Sorted by date Results 772 - 796 of 1731
The dogs of Mo Mountain Mutts have caused a stir before. Not by howling or barking, but by warming the hearts of canine lovers around the world. The Mo Mountain Mutts dog walking business, owned and operated by Skagway resident Mo Thompson, has produced a few viral videos over the past year. But a video of four dogs being picked up by the Puppy Bus last month has become an undeniable sensation, receiving more than 48 million views on TikTok alone, not to mention other social media platforms...
A months-long backlog of food stamp applications has denied aid to thousands of Alaskans. And although the state plans to add additional employees during the next few weeks to process the applications, the director of the statewide program said Dec. 27 it likely will be months more before all the issues are resolved. At least 8,000 households applying for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits since September have faced delays of 90 to 120 days in processing, far exceeding the 30-day statutory requirement, due to an employee...
WASHINGTON — The $1.7 trillion federal spending package includes hundreds of millions of dollars in appropriations for projects specific to Alaska and enacts legislation that will directly affect the state. “There is literally no part of our state that this legislation doesn’t benefit,” said Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee that helped negotiate the legislation. Congress passed the bill on its last day of work Dec. 23, funding the government through September 2023. President Joe Biden signed the...
An Anchorage Superior Court Judge has ruled that Wasilla Republican Rep. David Eastman’s membership in the Oath Keepers does not violate the Alaska Constitution’s disloyalty clause because of First Amendment protections for free speech. The decision, which may be appealed, means Eastman may continue serving in the Alaska Legislature. Eastman was re-elected in November. In a 49-page order issued Dec. 23, Judge Jack McKenna said the Oath Keepers — labeled an antigovernment militia by the federal government — “are an organization that has, thro...
Alaska teens have largely ditched cigarettes over the past two decades, but they have substituted that unhealthy habit with another: vaping. About 25% of surveyed high schoolers reported using electronic cigarettes in the past 30 days, according to the Alaska Tobacco Facts Update, released last month by the Alaska Department of Health. The national rate of teen e-cigarette use, also known as vaping, is even higher, at 33%, the report said. Among Alaska youth, cigarette smoking has declined drastically since the 1990s, from 37% in 1995 to 16%...
Ketchikan’s police chief pleaded not guilty last Friday to charges that he assaulted an intoxicated man while he was off-duty at a resort restaurant, including allegedly shoving the man head-first into a wall and putting him in a chokehold. A grand jury returned an indictment Thursday against Ketchikan Police Chief Jeffrey Harrison Walls for felony third-degree assault. He is also charged with three counts of fourth-degree assault and two counts of reckless endangerment, which are misdemeanors. During an arraignment Friday, defense attorney J...
Snowplow and bus drivers are exceptionally critical occupations this time of year — but they’re in short supply statewide. A new Juneau-based program may change that. The $1.7 trillion federal spending bill recently passed by Congress includes $750,000 for University of Alaska Southeast to establish and operate a commercial driver’s license (CDL) education training program at the UAS Juneau campus. According to UAS Chancellor Karen Carey, the new program will help fill the many positions for CDL-certified drivers currently vacant across Southea...
A late change in the Senate to the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package passed by Congress last month deleted funding to purchase a privately owned icebreaker that the U.S. Coast Guard said could be homeported in Juneau. A $150 million authorization for the Coast Guard to purchase the vessel was removed from the bill that had to pass by Dec. 23 to avoid a government shutdown. The bill passed the House that final day, after winning Senate approval earlier in the week. The removal of the funding was disappointing, both of Alaska’s senators s...
Sen. Bert Stedman, co-chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, says Gov. Dunleavy’s proposed $3,800 Permanent Fund dividend in 2023 would mean “starting the year underwater.” “It’s not a prudent way to administer the state’s financial resources.” Stedman said, reacting to his first review of Dunleavy’s proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1. “Revenues would not meet recurring expenditures. We’d be talking about going into the hole by about $300 million.” Stedman was reelected Nov. 8 to a sixth term in the Senate representing s...
A House-Senate committee of the Alaska Legislature has approved spending $6.6 million to renovate a downtown Juneau office building into 33 apartments for legislators and staff. During a Dec. 19 vote on the proposal, lawmakers said the state-owned building will help alleviate a chronic shortage of housing in the capital city during the legislative session. “One of the biggest challenges we have is housing,” said Sitka Sen. Bert Stedman. “I think this is the right move,” he said. The cost of construction is also being subsidized by a Juneau-base...
WASHINGTON — Dead and dying seabirds collected on the coasts of the northern Bering and southern Chukchi seas over the past six years reveal how the Arctic’s fast-changing climate is threatening the ecosystems and people who live there, according to a report released Dec. 13 by U.S. scientists. Local communities have reported numerous emaciated bodies of seabirds — including shearwaters, auklets and murres — that usually eat plankton, krill or fish, but appear to have had difficulty finding sufficient food. The hundreds of distressed and dea...
Alaska’s state-owned development bank is continuing its efforts to open the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. Directors of the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority voted unanimously last month to spend $6.2 million on a second year of legal fees, lease payments and pre-development work related to drilling in the coastal plain. A director speaking in favor of the proposal said he believes the land was promised to the state at statehood, and “we should have access to this land and be abl...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy introduced a first-draft $7.3 billion state budget last week, meeting a legally required deadline but acknowledging that the spending plan is likely to change significantly as the administration negotiates with lawmakers in the upcoming legislative session. “This budget that we’re submitting, as always, is a talking point with the Legislature,” Dunleavy said. “It also reflects values, what our revenue picture looks like, and where we’re headed.” The biggest single expense in the entire proposed state budget is $2.5 billio...
A major U.S. Department of Justice investigation has concluded that children in Alaska with mental health issues are “forced to endure unnecessary and unduly long” institutionalization in locked psychiatric hospitals and residential treatment facilities because no alternatives exist. The state of Alaska is violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by failing to provide services that would allow kids to stay in their homes and communities, the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division found in a report released last Friday. Alask...
A man who allegedly stole $58,000 from a Haines tour operator earlier this fall was apprehended Dec. 6 in Riverton, Utah, according to Haines Police. As of Dec. 13, Charles was in a Utah jail pending extradition to Alaska. Haines Police Officer Maxwell Jusi said Riverton police arrested Charles after Haines police received a tip about his whereabouts. Two Riverton police officers made the arrest at a movie theater in a shopping mall, according to a Riverton police report. One of the officers worked with an acquaintance of Charles to coordinate...
Disruptions in Alaska over the last year, some of them threatening health and safety of people, are part of the ongoing pattern of rapid warming and transformation of the Arctic, said an annual report released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Last December’s record-wet weather in Fairbanks, marked by crushing snow loads and winter rain that left a thick, long-lasting layer of ice on the ground, was one of those disruptions. So were the August deluge that produced the rainiest day on record in Utqiagvik, the record-setting...
There is danger lurking on the floor of the Bering and Chukchi seas for mussels, snails, clams, worms and other cold-water invertebrates, according to a new study led by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists. If climate change continues its current trajectory, the Bering and Chukchi seafloor areas will be too warm for those creatures by the end of the century. In turn, that means trouble for walruses and other marine species. Snails and mussels are particularly important to commercially harvested fish like halibut and...
WASHINGTON — Two Alaska Native villages will receive $25 million each from the federal government to help fund their ongoing efforts to relocate to safer ground. The funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law will go to Newtok and Napakiak in Western Alaska, where, as permafrost thaws and erodes, encroaching rivers threaten the communities. The communities will use the money to move essential facilities to safer ground. Eight other tribes will receive $5 million to fund planning for potential relocation, including four in Alaska: Point L...
A procession of emergency vehicles traveled through Anchorage with the body of Court Services Officer Curtis Worland on Dec. 14, a day after the 36-year-old died in a rare attack by a musk ox in Nome, where Worland worked for the Department of Public Safety for 13 years. The fatal incident happened on Worland’s property during a paid break in the work day, and as such the state considers his death to have happened in the line of duty. According to the Department of Public Safety, Worland “is the 69th Alaska law enforcement officer to die in...
SEATTLE (AP) — Cooke Aquaculture has filed an appeal against Washington state’s decision to end its leases for fish-farming using net pens in state waters. In court documents filed Dec. 14, the New Brunswick, Canada-based seafood giant said that the decision was arbitrary, politically motivated and contrary to science, radio station KNKX reported. In a statement, Cooke said it has a state Supreme Court ruling and legislative mandate on its side that supports the farming of native species. It also said that the 30-day deadline to harvest fis...
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Federal regulators have approved a plan to demolish hydroelectric four dams on a California river and open up hundreds of miles of salmon habitat that would be the largest dam removal and river restoration project in the world when it goes forward. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s unanimous vote last month on the lower Klamath River dams is the last major regulatory hurdle and the biggest milestone for a $500 million demolition proposal championed by Native American tribes and environmentalists for years. The...
After last month’s elections, the Alaska Capitol, so far, is split. Voters re-elected conservative Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, and a centrist, bipartisan coalition is set to take control of the state Senate. The makeup of the House governing majority is still uncertain. And it will likely be weeks before the 40-member House coalesces into a new majority of 21 or more legislators. It may not even happen before the session starts Jan. 17. Election results that evenly split the House between two different factions, plus a high-profile l...
Federal legislation sent to the president for his signature directs the U.S. Coast Guard to spend $150 million to purchase a used, privately owned ice-breaking vessel to help cover operational needs until a fleet of new Coast Guard icebreakers can be built. The legislation, the annual Natural Defense Authorization Act, also includes a provision to acquire land in Juneau to build facilities for the estimated 190 Coast Guard personnel assigned to the ship, Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan said during a conference call with reporters to discuss...
Alaska Native tribes seeking better protection from the environmental impacts of Canadian mines have enlisted allies in their flight: Lower 48 tribal governments with concerns of their own about transboundary mining impacts. A delegation of tribal representatives from Alaska, Washington state, Montana and Idaho traveled to Washington, D.C., last week for meetings that pushed for action to regulate downstream effects of mines in British Columbia. The meetings Dec. 6 and 7 were with Biden administration officials and officials at the Canadian...
BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) — Citizen trapping of northern giant hornets in northwest Washington ended Nov. 30 without any confirmed sightings of the hornets this year, state officials said Dec. 6. The Washington State Department of Agriculture also said that no confirmed sightings of the hornets were reported nearby in British Columbia. The northern giant hornet is native to Asia and has been the target of eradication efforts after hornets were discovered in both locations in 2019. The insects are the world's largest hornets, with queens r...