Sorted by date Results 1102 - 1126 of 1731
Efforts were underway Monday to clear a road where a 300-foot-wide slide — taking down dozens of fully grown evergreen trees as well as rocks and dirt — toppled into the bay in front of Seward, covering the narrow roadway and cutting off road access for about 200 people. There were no injuries in the Saturday evening landslide about a half-mile south of downtown Seward, City Manager Janette Bower said. A private contractor was handling the removal process and planned to use heavy equipment to clear the debris at the top first, working down to...
HOMER (AP) — A trailer containing mail intended for a dozen communities on the Kenai Peninsula caught fire and was destroyed, including all the contents. The driver of the truck hauling the trailer was not injured in the April 25 fire. The cause of the fire is under investigation, the U.S. Postal Service said in a statement. The contract truck left a processing center in Anchorage and caught fire near Mile 38 of the Seward Highway, or just north of the intersection of the Seward and Sterling highways, near Tern Lake. Mail in the trailer was i...
Thousands of Alaskans could lose Medicaid benefits as soon as July, when the federal government’s COVID-19 health emergency is expected to end. Alaska’s state health officials face the daunting task of combing through pandemic-swollen Medicaid rolls to establish who will no longer be eligible for benefits when the emergency ends. Health officials, who say they have been preparing for the shift for months, are concerned many of those Alaskans could soon find themselves without health insurance — particularly people who don’t know what steps to t...
About 5 million honeybees bound for Alaska got waylaid when Delta Air Lines routed them through Atlanta, where most of the bees died after being left for hours in crates on the ground during hot weather. The bees were the first of two shipments ordered by Soldotna beekeeper Sarah McElrea from a distributor in California. McElrea said the loss is devastating. She runs Sarah’s Alaska Honey and also coordinates shipments of bees to beekeepers around the state to pollinate orchards and nurseries. The bees were bumped from their original route to A...
A developer has notified Sitka that high construction costs have caused the partnership to withdraw its proposal to build a new boatyard and haul-out. Sitka's last haul-out operator, Halibut Point Marine, in March pulled up its last boat after it had converted the area into a cruise ship terminal. The decision by Sitka Community Boatyard to abandon its plans leaves no prospect in sight for a replacement operation in Sitka. Wrangell's Port and Harbors Department has reported an increase in calls...
Alaska property owners have paid more than four times as much in premiums than they received back in claims under the National Flood Insurance Program going back to 1980. “It’s kind of ugly,” Lori Wing-Heier, the state’s insurance division director, told legislators this spring. “We don’t have the storms they get in Texas or Louisiana.” The nationwide program, which is voluntary for states and communities, has been around for more than half a century. It pools together property owners from all the states and territories, much like group he...
JUNEAU (AP) — Gov. Mike Dunleavy last Thursday reiterated his push for payments of at least $3,700 to residents this year, with the legislative session in its last weeks and the size of the annual dividend check paid to residents still unresolved. The House in its version of the budget approved one-time “energy relief” payments of $1,300 plus a Permanent Fund dividend of about $1,250. The Senate Finance Committee is weighing a dividend of about $2,600 as it works on a draft budget plan. Annual dividends to residents traditionally have been...
Alaska House Republicans have removed Rep. David Eastman from their caucus, citing tensions with the controversial Wasilla Republican that have built up over time. The decision comes with less than three weeks left in the legislative session that began in January. “I think it’ll help us be more productive as a caucus. Just sometimes, his demeanor gets in the way of trying to be productive,” Anchorage Republican Laddie Shaw said in an interview with the Anchorage Daily News. “They finally said, ‘Enough’s enough,’” said Shaw, noting that freshman...
JUNEAU (AP) — Alaska lawmakers are considering a request by Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration that the state take over part of a federal environmental permitting program for development in wetlands, though some members of the Senate's budget-writing committee have expressed concerns with the potential costs. Administration officials have said the idea behind the proposal is to speed the construction of roads, bridges, mines and drilling projects. While the state would have to follow federal standards, critics of the proposal say the state has...
While earthquake activity around Mount Edgecumbe has declined following a series of small quakes last month, further investigation by the Alaska Volcano Observatory shows that the area around the mountain has been steadily deforming since 2018, likely due to the movement of magma. The observatory said in an online post: “The recent (earthquake) swarm inspired an in-depth analysis of the last 7.5 years of ground deformation detectable with radar satellite data.” That analysis revealed a broad area, almost 11 miles in diameter, “of surface uplif...
JUNEAU (AP) — Some elected officials in Juneau have raised concerns about militarization of the police force after learning of the police department’s plans to buy an armored security vehicle that can seat 12 officers. Critics have referred to the vehicle as a tank and worry it could harm the relationship between police and the community. Police counter that the vehicle is a way to help protect officers, especially when dealing with people firing weapons, the Juneau Empire reported. “There’s a policy question here about militarizing our pol...
WASILLA (AP) - Sarah Palin isn't used to sharing the spotlight. In the nearly 14 years since she burst onto the national political scene, the former Alaska governor has appeared on reality television programs, written books, spent time as a Fox News contributor, formed a political action committee in her name and been a rumored White House contender. She more recently revived her status as a conservative sensation with an unsuccessful lawsuit against The New York Times. Now, the first...
JUNEAU (AP) — The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has proposed an expansion of lands available for selection by Alaska Native Vietnam War-era veterans who are entitled to allotments. Tom Heinlein, acting state director for the land agency in Alaska, last Thursday recommended opening about 27 million acres of land for allotment selections by eligible veterans. Currently, about 1.2 million acres are available, and concerns have been raised that some of the currently available lands are difficult to access or outside veterans’ cultural hom...
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 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...
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...
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...
After two years of COVID-19 closure, an easing of restrictions at the border between Skagway and Yukon Territory will make it possible for tour companies to run cross-border excursions this summer. That’s good news for many Skagway tour operators that take cruise ship passengers into Canada. But Skagway’s largest tour operator, the White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad, said its trains won’t cross the border despite relaxed COVID testing rules and faster processing times. On April 5, the railway notified its partners that it would not opera...
JUNEAU (AP) — The appointed board tasked with drawing Alaska’s legislative district boundaries has approved new state Senate districts for the Anchorage area, with the two members who opposed the plan calling it political. The new plan puts Eagle River, north of Anchorage, and Girdwood, south of Anchorage into the same Senate district, separated by about 25 miles of uninhabited Chugach State Park. The Alaska Redistricting Board adopted the plan by a 3-2 vote on April 13. The board had gone back to work after the state Supreme Court ruled tha...
MIAMI (AP) - A U.S. ban on seafood imports from Russia over its invasion of Ukraine was supposed to sap billions of dollars from Vladimir Putin's war machine. But shortcomings in import regulations mean that Russian-caught pollock, salmon and crab are likely to enter the U.S. anyway, by way of the country vital to seafood supply chains across the world: China. Like the U.S. seafood industry, Russian companies rely heavily on China to process their catch. Once there, the seafood can be...