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A dozen children and two adults were served floor sealant instead of milk at a day care summer program at a Juneau elementary school last week after workers poured from the wrong container. Several students complained of burning sensations in their mouth and throats, and at least one child was treated at a hospital after the incident on the morning of June 14, Juneau Schools Superintendent Bridget Weiss said. Juneau police are leading the investigation of how the mix-up occurred, “not really because we believe there’s anything criminal or mal...
Breaking news: Al Gross late Monday withdrew from the race for U.S. House. Gross, who had finished third in the primary election, did not give a reason for his decision. The Alaska Division of Elections on Tuesday said the August general election to fill the unexpired term of the late U.S. Rep. Don Young will proceed with just three candidates, not four as had been expected. The division said state law does not allow for the fifth-place finisher, Tara Sweeney, to move up to fill out the four finalists for the general election for the seat. The...
Though sales boomed for Sitka Salmon Shares during the pandemic, the direct-to-consumer fish seller and processor has been unable to continue that success into 2022 and shut down its Sitka processing plant on June 6, laying off 40 workers. Company co-founder Marsh Skeele, of Sitka, said that despite the closure of its processing plant, the company plans to continue buying and selling fish, working with fishermen and other processors. Skeele said problems that led to the shutdown of the plant became apparent in December, when the expected...
One of Alaska’s largest private COVID-19 testing providers plans to close its public testing sites in the state by the end of June. The decision by the private company will not affect SEARHC’s continuation of testing services in Wrangell. The decision by Capstone Clinic is mainly driven by financial considerations, said Matt Jones, Capstone’s director of non-clinical operations. Jones said it began with an abrupt move by the federal government earlier this year to no longer cover the costs of COVID-19 tests or treatments for those without healt...
As election officials count votes in Alaska’s first-ever statewide election by mail, they have rejected thousands of submitted ballots, including one in six from a Western Alaska state House district, causing concern from observers who say the state’s process is disenfranchising voters, particularly Alaska Natives. At last week’s meeting of the National Congress of American Indians in Anchorage, Michelle Sparck delivered a speech on behalf of a group whose mission is to improve Alaska Native voting rates. When she described the issue, “ther...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has appointed a philanthropist-businesswoman to the six-member board of trustees of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp., which manages the $79 billion investment account that pays for a huge share of public services and the annual dividend to Alaskans. Lawmakers and Dunleavy’s critics have been closely watching the corporation’s board in recent months, after members voted in December to fire its former chief executive, Angela Rodell. That move came amid disagreements over the fund’s management, and how much lawmakers can susta...
The Ketchikan Public Library last Friday morning held a Drag Queen Storytime event that attracted so many participants that library staff held three readings. The reading room is able to hold 25 people, Children’s Library Assistant Anne Marie Meiresonne said, and it was brimming for each reading. The event has attracted much controversy in recent weeks, with supporters and detractors attending Ketchikan City Council and Ketchikan Gateway Borough Assembly meetings to share their support and opposition, as well as debating the issue on social m...
PALMER — The Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District board on June 15 approved Alaska’s first local ban on transgender girls participating in girls sports and other school-sponsored activities. The change requires schools designate school-sponsored athletic teams or sports as male, female or coed, and requires participation in a female sport to be based on the participant’s biological sex at birth. Officials say the Mat-Su policy will not apply to visiting teams from other districts. The Mat-Su proposal’s language mirrors the wording in a bil...
Western Alaska villagers have endured the worst chum salmon runs on record, several years of anemic Chinook salmon runs in the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, harvest closures from the Bering Sea coast to Canada’s Yukon Territory and such dire conditions that they relied on emergency shipments of salmon from elsewhere in Alaska just to have food to eat. Many of those suffering see one way to provide some quick relief: Large vessels trawling for pollock and other groundfish in the industrial-scale fisheries of the Bering Sea, they say, must stop i...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Challenges have been filed to keep Wasilla Republican state Rep. David Eastman’s name off the ballot in his reelection bid, arguing that his affiliation with the far-right Oath Keepers disqualifies him under the state constitution. Several people said they filed complaints related to a section of the constitution that prevents from holding public office anyone who “advocates, or who aids or belongs to any party or organization or association which advocates, the overthrow by force or violence of the government of the Unite...
Wrangell's 10-year-old Quinn Davies was "super nervous" to dance for the first time at Celebration - a biennial dance-and-culture festival of Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian cultures, held in Juneau last week. "I'm using my dad's regalia that he used when he was in Celebration, and I'm using his hat that he also used," Davies said June 8, opening day of the four-day event. His sister Madelyn Davies, 12, said being at Celebration is "kind of mind-blowing." "It's a lot of people. We're all together....
Culturally significant objects formerly in collections of the Portland Art Museum arrived in Juneau on June 8 on their way back to Wrangell, whose Tlingit artisans had fashioned them. After years of negotiations following a claim originally filed in 2002 and accepted by the museum in 2019, the objects, including a Killerwhale Hat, have been repatriated to the Naanya.aayí clan in Wrangell, where they had originated. COVID-19 complications delayed the transfer until now, according to a museum...
The borough is proposing almost $1 million worth of repair, rehab and upgrades to the community pool and recreation center building in next year’s budget. State grant funds would cover the costs. The projects include upgrading the heating and ventilation, or HVAC, system in the building as well as the digital temperature controls for the pool, new cedar siding on the building, repairing the brick-clad exterior columns and replacing the brick with cedar, and repairing and rebuilding the gutters and downspout system. The work is estimated at n...
A group of 6-, 7- and 8-year-old kids poured over the rocky beach near City Park on June 8 like a bunch of young Indiana Joneses, looking for artifacts. But this group, unlike Dr. Jones, was looking for shells as part of a Beach Explorers program to use in a science experiment. During last week's exploration, children were given a cup, guided to the beach, and instructed to find two intact seashells. "It's fun," said Bo Ritchie, 6. "We find stuff like glass. That's what my sister does. She...
Imagine clothes made of plastic bags, playing cards or crab shells. Now imagine pulling a rabbit out of a tinfoil hat or yodeling while wearing a shirt of decoupage or any of the materials mentioned. Such whimsy is the basis for Express Yourself! a talent show combined with wearable art planned for 6 p.m. on July 3 at the Nolan Center. Organizers Cyni Crary and Bonnie Ritchie said it's been five years since they held the first combo event, and they feel it's time to bring it back, reintroducing...
If early results hold up in Alaska’s 48-candidate special primary election for U.S. House, the August general election to fill the last months of the late Rep. Don Young’s term will provide voters the choice between two Republicans, an independent and a Democrat. Former Gov. Sarah Palin and Nick Begich III, both Republicans, were the top two vote-getters in the primary, which closed to voting last Saturday. Independent Al Gross came in third, and former state Rep. Mary Peltola, a Bethel Democrat running in her first statewide campaign, was in f...
Fitness buffs looking to challenge themselves in Wrangell don't have far to go to go far. Two different events in July will test the mettle of endurance athletes seeking to swim, bike, run and run some more. The Tongass Toughman Triathlon on July 2 pits people against sea, pavement and dirt in a combined 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride and a 15-mile run. The Bearfest marathon on July 31 gives racers the option of running a full marathon (26.2 miles), a half (13.1 miles) or a 5k (3.1 miles)....
From log rolling to similarly shaped but much smaller and lighter wiener tossing — and everything in between, whether moving or not — the events over the long July 4th weekend are going to be plentiful. However, the chamber of commerce needs help. At least 15 volunteers are needed to help pull apart raffle tickets for the annual prize drawing, set up and take down booths, direct people and generally help out wherever needed over the several days of community festivities. Brittani Robbins, the chamber’s executive director, said there are about...
Alaska’s unemployment rate reached its lowest level ever for April, two years after it hit a record high during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The state’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dipped to 4.9% in April — the latest data available from the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. In April 2020, the unemployment rate shot to an unprecedented 11.9% a month after the pandemic was declared, levels that exceeded even the mid-1980s downturn in the state, according to Labor Department data dating back to 1976. Toda...
A mass casualty exercise June 7 was the first one held at the Wrangell Medical Center in its 16-month-old facility. The drill, which simulated a plane crash, was used to see where improvements could be made in the emergency operations plan. It involved about 70 staff members from the hospital, EMTs and volunteer firefighters. Eleven community volunteers of various ages were made up to resemble victims with head wounds, lacerations and other traumas requiring stabilization, medevac or blood...
The Race to Alaska launched a flotilla north to Ketchikan from Port Townsend, Washington, on Monday. The 750-mile wind- and human-powered race has two starts: 5 a.m. Monday for the first leg, which organizers call the “The Proving Ground,” and noon Thursday for the second leg, which organizers call “To the Bitter End.” R2AK advertising is notoriously humorous and full of hyperbole. One description of the race on its website explains the event as: “It’s like the Iditarod, on a boat, with a chance of drowning, being run down by a freighter,...
An Anchorage Superior Court judge is considering when and if it is legal for a state legislator to ban a constituent from the lawmaker’s legislative Facebook page. On June 8, Judge Thomas Matthews heard oral arguments in a lawsuit brought by an Eagle River woman against Sen. Lora Reinbold, an Eagle River Republican. After hearing arguments, Matthews took the case under advisement, with a decision to be issued soon. Bobbie McDow, the plaintiff, is asking for an injunction against Reinbold, plus financial damages and attorney fees. The verdict co...
The state’s COVID-19 public health emergency order put in place 15 months ago will be rescinded on July 1, announced Alaska Department of Health and Social Services Commissioner Adam Crum. “The COVID situation has mellowed out to where our systems are in place, our hospitals know how to deal with this, our health care providers have tools they need, because a lot of the treatments are actually commercially available or they’re able to order themselves directly,” Crum said at a press conference on June 6. “And so, because of that, I am going to...
Repairs to damaged mooring dolphins at the Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal will take longer and cost more than originally expected, now estimated at over $2 million, dock officials said. Until repairs are made, only one ship, not two, can use the dock at a time. The dolphin off the north end of the Sitka Sound dock was damaged May 9 when it was struck by the Radiance of the Seas as it was maneuvering nearby. The damage reduced the number of available docking spaces from two to one, said Chris McGraw, manager of the privately owned cruise terminal....
JUNEAU (AP) — Alaska House Majority Leader Chris Tuck said he will not seek reelection this year, citing a redistricting map that put him in House and Senate districts where he would have had to run against friends and fellow Democratic lawmakers. Tuck joins Senate President Peter Micciche, a Soldotna Republican, and Senate Minority Leader Tom Begich, an Anchorage Democrat, in deciding not to seek reelection. Tuck had filed to run for an Anchorage House seat for which Rep. Andy Josephson also filed. Tuck withdrew on June 8. If Tuck had run f...
