5.4 quake near Kodiak: According to the Alaska Earthquake Information Center, a quake rumbled near Kodiak Island late Friday night, hitting at 10:36 p.m. local time. Preliminary measurements indicate the quake was magnitude 5.4. Those measurements say it struck offshore, 32 miles deep, 36 miles west-southwest of Akhiok, and 69 miles southwest of Larsen Bay. Its epicenter was more than 350 miles from Anchorage, Alaska's largest city. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center announced that there is no tsunami danger as a result of the shaker.

Seward company wants state to pay up: An attorney for Seward Ship's Drydock (SSD) said the state of Alaska is withholding about $600,000 in payments to the company because of repeated delays in fixing the state ferry M/V Tustumena. According to the Seward Phoenix LOG, the ship -- spent 11 months at the Seward drydock for repairs -- months longer than initially planned. The state said it was working to resolve the payment problem with SSD, without having to go to court. The company's total claim stands at around $4 million, which includes the money it says is being withheld. The Tustumena was once affectionately called the "Trusty Tusty" because of its legendary reliability while plying the waters of Southcentral Alaska and the Aleutian Islands. The state is currently looking for a way to replace the ship -- which was built in 1964 -- with a newer ferry.

Ten-year sentence in infant death: A 27-year-old Anchorage woman was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison for the beating and subsequent death of a 6-month-old boy left in her care. Christina Moua was arrested shortly after the May 2010 death of Caiiou Xiong, KTUU reported. Court documents say Moua was caring for the infant after the boy's parents, one of whom is the defendant's brother-in-law, left him at her home. When the infant started to cry, Moua told detectives she was scared and didn't know what to do; she grabbed and shook the baby then dropped him into a car seat. The assault caused bruising, a fractured skull, a broken collar bone and severe brain damage. During the hearing, the woman's defense attorney said Moua has three of her own children to care for and a dead husband, adding she suffers from cognitive and mental issues that need to be addressed. State prosecutors called the sentence fair given Moua's mental status and the open question of whether the baby's condition was directly attributable to the babysitter's actions, KTUU reported. Moua will receive credit for time served. She will be eligible for parole after having served a third of her sentence.

Rare footage shows grizzly collapse: An arresting video making the rounds online that purports to show a grizzly bear suffering a fatal heart attack seems too incredible to be real. But a ranger with the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge on Friday confirmed its authenticity. The video, shot by researchers in the refuge and posted at LiveLeak and YouTube, shows a bear galloping uphill before stopping, collapsing and tumbling downhill. Although the video's title claims that bear died of a heart attack, the refuge's Supervisory Park Ranger Hans Klausner says "that's not been determined." Watch it embedded below.

New charge in Bethel toddler beating: Prosecutors in Bethel have added a second charge, first-degree assault, against Maurice Andrews Sr., who is accused of brutally beating his 2-year-old son on Nov. 25. Police in Bethel, a hub community of more than 6,000 residents in Southwest Alaska, responded to a home on Ridgecrest Drive for a welfare check on a toddler. The boy's mother claimed that he was left at home with his two brothers and Andrews -- his father. When she returned home, the mother claimed, she found the 2-year-old naked lying on the floor. The child suffered a broken collar bone. Andrews had previously been charged with a single count of third-degree assault.

Alaskan's rack could come up second best: Alaska appears in danger of losing the honor of being home to North America's biggest moose. The state has long been famous for giant ungulates with massive headgear. Alaska moose are so big, making other moose so puny by comparison, that the Boone and Crockett Club considers them a subspecies for purposes of record keeping in its "Records of North American Big Game." The reigning world-record moose hails from the Fortymile Country near Eagle in northeast Alaska, and about 80 percent of the animals that make "the book" as trophy-class Alaska-Yukon moose are shot in the 49th state. There are more than 700 Alaska moose in the book, trailed by fewer than 100 moose from Yukon Territory, Canada. But the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports a Yukon hunter is now on the cusp of taking the record moose south across the border to Canada. Hunter Heinz Naef from Dawson City, Yukon, this fall shot a moose with massive antlers that scored 263 3/8 points in the B&C scoring system for ranking world records. The reigning rack -- from a moose shot in 1994 in by John A. Crouse -- scored 261 5/8. Naef's big moose has yet to be certified, however. There is a 60-day waiting period before the rack is officially measured. Sometimes antlers shrink a tiny bit as they dry out during that period and scores can fall. Plus, as the CBC noted, "a panel of judges in the U.S. will have to review the rack before it is officially declared a world record." So Alaska might have some home-field advantage if, of course, the judges know that Alaska is part of the U.S. and not a foreign country. There is always that.

Details emerge in North Pole toddler death: An 18-month-old toddler who was brought in dead to a Fairbanks hospital Sunday was found to have thermal burns, not frostbite, as originally claimed by his mother according to the criminal complaint. His mother, 24-year-old Amberlynn Swanson, was charged with first-degree murder of the boy Wednesday. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports the medical examiner also concluded the child died of blunt-force trauma and had extensive bruising on his body. Swanson brought in the already dead toddler to Fairbanks Memorial Hospital Sunday. She told troopers she had taken the child for drive Friday night to help him calm down. Swanson said she fell asleep after parking near a gravel pit off of Nordale Road and woke up to find the child cold but still alive. She told troopers he died Saturday.

Congratulations, here's your garbage bin: Where but in Alaska comes the chance to win a "bear-resistant trash container"? Yes, one of the large, plastic containers with a locking lid could be yours for answering 22 simple questions, according to the Anchorage Bear Committee Education Group. The committee is a group of officials from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, other agencies and nonprofit organizations interested in protecting bears from people, and protecting people from bears. It is conducting an online survey to try to get some idea of what Alaskans know and think about bears. The winner of the trash container will be selected from among those who fill out the survey. Bears are a long-running "problem'' in Anchorage because they still roam parts of the city and suburbs. This is not all that uncommon in other parts of the U.S., where bears have undergone a population boom since people stopped hunting them heavily, but Lower 48 cities have only black bears. Anchorage also has grizzly bears, which have killed at least two people in the municipality and injured many more.

Icy weather subsides: After a day of freezing rain shut down schools and services around Southcentral Alaska, road conditions are improving. Schools in Anchorage and the Matanuska-Susitna Borough are open today, as is the University of Alaska Anchorage. While conditions slowly return to normal, the National Weather Service warns that pockets of freezing rain will continue to move through the area today.

Reindeer tourism: Pegged to the upcoming holiday season, the Washington Post has a travel piece about Williams Reindeer Farm in Palmer. The farm -- which in addition to reindeer also is home to elk, a bull moose, a bison and horses -- allows visitors to get up close and personal with the northern ungulates. Very personal, as this exchange between the writer and her son suggests:

"'They're all friendly,' I reassured him about the reindeer.

'Yeah, but they're too friendly,' Justin said, as one animal sniffed his hair and another nibbled on his jacket."