Sorted by date Results 1085 - 1109 of 1731
When Dr. Anne Zink began working as the state’s chief medical officer in the summer of 2019, she had a vision of transforming the state’s health system into one that promotes health holistically rather than one that simply responds to sickness. Then came COVID-19. At least a third of Alaskans have tested positive for the COVID virus as of the May 11 count, according to the state’s data hub, while more than 3,700 have been hospitalized and 1,235 have died. Now, two years after the pandemic overt...
It’s up to the Senate in the final days of the legislative session whether Alaskans will get a year of gasoline and diesel at the pump without the state tax of eight cents a gallon. The House by a 36-2 margin on May 4 passed the measure — which could save an average driver $30 to $50 a year in motor fuel taxes but cost the state about $35 million in lost revenues — sending it to the Senate for action in the final two weeks of the session. A week later, the Senate Transportation Committee moved the bill on May 11, sending it to its next stop,...
JUNEAU (AP) — The state Senate passed legislation last Friday to formally recognize tribes in Alaska, which supporters say is an overdue step that would create opportunities for the state and tribes to work together. The measure passed 15-0 and will return to the House, which passed a similar version last year. If the House agrees to the Senate version before the Legislature’s scheduled adjournment this week, the bill will go to the governor. If the bill is enacted, its passage would likely bump from this year’s ballot a similar tribal recog...
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — A first-of-its-kind federal study of Native American boarding schools that for over a century sought to assimilate Indigenous children into white society has identified more than 400 such schools that were supported by the U.S. government and more than 50 associated burial sites, a figure that could grow as research continues. The report released May 11 by the Interior Department expands the number of schools that were known to have operated over 150 years, starting in the early 19th century and coinciding with the r...
A new Interior Department report on the legacy of boarding schools for Native Americans underscores how closely the U.S. government collaborated with churches to Christianize them as part of a project to sever them from their culture, their identities and ultimately their land. The role of churches forms a secondary part of the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative Investigative Report, released May 11 after a yearlong review sparked by the 2021 discoveries of hundreds of potential graves at former residential schools in Canada. Most of it...
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — America's commercial fishing industry fell 10% in catch volume and 15% in value during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, federal regulators said last Thursday. The 2020 haul of fish was 8.4 billion pounds, while the value of that catch was $4.8 billion, officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. The early months of the pandemic posed numerous challenges for the U.S. fishing industry, which has remained economically viable despite the difficult year, NOAA officials said. “It was fis...
A retired Matanuska-Susitna Borough teacher has filed to run as a Democrat for U.S. Senate in Alaska. Pat Chesbro filed candidacy paperwork with the state Division of Elections on May 11. She would join a crowded field of 16 candidates in the Aug. 16 primary that includes the incumbent, Republican Lisa Murkowski, and Kelly Tshibaka, a Republican endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Murkowski has had a huge cash advantage in the race so far. The filing deadline is June 1. Chesbro’s campaign said she spent a career in education and is on th...
The cruise ship Radiance of the Seas struck a Sitka Sound Cruise Terminal mooring dolphin on May 9 as it was preparing to dock, limiting the facility to one berth instead of two until repairs are completed in a few weeks, terminal manager Chris McGraw said. There was no apparent damage to the 961-foot ship and no reported injuries in the mishap. A dolphin is a collection of steel pilings driven into the ocean floor and used for mooring a ship at a dock. The Coast Guard Marine Safety Detachment is investigating the accident, McGraw said. He has...
The state House has passed legislation that would suspend Alaska’s 8-cents-a-gallon motor fuel tax for a year to help consumers pinched by high prices at the pump. The bill was scheduled for its first committee hearing in the Senate this week as lawmakers push toward their May 18 adjournment deadline. The measure also would suspend to June 30, 2023, the state tax on marine fuel (5 cents a gallon) and aviation gas (4.7 cents a gallon). The legislation says dealers “shall reduce the cost of fuel to the final consumer” by the amount of the tax bre...
Unless the Legislature acts, Alaska nonprofits will have to stop selling raffle tickets online June 30. The state has allowed online sales by registered nonprofits since early summer 2020, as the pandemic shut down or made difficult group events and in-person ticket sales. Temporary legislation allowing charitable groups to sell and draw winning tickets online expires in less than two months, though a bill under consideration would make the provision permanent. The legislation “will modernize Alaska’s charitable gaming program,” Deb Moore, exec...
SEATTLE (AP) — Passengers on the Carnival cruise ship Spirit that docked May 3 in Seattle say more than 100 people aboard the ship tested positive for COVID-19 and the crew was overwhelmed. Multiple passengers said they were quarantined at Seattle-area hotels after testing positive or being exposed to someone with COVID-19. Carnival Cruise Line would not confirm how many people tested positive but said there were a number of positive cases, Seattle KING5 TV reported. Darren Sieferston, a passenger on the cruise from Miami to Seattle, was in q...
Juneau voters will likely be asked this fall if they’re willing to increase the city’s 5% sales tax to 6% during the summer in exchange for exempting food from sales tax year-round. The Juneau Assembly, meeting as the Committee of the Whole, voted unanimously May 2 to have city administrators draft language for an ordinance that would repeal the food tax if voters approve the summer sales tax increase. But numerous questions were raised about exemptions for nonprofits, effects on businesses that don’t get summer tourists among their custo...
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) - Nearly 40 law enforcement officials, tribal leaders, social workers and survivors of violence have been named to a federal commission tasked with helping improve how the federal government addresses a decades-long crisis of missing and murdered Native Americans and Alaska Natives, U.S. Interior Secretary Deb Haaland announced last Thursday. The committee's creation means that for the first time, the voices guiding the Interior and Justice departments in the effort will...
Adorned with red handprints across their mouths and carrying signs bearing the faces of the missing, hundreds gathered last Thursday at the Capitol in Juneau. Elected officials and Alaska Native dignitaries spoke before a solemn crowd amid flags bearing the red hand symbolizing the missing and murdered Indigenous persons awareness movement. The rally was held on Missing or Murdered Indigenous Persons Awareness Day. “I think the turnout was great. The message was shared across the state. … It’s gaining more attention on national levels through p...
GOULDSBORO, Maine (AP) — A state agency in Maine has terminated an application for a 120-acre salmon farm opposed by lobstermen in Frenchman Bay. American Aquafarms, which was notified of the decision April 19, proposed a pair of 60-acre, 15-pen sites that together could produce 66 million pounds of Atlantic salmon a year. The Department of Marine Resources said the Portland-based company backed by Norwegian investors failed to find a state-approved hatchery for salmon eggs for the operation. The company also failed to prove the hatchery met r...
PORTLAND, Maine (AP)— The owner of hydroelectric dams in Maine has said it’s going to make changes to some of its operations to try to help save the final remaining wild Atlantic salmon in the United States. The country’s last wild populations of the fish are found in a few Maine rivers. Salmon counters found fewer of the fish on one of those rivers, the Penobscot, last year than in any year since 2016. Atlantic salmon were once plentiful in American rivers, but factors such as dams, overfishing and pollution hurt populations, and they are now...
Juneau-based Alaskan Brewing Co. won a platinum and a gold Crushie - symbolized by a crushed beer can in a raised fist - for two of its designs from the Craft Beer Marketing Awards, an international industry award for art and marketing. "To us it's a huge honor because we're trying to put art out," said Ryan Lange, the brewery's digital marketing specialist. The brewery won a gold Crushie for its recently released pilsner and a platinum Crushie for its Island Ale, according to the marketing...
Efforts were underway Monday to clear a road where a 300-foot-wide slide — taking down dozens of fully grown evergreen trees as well as rocks and dirt — toppled into the bay in front of Seward, covering the narrow roadway and cutting off road access for about 200 people. There were no injuries in the Saturday evening landslide about a half-mile south of downtown Seward, City Manager Janette Bower said. A private contractor was handling the removal process and planned to use heavy equipment to clear the debris at the top first, working down to...
HOMER (AP) — A trailer containing mail intended for a dozen communities on the Kenai Peninsula caught fire and was destroyed, including all the contents. The driver of the truck hauling the trailer was not injured in the April 25 fire. The cause of the fire is under investigation, the U.S. Postal Service said in a statement. The contract truck left a processing center in Anchorage and caught fire near Mile 38 of the Seward Highway, or just north of the intersection of the Seward and Sterling highways, near Tern Lake. Mail in the trailer was i...
Thousands of Alaskans could lose Medicaid benefits as soon as July, when the federal government’s COVID-19 health emergency is expected to end. Alaska’s state health officials face the daunting task of combing through pandemic-swollen Medicaid rolls to establish who will no longer be eligible for benefits when the emergency ends. Health officials, who say they have been preparing for the shift for months, are concerned many of those Alaskans could soon find themselves without health insurance — particularly people who don’t know what steps to t...
About 5 million honeybees bound for Alaska got waylaid when Delta Air Lines routed them through Atlanta, where most of the bees died after being left for hours in crates on the ground during hot weather. The bees were the first of two shipments ordered by Soldotna beekeeper Sarah McElrea from a distributor in California. McElrea said the loss is devastating. She runs Sarah’s Alaska Honey and also coordinates shipments of bees to beekeepers around the state to pollinate orchards and nurseries. The bees were bumped from their original route to A...
A developer has notified Sitka that high construction costs have caused the partnership to withdraw its proposal to build a new boatyard and haul-out. Sitka's last haul-out operator, Halibut Point Marine, in March pulled up its last boat after it had converted the area into a cruise ship terminal. The decision by Sitka Community Boatyard to abandon its plans leaves no prospect in sight for a replacement operation in Sitka. Wrangell's Port and Harbors Department has reported an increase in calls...
Alaska property owners have paid more than four times as much in premiums than they received back in claims under the National Flood Insurance Program going back to 1980. “It’s kind of ugly,” Lori Wing-Heier, the state’s insurance division director, told legislators this spring. “We don’t have the storms they get in Texas or Louisiana.” The nationwide program, which is voluntary for states and communities, has been around for more than half a century. It pools together property owners from all the states and territories, much like group he...
JUNEAU (AP) — Gov. Mike Dunleavy last Thursday reiterated his push for payments of at least $3,700 to residents this year, with the legislative session in its last weeks and the size of the annual dividend check paid to residents still unresolved. The House in its version of the budget approved one-time “energy relief” payments of $1,300 plus a Permanent Fund dividend of about $1,250. The Senate Finance Committee is weighing a dividend of about $2,600 as it works on a draft budget plan. Annual dividends to residents traditionally have been...
Alaska House Republicans have removed Rep. David Eastman from their caucus, citing tensions with the controversial Wasilla Republican that have built up over time. The decision comes with less than three weeks left in the legislative session that began in January. “I think it’ll help us be more productive as a caucus. Just sometimes, his demeanor gets in the way of trying to be productive,” Anchorage Republican Laddie Shaw said in an interview with the Anchorage Daily News. “They finally said, ‘Enough’s enough,’” said Shaw, noting that freshman...