Sorted by date Results 1653 - 1677 of 7954
The Senate Education Committee on March 13 advanced a bill to increase state funding for public schools, clearing the bill’s first legislative hurdle. The bill to increase the base student allocation, the per-student formula used to calculate school funding, heads next to the Senate Finance Committee. The Senate bipartisan majority has named increasing public school funding as one of their top goals for the legislative session, and the measure has support from a broad coalition of education advocacy groups who are warning that districts will b...
Alesa McHolland is having a surreal life moment. While waiting to receive freight on March 15, the new co-owner of the former Alpine Mini Mart never quite expected to be where she is. "It's kind of surreal because I never thought anything like this would happen," she said. "I never thought I would have enough assets to do this kind of thing. When you work in Wrangell, there aren't a lot of options for jobs." On March 8, McHolland and her husband Wayne signed the papers and became the new owners...
The Alaska Marine Highway System is short more than 100 new crew to safely and dependably put the Kennicott to sea. Without enough onboard workers, the state ferry system will start the summer schedule in six weeks with its second-largest operable ship tied up for lack of crew. Though management has said they could put the Kennicott into service if they can hire enough new employees, filling all the vacancies would represent more than a 20% gain in current ferry system crew numbers, setting a very high hurdle to untie the ship this summer. The...
In an unannounced move, the State Board of Education unanimously passed a resolution March 14 that urges the Alaska Department of Education to limit the participation of transgender girls in girls school sports. The resolution, which is non-binding, encourages the department to adopt a policy that would ban transgender girls from competing alongside girls who are cisgender — meaning their gender identity matches their sex assigned at birth — in school sports. The resolution asks the department to create two sports divisions: one exc...
The federal subsistence management program aims to protect rural Alaskans’ subsistence lifestyle while maintaining healthy fish and wildlife populations on federal lands. However, this multi-agency governmental apparatus can be daunting for rural residents to navigate. Representatives of the Wrangell Cooperative Association, U.S. Forest Service and Sitka Conservation Society are partnering to bring a workshop to the community, intended to empower residents to engage with the complexities of the Federal Subsistence Board process. Attendees w...
Vying for state titles in three different sports is behind him, but Ethan Blatchley still has to blaze a trail to finish his senior project before he graduates. And though training and competing in cross country, wrestling and basketball might have been challenging, he faces his biggest challenge yet: Dressing up like a dalmatian and teaching fire safety to kids. There is no medal for this kind of bravery. Blatchley will aid the Wrangell Fire Department in its annual safety training for elementa...
The first legislative hearing on Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s proposal to restrict discussion of sex and gender in schools included testimony from only two invited public guests, both supportive of the measure. The bill, which Senate leaders say is unlikely to pass that chamber, got enthusiastic backing from those invited to testify during the House Education Committee meeting March 13. Aside from two top state Department of Education officials who provided details of the bill, testimony was limited to two retired teachers supportive of conservative c...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — The Biden administration’s approval last week of the biggest oil drilling project in Alaska in decades promises to widen a rift among Alaska Natives, with some saying that oil money can’t counter the damages caused by climate change and others defending the project as economically vital. Two lawsuits filed almost immediately by environmentalists and one Alaska Native group are likely to exacerbate tensions that have built up over years of debate about ConocoPhillips’ Willow project. Many communities on Alaska’s North Slope cel...
Conservation groups have asked a federal judge for a preliminary decision to stop construction work this winter at the Willow oil field on Alaska’s North Slope, days after the Biden administration approved the $8 billion project. ConocoPhillips had begun building an ice road but agreed to delay activity associated with gravel mining and road building — putting dozens of jobs on hold — while the court considers the request, according to paperwork filed in the case. The Biden administration early last week approved the controversial proje...
Alaska Natives continued to have the world’s highest rates of colorectal cancer as of 2018, and case rates failed to decline significantly for the two decades leading up to that year, according to a newly published study. The study, by experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, compared colorectal cancer rates among Alaska Natives with those of other populations in Alaska, the Lower 48 and other parts of the world. The 2018 colorectal cancer rate for Alaska Natives was 61.9 per 10...
Just eight weeks before the start of the summer timetable on May 1, the Alaska Marine Highway System released its schedule and opened its online reservations system for bookings. The schedule, which was announced March 7, came later than usual this year as the state continues to wrestle with crew shortages that will keep a couple of ships tied to the dock for the summer. Wrangell will see a weekly ferry stop in each direction May through September. “The Kennicott and Tazlina will be off-line for the time being due to skilled crew shortages, b...
Zach Taylor of Muddy Water Adventures is a self-described "small-town person." He likes striking up a conversation with his barista and greeting the familiar people he passes on the street. However, he acknowledges that life in small towns like Wrangell may not be for everyone. "Folks who grew up here, (Wrangell) they either stay here and they really like it," said Taylor, or they "have never been back, not for any reason." The Alaska Department of Labor is interested in the factors that...
While education advocates continue to push for increased state funding to Alaska public schools, Gov. Mike Dunleavy last week opted to introduce proposals that would limit sexual education in schools and impose new requirements on gender-nonconforming students. The governor at his March 7 news conference did not propose any increase in the state’s per-student funding formula for school districts, essentially unchanged in six years, though he did ask legislative approval of retention bonuses for teachers. Most legislators have said an i...
When Jan Kanitz of Juneau and Antonia Lenard of Eagle River testified before a legislative committee last Saturday about personal responsibility and the Permanent Fund dividend, they spoke from completely different perspectives. For Kanitz, it was about acknowledging that current state spending on schools, health care and the ferry system is woefully inadequate, with too much emphasis on paying out large dividends. “I think a fixed, limited PFD as a symbolic thing helps people have buy-in to the state … I support that, but it should not ban...
After meeting with representatives of the British Columbia mining and environmental ministries in Juneau last week, state legislators, Alaska Native leaders and environmentalists urged the federal government to intervene against the development of new B.C. mines that could pollute transboundary salmon runs. In a press conference March 8, stakeholders called on the federal government to use its powers under the U.S.-Canada Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909 to place an immediate temporary pause on the exploration, development and expansion of B.C....
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Alaska’s human rights commission has reversed an earlier policy and now is only investigating LGBTQ discrimination complaints related to workplace discrimination and not for other categories like housing and financing. The Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica reported the Alaska State Commission for Human Rights deleted language from its website promising equal protections for transgender and gay Alaskans against most categories of discrimination. It also began refusing to investigate complaints. The commission is only accepting...
One of the challenges of being a nonprofit is continually seeking funds to continue operating, something radio station KSTK is well acquainted with. But instead of just shaking a bucket and hoping people will pitch in, staff at KSTK tries to put the fun in fundraising, such as their annual art auction. For the past four years, the radio station has auctioned donated art created by Alaskans. The goal for this year is to raise $5,000 at the March 24 event. The auction in 2022 had a $5,000 goal,...
Due to an increase in respiratory disease rates —including COVID-19 — throughout Southeast and in Wrangell, the Wrangell Medical Center has re-implemented a mandatory masking policy for its visitors, patients and staff. “It was in response to what we were seeing as increased respiratory illnesses both in the community and in the region, COVID of course being one of those,” hospital administrator Carly Allen said last week. “We’ve also been following influenza A and B and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), as well as … other respiratory i...
From painters to comic illustrators, jewelers to woodcarvers, quilters to printmakers, Wrangell is full of talented artists. However, after a downtown gallery closed earlier this year, there was no centralized venue for artists to display their work and tourists to check out the local art scene. Cyni Crary, director of the Nolan Center, Michael Bania, a member of the former art gallery, and others are planning a collaborative effort that will house a new gallery in the Nolan Center for community members and summer visitors to enjoy. The former...
The Biden administration on Monday approved an $8 billion oil development on Alaska’s North Slope. ConocoPhillips’ Willow prospect in the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska is expected to be one of the largest oil fields developed in the state in decades and could produce oil for 30 years. The administration’s decision is not likely to end the debate, however, with litigation expected from environmental groups. Depending on litigation, first oil could flow before the end of the decade. Peak production, estimated at 180,000 barrels of oil a day...
Zeke Yéeskáa Young always enjoys meeting new people, traveling to new places and learning about different cultures. But he had no idea when moving to Wrangell last year from Port Angeles, Washington, that he'd be helping to sustain a culture. Young's high school senior project is to create five new signs in Tlingit and English to direct residents and visitors to five Native points of interest. "When I came up here last year, I needed a fine arts credit," he said. "I was put into Tlingit for m...
Haines police have connected a suspect to a Senior Center break-in after locating stolen tightly folded, pyramid-shaped $2 bills that had decorated a windowsill and were later spent at the local pot shop. "They busted out the window, ransacked the office and took all the donation money, plus the money that was in my drawer," said Senior Center manager Cari O'Daniel. She said the burglar stole between $300 to $400, personal checks, and 21 of the $2 bills folded into pyramid shapes that decorated...
“Plastic is a wonderful product because it lasts. It’s also a really horrible product because it lasts,” Haines Friends of Recycling board chair Melissa Aronson said, standing in the operation’s warehouse. In a shipping container outside, more than seven tons of plastic waits to be sent to Seattle for recycling. The nonprofit has been stockpiling plastic since October 2021, as the market for selling recycled plastic is practically nonexistent, Aronson said. Haines usually sends one load of plastic to Seattle each year. Juneau’s municipal...
Newly appointed Alaska Division of Elections Director Carol Beecher said last Thursday that she was considering severing ties with a nonprofit that helps maintain voter rolls nationwide, after several Republican-led states announced earlier this month their intention to pull out of the effort. Beecher told state lawmakers she was evaluating Alaska’s membership in the organization during a presentation to the Senate State Affairs Committee. She cited the cost of the program as a reason for leaving despite the benefits it provides. Her c...
Crystal Kaakeeyáa Rose Demientieff Worl is a Tlingit, Athabascan and Filipino artist and co-owner of Trickster Company in Juneau. And a postage stamp designer, too. On March 24, she will attend the Art of the Skateboard U.S. Postal Service stamp release in Phoenix, at the Desert West Skatepark. Worl's stamp is featured with three other skateboard stamps selected for the honor. "It's so cool to be in this collective of artists. I didn't know about the artists before and then we've been talking to...
