Sorted by date Results 543 - 567 of 1731
The cruise ship with about 1,000 passengers anchored off Nome, too big to squeeze into the city’s tiny port. Its well-heeled tourists had to shimmy into small boats for another ride to shore. It was 2016, and at the time, the cruise ship Serenity was the largest vessel ever to sail through the Northwest Passage. But as the Arctic sea ice relents under the pressures of global warming and opens shipping lanes across the top of the world, more tourists are venturing to Nome — a northwest Alaska destination known better for the Iditarod Trail Sle...
A Ketchikan man agreed to plead guilty earlier this month to federal charges in conjunction with a long-running scheme to sell fake Alaska Native souvenirs manufactured in the Philippines. Travis Lee Macaset's plea deal follows several other guilty pleas this summer that stem from a scheme to sell mislabeled products out of two businesses in Ketchikan. "It occurs more often than we would like," said Jack Schmidt, the assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the cases. With tourism rebounding from...
A federal grant of nearly $3 million over five years will enable Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage to vastly expand its nursing-education programs, the university announced. The grant, from the U.S. Department of Labor, was one of 25 given to public-private partnerships across the nation to expand nursing training, APU said. While the entire nation is struggling with nursing shortages, Alaska’s situation is particularly dire. A 2022 report by the Alaska Hospital and Healthcare Association found that Alaska has the nation’s lowest pre...
Angoon students led a procession of regalia-clad residents down the village's Front Street on June 19. Elders and family members looked on as they sang and drummed Tlingit songs in the afternoon sun, then joined in dances - the killer whale song, the dog salmon song and the Haida "tired paddler" song. Children spun on playground equipment above the sparkling water of Chatham Strait, and visitors recorded videos on their phones. It was a celebration of enduring culture - the students were...
(AP) - A pod of killer whales bumped one of the boats in an endurance sailing race as it approached the Strait of Gibraltar last week, the latest encounter in what researchers say is a growing trend of sometimes-aggressive interactions with Iberian orcas. The 15-minute run-in with at least three of the giant mammals forced the crew competing in The Ocean Race on Thursday, June 22, to drop its sails and raise a clatter in an attempt to scare the approaching orcas off. No one was injured, but Team JAJO skipper Jelmer van Beek said in a video...
Migrating birds have returned to Alaska, and so has the highly pathogenic avian influenza that began to sweep through global bird populations in 2020. That means Alaskans should continue to be vigilant about the strains that have arrived in the state from across both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, experts said during a webinar June 6 hosted by the Alaska Native Tribal Health Symposium’s Local Environmental Observer Network. Alaska’s geographic position, at a point on the globe where different avian flyways converge, makes it a transmission zo...
The commissioner of Alaska's Department of Fish and Game has urged the organization that certifies seafood harvests as sustainable to revoke its endorsements for Russian-caught fish. Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang is calling on the Marine Stewardship Council to stop certifying Russian harvests. "It is nothing short of outrageous that over the last 15 months the MSC has observed Russian actions in Ukraine, assessed the implications for its Russian client fisheries, and chosen a path of...
The U.S. Supreme Court on June 15 rejected a challenge to a federal law aimed at keeping Native American children within the foster care system in Native American homes. The Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision upheld the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act, which established federal minimum standards for the removal of Native American children from their homes. The law also prioritized placing children into homes of extended family members and other tribal homes — places that could reflect the values of Native American culture. ICWA was enacted in an e...
After launching salmon people into the skies, Crystal Kaakeeyáa Rose Demientieff Worl is hoping to fill Alaska's roads with whale tails. Worl, a Juneau artist who earned national fame for her "Salmon People" artwork featured on an Alaska Airlines jet unveiled last month, is among six semi-finalists in the state's 2023 Artistic License Plate Competition open for the public to vote on until July 31. In an interview June 15, Worl said she's observed the license plate competition the past couple...
Alaska Native leaders and the state of Alaska have hailed the U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding the constitutionality of the Indian Child Welfare Act. The ruling preserves a 35-year-old law intended to address the harm caused by the federal government’s boarding school program by prioritizing the placement of Alaska Native and American Indian children into tribal homes. “Like most Alaska Native and American Indian tribes from across the country, we have been anxiously awaiting this decision,” Julie Kitka, president of the Alaska Feder...
The group that brought ranked-choice voting to Alaska elections is now seeking to restrict big campaign donations after a federal appeals court erased the state’s prior limits. Alaskans for Better Elections submitted a proposed ballot measure to the Alaska Division of Elections in May. If approved by the division, and if the group gathers sufficient signatures, Alaskans will be asked in 2024 whether they want to limit the amount of money a donor can give to a politician running for office. The proposal, modeled after a bill from Anchorage R...
WASHINGTON — The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs has advanced a bill to establish a federal “truth and healing” commission to examine Indian boarding school policies. The bill is part of an effort to reckon with the United States’ history of government-run boarding schools that forcibly removed Native children from their homes. The schools subjected Indigenous youths to physical, sexual and emotional abuse, and last year a federal study identified hundreds of deaths of Native Americans, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians associated with th...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Sen. Dan Sullivan, both Alaska Republicans, criticized the Biden administration for filing federal charges against former President Donald Trump. Dunleavy’s statement was issued before the indictment was unsealed June 9 by the U.S. Department of Justice. In an interview later that day, Sullivan said he stood by his statement, though he hadn’t yet read the indictment. Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a frequent critic of Trump, said the indictment needed to be taken seriously. The former president is accused of ret...
Alaska’s legislative session ended last month, and Gov. Mike Dunleavy has yet to consider most of the 31 bills passed by both House and Senate this spring. The Legislature’s 31 bills are the third fewest of any first-year session since statehood. The biggest bills of the year are the budget bill and the annual mental health budget. Dunleavy could veto or reduce line items within the budget before the start of the state’s fiscal year on July 1, but with a couple weeks to go, he hasn’t given any clues about his thinking. Other bills waiting...
Alaska’s state school board has voted almost unanimously to advance a proposed regulation that would bar transgender girls from playing on girls’ high school sports teams in the state. The vote opens a 30-day public comment period. After that period, the board will consider amending, rejecting or adopting the proposal. The decision comes amid a nationwide, Republican-led movement to restrict transgender rights. Felix Myers, a non-voting student member of the school board, suggested that the board’s action was part of that movement. Other membe...
The first session of the 33rd Alaska Legislature adjourned last month, with a lot of issues unresolved. “We were just tied up too much with the issue of the dividend and the budget and how we’re going to pay for things,” said Senate President Gary Stevens after adjournment. The slow movement on priority bills was tied to the protracted disagreement between the House and Senate majorities over the size of the Permanent Fund dividend, but also questions about other priorities. Lawmakers will reconvene in January 2024 for the second regular sessi...
Federal and state leaders have appointed 19 experts to a special task force responsible for creating a science plan to better understand Alaska’s salmon, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service announced. Task force members must address sustainable management and a response to the recent crashes in the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers. The group was chosen in accordance with the Alaska Salmon Research Task Force Act that passed and was signed into law late last year. The law calls for most members to be appointed by...
A Washington state-based conservation group whose actions have already caused the closure of the Southeast Alaska king salmon commercial troll fishery is now planning to ask the federal government to list several Alaska king salmon stocks under the Endangered Species Act. Last month, the Wild Fish Conservancy formally notified the state of Alaska of its plans to file the ESA petition for multiple populations of king salmon — also known as chinook — in Southeast, Southwest and Cook Inlet, just outside Anchorage. If successful, experts said the...
Up until last year, Southeast Alaska's Mitkof Island was home to a creek with some unique salmon: They only turned left. Officially, anyway. There is a fork in Ohmer Creek, on Mitkof Island. On the west side, the state's Anadromous Waters Catalog, or AWC, reported the presence of all five species of wild Alaska salmon, as well as Dolly Varden and cutthroat trout. On the east side of the fork, according to the AWC, there were only steelhead. One afternoon last summer, U.S. Forest Service fish...
More than 100 salmon trollers packed a Sitka meeting on June 7 with sharp questions about the future of their fishery, facing what could be an unprecedented full shutdown of this year’s chinook trolling season. “I’m optimistic, but I’m also scared as heck,” said Eric Jordan, a lifelong fisherman and Sitka resident at the standing room-only meeting with federal National Marine Fisheries Service officials. The closure of the king salmon fishery in Southeast would be economically devastating, according to many in the region who rely on the valua...
The state of Alaska will keep its membership in the Electronic Registration Information Center, a nonprofit network that helps states keep track of registered voters and reduce fraud, an official at the Alaska Division of Elections confirmed June 7. Eight Republican-led states have withdrawn from the multistate partnership, known as ERIC, since far-right groups and former President Donald Trump began attempting to discredit the group in 2022. Earlier this year, Carol Beecher, the new director of the Alaska Division of Elections, said during a...
An engine room fire on a small cruise ship in Glacier Bay on June 5 resulted in nearly 70 passengers and crew being transferred to a much larger cruise ship nearby, according to the U.S. Coast Guard and the disabled boat’s owner. No significant injuries or environmental impact were reported. The engine fire occurred at 7:23 a.m. on the 178-foot Wilderness Discoverer, according to a press release by UnCruise Adventures, which owns and operates the vessel. The boat has capacity for 76 guests, plus crew. “We are relieved to confirm that there hav...
The U.S. Coast Guard investigation is continuing into the May 28 charter fishing boat accident near Sitka that left four people dead and one still missing and presumed dead. The body of the Sitka-based boat captain was recovered June 8, leaving only passenger Robert Solis, 61, of California, still missing. Alaska State Troopers reported that 32-year-old Morgan Robidou’s body was recovered by divers from the Sitka Fire Department. Troopers said Robidou was found in the Low Island area in Sitka Sound as crews worked to salvage the outboard m...
A fishing adventure turned tragic for a family when disaster struck one of the two Sitka boats they chartered over the Memorial Day weekend, leaving three people dead and two missing despite a search over hundreds of square miles of ocean. The tragedy tore the Tyau family apart: Two sisters and one of their husbands are dead, while the other’s partner and the boat captain remain missing a week after the 30-foot aluminum boat was found partially submerged off an island near Sitka. Authorities on May 29 suspended their search after more than 2...
Alaska has the nation’s highest rate of drowning deaths, and the rate was consistently high over the past six years, according to a new state report. A Division of Public Health epidemiology bulletin released on May 31 examines drowning deaths from 2016 to 2021 and found some patterns and common factors. The vast majority were unrelated to work, even though drowning is a well-recognized commercial fishing hazard. Other common factors were failure to use personal flotation devices, called PFDs, and rural locations. Alaska has some inherent c...