Sorted by date Results 942 - 966 of 1731
ALONG THE COLUMBIA RIVER (AP) - James Kiona stands on a rocky ledge overlooking Lyle Falls where the water froths and rushes through steep canyon walls just before merging with the Columbia River. His silvery ponytail flutters in the wind, and a string of eagle claws adorns his neck. Kiona has fished for Chinook salmon for decades on his family's scaffold at the edge of the falls, using a dip net suspended from a 33-foot pole. "Fishing is an art and a spiritual practice," says Kiona, a Yakama...
Bear activity has been increasing in Juneau in August, said wildlife officials, and some of the bruins are looking in parked cars to grab some food. Carl Koch, assistant area management biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, said the department is monitoring two black bears in the Mendenhall Valley area that have learned how to open car doors, and have caused “fairly significant damage” to at least three vehicles in the past few weeks. Another bear occurrence was posted on the Juneau Community Collective Facebook page, sho...
The Ketchikan City Council on Aug. 18 voted to adopt a seasonal sales tax rate structure. The current 4% rate within the city limits will increase to 5.5% from April 1 through Sept. 30, and will drop to 3% from Oct. 1 through March 31 each year. The change will take effect April 1, 2023. The city sales tax rate currently is 4% year-round, and is added to the Ketchikan Gateway Borough tax rate of 2.5% on each sale. According to a memo written by City Finance Director Michelle Johansen, the annual increase in revenue expected with the changes is...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Two oil and gas companies have announced plans to invest $2.6 billion into developing a major oil field on Alaska’s North Slope. Australia-based Santos and Spain-based Repsol made the announcement, which was lauded by Alaska political leaders as positive news for state revenues and jobs. Santos, which has a 51% stake in the Pikka project, said Aug. 16 that its investment will be $1.3 billion. Santos last year acquired Oil Search of Papua New Guinea, which had been working for several years to advance the project. Santos, in...
As election day results came in late night Aug. 16 and into early the next morning, Alaska’s senior U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s slight lead over Trump-backed Republican challenger Kelly Tshibaka widened. By the afternoon of Aug. 17, with 395 of 402 precincts reporting, the trend continued and Murkowski was ahead 68,800 to 61,994. Democratic Party-endorsed candidate Patricia Chesbro held the third spot with just over 6% of the votes, at 9,620, and self-proclaimed “hard right” Republican Buzz Kelley rounded out the final four with 2.22%, or 3,45...
Democrat Mary Peltola is leading Alaska's special election for U.S. House, but the state's new ranked-choice voting system may leave Republican candidate and former governor Sarah Palin the ultimate winner. As of Aug. 17, with 395 of 402 precincts reporting, Peltola had earned 58,689 (38%) first-choice votes in a race that will determine who fills Alaska's lone U.S. House seat until January, completing the term left unfinished by the death of Congressman Don Young earlier this year. Palin...
Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy received nearly twice as many votes as his nearest rival in last week’s primary election for governor. The incumbent received 64,676 votes as of Aug, 17 to 34,248 for former Gov. Bill Walker, running as an independent, and 33,974 for former Anchorage Rep. Les Gara, running as a Democrat. Dunleavy won by an even larger margin in Wrangell, where his 256 votes in the Aug. 16 primary far exceeded the combined total of Walker, 126, and Gara, 63. It was the opposite 30 miles away in Petersburg, where Walker outpolled D...
The total of invasive European green crabs found in the waters around Metlakatla has risen to 34 live ones, plus some dead ones and a dozen shells of the destructive species. The latest count, from Aug. 9, follows the discovery in July of the first sightings ever in Alaska, according to the Metlakatla Indian Community Department of Fish and Wildlife, the state Department of Fish and Game and federal NOAA Fisheries. The live crabs have been found in Tamgas Harbor, and the dead crabs in Smuggler Cove. Green crab infestations are damaging in...
The Anchorage School District is dealing with such a severe bus driver shortage that nearly all students will be without bus service for weeks at a time, officials announced last week. There are only enough drivers to serve 7,000 of the district’s 20,000 eligible bus riders at a time, according to deputy superintendent Mark Stock. Bus service will be available to families for three weeks at a time, followed by six-week periods without service, on a rotating basis, officials said. It’s unclear how long the bus route suspensions will per...
With the start of the school year just around the corner, staff members at Mt. Edgecumbe High School in Sitka are scrambling to find housing for new teachers. The search has consumed much of the summer for Miranda Bacha, who took over as principal this summer. Housing was still needed last week for four incoming teachers — 15% of the teaching staff. “This is how I’m spending all my time now,” Bacha said. “That’s basically all I’m focusing on, getting them housing. If we were four short, you’re talking 16 classes, 16 core classes. I’m ta...
SEATTLE (AP) — A federal court ruling last week has thrown into doubt the future of a valuable commercial king salmon fishery in Southeast Alaska, after a conservation group challenged the government’s approval of the harvest as a threat to protected fish and the endangered killer whales that eat them. The ruling, issued Aug. 8 by U.S. District Judge Richard Jones in Seattle, said NOAA Fisheries violated the Endangered Species Act and other environmental law when it approved the troll fishery. The ruling means the federal agency will have to...
A group of conservative Alaskans, headed by a leading member of the Alaska Republican Party, has formed a new campaign organization intended to encourage Alaskans to call a constitutional convention and allow sweeping changes in the way Alaska runs its government, sets its budget and regulates the lives of its residents. Jim Minnery, president of the anti-abortion Alaska Family Council, announced the creation of ConventionYes on Aug. 8. Minnery is a member of the new group’s steering committee. The group’s chair is Craig Campbell, national com...
A committee of the Alaska Legislature voted unanimously on Aug. 10 to spend an additional $50,000 on its investigation into the firing of Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. director Angela Rodell, bringing the investigation’s total budget to $150,000. Anchorage Sen. Natasha von Imhof, chair of the House-Senate Legislative Budget and Audit Committee, said the money is needed to get the investigation “to the finish line,” and she expects a full report in October. Members of the committee hired a special investigator in January to determine wheth...
After several years of research, Sitka’s new online landslide-warning system is now live. But the site — which uses data from the National Weather Service alongside historical data to determine the level of landslide risk in Sitka — is only a start to the landslide research that remains to be done, said a scientist on the project. “It’s a conclusion but it’s also kind of a beginning,” said Jacyn Schmidt, geoscience coordinator at the Sitka Sound Science Center. Educating Sitkans on how to react to the possibility of landslides, and building...
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — The federal government is conducting a review of four hydroelectric dams on a Maine river that could result in a lifeline for the last wild Atlantic salmon in the United States. The last of the wild salmon live in a group of rivers in Maine and have been listed under the Endangered Species Act since 2000. One of the rivers is the Kennebec River, where Brookfield Renewable U.S. owns four dams. Brookfield wants to amend its federal licenses for the four dams and receive a new 40-year operating license for one of them. T...
Several landslides have closed the cruise ship dock in Skagway for the rest of the summer, causing what’s expected to be at least three dozen vessels to skip the tourism-dependent port by the end of summer. The municipality issued an emergency declaration on Aug. 4, citing the need to shore up the slide-damaged areas and the loss of more than 100,000 cruise passengers to cancellations and rescheduling. A mid-July report from a geotechnical and environmental consulting firm showed “significant risk” of “catastrophic failure” of the mountains...
The Skagway Borough Assembly has directed the borough manager to pursue negotiations for the SouthEast Alaska Regional Health Consortium to take over management of the community health clinic and lease the municipally owned building. In the meantime, the Dahl Memorial Clinic, which costs the municipality about $1 million per year to operate, will get a temporary executive director at the price of about $150,000 for three months through a company that also sells training and restructuring services to health centers. The company has prepared a...
For the first time in a decade, the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp., source of more than half of Alaska’s general-purpose state revenue, posted negative investment returns for an entire fiscal year. As of June 30, the last day of the just-ended fiscal year 2022, the fund reported having earned minus-1.32% over the preceding 12 months. The decline will not have an immediate effect on state finances, but continued losses over multiple years would reduce the amount of money available each year for state services and the Permanent Fund dividend. B...
After a mid-July surge to 1,021 COVID-19 infections among tourists at sea in a single week, the state Health Department reports the case count the past two weeks fell to an average of 550 per week. The record number of infections among non-residents, which the state refers to as “at-sea, purpose tourism,” was reported July 20. The July 27 count was down to 517, then 583 on Aug. 3. The state reports COVID statistics once a week, every Wednesday. At-sea cases averaged less than 450 a week from the start of the cruise ship season to mid-July. In...
One of the three U.S. House candidates was missing at a candidates forum in Kenai on Aug. 3: Former Gov. Sarah Palin instead held a fundraiser in Minneapolis, according to photos she posted on her Instagram account. The next day, she was in Dallas for a 20-minute onstage interview titled “She’s Back!” Her Texas appearance was at the Conservative Political Action Conference, which draws notable Republican and conservative politicians, including former President Donald Trump and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. Her opponents to fill the se...
At 8 a.m. on July 30, Andrew Simmonds, 60, entered the chilling waters of Sandy Beach in Petersburg, setting out to prove that age has not slowed him down. His goal was to swim across Frederick Sound to the mainland, more than six miles away. His journey started months earlier. Soon after arriving in Petersburg in November, Simmonds, who is a physical therapist at Petersburg Medical Center, visited Sandy Beach to gaze out over Frederick Sound. He admired the whales leaping above the water and cr...
While thousands danced and dined at the Southeast Alaska State Fair in Haines last weekend, Drew Robertson of Sedalia, Colorado, was rescuing a half dozen puppies that might be part wolf. The state suspects at least 10 dogs born at 35 Mile Haines Highway in February could be wolf hybrids, which are illegal to breed or possess in Alaska. The owner of the litter - "Seandog" Brownell - said he suspects the mother, Inja, a lab, could have mated with a wild wolf last December on or near his...
ANCHORAGE (AP) — Alaska is burning this year in ways rarely or ever seen, from the largest wildfire in a typically mainly fireproof southwest region to a pair of blazes that ripped through forests and produced smoke that blew hundreds of miles to the Bering Sea community of Nome, where the normally crystal clear air was pushed into the extremely unhealthy category. As of late July, more than 530 wildfires had burned an area the size of Connecticut — and the usual worst of the fire season is ahead. While little property has burned, some res...
Students return to school soon, and Alaska’s larger districts are facing a shortage of school bus drivers. The Anchorage School District was short 75 bus drivers less than two weeks before classes begin on Aug. 18. The shortage could lead to some bus routes being suspended, the superintendent said. The Fairbanks North Star Borough School District contractor was short bus drivers last month to cover 115 routes, and as of last week was advertising: “We need bus drivers and attendants!” The district last week announced reduced service when class...
WASHINGTON — Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski on Aug. 1 joined a bipartisan coalition to introduce a bill that would protect abortion and contraception access. The measure faces an uncertain future in a Senate that failed to pass a broader measure enshrining abortion rights in May. It also comes as Murkowski faces reelection this fall, with abortion emerging as a key issue in that campaign. Despite the bill’s bipartisan co-sponsors — Democrats Tim Kaine, of Virginia, and Kyrsten Sinema, of Arizona, and Republicans Susan Collins, of Maine, and Murko...