Sorted by date Results 2843 - 2867 of 7954
Alaska’s state housing agency has distributed more than $243 million in financial aid the past year to help renters hurt economically by the pandemic and will soon embark on a $50 million federally funded program to help homeowners, too. The aid can go toward eligible homeowners’ monthly mortgage payments, and may also be applied to current and past-due property taxes, insurance premiums and utility bills, the Alaska Housing Finance Corp. announced Friday. Preregistration for Alaska Housing Homeowner Assistance opens Monday at Ala...
Art lovers and artists can help sustain public radio station KSTK with their contributions. The station recently kicked off a fundraising effort that will culminate in an art auction and hopefully $5,000. The art auction March 18 at the Nolan Center will allow the public to bid on sculptures, paintings, jewelry or any other donated art. "We're on this balancing blade. Our business model is based on local donations and contributions and special events and raffles," Station Manager Cindy Sweat...
WASHINGTON (AP) - America's national bird is more beleaguered than previously believed, with nearly half of bald eagles tested across the Lower 48 states showing signs of chronic lead exposure, according to a study published Feb. 17. While the bald eagle population has rebounded from the brink of extinction since the U.S. banned the pesticide DDT in 1972, harmful levels of toxic lead were found in the bones of 46% of bald eagles sampled in 38 states from California to Florida, researchers...
An Alaska judge upheld most of the state’s newly redistricted legislative district map on Feb. 15 but overturned a decision that created two East Anchorage Senate seats linked with more politically conservative Eagle River. The judge also ruled in favor of Skagway, which wants to share a House district with the more cruise ship tourism-oriented downtown Juneau than with the Mendenhall Valley portion of the community. A day after the judge’s ruling, the Alaska Redistricting Board met in executive session and later voted 3-2 to appeal the rul...
A group of four Alaska college students has appealed a state court ruling that upheld a decision by Gov. Mike Dunleavy to drain the state’s $410 million higher-education investment fund. The decision made scholarship programs subject to annual legislative appropriation of state general fund dollars. The students last Friday filed their appeal of the ruling handed down a day earlier by Superior Court Judge Adolf Zeman. Unless reversed on appeal to the Alaska Supreme Court, the Alaska Performance Scholarship program and WWAMI, which helps pay t...
NEW YORK (AP) - Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin lost her libel lawsuit against The New York Times on Feb. 15 when a jury rejected her claim that the newspaper maliciously damaged her reputation by erroneously linking her campaign rhetoric to a mass shooting. A judge had already declared that if the jury sided with Palin, he would set aside its verdict on the grounds that she hadn't proven the paper acted maliciously, something required in libel suits involving public figures. "Of course we're...
ORONO, Maine (AP)- Salmon counters found fewer of the endangered fish in Maine’s Penobscot River last year than in any year since 2016. Atlantic salmon are listed under the Endangered Species Act in the U.S., as the country’s only remaining wild populations of the fish are found in a few Maine rivers. The Penobscot is vitally important to the future of the fish, and salmon returns there are watched closely. Only 561 salmon were counted in the Penobscot last year. That was the lowest number since 2016, when 503 fish were found, the Bangor Dai...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — A provision of a U.S. Senate bill would expand tribal court jurisdiction for up to 30 Alaska tribes as part of a pilot program aimed at addressing high rates of domestic or sexual violence. Tribes that choose to participate in the pilot program — and are selected — would be able to try and sentence anyone who commits domestic violence, rape or related crimes in their villages, even if the offender is non-Native. The provision added by Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski is part of a bipartisan measure that would renew the 1994 Violence...
The Sitka Sound Science Center and several regional and national partners have received a five-year, $5 million grant from the National Science Foundation to develop natural hazard monitoring and warning systems in tribal communities throughout Southeast. Project KUTÍ — the Tlingit word for weather — builds on the center’s community process used in Sitka to build a landslide warning system. Sitka will serve as a hub for the project, but the goal is to “develop a co-produced regional system for warning residents of events that might lead to...
A Juneau-based fishing charter and lodge owner has a hunch that a viable commercial squid fishery could exist in Southeast. Richard Yamada, who's been operating fishing charters for 40 years, has been looking for ways to reduce the damage to his business as king salmon numbers decline. He speculates that an influx of magister squid in the northern Inside Passage might be one factor affecting salmon survival. About 15 years ago. while fishing for rockfish, he and his clients caught a magister...
JUNEAU (AP) — An Anchorage Assembly member on Feb. 17 announced plans to run as a Democrat for the U.S. House seat for Alaska that has been held by Republican Don Young since 1973. Christopher Constant made the announcement on social media. Under a voter-approved elections system that will be used for the first time in Alaska this year, the top four vote-getters in the August primary, regardless of party affiliation, will advance to the November general election, where ranked-choice voting will be used to count ballots until a candidate a...
JUNEAU (AP) — A gemstone, billed as one of the largest gem-quality opals in existence, was sold for $143,750 at auction in Alaska on Sunday. The opal, dubbed the “Americus Australis,” weighs more than five pounds, according to the Anchorage auction house Alaska Premier Auctions & Appraisals. It also has a long history. Most recently, it was kept in a linen closet in a home in Big Lake, north of Anchorage, by Fred von Brandt, who mines for gold in Alaska and whose family has deep roots in the gem and rock business. The opal is larger than a bri...
JUNEAU (AP) — Democrat Les Gara announced Feb. 14 that a teacher will be his running mate in his bid for Alaska governor this year. Gara said Jessica Cook, of Palmer, will run for lieutenant governor as part of a ticket with him. Cook teaches at an Eagle River middle school. Cook, speaking alongside Gara at an event in Anchorage, said she and Gara “care about Alaska’s kids and we believe that everyone deserves a chance to be successful regardless of race, regardless of gender, regardless of wealth or poverty.” Cook, born in Anchorage, is a pare...
A state and federally designated economic development organization for Southeast Alaska has received $1 million in two grants to build up mariculture in the region, with half the money to go toward applying for an even larger grant and the other half going to design a processing facility on Prince of Wales Island. A $500,000 grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration will be used “to build an application to allow us to compete for $50 million,” Robert Venables, executive director of Southeast Conference, said last Friday. The $50...
Unless the Alaska Marine Highway System can recruit enough workers by March 1 to restaff the unused Columbia, officials said the largest vessel in the fleet would remain tied to the dock for a third summer in a row. “Management is doing everything we can” to recruit and staff up, Katherine Keith, the ferry system’s newly hired change management director, told legislators last week. As of the first week of January, the state ferry system was short more than 350 workers — about half of the staffing level necessary — to operate the full summer sc...
The temporary, pop-up mobile towers have been ordered for the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska's pilot project that will provide wireless internet service in Wrangell, but it will be later in the year before the system goes live. Chris Cropley is a network architect at Central Council, which is setting up the federally funded broadband service named Tidal Network. He's been there since last April. His job is a mix of disciplines - part technical, part...
The SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium is providing free COVID-19 at-home test kits on a first come, first served basis. A Feb. 7 post on SEARHC's Facebook page said it is providing two boxes per household, but the Wrangell Medical Center pharmacy, where the test kits are being handed out, is not tracking who is asking or how many times. "We're just asking people to be respectful so there's more for the community," Carly Allen, hospital administrator, said last Thursday. After a...
The school district has a plan to help close next year’s budget gap: It will use federal funds from last year’s American Rescue Plan Act to cover the salaries of new elementary school and middle/high school principals rather than continue the practice of paying for a lead teacher/assistant principal out of general budget funds. At a school board meeting last Wednesday, Tammy Stromberg, the district’s business manager, went through the first draft of the 2022-2023 budget, explaining how switching the funding for the principals — and elimina...
State ferry management said they are working to be more responsive to community and passenger concerns, including reconsidering the use of “dynamic pricing,” where fares increase as ships fill up on popular sailings. No one likes dynamic pricing, Katherine Keith, the Transportation Department’s change management director, told legislators last week. The pricing structure is similar to airlines, hotels and rental cars, where bookings on popular routes and travel days can cost significantly more, especially as availability tightens closer to th...
Three photos won top honors for depicting values like friendship and goals in a themed photography contest held by the Wrangell middle and high schools. Little interest was shown in the contest when it was first announced last fall, said assistant principal Bob Davis, with only four photos entered. After extending the deadline, 50 photos were entered by 20 students. Eighth grader Ben Houser won first place with a photo of his brother in Death Valley, California; senior Jamie Early won second...
The Wrangell Cooperative Association wants to move the Chief Shakes Island footbridge to allow better access for buses coming to the popular site and possibly setting aside an area for selling Native crafts. The plan would be to move the bridge access point to create more room at the harbor parking lot, along with rebuilding the decade-old wooden walkway to the island. “They envision the new access to not only clean up the former harbor parking lot but create an in/out access for buses and a place to potentially sell Native goods,” Carol Rus...
A trash masher installed inside the garage at the borough's garbage transfer station has had some teething issues. The baler, which the borough started up in late October, began having problems after one of its sensors got smacked. After troubleshooting over the phone didn't work, the public works department added Wi-Fi to the machine to try and get the manufacturer to gain access to its computerized controls, Jeff Good, borough manager, said in a report to the borough assembly Feb. 8. "AP&T was...
To say senior Liana Carney has a full plate is an understatement. Along with finishing her school sports career and keeping her grades up to remain the valedictorian, Carney also needs to put the finishing touches on her senior project. She tackled the brunt of her project before her final high school year even started, helping organize and put on the Bearfest 2021 Marathon last August. "I work for Alaska Vistas and they kind of run the whole Bearfest thing," Carney said. "The whole week of...
Elizabeth Peratrovich Day is Feb. 16, honoring Native rights activist Elizabeth Wanamaker Peratrovich of the Tlingit Nation who championed equal rights and whose testimony paved the way for the Alaska Anti-Discrimination Act passed by the territorial Legislature in 1945. In Wrangell, Tlingit storyteller and language expert Virginia Oliver is teaching schoolchildren at Evergreen Elementary, Stikine Middle and Wrangell High School about Peratrovich, who was born in Petersburg in 1911, and lived part of her life in Angoon. “Alaska Native children...
Five people attended a meeting for the Wrangell community garden last Wednesday, three in person and two via phone, along with project leaders Valerie Massie and Kim Wickman. The meeting was held to begin selecting committee members and discuss an action plan. According to Massie, the Wrangell Cooperative Association IGAP coordinator, Grace Wintermyer volunteered to be the primary treasurer and Sage Smiley volunteered for the secretary position. “We also reviewed a draft garden bed subscription template,” Massie said. Changes to the subscriptio...
