Sorted by date Results 3161 - 3185 of 7954
After more than 18 months without Canadian visitors, Haines could see an influx of RV traffic and coho fishermen this week. The U.S.-Canada border reopened for fully vaccinated Canadians on Monday. With coho still running and Yukoners long cut off from the sea, the quiet days of the pandemic in Haines could be waning. “Be prepared to maybe see a bunch of RVs,” said Haines Borough tourism director Steven Auch. “We’re looking forward to finally getting to see our friends we’ve been separated from forcibly for so long,” said Alaska Rod’s co-ow...
JUNEAU (AP) — The braking system on a plane carrying 42 people that overran a runway at Unalaska in 2019, killing a passenger, was compromised by anti-skid sensors that were not correctly wired, the National Transportation Safety Board determined. The incorrect wiring likely occurred during an overhaul at the landing gear manufacturer’s facility in 2017, but it was not discovered until after the accident, the Nov. 2 report said. The system “does not generate a fault (warning) based on incorrect wiring,” the report said. Also, the plane was not...
With approval from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, vaccinations against COVID-19 for children ages 5 through 11 could be available in Wrangell next week. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration last week approved the vaccine for children, and the CDC late Tuesday also approved the shots. The SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, which was waiting on that decision, will soon start opening appointments to administer Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, Maegan Bosak, a senior SEARHC official in Sitka, s...
Jeffrey Good, who moved to Wrangell after retiring from the U.S. Coast Guard, started work Monday as interim borough manager, replacing Lisa Von Bargen until the assembly can make a permanent hire. The borough assembly last Thursday offered the position to Good, who was among five candidates for the job. Von Bargen's last day as manager was Friday. Good, the only local candidate, served as U.S. Coast Guard base director in Kodiak from 2017 to 2020, according to his résumé. He served as public w...
A private donation to St. Frances Animal Rescue has made it possible for the nonprofit shelter to keep operating after a difficult year. The shelter recently received a promise from a private donor to match every dollar donated from Nov. 1 of this year until Nov. 1, 2022, up to $10,000.Joan Sargent, the foster/adoption coordinator for St. Frances, is confident the shelter will be able to raise enough to reach its target of $35,000. That would allow the organization to keep moving toward its...
Alaska Airlines would like to be back to 2019 staffing levels and flight schedules by the end of the year. "That's our goal," Tim Thompson, company spokesman in Anchorage, said Monday. From the worst of the pandemic-induced collapse in air travel in the spring of 2020, when the airline carried 4,000 to 5,000 passengers a day across its entire route system, Alaska was back up to 108,000 revenue passengers a day for the quarter that ended Sept. 30, moving toward its pre-pandemic number of close to 140,000. Carrying all those passengers has meant...
For lovers of the written word, one might argue that walking into a library is like a family reunion, of the senses at least. The smell of paper and ink pulls memories of curling up with a book, no phone to check or competition for attention. Last Thursday, it felt like a reunion of the senses and also a library family reunion. November marks 100 years since the library opened its doors on Oct. 31, 1921. And before the cake could be cut and whittled down, former library director Kay Jabusch...
Women In Safe Homes has transformed a former youth detention center in Ketchikan into a safe haven for domestic and sexual abuse survivors. The new shelter opened Oct. 23, and serves residents of southern Southeast, including Wrangell. “We have people here right now from Wrangell,” Agnes Moran, executive director of WISH, said last week. The nonprofit will pay travel costs for out-of-town residents who need to stay at the facility, she said. About a dozen people a year from Wrangell come to the shelter, Moran said. The organization houses alm...
The Sentinel on Oct. 28 incorrectly reported on the dedication of a bench at the Wrangell Mariners’ Memorial to Ryan Miller, who died in a 2005 commercial fishing accident. The three memorial benches were a 2017 Wrangell High School senior project. The Ryan Miller bench was built by his son, Garrett Miller. The other two benches were built by Garrett’s cousin, Dawson Miller, and their friend, Sam Armstrong....
Rod Rhoades has a sick generator. It's down for the count after mechanical issues this summer, said the superintendent at Wrangell Municipal Light & Power. The generator is one of five that provide backup when Wrangell loses its feed from the Tyee Lake hydroelectric station. After Rhoades started in 2018, he brought a fifth generator online in 2020 to "give me some breathing room." Before that, there would be times when all four generators were running to meet power demand, he said, and for...
This year’s overall Southeast Alaska salmon harvest is headed toward 58 million fish, with pink salmon leading the tally at 48.2 million — more than 40% above the 10-year average for pinks. This summer’s pink catch was six times last year’s measly 8 million, and more than double the brood year of 2019. The numbers for fish tickets are still preliminary, said Troy Thynes, regional management coordinator for commercial fisheries with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in Petersburg. “The main thing is the pink salmon run came in a lot stron...
Bob Russell recently returned to Alaska to continue his career pursuits in the technology arena. He started the next leg of his journey on July 2 as the school district's tech director, overseeing all computer equipment, internet connectivity, networking and learning devices. In short, if it's technology-related, Russell is in charge. Before coming to Wrangell, Russell and his wife, Kimberly, and Great Pyrenees dog, Yukon, lived in Tennessee. He had lived and worked in Fort Yukon some time...
The state has submitted for review its plan to spend $50 million in federal funds to help homeowners financially strained during the pandemic by loss of income to pay their mortgages. The U.S. Treasury Department is reviewing Alaska’s plan, along with those from other states. “Our mortgage plan is with Treasury for review and approval,” Stacy Barnes, governmental affairs director at the Alaska Housing Finance Corp., said last week. The $50 million is Alaska’s allocation of the $9.96 billion Congress appropriated for mortgage relief in the Ame...
By Garland Kennedy Sitka Sentinel staff writer Two years ago, a Russian-flagged inflatable catamaran sailed into Sitka, concluding a multi-year voyage from central Russia, through the Siberian river network, across the Bering Sea and along the Alaska coast. The vessel's Siberia-based crew now plans to repeat the voyage in reverse next spring and summer. Owner and captain of the Iskatel, Anatoly Kazakevich, said he had planned to begin the return trip last summer, but the pandemic sank those...
The borough finance department has “found” $2 million to add to its ledger of cash, cash equivalents and long- and short-term investments, boosting the total to closer to $38 million. The money wasn’t lost as much as left off a ledger. Joyce Mason, the finance director in 2020, had transferred $2 million from a UBS operating investment account into a KeyBank account invested in the Alaska Municipal League Investment Pool, said Mason Villarma, finance director. “That $2 million has been sitting in that KeyBank account since May of 2020,...
The Wrangell Senior Center wants to buy another bus for moving people around town, adding a four-wheel-drive vehicle to its operation, but it could be 2024 before the bus gets to town. The senior center already operates two buses, one for people and one for deliveries, but neither is four-wheel-drive, said Solvay Gillen, site manager at the senior center. Buying a four-wheel-drive bus would be helpful in the winter, she said. “Some of those roads are difficult to access in the wintertime,” Gillen said. “It makes a huge difference.” The $135,00...
The borough assembly has approved $75,600 to begin upgrades to the community’s water treatment plant. Assembly members on Oct. 26 agreed with the administration’s recommendation to move forward with the first phase in a multi-part solution to the ailing water filtration and delivery system. The funds would be used to buy two closed-loop cooling systems valued at $37,800 each. Tom Wetor, director of public works, explained that treated plant water is used to cool components within the ozone generators, one of the steps in the filtration pro...
KENAI (AP) — An impromptu fundraiser to allow a Kenai library to purchase books amid accusations of censorship has twice surpassed its goal. The fund was established after the Kenai City Council delayed accepting a federal grant until the library director provides a list of the books that would be purchased with the money. The council voted Oct. 20 to postpone action that would have accepted a grant to buy library materials related to health and wellness, including mental health, suicide prevention, self-care and reference books about Medicare...
Alaska and 17 other states filed three separate lawsuits last Friday to block President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate for federal contractors, arguing that the requirement violates federal law. Attorneys general from Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming signed on to one lawsuit, which was filed in a federal district court in Missouri. Another group of states including Georgia, Alabama, Idaho, Kansas, South Carolina, Utah and West Virginia filed a lawsuit in f...
HONOLULU (AP) — Hawaii’s COVID-19 case counts and hospitalizations have declined to the point where the islands are welcoming travelers once again. Gov. David Ige said vacationers and business travelers were welcome to return to the islands starting Monday. His Oct. 19 announcement came nearly two months after he asked travelers on Aug. 23 to avoid Hawaii because case counts were surging with the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant and hospitals were becoming overwhelmed. The state didn’t impose any new travel quarantine restr...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal health officials have extended for nearly three more months its rules that cruise ships must follow to sail during the pandemic, adding that the government will move to a voluntary program next year. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the extension makes only “minor modifications” to rules already in effect. The agency said that after Jan. 15 it plans to move to a voluntary program for cruise companies to detect and control the spread of COVID-19 on their ships. The current regulations, calle...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — The board of the Alaska Railroad has voted unanimously to rescind a requirement for all of its employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Initially, railroad employees were supposed to be vaccinated by Dec. 8 to comply with vaccine requirements ordered by President Joe Biden that, in part, required vaccination for employees of contractors doing business with the federal government. The railroad is a federal contractor. An email sent to railroad employees on Oct. 22 said the railroad must meet the standard. But the board decis...
SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday granted a stay in litigation seeking to save endangered salmon runs on the Columbia and Snake rivers. U.S. District Judge Michael Simon in Portland granted a request by both sides in the lawsuit seeking the stay until July 31, 2022, so they can try to negotiate a settlement in the lawsuit. Fishing and conservation groups joined with the state of Oregon, the Nez Perce Tribe and the Biden administration to seek the pause in litigation challenging the latest federal plan for hydropower operations o...
SITKA (AP) — A dozen bears have been killed in Sitka this year, including four last week, that were deemed dangers to life and property, the Daily Sitka Sentinel reported. The city “has a garbage problem,” Stephen Bethune, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Fish and Game, told the borough assembly recently. “Neither I or any of my agency colleagues like killing bears or the labor that ensues but will continue to do so as necessary,” he said. “However, removing bears from the population only serves to treat the symptom and fails t...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — A woman known for 37 years only as Horseshoe Harriet, one of dozen or so victims of a notorious Alaska serial killer, has been identified through genetic genealogy and a DNA match, authorities said Oct. 22. The victim was identified as Robin Pelkey, who was 19 and living on the streets of Anchorage when she was killed by Robert Hansen in the early 1980s, the Alaska Bureau of Investigation’s Cold Case Investigation Unit said. Hansen, who owned a bakery, gained the nickname “Butcher Baker” for abducting and hunting down women ...
