Word: alaska
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Alaska Supreme Court ruled that manufacturers owe more than a simple warranty obligation to the purchaser of a new car. A Plymouth station wagon had been driven only two weeks when its owner was overcome by carbon monoxide and suffered brain damage. Some plugs normally placed in holes in the body were found to be missing, enabling the gas to seep into the car. Chrysler argued that the laws governing its highly publicized five-year warranty should be controlling. Not persuaded, the court added Alaska to a growing list of states that now make manufacturers strictly liable for any defect...
...after that date, nonmembers stand to lose federal funds that support alternative programs for the medically indigent. Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana and Mississippi are hoping that the deadline will be extended, but are not expected to join Medicaid before Jan. 1 in any case. Two states have special problems: Alaska, which would have to take over from the Public Health Service (PHS) the cost of treating 55,000 Indians, Aleuts and Eskimos; and Arizona, which would have to care for 83,000 Indians (the most of any state) who are now the responsibility of the PHS or of individual counties...
...Alaska and some other states, such damage is not very extensive. Many Alaskan fires burn so slowly that even spiders can outrun them; very little wildlife is destroyed. With permafrost so close to the surface, it often takes trees 70 years to reach a diameter of four inches. They are "useful" only for pulp, but the nearest roads for a hypothetical pulp mill are often hundreds of miles from any particular forest. The fires' contribution to air pollution is only temporary, and the grass and moss burn so in- completely that humans' fire trenches may cause as much erosion...
...Thailand, one hill tribe under study has developed a burning technique so successful that they have farmed the same fertile land in rotation with jungle for 1,000 years. In areas of California, Alaska, and other states, a policy of burning off undergrowth and litter every decade or so might be preferable to the present policy of absolute suppression. But even if further research confirms this, it seems very doubtful that this policy could be applied as long as private landowners continue to lobby for total fire prevention in their own short-term interests...
...prospectors and Indians, for instance, depend heavily on firefighting for their annual grubstakes. It is widely believed, but yet to be proven, that native villagers start their own fires if their village crew has been idle during the fire season. Last year, the Federal Government spent $9.2 million in Alaska alone to suppress fires, most of which were started by lightning, and many of which occurred in distant wilderness areas. If controlled forest fires really are as useful as some biologists think and if the loss of life and high injury rate among firefighters continues, perhaps it is time...