Hillary Clinton Discharged. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has now been discharged from the hospital after three days of treatment for a blood clot near her brain. "Her medical team advised her that she is making good progress on all fronts, and they are confident she will make a full recovery," spokesman Philippe Reines said in a statement. "She's eager to get back to the office, and we will keep you updated on her schedule as it becomes clearer in the coming days." Politico 

Sequestration Delayed Two Months. The House on Jan. 1 approved a measure that partially averts the fiscal cliff and delays until March $109 billion in automatic spending cuts across the government. The eleventh-hour deal, forged by Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., easily passed the Senate early Tuesday. In the House, it passed with mostly Democratic support. Around 90 House Republicans voted for it. It now goes to President Obama for his signature. Federal Times 

Wyoming Professor Traps Polar Bears, Studies Climate Change. It's not landing on ice in a helicopter next to a sedated polar bear that worries Merav Ben-David, it's getting stuck there. In more than a decade of studying polar bears in the world's farthest reaches, she's never had to spend a night on the ice. She hopes she never will. As her career progresses, the University of Wyoming wildlife ecology professor still goes out on the ice. But, she is also working with the public. Fairbanks Daily News-Miner 

Critics Say Grounding Shows Arctic Drilling Danger. The grounding of a petroleum drilling ship on a remote Alaska Island has refueled the debate about oil exploration in the U.S. Arctic Ocean, where critics for years have said the conditions are too harsh and the stakes too high to allow dangerous industrial development. The drilling sites are 1,000 miles from Coast Guard resources, and environmentalists argue offshore drilling in the Arctic's fragile ecosystem is too risky. So when a Royal Dutch Shell PLC ship went aground on New Year's Eve off an uninhabited island in the Gulf of Alaska, they pounced - saying the incident foreshadowed what will happen north of the Bering Strait if drilling is allowed. Anchorage Daily News 

Feds Sued Over Not Managing King Salmon, Halibut Bycatch Adequately. A nonprofit education organization that offers luxury eco-cruises in Southeast Alaska has filed a complaint in U.S. District Court over the new observer program for fishing vessels working Alaska waters. The complaint by The Boat Company, in Juneau, challenges the National Marine Fisheries Service's program, which is supposed to monitor the discard of non-targeted species in large-volume trawl fisheries. Alaska Dispatch 

Alleged Narwhal Tusk Smuggling Operation Broken Up; Alberta Couple Face 28 Charges. Federal environment officials in Canada and the United States have cracked an alleged smuggling operation that saw scores of narwhal tusks from the Canadian Arctic illegally shipped across the New Brunswick-Maine border in the secret compartment of a trailer. Gregory and Nina Logan of Grande Prairie, Alta., are facing 28 charges in New Brunswick in connection with the alleged export of the tusks of the narwhal, a threatened Arctic whale, to customers in the U.S. - a violation of Canadian and American laws shaped by CITES, an international treaty that regulates the commercial trade in animal parts of vulnerable species. Regina Leader-Post 

Studying 'Whale Snot' To Help Protect Arctic Marine Mammals. Justin Richard spent nearly 10 years as a beluga whale trainer at Mystic Aquarium, where he taught the Arctic marine mammals to voluntarily submit to regular health screenings. But it's not so easy to conduct health screenings of wild whales. So he has taken what he learned at Mystic to the University of Rhode Island in an effort to find non-invasive ways of monitoring the health of wild beluga populations. Phys.org 

Alaska Arctic Policy Commission to Address Statewide, National Arctic Issues. Kodiak's Representative Alan Austerman and Senator Gary Stevens are two members of a 20-member Alaska Arctic Policy Commission appointed to address statewide and national Arctic issues in the coming years. Alaska Public Radio  

Study: Most Arctic Species Will Benefit From Global Warming. Global warming will benefit most Arctic species, a team of scientists report in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS One. According to the scientists, global warming will allow most Arctic species to expand their ranges, and no species are expected to go extinct. The findings deliver a sharp jab to global warming activists arguing Arctic warming justifies costly, government imposed economic restrictions. Forbes 

Alaska Forum on the Environment, February 4-8, 2013, Anchorage. Hosted by The Alaska Forum, Inc. the 2013 Alaska Forum on the Environment will follow up on previous forums by offering training and information, includes plenary sessions, on: climate change, emergency response, environmental regulations, fish and wildlife populations, rural issues, energy, military issues, business issues, solid waste, contaminants, contaminated site cleanup, mining and others.  For 2013, the forum will expand forum content to provide information to help better understand issues surrounding coastal communities. This will include tsunami impacts, marine debris, and coastal erosion.

28th Wakefield Symposium: Responses of Arctic Marine Ecosystems to Climate Change, March 26-29, 2013, Anchorage. This symposium seeks to advance our understanding of responses of arctic marine ecosystems to climate change at all trophic levels, by documenting and forecasting changes in environmental processes

and species responses to those changes. Presentations will focus on collaborative approaches to understanding and managing living marine resources in a changing Arctic, and to managing human responses to changing arctic marine ecosystems. Hosted by Alaska Sea Grant and sponsors. 

Arctic Science Summit Week, April 13-19, 2013. Krakow, Poland. The ASSW is the annual gathering of international organizations engaged in supporting and facilitating Arctic research. Its purpose is to provide opportunities for international coordination, collaboration and cooperation in all fields of Arctic science and to combine science and management meetings. Side meetings organized by groups with interest in the Arctic science and policy will also be held within the week.
One of them is already planned: The Association of Polar Early Career Scientists (APECS) will offer a one-day career development workshop during the ASSW 2013. Details will be published closer to the event:http://www.apecs.is/apecs-meetings-a-events/assw-2013.