Sorted by date Results 1162 - 1186 of 1731
The Alaska House has narrowly passed legislation that would set a limit on individual contributions to candidates after previous limits were struck down by a court The bill passed 21-18 on March 16, with all the no votes coming from Republicans. It next goes to the Senate, with about eight weeks left before the Legislature’s adjournment deadline. If the bill fails to win Senate approval and the governor’s signature, there will be no restrictions on the amount of money that can be donated to candidates in Alaska elections starting this yea...
ANCHORAGE — A federal appeals court panel on March 16 reversed a decision that had rejected a land swap aimed at allowing construction of a road through an Alaska national wildlife refuge which is an internationally recognized habitat for migrating waterfowl. A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the decision back to U.S. District Judge John Sedwick in Alaska for further consideration. Nine environmental groups had sued to stop the land swap on the Alaska Peninsula. Sedwick blocked an agreement that would have allowed the I...
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Federal regulators have issued a draft environmental impact statement declaring there are significant benefits to a plan to demolish four massive dams on Northern California's Klamath River to save imperiled migratory salmon, setting the stage for the largest dam demolition project in U.S. history. The issuing of a statement by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Feb. 25 clears a major regulatory hurdle for the project and paves the way for public hearings on the...
Black, Hispanic and American Indian residents were missed at higher rates than a decade ago during the 2020 census, according to a report released last Thursday that evaluated how well the once-a-decade head count tallied every U.S. resident. Even though the 2020 census missed an unexpectedly small percentage of the total U.S. population given the unprecedented challenges it faced, the increase in undercounts among some minority groups prompted an outcry from civil rights leaders who blamed political interference by the Trump administration,...
Canada’s Minister of Transport has announced that cruise ships are again welcome at the nation’s ports, starting April 6. The COVID-19 pandemic stopped all cruise ship traffic in 2020 as Canada closed its waters, and the revenue hit was substantial for Alaska businesses and municipalities that rely on summer travelers. Even when cruise ships resumed limited operations in 2021, they had to bypass Canadian ports and traffic to Alaska was a fraction of past summers. A major barrier to the ability of ships to sail between the Lower 48 and Ala...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Alaska state senators said Friday they support legislation to temporarily suspend the state’s 8-cents-a-gallon tax on gasoline and also taxes marine and aviation fuels for one year, in an attempt to reduce the hit of rising fuel prices on Alaskans. No such legislation had been introduced, but Dunleavy, who is running for reelection this year, called for a suspension of the taxes to be added to a bill sitting in the House Finance Committee since last year. That bill would raise the state’s tax on gasoline by 8 cents a gal...
KENAI (AP) — Republican Charlie Pierce, Kenai Peninsula Borough mayor, has picked the chair of the Alaska Parole Board, Edie Grunwald, of the Matanuska Valley, to be his running mate as he campaigns for the governor’s job. Grunwald previously ran for lieutenant governor in 2018, finishing second in that year’s Republican primary to Kevin Meyer, the current office holder. Under a new voter-approved election system, which will be used for the first time in Alaska this year, candidates for governor and lieutenant governor will run as a team from...
JUNEAU (AP) — A bill in the Alaska House would repeal a provision of law that allows a court to grant permission for someone as young as 14 to marry. House members last Wednesday adopted the repeal as an amendment to a bill dealing with witness requirements for marriage. A vote on the amended bill was pending and could occur this week. The measure, if it passes, would still have to go to the Senate. The bill would leave in place another provision of law that allows for 16- and 17-year-olds to marry with parental consent. Anchorage Rep. Sara R...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Alaska’s congressional delegation welcomed Friday’s announcement by President Joe Biden that the U.S. will dramatically downgrade its trade status with Russia as punishment for its invasion of Ukraine, including banning imports of Russian seafood. Russia exported $1.2 billion in seafood products to the U.S. in 2021. That made it the eighth-largest seafood exporter by value to the U.S. last year, the Anchorage Daily News reported. The main products were snow crab, king crab and cod, according to data from the National Marin...
PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) — Mississippi shipyard workers, Navy sailors and the family of the late U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska gathered for the keel authentication of a ship that is named for Stevens. The ceremonial welding March 9 marked the foundation of Ingalls Shipbuilding’s new guided-missile destroyer for the Navy, the USS Ted Stevens. Stevens was a pilot during World War II. The Alaska Republican served in the Senate from 1968 to 2008. He was 86 when he died in 2010 in a plane crash in Alaska. “In many ways, Sen. Stevens embodies the spi...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal officials are extending the requirement for masks on planes and public transportation for one more month — through mid-April — while taking steps that could lead to lifting the rule. The mask mandate was scheduled to expire March 18, but the Transportation Security Administration said last Thursday that it will extend the requirement through April 18. TSA said the extra month will give the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention time to develop new, more targeted policies that will consider the number of cases...
JUNEAU (AP) — The state has issued a corrected birth certificate for the teenage designer of the Alaska flag, after researchers who were looking into his heritage found records indicating he was born more than a year earlier than previously believed. The change means John Ben Benson Jr. — believed to be the only Indigenous person to design a state flag — did so when he was 14, not 13. Alaska Superior Court Judge Adolf Zeman last week ordered the state to issue a birth certificate for Benson with the birth date of Sept. 12, 1912, and for his m...
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — National Park Service Director Chuck Sams said March 8 that he and other officials are committed to boosting the role Native American tribes can play in managing public lands around the U.S. He told members of a congressional committee during a virtual hearing that part of the effort includes integrating Indigenous knowledge into management plans and recognizing that federal lands once belonged to the tribes. Sams was questioned about how the National Park Service could use existing authority and recent executive d...
DULUTH, Minn. (AP) — Medical student Fred Blaisdell has a few months to go before anyone calls him doctor, but the Oneida Nation tribal member has already learned one lesson around the importance of Native physicians serving Native patients. During a recent psychiatry rotation at a Minneapolis clinic, he introduced himself to a patient who lit up when she heard him speak Ojibwe. “After that, the patient really opened up and started to talk about a lot more things that she hadn’t really engaged with us before,’’ recalled Blaisdell, 27, who i...
YUROK RESERVATION, Calif. (AP) - The young mother had behaved erratically for months, hitchhiking and wandering naked through two Native American reservations and a small town clustered along Northern California's rugged Lost Coast. But things escalated when Emmilee Risling was charged with arson for igniting a fire in a cemetery. Her family hoped the case would force her into mental health and addiction services. Instead, she was released over the pleas of loved ones and a tribal police chief....
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Don Young, a blunt-speaking Republican and longest-serving member of Alaska’s congressional delegation, has died. He was 88. His office announced Young's death in a statement Friday night. “It’s with heavy hearts and deep sadness that we announce Congressman Don Young, the Dean of the House and revered champion for Alaska, passed away today while traveling home to Alaska to be with the state and people that he loved. His beloved wife Anne was by his side," said the statement from his spokesperson, Zach Brown. Young lost co...
State House lawmakers have proposed paying Alaskans almost $1,300 as an “energy relief check” on top of the annual Permanent Fund dividend. As presented by the House Finance Committee on Friday, the two payments would total about $2,500 this year for every eligible Alaskan. The energy relief payment would use some of the state’s unexpectedly high oil revenues to help residents hit by rising fuel prices, record inflation and ongoing financial recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, lawmakers in the House majority said in a written statement on Ma...
A growing number of state lawmakers are asking the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. to divest assets from any Russian government or state-owned institutions amid Russia’s war against Ukraine. Senate Democrats last week were the first to initiate the call. Then the governor joined in. And House Speaker Louise Stutes later said the House planned to introduce legislation to order the corporation to sell its Russian investments. As an interim step, 18 members of the state House signed a March 3 letter asking the corporation to do so voluntarily. “Russia...
First a trade war, then a battle against an infectious virus and now a real war are all affecting Alaska seafood exports. Shipments to China fell from as high as 30% of Alaska’s total seafood export value in the 2010s to 20% in 2020. “The U.S.-China trade war has displaced $500 million of Alaska seafood,” Jeremy Woodrow, executive director of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, told legislators last week. And though people bought more seafood to prepare at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, sales to restaurants and food services fell by 70...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — An Alaska man walking on a shoreline wound up clinging to a chunk of ice for more than 30 minutes in frigid water when the shoreline ice broke loose and carried him out into Cook Inlet. Jamie Snedden, 45, of Homer, was rescued Feb. 26 near the community of Anchor Point on the Kenai Peninsula. He was taken to a hospital, where he was treated for hypothermia. He was expected to fully recover, state troopers said. Snedden “was reported to have been walking along the shoreline on the ice when it broke free and drifted into Coo...
It's raining cold, large drops that pool on the treacherous ice in Skagway, making it the kind of day that discourages dog walking. Regardless, Mo Mountain Mutts pulls up to Seven Pastures in their shiny white minibus and nine dogs of varying sizes disembark. They shed their leashes and head to Skagway River under the direction of Mo and Lee Thompson, forging their own path through the foliage. Once the pets reach the sand, they sprint, sniff, wrestle and socialize. Mo Thompson offers advice...
JUNEAU (AP) — Individuals will be allowed to make unlimited contributions to candidates for governor and the Legislature this year under a decision by the state commission that oversees Alaska campaign finance rules. The Alaska Public Offices Commission on March 3, failed to support a staff proposal to set revised limits in place of tighter caps that were struck down by a federal appeals court panel last year. The court invalidated Alaska’s $500-a-year individual donation limit to candidates, saying it was too low. The court, however, did not...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — A federal agency tasked with investigating plane crashes is recommending that all pilots be required to communicate their positions on a designated radio frequency when entering and exiting areas not managed by air traffic control towers throughout Alaska. The recommendations to the Federal Aviation Administration are included in a report from the National Transportation Safety Board following a mid-air collision that killed seven people, including an Alaska state lawmaker, near Soldotna on July 31, 2020. The report was p...
JUNEAU (AP) — A proposal from Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration to split in half the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services — the state’s largest department — appears likely to take effect later this year. House and Senate leaders said it does not appear there are enough votes to block the move. Reorganization of the department, with more than 3,200 positions, has been billed as a way to improve operations and delivery of services. The proposal came through an executive order from the governor, and rejection of the order would req...
Alaska’s share of a $26 billion nationwide settlement with opioid distributors and a manufacturer is $58 million, the state Department of Law announced March 1. According to the Department of Law, 15% of the $58 million — roughly $8.7 million — will go to the nine cities and boroughs in Alaska that participated in the lawsuit. The remaining funds will be used by the state to help Alaskans recover from opioid addiction, the release said. The payments will stretch over the next two decades, under terms of the settlement. “All of us know someone w...