Lack of new clues halts search for missing Talkeetna musher GOULD: Intense hunt fails to turn up any new clues as to where she is.

Alaska State Troopers said Thursday they have called off a search for missing Talkeetna musher Melanie Gould, who was last seen nine days ago. Troopers will continue to investigate the disappearance, a spokeswoman said.
Searchers had been scouring an area off the Denali Highway near Gould's abandoned truck, which was spotted on Saturday. Troopers found no additional clues in the following days, agency spokeswoman Megan Peters said in a written statement.
Friends started looking for Gould, 34, on Friday after she failed to show up at work two days in a row. She left her dogs behind and apparently didn't tell anyone where she was going, friends said.
Gould's many friends, including some who were caring for her dogs, gathered late Thursday to plan another search effort of their own.
Troopers said Gould's last confirmed location was near Talkeetna, where she used her credit card to put gas in her truck. Friends said they had reason to believe she stopped at the Tangle River Inn, about 114 miles east of Cantwell on the Denali Highway.
A wildlife trooper flying a helicopter Saturday located her light blue truck about 18 miles from Cantwell. The truck was about a quarter-mile off the highway on an old mining trail. It was undamaged, troopers said.
Between 25 and 30 ground searchers combed the area around Gould's truck each day from Sunday through Wednesday, Peters said. Twenty trained dogs were used, as well as several state and private aircraft, which logged a total of 100 flight hours, Peters said.
Searchers on four ATVs each drove as many as 100 miles on nearby trails, Peters said.
"Despite the immense search, no signs of Ms. Gould were discovered after her vehicle was recovered," Peters said "Until evidence or credible information regarding Ms. Gould's whereabouts becomes available to determine a more defined search area, an active search cannot proceed as the risk to (search and rescue) personnel is unjustifiable."
Amanda Randles, who had been helping gather information for a Facebook page dedicated to finding the missing musher, said many of Gould's friends were confused about why troopers had stopped searching for her.
"What I'm getting is bafflement, and then 'OK, now what can I do?' " Randles said.
"(They're) not understanding what the troopers' criteria for the decision-making was, but I'm not getting anger, dismay, anything really solid like that," she said. "Everyone's like, 'OK, now it's our turn.' "
Reach Casey Grove at casey.grove@adn.com or 257-4589.

Obama commits disaster funds for flooded Kuskokwim villages

President Obama has declared a major disaster in the villages of Crooked Creek and Red Devil.

The declaration means that the two villages on the Kuskokwim River will be eligible for federal funding for emergency work, and to repair and replace facilities damaged in spring flooding.
The flooding was caused by an ice jam the second week in May.

Gov. Sean Parnell sought the federal disaster declaration after declaring the flooding a state disaster. Parnell says half the homes in Crooked Creek were damaged or destroyed by flooding. The declaration means that federal funds as well as state funds can be used to help the villages.

Park Service official apologizes in Eagle for rangers' actions

Two rangers on the Yukon River should not have handcuffed a man and held him for two hours, said the head of the National Park Service in Alaska, while issuing an apology.
Regional Director Sue Masica visited the town of Eagle last week to offer her apologies for the actions of the agency's two rangers last summer.
The apology was not connected to the highly publicized arrest and trial of 71-year-old Jim Wilde of Central. Masica's visit was in response to a run-in the same two rangers had a month earlier with Tim Henry of Eagle. The rangers handcuffed and detained Henry for about two hours for allegedly refusing to identify himself.
"It was wrong. It shouldn't have happened," Masica told about 35 residents who attended the June 2 meeting in the gym at the Eagle school. "It hurt this community, and we do apologize, and we need to extend an apology to him personally."
Her words drew a round of applause from the crowd. However, it remains to be seen whether her visit to Eagle will help mend strained relations between the park service and some of the 125 residents in the town that borders the Yukon Charley Rivers National Preserve.
Masica said the park service is committed to repairing relations with residents in the remote community, many of whom use the preserve for subsistence. The park service director said that mistakes were made last summer and that neither of the two rangers involved in the incidents will be back in the preserve.
Residents in the town near the Canada border said Masica's appearance and apology were a start.
"We're skeptically optimistic," said local subsistence hunter and fisherman Don Woodruff of the local sentiment. "We're moving in a positive direction, but change with the government is pretty slow."
Subsistence fisherman Andy Bassich was less optimistic.
"Our lifestyle is going away because of regulations made by the entity supposedly set up to protect it," he said.
Relations between the park service and Eagle residents have been strained the last few years by what some in the community claim is heavy-handed treatment by rangers working in the preserve.
The situation came to a head last summer after rangers detained Henry in August and arrested Wilde a month later in a dramatic confrontation on the Yukon River in which rangers pointed guns at Wilde and his two passengers. The latter incident galvanized Alaskans who dispute the park service's authority to enforce laws on state waterways such as the Yukon River. Wilde, meanwhile, ended up in federal court in April to fight three of the four misdemeanor charges against him. The four-day trial ended April 8, and a federal judge is still deliberating the case.