Sorted by date Results 1372 - 1396 of 1731
The Biden administration is stepping up its work to figure out what to do about the thawing Arctic, which is warming three times faster than the rest of the world. The White House said Sept. 24 it is reactivating the Arctic Executive Steering Committee, which coordinates domestic regulations and works with other Arctic nations. It also is adding six new members to the U.S. Arctic Research Commission, including two Indigenous Alaskans. The steering committee had been moribund for the past four years, not meeting at a high level, said David...
TANACROSS — One Alaska Native village knew what to do to keep out COVID-19. They put up a gate on the only road into town and guarded it round the clock. It was the same idea used a century ago in some isolated Indigenous villages to protect people from outsiders during another deadly pandemic — the Spanish flu. It largely worked. Only one person died of COVID-19 and 20 people got sick in Tanacross, an Athabascan village of 140 whose rustic wood cabins and other homes are nestled between the Alaska Highway and Tanana River in the state’s Inter...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Federal prosecutors have charged three men with leaving a special viewing platform and getting too close to bears in Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve. The remote park on the northern Alaska Peninsula, about 250 miles southwest of Anchorage, protects some of the highest densities of bears in the world and requires visitors to abide by special rules. Mature male brown bears at Katmai can weigh up to 900 pounds. The U.S. attorney’s office filed charges last month in the August 2018 incident. Spokesperson Lisa Hough...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — A U.S. District Court judge has ruled against plans by the Native Village of Eklutna to build a tribal gaming hall about 20 miles north of downtown Anchorage. The tribe had intended to offer pull-tabs, bingo and lotteries at the site, the Anchorage Daily News reported. The tribal government said the gaming hall would support jobs, tourism and the economy. The U.S. Department of Interior in 2018 concluded the tribe does not have jurisdiction over an eight-acre allotment where it has sought to build the gaming hall. Members of t...
STEVENS VILLAGE — In a normal year, the smokehouses and drying racks that Alaska Natives use to prepare salmon to tide them through the winter would be heavy with fish meat, the fruits of a summer spent fishing on the Yukon River like generations before them. This year, there are no fish. For the first time in memory, both king and chum salmon have dwindled to almost nothing and the state has banned salmon fishing on the Yukon, even the subsistence harvests that Alaska Natives rely on to fill their freezers and pantries for winter. The remote c...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Residents of Alaska’s largest city often contend with bears and moose, but state officials are warning of another wild animal that has been causing problems: river otters. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game says river otters have attacked people and pets in some of the city’s most popular outdoor areas, the Anchorage Daily News reported. Officials are asking people to be extra careful when they are around rivers, creeks and lakes along the city’s greenbelt. Earlier this month, a 9-year-old boy was taken to an emergen...
SARATOGA, Wyo. (AP) - The North Platte River in southern Wyoming has been so low in places lately that a toddler could easily wade across and thick mats of olive-green algae grow in the lazy current. Just over two years ago, workers stacked sandbags to protect homes and fishing cabins from raging brown floodwaters, the highest on record. Neither scene resembles the proper picture of a renowned trout fishing destination, one where anglers glide downstream in drift boats, flinging fly lures in...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Military leaders on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson have declared a public health emergency and encouraged all personnel to avoid places that do not require masks or social distancing in response to increasing COVID-19 cases in Alaska, officials said. “We’ve all seen COVID-19 cases continue to spread rapidly across our nation, the state of Alaska and in our local community,” U.S. Air Force Col. Kirsten Aguilar, 673d Air Base Wing and JBER commander, said in a statement Sept. 17. “After close consultation with JBER mission...
BOISE, Idaho (AP) - In another ominous sign about the spread of the delta variant, Idaho public health leaders on Sept. 16 expanded health care rationing statewide and individual hospital systems Montana have enacted similar crisis standards amid a spike in the number of unvaccinated COVID-19 patients requiring hospitalization. The decisions marked an escalation of the pandemic in several Western states struggling to convince skeptical people to get vaccinated. The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare made the announcement after St. Luke’s H...
SEATTLE (AP) - Federal officials have approved a plan that calls for cutting nontribal salmon fishing along the West Coast when the fish are needed to help the Northwest’s endangered killer whales. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries adopted the plan Sept. 14 as recommended by the Pacific Fishery Management Council. It calls for restricting commercial and recreational salmon fishing when chinook salmon numbers are especially low. It’s one of the first times a federal agency has restricted hunting or fishing one spe...
BANGOR, Maine (AP) – Maine’s Penobscot River is on track to see the fewest Atlantic salmon in recent years, state officials said. According to a trap count report provided by the Maine Department of Marine Resources on Aug. 23, 520 salmon had passed through the Milford and Orono dams this year. Returning salmon are hampered by hydroelectric dams on the Penobscot and Kennebec rivers that reduce their ability to reach spawning grounds upstream. The total is the fewest fish counted, as of the same date, in four years and is the fourth-lowest tot...
BAR HARBOR, Maine (AP) — More than 125 boats participated in a protest against plans for a salmon farm in waters near Acadia National Park in Maine. Commercial and recreational vessels comprised the “Save the Bay” flotilla that motored around Frenchman Bay on Aug. 29. Some people on land also participated by holding signs stating their opposition. American Aquafarms has proposed raising 66 million pounds of Atlantic salmon annually at a pair of 15-pen sites off the coast of Gouldsboro. Ted O’Meara, of Frenchman’s Bay United, likened the scope o...
AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) - Environmental groups contend four Kennebec River dams in Maine are violating federal law by harming endangered Atlantic salmon. The dam operator, Brookfield Renewable U.S., is violating the federal Endangered Species Act because an exemption spelling out limits on the death and injury of salmon expired in 2019, according to a lawsuit by the Natural Resources Council of Maine, Atlantic Salmon Federation U.S., Conservation Law Foundation and Maine Rivers. The lawsuit, filed...
SALEM, Ore. (AP) - Experts say Oregon is becoming less resilient to drought as fewer seasons of abundant rain and snow prevent it from bouncing back from hot and dry conditions. Larry O’Neill, state climatologist at Oregon State University, said the current drought is “historically significant,” with about three-quarters of the state experiencing conditions considered “extreme” or “exceptional.” However, the state is actually in the fourth year of below-average precipitation, which has exacerbated the drought during “unprecedente...
A 24-year-old Illinois woman submitted a fake COVID-19 vaccination card to visit Hawaii with a glaring spelling error that led to her arrest: Moderna was spelled “Maderna,” according to court documents. In order to bypass Hawaii’s 10-day traveler quarantine, she uploaded a vaccination card to the state’s Safe Travels program and arrived in Honolulu on Aug. 23 on a Southwest Airlines flight, the documents said. “Airport screeners found suspicious errors ... such as Moderna was spelled wrong and that her home was in Illinois but her shot was...
WATERBURY, Vt. (AP) - Three Vermont state troopers who are accused of being involved in a scheme to create fraudulent COVID-19 vaccination cards have resigned, state police said Sept. 7. The three ex-troopers are suspected of having varying roles in the making of fraudulent vaccination cards, according to the state. “The accusations in this case involve an extraordinary level of misconduct — a criminal violation of the law — and I could not be more upset and disappointed,” Col. Matthew Birmingham, director of the Vermont State Police, said in...
Not content with the $1,100 Permanent Fund dividend adopted on the final day of the special legislative session that ended Tuesday, Gov. Mike Dunleavy three hours later called lawmakers back for a fourth special session starting Oct. 1 to “get the rest of this year’s PFD.” Dunleavy, who is running for reelection next year, has been promoting a dividend this year of more than double the $1,100 approved by legislators. The Department of Revenue has said it would send the payments to Alaskans about 30 days after the measure is signed into law,...
JUNEAU (AP) — Alaska officials have requested help from more than 470 out-of-state medical personnel in response to a surge in COVID-19 cases across Alaska, even as other states are coping with their own high case counts and hospitalizations. Alaska last week set multiple records for patients hospitalized with COVID-19, straining the health care system. The state has requested nurses, patient care technicians, respiratory therapists and other health care workers. There is no guarantee the state will get the personnel it is requesting, said s...
JUNEAU (AP) – An Eagle River legislator banned from Alaska Airlines for refusing to follow federal law that requires a face mask has been excused from attending state Senate floor sessions until mid-January — at her request. However, Republican Sen. Lora Reinbold decided to stick around for the final days of legislative action anyway, leaving her no apparent option but to take a ferry out of Juneau and then drive through Canada to get home. Reinbold on Sept. 9 requested the excusal to Jan. 15. Her request was accepted by the Republican-led Sen...
Travelers flying in or out of Wrangell on Alaska Airlines touch down in either Juneau or Ketchikan as they head north or south. The airports in both cities are set to look a lot different in coming years, amid tens of millions of dollars in planned and ongoing renovations and expansion. At the Ketchikan International Airport, there is a financial plan in place for new construction on the first and second floors, said airport manager Alex Puera. That includes more room for TSA screening, air taxi operations, changes to the concessions area, and...
SALEM, Ore. (AP) - A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to take immediate action to improve fish passage at dams in Oregon’s Willamette Basin. Oregon Public Broadcasting reports that in a final opinion and order issued last week, U.S. District Judge Marco Hernandez said the Corps had for years failed to provide adequate passage for threatened chinook salmon and winter steelhead trout at dams it operates in the basin. “As evinced by the listed species’ continuing decline, the Corps’ failure to provide adequate fish pa...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Dozens of Afghan refugees will be resettled in Alaska over the next six months, a resettlement organization said Monday. Between 50 to 100 refugees will come to Alaska starting later in September, Catholic Social Services Refugee Assistance and Immigration Services said in a statement. Resettlement will continue through March. Catholic Social Services Alaska CEO Lisa Aquino told The Associated Press it’s not known when the first refugees would arrive in the state, but they were ready for them when it does happen. The r...
JUNEAU (AP) - Gov. Mike Dunleavy said President Joe Biden’s push to require millions of U.S. workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 is “ill conceived, divisive and un-American.” “At a time in which we are called to work together, forced medical procedures run counter to our collective sense of fairness and liberty,” the Republican Dunleavy said Sept. 10. “My administration is aggressively identifying every tool at our disposal to protect the inherent individual rights of all Alaskans.” Biden a day earlier outlined plans to mandate that...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - A seafood processing company with multiple operations in Alaska and Washington state will require its employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19. “Our team often works in close quarters and in remote communities with limited access to health care resources,” Rodger May, president at Peter Pan Seafood, said in a statement. “Requiring employees to be vaccinated is the new gold standard. This is the best way I know to keep them and the communities we work in as healthy as possible,” May said. The policy will be enacted in tier...
Alaska Airlines, and its subsidiary Horizon Air, have joined the list of U.S. airlines taking steps to boost the COVID-19 vaccination rate among employees. Alaska announced last week that all new employees must be vaccinated against COVID-19 before being hired. The new rule took effect immediately. Unvaccinated employees already on the payroll will need to participate in a “vaccine education program,” the airline said. And unvaccinated employees will no longer be eligible for special COVID-19 pay if they test positive or need to take time off...