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Senior citizens and people with disabilities who need extra care would be able to get help at home under a bill passed by the Alaska Legislature and on its way to the governor for signature into law. The state House voted 39-1 to approve Senate Bill 57 on May 8, followed by unanimous Senate concurrence on May 10 with the House changes. The legislation would allow the state to license individual homes as the equivalent of assisted-living centers. A home would be permitted for up to two residents under normal circumstances, three with special...
Newly arrived residents and newly licensed drivers would have an easier way to get a commercial license under a bill passed by the Alaska Legislature. In a 40-0 vote last Friday, the Alaska House approved Senate Bill 123, which would repeal the requirement that someone hold an Alaska driver’s license for one year before getting a commercial driver’s license. CDL recipients still have to go through the normal application process, which includes a written test, road test and physical exam. The bill passed the state Senate 20-0 on May 3 and now...
Low-power electric bicycles would be exempt from state regulation under a bill passed by the Alaska Legislature and on its way to the governor for signature into law. The state Senate and House each approved the measure by wide margins, with only two no votes among the 60 legislators. Final legislative approval came May 11 for House Bill 8, sponsored by Fairbanks first-term Rep. Ashley Carrick. If the governor signs the measure, the new law will clarify that bicycles with electric motors generating less than 750 watts of power are not...
Alaska high school students would be required to complete a civics education course or receive a passing score on a civics assessment exam to graduate if the state House next year accepts legislation approved by the Senate. Senators unanimously approved the bill on May 5, and the House could take up the measure next year. The legislation comes as recent national data shows the first-ever decline in U.S. eighth grade students’ history and civics test scores, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which released the data Ma...
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture is planning to develop outdoor recreation opportunities near national forests and grasslands, part of a broader Biden administration push to help communities reap economic rewards from the growing recreation sector. Three USDA agencies — the Forest Service, the National Institute of Food and Agriculture and the Office of Rural Development — signed a memorandum of understanding last fall pledging to collaborate on plans to develop outdoor recreation economies in “gateway communities” near nati...
Forty people spread across the estuarine beach of northwest Tamgas Harbor to study the invasive European green crab that's been moving into the large bight on the southern shore of Annette Island since at least July 2022. For two days the last week of April, a cohort of scientists, resource managers and community members who want to quash the spread of the insidious green crab gathered in Ketchikan and visited Annette Island Reserve to share information about the crab's recent invasion in...
Alaska's top health official discussed the implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, the lessons learned and the need for Alaska to be ready for future public health emergencies. Dr. Anne Zink, chief medical officer for the Alaska Department of Health, was the speaker at the Beyond COVID: Pandemic Preparedness in the Circumpolar North conference on April 27 at the Sheet'ka Kwaan Naa Kahidi community house in Sitka. Zink, an emergency health physician in Palmer, became the state's chief medical offi...
The salmon crisis in Western Alaska is prompting new discussions in the U.S. and Canada about an idea that would have been a non-starter a decade ago: Maybe it’s time to build hatcheries to stem the steep fish declines on the Yukon River. Indigenous culture along the Yukon, in both the U.S. and Canada, is centered on wild salmon runs. Historically, those runs supported both commercial fisheries that rural residents depended on for cash income, and subsistence fisheries that kept freezers and dinner plates full through the winter in a r...
A Palmer woman has been indicted on murder, manslaughter and assault charges for an alleged hit-and-run in Metlakatla that resulted in the deaths of her 3-year-old son and her brother, as well as injuring the child’s father. Alecia A. Henderson, 27, was taken into custody on a court-ordered warrant May 2; the indictments were issued May 4. Ketchikan District Court Judge Kristian Pickrell set Henderson's bail at a $500,000 appearance bond, with 10% cash requirement. Pickrell also stipulated that Henderson could not be released from custody u...
WASHINGTON — Alaska Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan were among a bipartisan group of 13 senators who jointly signed letters to five U.S. museums and universities, urging them to repatriate Indigenous remains in their collections. The letters call on the University of California Berkeley, Harvard University, Illinois State Museum, Indiana University and the Ohio History Connection to comply with the Native American Graves and Repatriation Act. The 1990 federal law mandates that museums receiving federal money must return human remains, f...
Shoreline Wild Salmon co-founder Marie Rose is feeling like a small fish in a big pond after the Southeast Alaska-based company was recently listed in Good Housekeeping magazine’s 10 Best Seafood Delivery Services & Subscriptions of 2023. “A lot of the companies on the Top 10 list are really big companies, we’re quite small in comparison, so to know that our products are making the ranks with theirs is really exciting,” Rose said. “It feels really great to have been included, we’ve worked really hard over the years to try to establish t...
One of the world’s largest sea stars is on track to receive Endangered Species Act protections. Federal regulators are proposing a threatened listing for the sunflower sea star, a creature that has been killed off in much of its Pacific habitat by disease. While the effect of a listing on Alaska and its fisheries is not certain, scientists say they don’t expect significant changes in the state in the near term. The public comment period has ended on the proposal for the threatened listing published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Adm...
Alaska is the home of the world's biggest piedmont glacier - meaning it falls from a mountain into a flat plain. But a new study has revealed that the Malaspina Glacier is not quite as big as previously believed, and that its low elevation makes it more highly susceptible to melting that would affect the rise in global sea levels. The glacier spills out of the St. Elias Mountains into a wide circular lobe atop a broad plain that stops short of the sea. At its widest, the glacier spans 40 miles...
With a week remaining in Alaska’s regular legislative session, leading lawmakers say they still haven’t reached agreement on a deal to finish the state budget and end the session on time. “We are meeting daily with the Senate … just working on finding some way to come together to put this kind of ‘endgame’ package together, which I can tell you right now, we don’t have the details as of yet,” House Speaker Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla, said last Friday. Since 2015, odd-numbered years have brought tortuously long arguments over the budget as lawma...
State Sen. Click Bishop remembers his first paycheck as a teenager in Fairbanks in the early 1970s. His boss explained the $10 deduction for the state’s so-called school head tax. “That pays for your education,” the boss told his young employee. “I’ve never forgotten that,” said Bishop. The Legislature in 1980 abolished the small education tax, along with Alaska’s personal income tax and a tax on business gross receipts. The state was getting rich from oil and a majority of lawmakers saw little need for taxes. Bishop, now in his 11th year in...
An Anchorage legislator has added another idea to the growing list of tax proposals before lawmakers who are struggling to cover the state’s revenue needs. Rep. Zack Fields has proposed a personal income tax limited to no more than the amount of each year’s Permanent Fund dividend. “It’s a net-zero tax on Alaskans,” he said last week. No matter how much an individual earns, the annual tax would not exceed the amount of the PFD. In addition, anyone earning less than $75,000 a year would be exempt from the tax. The second-term Democrat described...
A Washington state family has pleaded guilty in federal court to violating the federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act when they owned and operated several businesses in Ketchikan. They sold carvings and wood totem poles made by people in the Philippines, misrepresenting the items as authentic artwork made by Alaska Natives, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. According to the department, Cristobal Rodrigo, 59, Glenda Rodrigo, 46, and Christian Rodrigo, 24, sold carvings imitating traditional Alaska Native designs out of two stores in...
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate failed to advance a symbolic measure to enshrine in the Constitution equal protection for women, a century after the idea began circulating among lawmakers. Senators on April 27 voted 51-47 to go forward with a bill that would lift Congress’ self-imposed 1982 deadline for three-fourths of the states to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. However, the procedural vote, or cloture vote, required 60 senators for the ERA to move forward. The joint resolution, sponsored by Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Dem...
Legislation to impose a state tax on e-cigarettes and vaping devices appears headed to next year’s legislative work list. Lawmakers raised multiple questions about the bills at two committee hearings last week, and the Legislature faces a May 17 adjournment deadline. Bills not acted on by then return for consideration next year. The legislation was heard in the Senate Finance Committee and House Health and Social Services Committee, both on May 4, with bill sponsors fielding multiple questions about penalties for underage use, the tax burden o...
The Legislature has passed and is sending to the governor a bill intended to reduce the cost of Alaska-made lumber for housing projects. After it is signed into law by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, the legislation would set up an in-state quality testing system for lumber produced by Alaska sawmills. Currently, that lumber must be tested and graded by a national standards organization, and bringing an outside grader to Alaska adds significant costs, state forester Helge Eng said last fall. The state House overwhelmingly approved Senate Bill 87,...
The Legislature passed a bill Friday extending Medicaid coverage from two months to 12 months for a couple thousand new mothers a year. Senate Bill 58, proposed by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, is intended to prevent gaps in health care coverage and to address the state’s high and rising maternal mortality rate. State Department of Health officials told lawmakers that 51% of births in Alaska are covered by Medicaid; those new mothers would benefit from the legislation. The Senate passed the final bill 19-1 on Friday. The House passed the legislation f...
Alaskans affected by monthslong food stamp delays have agreed to pause their class-action lawsuit against the state, with the Department of Health pledging to clear 50% of the backlog by mid-October. The lawsuit was filed in January on behalf of thousands of Alaskans who had waited months to receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, also known as food stamps. Under federal law, states must provide food stamps to eligible applicants no later than 30 days after an application is made. The state met with attorneys for the...
The Alaska Legislature is changing some procedures after Capitol phone lines became overloaded by public testimony for a record fifth time this year. The Capitol’s phones reached capacity on May 2, during a hearing about a bill that intends to repeal the state’s new ranked-choice voting law. The phone lines have filled more times this year than in the past six years combined, legislative statistics indicate. Overall call volume hasn’t changed significantly from past years, but Alaskans’ habits have: Members of the public are now much more li...
Thousands of Alaskans who depend on government assistance have waited months for food stamp benefits, exacerbating a long-standing hunger crisis worsened by the pandemic, inflation and the remnants of a typhoon that wiped out stockpiles of fish and fishing equipment in Western Alaska. The backlog, which began last August, is especially concerning in a state where communities in far-flung areas, including Alaska Native villages, are often not connected by roads. They must have food shipped in by...
JUNEAU — An Anchorage civil rights law firm has filed a class-action lawsuit against the state Department of Health over delays in processing applications for a program that provides assistance for thousands of vulnerable Alaskans. The state’s adult public assistance program pays an average of $308.20 per month, and is often supplemented by federal assistance programs, according to the Department of Health. During the past fiscal year, an average of 15,385 Alaskans received the monthly aid, alongside a separate transition program. In Wra...