Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 1684
Republican Nick Begich has won Alaska’s sole U.S. House seat, flipping it from Democratic to Republican control. Results of the final ballot count Nov. 20 showed Begich defeating Democratic incumbent Rep. Mary Peltola, who first won the seat in a special election in 2022 after the death of Republican longtime Rep. Don Young. Peltola was the first Alaska Native woman elected to Congress, and the first Democrat to hold the seat since Begich’s grandfather, Nick Begich, won the seat in 1972. Begich captured 48.4% of first-choice votes in Ala...
Restarting Alaska state ferry service to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, is contingent on the state receiving a long-sought federal waiver for renovations to the leased terminal at Prince Rupert and waiting at least until 2026 when the Kennicott returns to service. That’s according to Alaska Marine Highway System staff presentations at the Oct. 23 Alaska Marine Transportation Operations Board meeting. Shirley Marquardt, chair of the advisory board, said there is a strong push to restore service to Rupert, just 90 miles south of Ketchikan, w...
Alaska’s most commonly reported infectious diseases, aside from respiratory illnesses such as influenza, are from sexually transmitted infections, according to the state’s most recent annual report. There were 5,118 cases of chlamydia in Alaska in 2023, the largest number among sexually transmitted diseases in the annual infectious disease report issued by the Alaska Department of Health. The infectious disease annual reports are issued each year by the epidemiology section of the department’s Division of Public Health. The secon...
The ballot measure to repeal open primary elections and ranked-choice voting in general elections saw its lead narrow last week and then disappear on Monday, with a final vote count scheduled for Wednesday, Nov. 20. As of Monday afternoon, the repeal effort was behind by 192 votes out of more than 332,000 ballots cast on the measure. State elections officials estimated there were about 5,000 ballots still to count this week, an assortment of early votes and mail-in absentee ballots. The repeal initiative led by more than 4,100 votes after the...
The Petersburg borough assembly is considering an ordinance that would impose requirements — including storage fees, a marine condition survey and proof of insurance — on vessels that don’t leave their moorage stall in the harbor for 12 consecutive months. The ordinance aims to discourage using stalls for vessel storage, especially for boats that may be inoperable. An inactive or inoperable boat may deteriorate as its condition worsens; removing derelict vessels is expensive and historically burdensome for the borough, officials said. The o...
A five-member state commission has approved plans for a new borough centered on the Southeast Alaska town of Hoonah. Approval sets the stage for a local election on the proposed Xunaa Borough. If voters approve the borough’s creation, Hoonah will be dissolved as a town and reincorporated as a city-borough with governmental authority over a wide swath of northern Southeast Alaska, including much of Glacier Bay National Park. It would be the state’s 20th borough and the first new borough since Petersburg created a city-borough in 2013. Wra...
A federal judge in Alaska has dismissed a legal challenge filed by the Bering Sea bottom-trawl fleet against stricter halibut bycatch limits. The North Pacific Fishery Management Council, or NMFS, approved a new halibut bycatch quota system in December 2021 based on annual surveys of the valuable flatfish. Instead of fixed limits, the new abundance-based system means that when halibut stocks are low, bycatch caps can be cut by up to 35%. The lawsuit challenging those caps was filed by Groundfish Forum, a Seattle-based trade association...
Juneau got a record number of cruise ship passengers for a second straight year, with 1,677,935 arriving during the 2024 season that ended Oct. 24 compared to 1,638,902 last year, according to the Docks and Harbors Department. Ships this year were at 104% capacity — meaning some cabins had more than two people staying in them, such as a child with parents — compared to 101% capacity last year, according to Docks and Harbors. Every month of this year’s season between April and October was at or above 100% capacity, compared to last year when...
With a new stretch of undersea cable complete, Alaska Power & Telephone is set to expand its fiber optic broadband internet service to more communities on Prince of Wales Island. The utility announced Nov. 12 that it had finished a $39 million undersea fiber optic cable that connects Ketchikan with Hollis and Coffman Cove. The new 101-mile-long SEALink South cable runs west of Ketchikan and splits into a Y near Kasaan Arm to reach the two communities. The project is intended to strengthen high-speed fiber optic internet access across Prince of...
Arthur Sammy Heckman Sr. has agreed to plead guilty to a felony charge of unlawful interference with an election after illegally canceling a 2023 election and hiding the results of a 2022 election while serving as acting mayor of Pilot Station in Southwest Alaska. The Alaska Department of Law announced the plea deal on Nov. 14 by email. It did not immediately answer a request for a copy of the plea deal and associated documents. Pilot Station is a town of about 600 people, on the Yukon River. Heckman and city clerk Ruthie Borromeo were...
Two Southeast Alaska Native organizations are among seven entities that will share in $1 million in federal grant funds to support multi-year projects through the Alaska Fisheries Science Center Indigenous Engagement Program. Sealaska Heritage Institute was awarded $110,000 to use Indigenous knowledge to document changes in the ocean and marine ecosystems from human and climate-related impacts, to better understand their effects on subsistence resource systems in Native communities. The Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of...
A belt of rocks spanning Southeast Alaska hosts at least a dozen prospects and deposits enriched with nickel, copper and platinum group metals (PGM) needed for the energy transition. Granite Creek Copper, a small mining company based in Vancouver, British Columbia, believes a couple of prospects also host hidden stores of geological hydrogen that could offer a clean-burning fuel for the 21st century. The company has acquired two Southeast Alaska PGM projects with “white hydrogen” potential. An element that only emits water vapor when bur...
Federal prosecutors are recommending that an Alaska fisherman serve six months in prison, pay a $25,000 fine and be banned from commercial fishing for a year after lying about fishing catches and trying to kill an endangered sperm whale. Dugan Paul Daniels pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor earlier this year, and prosecutors released their sentencing recommendation on Nov. 5. According to court documents, Daniels became infuriated in March 2020 when a whale began taking fish from his longline fishing gear and damaging equipment. This kind...
Republican Nick Begich will have to wait until the final vote count on Nov. 20 but he looks likely to defeat incumbent Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola in the race for Alaska’s lone seat in the U.S. House. As of the latest tally on Tuesday, Nov. 12, Begich has 142,023 votes, or 49.11%, to Peltola’s 132,473, 45.81%, with the two fringe candidates collecting 14,070 votes. It takes 50% plus one to win the election. The Alaska Division of Elections reported on Tuesday that there were more than 32,000 mail-in absentee and in-person early-voting bal...
A majority of Alaska state senators want to address education, elections, energy and the public employee retirement system when they convene in January. Late Nov. 6, the day after the election, leading senators confirmed that the chamber will continue to be led by a large coalition of Republicans and Democrats. Members of the new bipartisan coalition were vague about its precise makeup, saying negotiations are still ongoing. After one member of last session’s coalition lost reelection and another decided against running for another term, the g...
A search for a missing hunter ended Oct. 30 when search teams found his body on the hillside in Nakwasina Sound, 14 miles north of Sitka. Alaska State Troopers said Tad Fujioka, 50, an experienced hunter and longtime Sitka resident, appeared to be the victim of a bear mauling. Fujioka left Sitka on a deer hunting trip to Nakwasina on Monday, Oct. 28, and a search was started around 5:30 p.m. the next day after he was reported overdue. U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Sitka dispatched a helicopter crew who searched for three hours before nightfall....
On a cold and cloudy Friday afternoon, Oct. 25, Tlingit clan leaders stood ready to welcome guests to Angoon. For millennia, the Tlingit have lived on Admiralty Island, or Xootsnoowú, the Fortress of the Bears. Adorned in regalia, clan leaders performed a traditional Tlingit welcoming ceremony to their ancestral lands. “We welcome you with open arms,” said Daniel Johnson Jr., a leader of the Deisheetaan clan. Facing the Tlingit was Rear Adm. Mark Sucato, commander of the Navy Region Northwest, along with a handful of uniformed Navy personnel. ...
Rosita Worl, president of the Sealaska Heritage Institute, an anthropologist and cultural leader, is one of 10 Americans to receive the 2023 National Humanities Medal. Worl, 87, who is Tlingit, is a longtime leader in Alaska’s Native community, advocating for subsistence practices and promoting cultural traditions on a national level. Born in Petersburg, she has conducted research throughout Alaska, including fieldwork in the Arctic. Worl has also taught at University of Alaska Southeast. She has a Ph.D. in anthropology from Harvard U...
President Joe Biden on Oct. 25 formally apologized to Native Americans for the “sin” of a government-run boarding school system that for decades forcibly separated Indian children from their parents, calling it a “blot on American history” in his first visit to Indian Country. “It’s a sin on our soul,” said Biden, his voice full of anger and emotion at the event in Laveen Village, Arizona. “Quite frankly, there’s no excuse that this apology took 50 years to make.” It was a moment of both contrition and frustration as the president sought to...
The differences between Democratic incumbent Rep. Mary Peltola and her Republican challenger Nick Begich were on full display Oct. 21 during the final planned debate of Alaska’s U.S. House race. The Anchorage Chamber of Commerce sponsored the debate. Begich, a businessman who lost to Peltola in 2022, is again vying for Alaska’s lone U.S. House seat against Peltola, a former state legislator who won the seat in 2022 after leading an intertribal fish commission for several years. The outcome of the race could have far-reaching impacts in det...
The Alaska Federation of Natives voted to endorse the reelection of Democratic U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola and to oppose the ballot measure that would repeal the state’s open primaries and ranked-choice voting. The votes came Oct. 19, the last day of its annual three-day convention in Anchorage, which had the theme this year of “Our Children, Our Future Ancestors.” The delegates from tribes, nonprofit tribal organizations and regional and village Native corporations passed 18 resolutions on issues ranging from a call for Congress to amend feder...
Invasive European green crabs have likely found a lasting home in Washington’s coastal waters and parts of Puget Sound. The question now is whether the state can pinch down hard enough on the aquatic pests to prevent serious harm to native wildlife, shoreline ecosystems and the commercial shellfish industry. Washington’s Department of Fish and Wildlife, tribes, shellfish growers and local conservation districts are all taking part in the battle against the unwelcome crustaceans. “This is one of the rare environmental issues that every...
Four decades ago, in days before the internet and automatic voter registration, Alaska Natives turned out to vote at high levels. That participation has eroded badly, a situation that should be reversed, said Michelle Sparck, director of an Alaska nonpartisan organization called Get Out The Native Vote. Alaska Natives are not fully realizing their power if they do not vote, she said. “They say that anytime you look at a white male in this country, you know they’re a voter. We should be in that kind of category,” Sparck said in a prese...
In a brief “tele-rally” Oct. 21, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump urged Alaskans to vote for U.S. House candidate Nick Begich, saying that control of the closely divided House could come down to a single vote. “Control of the House of Representatives is so important, and Alaska, you could very well be the vote,” he said. Begich is seeking to unseat incumbent Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola, and polling shows the candidates are running close together. Most seats in the 435-person U.S. House tilt strongly Democratic or Republican; Alas...
Alaskans will vote Nov. 5 on a ballot measure that would increase the state’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2027 and require that workers get paid for up to seven sick days a year. To backers who collected signatures to put the question before voters, Ballot Measure 1 is about fairness for workers and overall state economic vitality. But opponents in business groups warn that the measure, if passed, would bring dire consequences. To Sarah Oates, CHARR’s president, the consequences of Ballot Measure 1 would be bad. “This is going to kill small...