Sorted by date Results 642 - 666 of 1731
Klawock’s debut as a cruise destination has been pushed back to 2024, according to an announcement from Klawock Heenya Corp. and its partner Na-Dena, the joint-venture tourism development company formed between Native corporations Hoonah-based Huna Totem Corp. and Fairbanks-based Doyon Ltd. Klawock Heenya was previously scheduled to welcome Oceania Cruises’ 650-plus-passenger vessel Regatta for four port calls this summer. The first phase plans for the Port of Klawock consist of a temporary welcome center featuring local artists, retail wit...
A Washington state-based bank has sued the Alaska Native corporation based in Yakutat over what the bank says is $13.3 million in unpaid loans — sparking fears in the community about the loss of Indigenous lands. Yak-Tat Kwaan received some 36 square miles of land near Yakutat through the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. In the past three years, Yak-Tat Kwaan has borrowed millions of dollars from Spokane-based AgWest Farm Credit Services to launch a logging business on its property. The timber harvest caused a backlash from s...
The Alaska Department of Natural Resource has approved the 292-acre Whale Pass Timber Sale. The sale, in the community of Whale Pass, population about 60, requires a 100-foot buffer between the harvest area and residential property. A request for reconsideration of the commissioner’s decision is due no later than April 26. Whale Pass considers tourism and recreation as its major economic industries, according to James Greeley and Katie Bode, who are Whale Pass residents and representatives of Friends of Whale Pass. “We know that the pla...
Sen. Lisa Murkowski on April 12 became the first member of Alaska’s congressional delegation to visit Ukraine since the Russian invasion of that country 14 months ago. The Alaska Republican joined two Democrats — Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona — on an oversight trip. “We are here, somewhat in an oversight role. The United States has contributed significantly to the effort on behalf of the people of Ukraine,” she said. “The United States’ commitment is an investment. It’s an investment in democracy and t...
Pointing to high credit card balances, growing student loan debts and inadequate savings for many U.S. households, Anchorage Sen. Bill Wielechowski believes it is important to teach students “to avoid common financial pitfalls and manage their money successfully.” He has proposed legislation that would require Alaska high schools to teach a financial literacy course. His bill also would require that students complete the course to earn their diploma. The course would have to cover managing a bank account, setting a budget, credit card deb...
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game has reduced this year’s non-hatchery chinook catch limit for Southeast commercial trollers by 44,000 fish — about 23% lower than last year’s harvest quota. The catch limit for sportfishing, commercial seine and gillnet fleets also were set about 23% lower than last year. The largest salmon are the main moneymaker for many trollers. This year’s harvest limit, while down substantially from 2022, is about the same as was set for 2021 and 2020. It’s almost 50% higher than 2019, when several runs were not...
SAN DIEGO (AP) — A federal regulatory group voted last Thursday to officially close king salmon fishing season along much of the West Coast after near-record low numbers of the fish returned to California’s rivers last year. The Pacific Fishery Management Council approved the closure of the 2023 season for all commercial and most recreational chinook fishing along the coast from Cape Falcon in northern Oregon to the California-Mexico border. Limited recreational salmon fishing will be allowed off southern Oregon in the fall. “The forec...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy said he does not support a request to add millions of dollars to the state budget to help child care providers, instead announcing the formation of a task force to examine the issue and provide policy recommendations by the end of the year. Child care, expensive and in short supply in Alaska, has benefited from more than $50 million in federal pandemic aid paid as grants to providers since 2020. With the end of federal funding, child care advocates have asked legislators to add $15 million to the state budget to boost...
A lawsuit over a driveway-sized parcel in Juneau and a sales tax disagreement involving a food truck in Craig both highlight the learning curve facing city, state and tribal officials in Alaska as the federal government slowly accepts tribal lands into trust. So far, only two tribes in Alaska have placed land into trust — in Craig in 2017 and in Juneau this year — after the federal government in 2014 began reversing a decades-old ban against the practice in the state. The Alaska Department of Law early this year filed a lawsuit to stop the pol...
For the third time in as many legislative sessions, Kodiak Sen. Gary Stevens is leading the push to get a tax on e-cigarettes and vaping products into state law. “Taxes have been proven to reduce youth tobacco use, resulting in fewer kids becoming life-long smokers,” Stevens said in offering his legislation, which would add a 25% state tax to the sales price to dissuade youth from vaping. Senate Bill 89 also would raise the legal age to buy vape sticks, electronic smoking devices and other similar nicotine products in Alaska to 21, mat...
A federal court judge on April 3 ruled against environmental groups seeking to block preliminary construction of the Willow oil project on Alaska’s North Slope. The decision allows ConocoPhillips, the project developer, to begin digging a gravel mine and building a gravel road to access the area projected to be the largest new North Slope oil development in decades. A boat ramp to support subsistence hunting and fishing is also planned. Legal challenges will continue, multiple environmental groups said. At peak production in the early 2030s, W...
PHOENIX (AP) - Years ago, skateboarding was branded as a hobby for rebels or stoners in city streets, schoolyards and back alleys. Those days are long gone. Skateboarding, which has Native Hawaiian roots connected to surfing, no longer is on the fringes. It became an Olympic sport in 2020. There are numerous amateur and professional skateboarding competitions in the U.S. And on March 24, the U.S. Postal Service issued stamps that laud the sport - and what Indigenous groups have brought to the...
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A coalition of environmental groups said April 3 it is withdrawing a lawsuit against a renewable energy giant that it has accused of jeopardizing the last remaining wild Atlantic salmon in the U.S. The groups sued Brookfield Renewable, claiming the company kills salmon on the Kennebec River with its dams. Atlantic salmon only return to a handful of U.S. rivers, all in Maine, and they are protected under the Endangered Species Act. The conservationists were dealt a setback last month when the federal government ruled t...
A federal rule that prevented states from removing people from Medicaid rolls during the pandemic ended last week and some may lose health coverage if they no longer meet low-income guidelines, an official at SEARHC offices in Sitka said. However, those who do lose Medicaid will have a special enrollment period to get health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act, said Susan Briles, patient health benefits manager at SEARHC. The federal program subsidizes insurance premiums based on an individual’s income. Before the 2020 pandemic r...
The governor last Friday signed an emergency funding bill to help resolve the crisis-level backlog of food stamp applications from needy Alaskans. The Legislature had approved the measure days earlier. The budget bill includes $3.1 million for overtime pay and to hire about 30 new employees to help with the applications backlog at the Division of Public Assistance, which processes food stamps and other benefits including Medicaid. Deb Etheridge, the division’s director, told lawmakers that the end of the backlog that has affected at least 8...
A state senator wants to direct a larger share of filing fees paid to the court system toward a nonprofit legal aid organization that helps several thousand Alaskans a year with their domestic violence, family law, housing, elder advocacy and other cases. The 56-year-old Alaska Legal Services Corp. “is part of our social safety net,” helping the most vulnerable community members, particularly survivors of domestic violence, said Anchorage Sen. Forrest Dunbar, sponsor of the legislation. Senate Bill 104 would amend state law to direct up to 25%...
The Alaska House of Representatives could vote this week or next on a bill that would block a 67% pay raise for state legislators and a 20% raise for the governor and top members of the executive branch. Passage of the bill is anticipated — multiple members of the House Republican-led majority coalition and Democratic-led minority have already expressed their support of the idea — but leading members of the Senate said the idea is dead on arrival when it crosses the building and arrives in their chamber. Under state law, the raises will go ahe...
Cutting taxes for businesses while also imposing a 2% sales tax on Alaskans got side-by-side consideration last week as part of one legislator’s concept of a fiscal plan. Legislators have been discussing various forms of a long-term fiscal plan for years as the state has faced budget deficits much of the past three decades. A state sales tax and large corporate tax cut were proposed by Rep. Ben Carpenter, a Nikiski Republican who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee. He emphasized at a committee hearing on March 29 that while a state s...
More than 100 Alaskans spoke out against a “parental rights” bill proposed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, in a wave of opposition to the legislation that many said would harm already vulnerable transgender youths. Of the 119 Alaskans who spoke during the nearly five-hour hearing held last Thursday evening by the House Education Committee, 103 opposed the bill and only 16 were in favor of it. Apayauq Reitan, the first openly transgender woman to run the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, was one of many gender nonconforming individuals who said the bill wou...
ANCHORAGE — A judge has dismissed a sex abuse case against former acting Alaska Attorney General Clyde “Ed” Sniffen, citing the statute of limitations that were in place when the alleged abuse happened more than 30 years ago. The case, thrown out on Friday, involved allegations that Sniffen, now 58, sexually abused a then-17-year-old student in 1991 when he was 27 and was the alleged victim’s coach of her high school’s mock trial competition team in Anchorage. Sniffen had pleaded not guilty. Alaska does not currently have a statute of limita...
Bans on commercial fishing in U.S. and international Arctic waters have been lauded as admirable preemptive actions that protect vulnerable resources before they are damaged by exploitation. But now the Alaska Department of Fish and Game is preparing for a time when the 14-year-old moratorium on commercial fishing in federal Arctic waters is lifted. The department is seeking $1 million in state general funds and $2 million in federal funds to work on research to better understand those Arctic waters in the event that commercial fisheries are co...
JUNEAU (AP) — Two Southeast Alaska men face charges in the beating death of a man who was attacked because of a social media post, according to an investigator’s affidavit. Moses S. Blanchard, 22, and Blaise A. Dilts, 21, of Klawock, face charges of second-degree murder, manslaughter and burglary in the death of 80-year-old Lincoln Peratrovich, according to state court records. The two men made their first appearance in court in Klawock on March 22. The investigation is being conducted by the Alaska Bureau of Investigation, which falls und...
The Alaska House advanced a targeted spending bill March 22, intended to address the state’s unprecedented backlog of unanswered applications for food stamp benefits and a shortage of public defenders in criminal cases. The budget bill is being fast-tracked through the Legislature so that the money can be made available quickly. It contains provisions to draw from the $2.3 billion Constitutional Budget Reserve — the state’s main savings account — to spend a maximum of $115 million for unanticipated spending needs for the fiscal year that en...
The Alaska Legislature is preparing to examine two new tax proposals after a state revenue forecast showed significant long-term budget deficits even with a sharply reduced Permanent Fund dividend. One proposal, introduced Friday by Anchorage Democrat Sen. Bill Wielechowski, would cut a popular oil production tax credit and expand the applicability of the state’s corporate income tax to privately owned oil and gas producers. The second proposal, filed Monday by Nikiski Republican Rep. Ben Carpenter, would impose a 2% state sales tax. The s...
JUNEAU — Falling oil prices are projected to slice $925 million from state revenues this year and next, bolstering the argument of legislators who support a smaller Permanent Fund dividend this fall and the years beyond. More immediately, lower oil prices have torn big holes in the state budget. The Department of Revenue on March 21 released new estimates showing a deficit of about $220 million in the fiscal year that ends June 30. Legislators have agreed to use savings to fill this year’s deficit by spending from the state’s Const...