have, contact with Russian intelligence services.” The following sentence was redacted, and there is nothing in the unclassified report that explains why the committee believes Snowden is still shar-ing intelligence with the Russians.

B e n W i z n e r , Snowden’s lawyer, dis-missed the report and insisted that Snowden acted to inform the public.

“The House commit-tee spent three years and millions of dol-lars in a failed attempt to discredit Edward S n o w d e n , w h o s e actions led to the most significant intelligence reforms in a genera-tion,” Wizner said. “The report wholly ignores Snowden’s repeated and courageous crit-icism of Russian sur-veillance and censor-ship laws. It combines demonstrable false-hoods with deceptive inferences to paint an entirely fictional por-trait of an American whistleblower.”

By Eileen Sullivan and Richard LardnerASSOCIATED PRESS

A declassified report on a congressional investigation into Edward Snowden — seen Feb. 14, 2014, in a live video feed from Moscow — says the former National Security Agency contractor has remained in contact with Russian intelligence services since he arrived in Moscow three years ago. AP FILE

PHOTO/MARCO GARCIA