Sorted by date Results 2627 - 2651 of 7954
DALLAS (AP) — Remember all those thousands of passengers that airlines banned for not wearing face masks? Now many airlines want them back. Leaders of unions that represent flight attendants are reacting with outrage. American, United and Delta all indicated last Thursday that they will lift the bans they imposed now that masks are optional on flights. Alaska Airlines said last week the worst of the banned passengers won’t be welcomed back. Southwest said a judge’s ruling that struck down the federal mandate won’t change its decision to bar...
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A Native American tribe in Oregon said April 19 it is assessing its legal options after learning the U.S. government plans to release water from a federally operated reservoir to downstream farmers along the Oregon-California border amid a historic drought. Even limited irrigation for the farmers who use Klamath River water on about 300 square miles of crops puts two critically endangered fish species in peril of extinction because the water withdrawals come at the height of spawning season, The Klamath Tribes said. T...
The borough assembly has postponed for the second time a decision on a proposed increase in water rates, and is now considering a 30% boost instead of the 21% rate hike originally suggested by staff. The assembly last month delayed a decision on the 21% rate increase after several members said they wanted to hear more public comment on the issue. At the April 12 assembly meeting, Assemblymember David Powell said he doesn’t put much stock in future assemblies honoring the incremental rate increases over several years included in the original p...
Wrangell’s Marine Service Center has seen a 20% to 30% increase in haul-out requests after Sitka’s boatyard closed April 1. “We’ve been getting overflow from Sitka since February,” Port Director Steve Miller said April 13. Normally the busy time starts April, May and June, “but we’ve been going hard since the first of March.” Like most people in need of a haul-out, a lot of the Sitka boat owners are looking for a fresh set of zincs on the bottom of their vessels to prevent corrosion and a pressure wash. “We call it a shave and a haircut,” M...
Just hours after a federal court judge voided the federal face mask mandate for air travel and other public transportation, Alaska Airlines, United Airlines and American Airlines on Monday afternoon said masks would be optional on their flights. Other airlines are expected to follow suit. Alaska Airlines said in a statement that because of the judicial decision, passengers and employees effective immediately would have the option to wear a mask while traveling in the U.S. “While we are glad this means many of us get to see your smiling f...
With energy usually reserved for sports competitions, middle school students cheered and clapped for their classmates embroiled in a battle of words. That is, how to spell them correctly. Stikine Middle School held its first spelling bee in three years on April 12 in the high school gym. At stake were bragging rights and a $50 gift certificate for J&W's Fast Food. All that stood between students and glory were words like fiesta, shingles, normality and battlement. The rules were simple....
With more than 260 would-be ferry passengers stuck on a waitlist for travel out of Bellingham, Washington, and sailings full until late July, the Alaska Marine Highway System has scheduled an extra run of the Matanuska to bring the people and their vehicles to the state. The additional sailing is scheduled to leave Bellingham on May 25. There was time in the ship's schedule, which ferry management had been holding open in hopes the Matanuska could restart service that week to Prince Rupert,...
The borough assembly has rejected a staff proposal to remove the cap on sales taxes payable on individual purchases. Dropping the limitation, which shuts off Wrangell’s 7% sales tax on the purchase price above $3,000, could have generated an estimated $500,000 a year in additional revenue for the borough. The assembly April 12 accepted moving to second reading the other provisions of the ordinance that would make some administrative changes to the sales tax code, but deleted the change to the tax cap. The ordinance is scheduled for a public hea...
The community is short of public restrooms near the City Dock and could be short port security staff this summer if people don’t apply for the jobs soon. One is an immediate concern, while the restroom shortage requires a longer-term solution. Tour operators and borough officials met last Wednesday to discuss the upcoming visitor season, which could be a challenge for borough staff and tourism operators, said Port Director Steve Miller. “Finding a driver, finding security. No one is applying for the jobs,” he said. “I haven’t jumped on that y...
Finding a home or business in the modern age is made easier with apps like Google Maps, but what happens when an address doesn't appear in those digital location services? The problem can be made worse if the place doesn't have an address nailed or posted on the building. Such was the case when high school senior Tyson Messmer was trying to find someone's home at Panhandle Trailer Court. It helped him decide on his senior project. "I couldn't find it anywhere," Messmer said. That experience and...
The annual Stikine River Birding Festival has a busy first weekend planned. It starts up Friday with a 1 p.m. virtual storytime at the Irene Ingle Public Library, then continuing the educational fun agenda with a Birding 101 class at 6 p.m. Friday at the Nolan Center, led by Bonnie Demerjian. The library event will present an Earth Day theme, with activity kits available for pickup at the library. The meeting ID for the Zoom event is 935 4298 0052, passcode 8743535. There are three events on Saturday’s calendar. A community cleanup is p...
A full house at the Nolan Center listened as the chamber of commerce honored Mia Wiederspohn as Wrangell’s youth leader of the year, Barbara Neyman as educator of the year, and Sarah Merritt as citizen of the year. The chamber presentation described Merritt, who has worked at the legislative information office in town since 1996, as “an outstanding citizen … understated, kind, solution focused, and devoted to the democratic process.” Merritt said she returned to Juneau after earning a degree in political science in South Dakota, later decidin...
Dealing with a shortage of pilots until more can be trained, Alaska Airlines has announced it will cut 2% of its roughly 1,200 daily flights through the end of June. “We don’t believe it will have an impact here in the state of Alaska,” Tim Thompson, company spokesman in Anchorage, said April 12. Even without changes to the daily flight schedule into Wrangell, the cutbacks could affect travelers making connections in Seattle to other Alaska Airlines’ destinations. The airline canceled several hundred flights the first weekend of April due to...
Juneau-based Alaska Seaplanes will add Wrangell to its route map starting May 26. The company, which operates a fleet of 14 single-engine aircraft, mostly nine-passenger planes, will run a daily flight from Sitka to Petersburg to Wrangell and back to Sitka. Encouragement from SEARHC “was instrumental” in starting the Sitka-Wrangell service, Andy Kline, Alaska Seaplanes marketing manager, said last Wednesday. SEARHC is based in Sitka where it operates the Mt. Edgecumbe Medical Center, providing acute, specialty and behavioral health care ser...
When Michelle Lopez opened Taste of Asia nearly seven years ago, it was after her boyfriend had become her ex-boyfriend. She had come to Wrangell to be with him from Juneau, where her parents had moved from the Philippines 30 years ago. She stayed in Wrangell to make a life for herself and her kids. When she came here, there were no places that served rice, she said. "I was so hungry. I thought maybe I should look for a place to put a little business." The owner of the Front Street building Tast...
The borough is moving to solve the problem of dwindling burial space in town. The community this summer will get a new columbarium, a structure for keeping urns, and the borough assembly has approved an expansion to Sunset Gardens Cemetery. The expansion, in two phases, will add 100 burial plots. Only three plots remain in Sunset Gardens at 1.5 Mile Zimovia Highway, on the uplands side of the highway, and four in Memorial Cemetery at 1 Mile, on the water side of the highway. But even that number is iffy. “The borough has been reluctant to s...
The commissioner of Alaska’s Department of Revenue was called into a special meeting last month to discuss a problem: The Permanent Fund Dividend Division was under cyberattack. In a short period of time, more than 800,000 attempts were made to get into the division’s systems, which are in charge of paying the annual dividend to Alaskans. The division shut down its computers, the department’s firewalls held, and “no Alaskans’ data was accessed,” said Anna MacKinnon, director of the division. “Our system repelled, as it should, the assault o...
The Alaska Board of Fisheries has adopted a revised king salmon Southeast management plan in a compromise that will see sport fishery limits set before the start of the season based on a tiered system of abundance instead of changing during the season. The revised plan is expected to be in place by the 2023 season. The hope is that the 80/20 split between the commercial troll and sport fisheries will be maintained, while allowing non-residents who travel to Alaska to catch king salmon the opportunity to do so, rather than being shut down at a...
For the sixth year in a row, federal managers have closed the Stikine River chinook subsistence fishery to help preserve weak runs of the returning salmon. Clint Kolarich, Wrangell District Ranger with the U.S. Forest Service, announced the decision last week, under authority delegated by the Federal Subsistence Board. The closure will run from May 15 through June 20. “The preseason forecast for the Stikine River is 7,400 large chinook salmon (greater than 28 inches in total length), which is below the escapement goal range of 14,000 to 2...
The Alaska Volcano Observatory said that as of last Thursday the number of earthquakes under Mount Edgecumbe was declining. The earthquake activity is beneath the 3,000-foot high dormant volcano 15 miles west of Sitka on Kruzof Island. The volcano observatory sent out an information statement a day earlier about the "swarm" of small earthquakes under Mt. Edgecumbe, with an accompanying message that there is no cause for alarm by the public. "We're getting information out and trying not to alarm...
A federally funded mortgage relief program to help homeowners hurt financially by the pandemic drew 10,737 applications in Alaska, with 43 from Wrangell. The state received $50 million in federal funds under a nationwide program to help homeowners who lost their jobs or income due to COVID-19 shutdowns or cutbacks. The Alaska Housing Finance Corp. is administering the statewide program, reviewing the applications to ensure people meet the income loss and other criteria in preparation to start disbursing aid. The 10,737 applications represent...
The state Department of Environmental Conservation has determined that about 5,300 gallons of diesel spilled from the March 21 grounding of a tugboat in Neva Strait, near Sitka. The agency calculated that about 700 gallons were recovered by surface skimmers after the accident that left the tug Western Mariner stranded on the beach and leaking fuel. Additional fuel was removed from the water by deployment of absorbent materials, the state said. Before the tugboat was refloated on March 30, all of the fuel in the undamaged tanks on the vessel...
The Sitka Sound sac roe herring fishery closed April 10 with a final tally of approximately 26,350 tons harvested, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. It was just over half of the 45,164-ton guideline harvest level, but over 10,000 tons more than last year’s catch. In the final five days of openings, approximately 6,990 tons were harvested in the waters off of Baranof Island to the south of Sitka. OBI Fleet Manager Don Spigelmyre wrote that this year was “our best season ever,” and that the company purchased just over 3,500...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — The two co-chairs of the late-U.S. Rep. Don Young's reelection campaign have earned competing endorsements in their bids to replace Alaska's lone member of the U.S. House. Republicans Josh Revak and Tara Sweeney are among a field of 48 candidates running in a June 11 special primary. The four candidates who get the most votes in the special primary will advance to an Aug. 16 special election to determine who serves the remainder of Young’s term, which ends in January. Young, a Republican, died last month at age 88. You...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Alaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski continues to have a substantial cash advantage over her opponent backed by former President Donald Trump. Murkowski, in office since 2002, brought in more than $1.5 million in the three-month period ending March 31, according to a filing with the Federal Election Commission. Murkowski ended the quarter with $5.2 million on hand with no debt, the records show. Republican Kelly Tshibaka, who is challenging Murkowski, raised $673,383 during the last...
