• Prepare for $40 per barrel oil? Reuters is reporting that SaudiArabia vowed not to cut oil output even if non-OPEC nations did so.  Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told reporters: “If they want to cut production they are welcome: We are not going to cut, certainly Saudi Arabia is not going to cut.” Ouch.

• KTUU’s Kyle Hopkins has a great piece in the LA Times about Alaska’s budget woes.

• Twenty-five cents. That’s how much the AP reports that the average price of regular gas has dropped within the past two weeks.

• KTOO reports that Canada has ok’d the controversial KSM mine’s environmental plans.

• From the Bristol Bay Times: “An emergency measure to help northern Bering Sea halibut fishermen was defeated at last week’s North Pacific Fishery Management Council.” The measure would have transferred bycatch quotas from pollock trawlers to hook-and-line halibut fishermen. All of the Alaska reps on the council voted for the transfer, including new Alaska Department of Fish and Game commissioner Sam Cotton, who is on the council. Trawlers vigorously opposed the measure.

• Add yet another reason salmon is proving its importance to Alaska. Science World Reports that fish such as the Dolly Varden have successfully evolved with climate change by altering its migration cues from following environmental shifts to following spawning salmon.

• The Kodiak Daily Mirror reports that the Alaska Aerospace Corporation has received half of $6 million during Federal FY15 to be put toward upgrading the Kodiak Launch Complex.

• Politico writes that Deep South states are coordinating an effort to have more influence in the presidential primaries.

• With all eyes increasingly upon Jeb Bush as his 2016 candidacy becomes official, The Hill wonders how he will fare in Iowa.

• On the blue side of the presidential aisle, Joe Biden’s presidential hopes are looking increasingly shaky, as too are Hillary Clinton’s with the announcement that the frontrunner as her campaign manager jumped ship by saying he’s “eager to serve in other ways and explore other paths.”

• Noble Drilling pled guilty to eight felony environmental and maritime crimes on Friday and the Juneau Empire has all the details and backstory on this whole affair.

• The plan to cut some of the megaprojects from Alaska’s budget might not save as much money as originally hoped, according to the Dispatch.

• The GOP might not be able to sing a sane kumbaya song in 2016 due to the tenacious and outspoken Ben Carson, whose national committee, the New York Times explains, has outraised all other candidate’s national committees, and who has said, among other things that gay marriage leads to bestiality and often compares the country to Nazi Germany.

• The North Pole is nudging Fairbanks ever closer to itself as is revealed after a five year, UK/US joint study on the poles magnetic pulls, per the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

• 2014 is when Big Labor got its groove back, or at least that is how Politico sees it.

• Ketchikan’s Mayor Lew Williams III gave his State of the City speech and revealed the city was in “good” shape, according to the Ketchikan Daily News.

• Bleached heads, baldheads and balls, balls ball! All this and much more are found in today’s Loose Lips.  Enjoy!

• Things are becoming so dire in Russia due to the crude oil arms race that politicians are advocating that women consider using beetroot in place of lipstick for that “natural look”.

• Aljazeera News has a political poll that’s been making the rounds at the usual media outlets; Is Santa a Democrat or a Republican? The answer is not only interesting, but reflects a continually partisan nation.

Contact Amanda Coyne at amandamcoyne@yahoo.com