Sorted by date Results 798 - 822 of 1731
Alaska’s top elections administrator left her job and retired last week, after overseeing the state’s first ranked-choice elections. Division of Elections Director Gail Fenumiai, 60, has held the job since 2019, when she was appointed by former Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer. She previously served as the state’s elections director between 2008 and 2015, and is a 20-year veteran of administering Alaska’s elections. Meyer, who announced his retirement from politics late last year and was replaced by Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom on Dec. 5, attributed Fenumia...
JUNEAU (AP) — A recount of an Anchorage-area state Senate race reaffirmed Republican Cathy Giessel as the winner, while a recount of an Anchorage House race reaffirmed Republican Rep. Tom McKay as the winner. The Senate recount was conducted by the state Division of Elections on Dec. 7 at the request of Democrat Roselynn Cacy, who was the first of the three candidates in the race to be eliminated in the Nov. 8 ranked-vote contest. The other candidate in the race was Republican Sen. Roger Holland. Cacy had said she had questions about the r...
The high wages that once coaxed people to Alaska have continued to shrink compared to the rest of the U.S., due partly to a statewide recession before the pandemic and a slow recovery after it, according to a new report from the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Alaska’s average wages still outperform the rest of the country, said economist Neal Fried, writing in the agency’s latest publication of Alaska Economic Trends. They placed eighth nationally last year at $30.52 an hour, about $2.50 above the national average. But...
While Haines police investigated a theft of tens of thousands of dollars from Alaska Mountain Guides, the suspect and his wife were stopping in Las Vegas for a concert, seeing a Broadway show in New York and planning a cruise to the Caribbean, according to charging documents. Former Alaska Mountain Guides employee Dionicio Charles, 43, was charged in November with first-degree theft, scheme to defraud and misapplication of property. Police say he used the access that came with his position as finance director to wire at least $30,000 from the...
New controls on how fish are commercially harvested and more research to understand the effects of climate change in the ocean and freshwater spawning grounds are some of the key recommendations of an Alaska task force examining ways to address bycatch, the term for capture of untargeted species in commercial seafood harvests. Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who created the task force a year ago, released the group’s final report on Dec. 8. The collapse of salmon runs vital to western Alaska — and public complaints that too many salmon were being int...
A couple of Sitkans on a fishing trip in October got a surprise as they got ready to lay a skate of halibut gear in Nakwasina Sound. Their depth sounder revealed a sizable steep-sided cone on the ocean bottom at a depth of about 200 feet, and it was emitting something into the water about 12 miles north of Sitka. Jacyn Schmidt, regional geoscience specialist for the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska happened to be on the boat. Such phenomena are her field of interest, but she hadn’t expected to find an unmapped f...
A new study found that killing thousands of wolves and bears did not make for better moose hunting in a popular Southcentral game unit over nearly four decades. The study, by retired Alaska Department of Fish and Game and University of Alaska Fairbanks researchers, focused on an area between Denali National Park and the Copper River that attracts hunters from Anchorage, the Matanuska Valley and Fairbanks. The study’s authors say their findings raise questions about the state’s longtime practice of culling wolves and bears to increase deer, moo...
The National Transportation Safety Board is calling for new federal regulations to safeguard Ketchikan flightseeing tours following years of deadly crashes, several of them involving cruise ship passengers and bad weather. Seven flightseeing crashes in and around Ketchikan since 2007 have killed 31 people and seriously injured 13 others despite a longstanding voluntary safety program signed by flight companies, according to a 20-page report the NTSB released Nov. 29. The agency wants the Federal Aviation Administration to replace the voluntary...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Dec. 1 proposed restrictions that would block plans for a copper and gold mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region that is home to the world’s largest sockeye salmon run. A statement from the regional EPA office said discharges of dredged or fill material into the waters of the U.S. within the proposed Pebble Mine footprint in southwest Alaska would “result in unacceptable adverse effects on salmon fishery areas.” The rarely employed agency action would effectively veto the project b...
BADLANDS NATIONAL PARK, S.D. - Perched atop a fence at Badlands National Park, Troy Heinert peered from beneath his wide-brimmed hat into a corral where 100 wild bison awaited transfer to the Rosebud Indian Reservation. Descendants of bison that once roamed North America's Great Plains by the tens of millions, the animals would soon thunder up a chute, take a truck ride across South Dakota and join one of many burgeoning herds Heinert has helped reestablish on Native American lands. Heinert...
Alaska’s two U.S. senators joined 10 other Republicans on Nov. 29 in voting to advance legal protections for same-sex and interracial marriages. The Respect for Marriage Act, which passed the Senate in a 61-36 vote, now goes to the House, which passed a different version of the bill earlier this year. The votes of both senators were expected; each senator had voted in favor of a procedural motion to advance the bill toward final passage two weeks ago. In a prepared statement, Alaska’s senior senator, Lisa Murkowski, said she was proud to vot...
A new lawsuit threatens to upend a landmark, four-decade-old revenue-sharing pact that has guided the distribution of more than $2.5 billion among Alaska’s Native corporations. The litigation stems from the 121-page, 1982 settlement agreement that has long defused financial disputes between the 12 regional Native corporations. That deal successfully outlined how the companies should share income from developing resources like forests, but didn’t specifically contemplate what should happen with money earned by preserving them. The new lawsuit, f...
The biggest fish processing plant in the Haines borough will stay closed next summer for the third straight season, OBI Seafoods’ Excursion Inlet plant manager Tom Marshall said last week, citing a low pink salmon forecast and the company’s ability to handle the regional load at its Petersburg plant. The continued suspension of processing at Excursion means the borough will see another year of low raw fish tax revenue. Haines averaged about $200,000 in taxes on fish landed locally in the five years prior to the Excursion plant’s closure, compa...
JUNEAU (AP) — Republican Sarah Palin re-emerged in Alaska politics over a decade after resigning as governor with hopes of winning the state’s U.S. House seat. She had a lot going for her: unbeatable name recognition, the backing of former President Donald Trump in a state he carried twice, an unrivaled ability to attract national media attention. But she struggled to catch fire with voters, some of whom were put off by her 2009 resignation, and ran what critics saw as a lackluster campaign against a Republican endorsed by state party lea...
Rescuing a moose that fell into a Soldotna basement was not something that Kenai Peninsula firefighter Gunnar Romatz expected on his shift Nov. 20. Nonetheless, that’s just where Romatz found himself — helping extract a young moose from the lower level of a home, where the animal became trapped after falling through a window. “Like any curious human being, I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I really want to be there for this because there’s no way anybody’s gonna believe this,’ ” he said a few hours after the rescue. “I can’t even believe it.” Romatz...
On Nov. 28, the cryptocurrency bank BlockFi filed for bankruptcy, the announcement coming less than three weeks after the financial implosion of FTX, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges. The collapse of free-wheeling and unregulated cryptocurrencies is having an impact on investors who were at the bleeding edge of finance, but the impact on the $76.7 billion Alaska Permanent Fund has been muted, according to public records and statements from officials at the corporation that governs the fund. “For a while, we were getting a l...
Nearing the end of his flight from Seattle to Juneau, Frank Hughes looked out his plane window to the ground below where the outline of the Kake slowly appeared beneath him. An excitement built in him, one that he said made him feel like his heart had just skipped a beat. Though Hughes has lived in the small Southeast Native community for years and has come and gone from it too many times to count, this time was different — because he wasn’t alone in coming home. In the belly of the plane sat a sturdy black bin locked by zip ties and sca...
The 2022 Southeast Alaska salmon harvest is estimated at 29.6 million fish, mostly comprised of 17.6 million wild stock pink salmon, according to Troy Thynes, the Alaska Department of Fish and Game's regional management coordinator for commercial fisheries. Though the pink salmon harvest was only 53% of the recent 10-year average, it was above the preseason estimate of 16 million fish. "The pink salmon in Southeast have been on a strong odd year, even cycle for probably almost the past 15 years or so, and so this year compared with the parent...
WASHINGTON — A year after Congress passed the $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, Alaska has been allotted over $2.6 billion, making the state one of the top recipients per capita in the country. The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act will ultimately provide $550 billion for infrastructure improvements across the country, distributing funding over five years to improve roads, internet connectivity, and provide clean water, among other initiatives. Democrats and several Republicans supported the bill, including Alaska Republican S...
Seventeen of Alaska’s 20 state senators and senator-elects have banded together to form a bipartisan majority coalition that members promise will be moderate and consensus-focused. Gary Stevens, a Kodiak Republican and veteran lawmaker known as a moderate, will be president, returning to the role he held from 2009 to 2012. “It’s a pleasure for me to announce that we have a very healthy majority and we’ve found a way to share responsibilities between all of us,” Stevens said at an Anchorage news conference late Friday. Cathy Giessel, a Republica...
JUNEAU (AP) —Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy has won reelection, becoming the first governor in the state since 1998 to win back-to-back terms. Dunleavy received 50.28% of the vote after final tallies were released Nov. 23. Because he won a majority of votes, the race did not go to ranked-choice voting. Dunleavy said he was “relieved that it’s over and behind us and now we can focus on the next four years.” Dunleavy, who during his first term faced a recall effort, overcame challenges in the Nov. 8 election from former Gov. Bill Walker, an inde...
JUNEAU (AP) — Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski has won reelection, defeating Donald Trump-endorsed GOP rival Kelly Tshibaka. Murkowski beat Tshibaka in the Nov. 8 ranked-choice election. The results were announced Nov. 23, when elections officials tabulated the results after neither candidate won more than 50% of first-choice votes. Murkowski wound up with 54% of the vote after ranked-choice voting, picking up a majority of the votes cast for Democrat Pat Chesbro after she was eliminated. Tshibaka in a statement posted on her website c...
JUNEAU (AP) — U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola has been elected to a full term in the House, months after the Alaska Democrat won a special election to the seat following the death earlier this year of longtime Republican Rep. Don Young. Peltola defeated Republicans Sarah Palin and Nick Begich, as well as Libertarian Chris Bye in the Nov. 8 election. Results of the ranked-choice election were announced Nov. 23. “It’s a two-year contract,” Peltola told the Anchorage Daily News after her victory — a 55%-45% margin over Palin in the final tabulatio...
A woman accused of voting illegally in both Alaska and Florida during the 2020 elections will face charges in a Florida court on Dec. 8, according to online court records. When Cheryl-Ann Leslie is arraigned on felony counts of casting more than one ballot, she will become just the second person charged with voter fraud related to Alaska’s 2020 election. Despite claims by some Alaskans that fraudulent voting changed the state’s election results two years ago, no evidence of fraud on that scale has been uncovered by investigators. After the 202...
For the past seven years, the Alaska economy has performed “at or near the bottom” nationally in four key measures of economic health, according to a report released Nov. 17 by the University of Alaska Center for Economic Development. Taken together, the state’s poor performance between 2015 and 2021 — in employment growth, unemployment, net migration and gross domestic product — place Alaska’s economic health at the bottom of all 50 states and the District of Columbia, said Nolan Klouda, the center’s executive director and lead author of the...