ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Dec. 5 -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says she will not release a transcript of her testimony in an ethics probe into her dismissal of Alaska's top law enforcement officer.

At issue was whether the former Republican vice presidential nominee violated state ethics laws when she fired Walt Monegan, the state's public safety commissioner, for his refusal to fire her ex-brother-in-law from the state police, the Anchorage Daily News reported Friday.

FAIRBANKS, Alaska, Dec. 5  -- An Australian man who went unprepared into Alaska's wilderness has drawn the ire of some locals after his $93,000 rescue.

Dave Roberts, 54 was attempting to trek through the Brooks Range wilderness. Local residents warned him against heading into the isolated area, the Fairbanks Daily News reported.

He was picked up last Saturday by a seven-member rescue team after he set off a long-distance distress call Friday amid his worries about frostbite and fatigue.

Jamie Klaes, manager of the Bettles Lodge, where the Alaska Air National Guard paid for Robert's room after his rescue, said he was unimpressed.

"It felt like he was being rewarded for stupidity," Klaes said.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Dec. 4  -- A pair of would-be mugging victims at a hotel in Anchorage, Alaska, fought back and knocked their attacker unconscious, police say.

Investigators said Terry Butler confronted Kyle Dickerson-Lockwood and Benjamin Galdo early Monday as they were unlocking their room on the sixth floor of the Sheraton Hotel, the Anchorage Daily News reported.

Butler ordered the two men to go inside the room and pointed a pistol at Galdo's head, the victims told police. They said Galdo slapped the gun away and told the attacker that they did not have any money.

Washington - Veteran Alaskan Republican Senator Ted Stevens narrowly lost his bid for re-election, increasing the Democrats' majority in the US upper house, US media reported late Tuesday.

Stevens, 85, the longest-serving Republican in the Senate, will be replaced by the mayor of Anchorage, Democrat Mark Begich, 46.

As Alaska's division of elections counted the last absentee ballots from the November 4 election, Begich was ahead by 3,724 votes, an insurmountable lead with only a few thousand absentee ballots left to be counted, reported Alaska's KIMO TV news.

Miami, Nov 14 : Alaska Governor Sarah Palin has said that carefree spending cost the Republicans the polls, but the party has been loyal to core issues that will win back voters.

The Washington Times quoted Palin as saying that the Republicans remain strong on national defense, social issues and free markets.

Washington - As Republican presidential candidate John McCain arrived at the Albright United Methodist Church in Phoenix, Arizona Tuesday to vote, scores of supporters cheered: "Go, John, go."

McCain was with his wife Cindy. In a break from tradition, he planned two final rallies on voting day - at an airplane hangar in Grand Junction, Colorado and later in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Both states went with President George W Bush in 2004, but polls have indicated that they are now leaning toward Obama.