Sorted by date Results 956 - 980 of 1731
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...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted 4-1 on Aug. 1 to establish a new task force to address the community’s housing crisis. Assemblymember Jeff Meucci said the task force would work with the assembly’s backing to look at housing needs in the community. “Like child care, I think this is one of the most important issues facing Petersburg,” Meucci said. “Every person that we’ve hired within the borough over the past several months — police officers, up at the fire department, Mountain View Manor (senior citizen housing) — they were all lookin...
For many Southeast residents, fishing is a way to fill the freezer or earn a living. But for Sitka’s 9-year-old Miles Lawrie, fishing is a chance to spend time with his grandparents on the water. It was a bonus for Miles when, while fishing with his grandparents on July 8, he caught his first ever king salmon — a 45-pounder. “The pole went like 10 feet out, just dragging, it kept going hard way out,” Miles said. It’s unlikely he would have caught the big king if sea conditions out in Sitka Sound hadn’t made grandparents Pete and Shelley Pal...
After years of work and planning, site preparation is underway for the cabins to house Sitka’s homeless people. The plan is to build a dozen small cabins at the end of Jarvis Street, about a mile east of the downtown waterfront. The Sitka Homeless Coalition’s fundraising has exceeded expectations, SEARHC health educator Doug Osborne said at the Rotary Club meeting Aug. 2. The project also got a boost Aug. 2 with Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s announcement that she has added $1 million for the project to the federal appropriations bill now under consi...
The Sealaska Corp. board of directors last Friday endorsed Bill Walker for governor and Sen. Lisa Murkowski in her reelection bid for U.S. Senate. The board also announced its opposition to the measure on the Nov. 8 statewide election ballot that would call a constitutional convention to consider revisions to Alaska’s founding laws. “Reassessing Alaska’s constitution could fundamentally endanger not just the rights of all Alaskans, but specifically Native sovereignty,” Jaeleen Kookesh, Sealaska vice president of policy and legal affairs...
Up to 82,000 rural Alaskans will see lower electric bills because of legislation signed into law last month. Senate Bill 243, passed by the Legislature this spring, raises the maximum subsidy under the state’s Power Cost Equalization program, which reduces the cost of electricity in rural Alaska. Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed the measure into law on July 14. The bill, authored by Bethel Sen. Lyman Hoffman, increases the maximum available subsidy from 500 kilowatt-hours per month to 750 kilowatt-hours per month. The average Alaska home consumes 5...
The Alaska Department of Law issued an opinion July 25 saying public money can be spent for homeschool students to attend one or two classes in a private school, but cannot be used for most of a student’s private school tuition. The 19-page opinion said it’s sometimes legal to use public funds for private school classes through the state program that pays for students to attend a correspondence school or homeschool. “But the more it looks like you’re just trying to send your kid to private school and get subsidized by the state, I think t...
Alaska cable company GCI has no immediate plans to drop the right-wing TV channel One America News, a spokesperson said July 27. Verizon, the last remaining major carrier to carry the channel, stopped airing the channel last Saturday. That action follows a similar move in April by DirectTV. Their decisions leave the channel, once a reliable advocate for the administration of President Donald Trump, without a nationwide audience and without the revenue paid by those carriers. Scott Robson, a senior research analyst at S&P Global Market Intellige...
A bill signed into Alaska law last Thursday will make it possible for the state to prosecute sexual assault on the basis of a victim saying “no,” instead of requiring physical force or threats for such assaults to be considered crimes. The bill — which will also reduce the maximum amount of time allowed for rape kit processing and reclassify revenge porn cases as domestic violence crimes to offer better protection for victims — was one of three pieces of public safety legislation that Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed into law. The comprehensive sex-cr...
A proposal to build a boat haul-out facility in Sitka with the money the city received from selling its community hospital property will be on the Oct. 4 city election ballot. On a 6-0 vote July 26, the assembly gave final approval to an ordinance on the ballot question. If passed by the voters, up to $8.18 million from the 2021 sale of the hospital building and property to SEARHC would go toward construction of a haul-out and boatyard at the Gary Paxton Industrial Park. Sitka has not had a boat haul-out — an important piece of i...
The state ferry Tustumena was tied up in Homer for several days last week, lacking enough crew to operate. Due to crew shortages, the Tustumena’s sailings were canceled as of July 26, and were scheduled to resume seven days later on Tuesday, according to an announcement from the Alaska Marine Highway System. “A critical crew shortage required the vessel to stay in port for safety reasons,” the state reported July 28. “We ran out of stewards,” Alaska Department of Transportation Commissioner Ryan Anderson said during a presentation to the Junea...
After two years of construction, the new $3.1 million Metlakatla Veterans Cemetery officially opened on July 25. A pair of seven-foot-tall totem poles carved by David Boxely were dedicated to the cemetery at the event. Both totem poles represent traditional Tsimshian warriors. The Fourth Generation Dancers, a Metlakatla dancing group, performed a warrior’s song during the totem pole unveiling ceremony. “It’s so important to recognize our Native American, Native Alaskans who have served our nation and the families that have sacrificed,” U.S. Un...
The top employees of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. are some of the highest-paid public workers in Alaska, but with wages rising across the country and employers competing for skilled labor, even the $80 billion Permanent Fund is struggling to keep employees from leaving. Nine of the corporation’s 66 employees have quit this year, including the manager of the corporation’s highest-earning investments and the entire three-person team in charge of finalizing trades. Seven other positions are new, and filling them is expected to be difficult. The...
In November of last year, Tlingit & Haida Community and Behavioral Services opened a healing center in Juneau to provide care to tribal citizens and other Alaska Natives. At the time, care was provided through Zoom Health or over the phone. The center was able to open its doors this year for in-person appointments but still relies on telehealth to reach a greater number of patients who might not have access to such services otherwise. Healing center staff provides a mix of wholistic healing and western treatment for crisis and access help,...
Bobby Bolen is trying to fill around 50 teaching positions at the North Slope Borough School District. “This is our focus 24 hours a day right now — to get classrooms staffed for students,” Bolen said. Bolen is the brand-new human resources director at the district, which has about 2,000 students in 12 schools, some of which start as soon as Aug. 8. He’s exploring options like long-term substitutes and the prospect of international teachers to round out the district’s usual teaching staff of about 170. “Our worst-case scenario would be distance...