ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Two former state legislators were spared further prison time on Friday after pleading guilty to charges stemming from a longstanding federal investigation into political corruption in Alaska.

Former state Representative Vic Kohring pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to commit bribery for federal government programs and former state House Speaker Pete Kott pleaded guilty to one bribery count in separate proceedings.

“I think we need finality,” U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Beistline said when sentencing Kott. “I recognize the need to put this long state nightmare to an end.”

The pleas closed a five-year-old federal probe that targeted VECO Corp, then Alaska’s largest oil-services company, the late U.S. Senator Ted Stevens and several other Alaska politicians and prominent businessmen.

Beistline called the scandal a “dark moment” in Alaska political history.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Alaska, Karen Loeffler, said the case is now closed, bringing an end to the biggest corruption investigation in all of Alaska history.

Stevens, the Senate’s longest-serving Republican, was convicted in 2008 of concealing some $250,000 worth of gifts from VECO and lost the seat he held for 40 years.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – The final two defendants in a wide-ranging Alaska corruption scandal will plead guilty to felony charges, avoiding new trials and likely ending a federal investigation that rocked state politics, court documents show.

Former state Representative Vic Kohring filed notice on Monday in U.S. District Court that he will plead guilty to a single count of conspiracy to commit extortion.

Last week, former Alaskan House Speaker Pete Kott filed a similar notice of his intent to plead guilty to a single bribery count.

The change-of-plea filings appear to close a five-year-old federal probe that targeted VECO Corp., then Alaska’s largest oil-services company, the late U.S. Senator Ted Stevens and several other Alaska politicians and prominent businessmen.

Stevens, the Senate’s longest-serving Republican, was convicted in 2008 of concealing some $250,000 worth of gifts from VECO and lost the seat he held for 40 years.

VECO, for years one of Alaska’s most powerful and politically connected corporations, disappeared as a separate entity, its assets purchased by a rival company.

And former Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin used the scandal to wage a successful 2006 gubernatorial campaign as an anti-corruption outsider.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – A young killer whale that wandered far up an Alaska river with two adult companions has been found dead near the river’s mouth, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Sunday.

Discovery of the dead juvenile means that all three of the whales discovered swimming in fresh water in southwestern Alaska’s Nushagak River have died.

The young whale had been swimming with two adult females as many as 30 miles into the Nushagak River, according to NOAA. The whales spent at least three weeks in the river and all had a filmy coating on their skin, a sign of stress from being outside their saltwater habitat, NOAA said.

While killer whales are known to linger near the mouth of that salmon-rich river, which flows into Bristol Bay, there had never before been a documented case in Alaska of killer whales spending prolonged periods in a river’s fresh water.

The adults, one of them in the late stages of pregnancy, were found dead in the river last weekend. Initial results from necropsies have failed to pinpoint a specific cause of death.

There had been some hope that the juvenile swam back to saltwater and escaped death, but experts never considered that a likely scenario, said Julie Speegle, a spokeswoman for NOAA Fisheries in Juneau.

“I would say, based on the photos that our biologists saw and the fact that the other two whales died, we felt that it was unlikely that the juvenile would survive,” she said.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – When Diane McEachern ventured out onto the foggy western Alaska tundra a week ago to show solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement, she had no idea her tiny demonstration would go viral.

McEachern, an assistant professor at the University of Alaska campus in Bethel, snapped a portrait of herself, accompanied by her three dogs, holding a hand-printed cardboard sign that read: “Occupy the Tundra.”

She was kneeling on the frost-covered ground and dressed in proper Alaska gear for the season, including a borrowed musk-ox wool scarf to ward off the chill.

The idea was to express support for the Occupy movement that has been rallying in U.S. cities against a financial system protesters say most benefits corporations and the wealthy, but also to show a sense of humor, she said on Sunday.

“Part of it was whimsical, yes, but it was also authentic.”

But after she posted her self-portrait on the “Occupy Wall Street” Facebook page, the response was overwhelming, and she said she found herself fielding inquiries from numerous national media outlets.

“Waking up to 200 friend requests… On a good day, five would make sense,” she said. “I never thought it would get all the attention it has.”

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Veterinarians have not yet determined a cause of death for two killer whales that wandered far up an Alaska river, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service said on Thursday.

The two adult killer whales, along with a juvenile killer whale, had spent three weeks in the salmon-rich Nushagak River in southwestern Alaska, seen as far as 30 miles upriver from their saltwater habitat in Bristol Bay.

The adult whales were found dead on Saturday, one floating in the water and one beached on the riverbank. The juvenile whale has not been spotted since Saturday, when it was swimming in the tidal area near the river’s mouth, NOAA said.

Although biologists said the whales showed signs of freshwater stress while still alive, including secretion of a filmy coating over their skin, necropsies completed by veterinarians provided no definitive answers, NOAA said.

Although Bristol Bay killer whales often linger near the mouth of the Nushagak, that species of whale had never been reported far up any Alaska river for a prolonged period of time.

Necropsies revealed that both dead whales were female and one was in the late stages of pregnancy, NOAA said. They showed no signs of impact from humans, NOAA said.

Killer whales are known to travel in maternal groups, with juveniles accompanying adults, said Julie Speegle, a spokeswoman for NOAA Fisheries in Juneau.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – A mysterious disease, possibly a virus, has afflicted ring seals along Alaska’s coast, killing scores of them since July, local and federal agencies said on Thursday.

The diseased seals have been beaching themselves on the Arctic coastline since July, with numbers picking up in subsequent months, biologists with the North Slope Borough Department of Wildlife Management and other agencies said.

About 100 of the diseased animals have been found near Barrow, the nation’s northernmost community, and half of those have died, the borough biologists reported.

Elsewhere in the sprawling borough, villagers have reported 146 ringed seals hauling themselves onto beaches, and many of those were diseased, the biologists said.

Ringed seals rarely come ashore in normal circumstances, spending most of the year in the water or on floating ice, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service.

Biologists said they believe the illness was caused by a virus. Symptoms include sometimes-bleeding lesions on the hind flippers, irritated skin around the nose and eyes and patchy hair loss on the animals’ fur coats.

They said the mystery outbreak may not be limited to ringed seals. Some dead walruses at Point Hope, a village on Alaska’s northwest coast, were found with similar lesions, borough biologists said.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Oct 13 (Reuters) – ConocoPhillips (COP.N: Quote, Profile, Research) has purchased Marathon Oil Corp’s (MRO.N: Quote, Profile, Research) 30 percent share in the nation’s sole liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility, a company spokeswoman said on Thursday.

The deal, which closed Sept. 26, gives ConocoPhillips full ownership of the LNG plant in Kenai, Alaska, said ConocoPhillips spokeswoman Natalie Lowman.

The 42-year-old Kenai plant, which has been exporting mostly to Tokyo Gas (9531.T: Quote, Profile, Research) and Tokyo Electric (9501.T: Quote, Profile, Research), is still scheduled for mothballing later this year, Lowman said.

“It’s doing a final cargo in the next month,” she said. “Then, at that point, we’re doing what we said we were going to do.”

The shutdown will preserve the plant, but it may not be a permanent closure, Lowman said. “We believe the plant does have options.”

One potential plan is to convert the plant into an import facility to process LNG for local markets, Lowman said. “Or we could resume operations to export LNG some time next year.”

Originally, ConocoPhillips and Marathon had planned to shut down the facility last spring. But energy supply problems resulting from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March extended the short-term need for LNG exports from the Kenai facility. (Editing by Bill Rigby and Alden Bentley)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Oct 13 (Reuters) – ConocoPhillips (COP.N: Quote, Profile, Research) has purchased Marathon Oil Corp’s (MRO.N: Quote, Profile, Research) 30 percent share in the nation’s sole liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility, a company spokeswoman said on Thursday.

The deal, which closed Sept. 26, gives ConocoPhillips full ownership of the LNG plant in Kenai, Alaska, said ConocoPhillips spokeswoman Natalie Lowman.

The 42-year-old Kenai plant, which has been exporting mostly to Tokyo Gas (9531.T: Quote, Profile, Research) and Tokyo Electric (9501.T: Quote, Profile, Research), is still scheduled for mothballing later this year, Lowman said.

“It’s doing a final cargo in the next month,” she said. “Then, at that point, we’re doing what we said we were going to do.”

The shutdown will preserve the plant, but it may not be a permanent closure, Lowman said. “We believe the plant does have options.”

One potential plan is to convert the plant into an import facility to process LNG for local markets, Lowman said. “Or we could resume operations to export LNG some time next year.”

Originally, ConocoPhillips and Marathon had planned to shut down the facility last spring. But energy supply problems resulting from the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March extended the short-term need for LNG exports from the Kenai facility. (Editing by Bill Rigby and Alden Bentley)

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Two of three killer whales that wandered far up an Alaska river have died, apparently succumbing to stresses associated with being out of their saltwater habitat, federal officials said on Sunday.

The surviving whale was seen swimming downriver Saturday toward possible safety, officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service said.

Biologists were concerned about the three whales because they had spent three weeks in southwest Alaska’s salmon-rich Nushagak River and were lingering as far as 30 miles upstream from where the river flows into the saltwater of Bristol Bay.

It was the first time killer whales had been documented lingering far upriver in any area of Alaska, according to NOAA Fisheries officials.

The two whale deaths were confirmed late Saturday by a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA said. Federal agencies had been tipped off by a local resident who reported seeing a floating carcass, and the biologist who searched the area by air found both of the dead whales, one floating and one on the riverbank, NOAA said.

When last seen swimming in the Nushagak River, all the whales had a filmy coating on their skin, a sign of stress.

Fresh water has a different chemical makeup than saltwater and prolonged exposure is dangerous for killer whales, said Julie Speegle, a NOAA spokeswoman in Juneau, Alaska.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Three apparently misguided killer whales are loitering far up an Alaska river and starting to show signs of stress after three weeks in fresh water, federal fisheries officials said on Thursday.

The three whales are about 30 miles up the Nushagak River in southwestern Alaska, after swimming upstream from Bristol Bay last month presumably in pursuit of food, and their continued presence there has confounded scientists.

“We don’t know … if they lost their way or why they’re lingering around,” said Julie Speegle, a spokewoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Killer whales often swim around the mouth of that river, where it pours into saltwater, but have never been recorded staying so far upstream for so long in any Alaska river, she said.

The long stay outside of their natural habitat appears to be taking a toll on the whales, Speegle said.

“They have developed a filmy covering on their skin that is typical of marine mammals when they spend a lot of time in fresh water,” she said. That filmy cover is an indicator of stress, she added.

Scientists from NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service, along with state and local officials, are watching the whales to determine whether action is needed to shoo them back to saltwater, Speegle said.