Sorted by date Results 1389 - 1413 of 1731
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...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — State officials are hoping that a weekly lottery prize will encourage more people to get vaccinated against COVID-19. The Alaska Chamber and state officials announced Sept. 2 that they are offering $49,000 each to one newly vaccinated adult and one youth weekly through Oct. 30. Those vaccinated before Sept. 2 won’t be left out. There will be a one-time prize of $49,000 awarded to an adult and also to a young person who rolled up their sleeves before the contest started. Kati Capozzi, the state chamber’s president, in a state...
JUNEAU (AP) — Costs to contain pollution from a ship that sank near Kodiak Island more than 30 years ago have reached about $3 million in the weeks since authorities were notified of an oily sheen from the wreckage, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. The state’s Spill Prevention and Response Division has been coordinating divers and boom deployment, and the state Department of Environmental Conservation last week reported about 9,730 gallons of oily water had been recovered. The wreckage is in Womens Bay, which the department said provides cri...
Design plans have been finalized to add crew quarters to the state ferry Hubbard, which hasn’t been in service since it was built a few years ago because its intended routes would go beyond limits for employee working hours. The Alaska Marine Highway System is getting ready to seek bids for the project. “We’re hoping to be in a shipyard somewhere ... by the first of November. That’s our goal,” John Falvey, general manager of the marine highway, said Aug. 23. “We don’t know where. Could be here (the Ketchikan shipyard), could be the Lower 48.” T...
The two unused Alaska fast ferries — which the state sold earlier this year as surplus — have been delivered to the Spanish Island of Ibiza, according to the Diario de Ibiza news website. Diario de Ibiza on Aug. 30 posted several photographs of the former ferries Chenega and Fairweather aboard a heavy-lift ship that left Ketchikan on July 4 and made its way to and through the Panama Canal before crossing the Atlantic Ocean and into the Mediterranean Sea. “The two ships arrived this morning on the island, specifically to the Calo des Moro area,...
KENAI (AP) – The Kenai Peninsula Borough mayor, who is not a medical professional, has promoted a debunked treatment for COVID-19 that is intended more for farm animals. Mayor Charlie Pierce has publicly backed the use of ivermectin, an anti-parasitic deworming drug, the Peninsula Clarion newspaper reported Aug. 25. Livestock supply stores in the borough, south of Anchorage, have received numerous inquiries about the drug in the recent weeks. Pierce has twice defended use of the drug, first at last week’s borough meeting and during a radio sho...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Alaska last week reported its highest daily number of resident COVID-19 cases so far this year as health officials struggle to keep pace with testing and contact tracing and hospitals juggle a surge in patients amid staff shortages. Gov. Mike Dunleavy told reporters Aug. 26 that Alaskans should talk to their doctors about getting vaccinated “if that’s what they want to do.” “We know what we need to do. People know what they need to do,” Dunleavy said. “They need to have conversations with their doctor and make a decision, i...
JUNEAU (AP) - The campaign aimed at recalling Gov. Mike Dunleavy is closing down, with a gubernatorial election looming next year and the group short of the signatures needed to force a recall vote. The Recall Dunleavy group said that as of Aug. 21 it had gathered 62,373 signatures, shy of the 71,252 needed. Collecting signatures during the pandemic has been difficult, said Joelle Hall, a member of the group’s steering committee. Hall called the decision to halt the recall effort strategic and wise. The primary election for the governor’s rac...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - The Alaska Federation of Natives has postponed its annual convention because of a rise in COVID-19 cases in the state, the organization said. The convention has traditionally been the largest gathering of Alaska Natives in the state. It had been scheduled for Oct. 21-23 but is now delayed until mid-December in Anchorage, the organization said in a statement Aug. 24. The federation’s board of directors cited a rise in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations statewide and the increasing pressure placed on Alaska’s limited health car...
SITKA (AP) - The Sitka city assembly has authorized a 20-year lease of land to a Native corporation for a “cultural and recreation attraction” for visitors, particularly cruise ship visitors docking at the nearby Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal. The assembly, voting 5-2, approved leasing 17 acres to Shee Atiká, which plans to work with another company, Adventure Sitka, to develop the land with attractions such as zip lines, nature trails, a salmon bake and a canoe launch. The land is between the ferry terminal and the cruise terminal. Chris McGr...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Pilots reported low clouds the morning a sightseeing plane crashed near Ketchikan, killing all six people on board, according to a federal report released Aug. 25. The National Transportation Safety Board released the preliminary report into the Aug. 5 crash of a plane that was carrying five tourists off a cruise ship and the pilot. The report did not include details such as a probable cause, which are typically released much later. The floatplane hit heavily wooded, mountainous terrain as the plane was returning to the...
The Alaska Marine Highway System is not alone in trying to manage with a crew shortage, nor is it a new problem. But the fear of COVID-19 is making it worse. “We’ve had a slow progression of loss of crew over the years,” John Falvey, the system’s general manager, said in an interview last week. “COVID has not helped us.” Fear of catching the coronavirus is an issue for recruiting new stewards who work in the galley and dining area, clean the cabins and public areas, he said. “There tends to be a concern now (of COVID) when you look at custo...
JUNEAU (AP) — The state has reported the deaths of five residents of the Pioneer Home in Ketchikan who had tested positive for COVID-19. “In the last week, the Ketchikan Pioneer Home has had five resident deaths and there has been a total of 12 residents and five staff test positive for COVID-19 this month,” Clinton Bennett, a state Department of Health and Human Services spokesman wrote in an email to the Ketchikan Daily News on Aug. 18. He did not provide a more precise timeline. The state Pioneer Homes “do not determine the cause of death n...
SITKA (AP) - Sitka could see nearly a half-million cruise ship visitors next year - almost double its previous record - after a new docking agreement was announced with Royal Caribbean Cruise. The deal between the cruise line and Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal came as one of the world's largest cruise ships arrived, the Daily Sitka Sentinel reported. "It ensures they have a place to bring their ships and additional ships to Sitka for the future," said Chris McGraw, manager of Sitka Sound Cruise...
The Haines Borough had its largest population decline in history and the largest of any Alaska borough or census area over the past decade, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Haines’ population fell by 17.1% — from 2,508 in 2010 to 2,080 in 2020 — with much of the decline outside of the townsite that used to be considered the city of Haines. But the census numbers don’t align with the state Labor Department 2020 borough population estimate of 2,520, which was calculated using 2010 census data and Permanent Fund dividend application numbers...
HONOLULU (AP) - Hawaii’s governor on Monday asked that visitors and residents reduce travel to the islands to essential business only for the next two months while the state struggles to control COVID-19 as the highly contagious Delta variant spreads in the community. Gov. David Ige wants to curtail travel to Hawaii through the end of October. “It is a risky time to be traveling right now,” he said. He said restaurant capacity has been restricted and there is limited access to rental cars. Ige stopped short of a mandate, saying it’s a differe...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - More than 3,000 fake COVID-19 vaccination cards were confiscated at cargo facilities at the Anchorage airport after they had arrived from China, officials said Aug. 19. Officers from U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized the cards as they arrived in small packages, said Jaime Ruiz, an agency spokesperson. There were between 135 and 150 packages found in Anchorage, all sent by the same person in China, Ruiz said. The packages contained small amounts of the fake cards, about...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Three-time Super Bowl champion Mark Schlereth returned home to Alaska last week to encourage people to get the COVID-19 vaccine. The Service High School alumnus made a halftime appearance last Friday night during his alma mater’s game at West High School. “I just want to encourage everybody to do your part, to talk to your doctor and if it’s the right decision for you, please get vaccinated, please take care of one another,” Schlereth said Aug. 20. He has been advocating on social media for COVID-19 vaccines, and he said the NF...