Alaska news

• Kenai Peninsula Borough sends wish list to legislature

  21-01-2016 18:38
  
  The Kenai Peninsula Borough released its state funding priorities Tuesday (1/19) for the current legislative session.
  Borough Mayor Mike Navarre isn’t optimistic the legislature will appropriate funds for the borough’s wish list, but he says it’s still important to ask.
  “We don’t expect many of these projects to get funded in this year’s capital budget given the state’s fiscal situation but we wanted to identify them anyway so that when and if we come [t
  
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• Skagway student increase could fund 3 new teachers

  21-01-2016 18:26
  
  Music teacher James Baldwin sings with first and second graders. (Emily Files/KHNS)
  Skagway School grew this year and could continue to grow in future years, according to administrators. The school board held a forum Tuesday night to talk about what that means for the school.
  At Skagway School, elementary grades are taught in combined classrooms. But now, with student numbers increasing, especially in the elementary grades, that set-up could change.
  “This is a really exciting time to be in
  
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• Two Alakanuk men face felony charges for kidnapping, sexually abusing a minor

  21-01-2016 17:58
  
  An Alaska State Trooper cruiser parked on Nome’s Front Street in January 2015. Photo: Matthew F. Smith, KNOM file.
  Two Alakanuk men have been arrested on six felony charges of sexual assault, kidnapping and sexual abuse of a minor.Louis Shelton, 69, and Anthony Shelton, 23, were charged with abusing a 13-year-old girl.
  Earlier this month, on Jan. 10, troopers in Emmonak were notified of a sexual abuse case in Alakanuk. The Violent Offenders Unit assisted with the investigation.
  Last Wednes
  
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• Power restored to Newtok after days-long outage

  21-01-2016 17:11
  
  Power has been restored to the village of Newtok in southwestern Alaska after the community’s only generator malfunctioned over the weekend.
  KTUU-TV reports that the village was supplied with electricity Wednesday night after a temporary replacement generator was brought in Tuesday.
  Newtok residents had been without power since Saturday, when the 25-year-old generator broke down.
  The local school had functioned as an emergency shelter during the outage and people burned cardboard to heat t
  
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• Legislator joins national movement on privacy bills

  21-01-2016 17:10
  
  An Anchorage representative and the American Civil Liberties Union of Alaska are teaming up to support two privacy bills. The bills are aimed at protecting students and employees from having to provide access to personal social media accounts under coercion or threat.
  A national movement to increase data privacy includes the planned introduction of bills in 16 states addressing private email access, electronic devices belonging to students and social media protections for students and employees
  
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• Missing woman’s husband charged with murder

  21-01-2016 16:53
  
  Former Juneau resident Linda Skeek went missing in Anchorage on Jan.1. (Photo courtesy Laura Sheldon)
  The husband of the former Juneau woman who went missing on New Year’s Day has been charged with murder, according to the Anchorage Police Department.
  Anchorage police alerted the public to 32-year-old Linda Skeek’s disappearance Jan. 7. Police issued another statement Jan. 16 saying new information led them to believe her disappearance was suspicious.
  Linda Skeek’s husband, 33-
  
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• Senator moves to halt proposed ban on Alaska predator hunts

  21-01-2016 16:52
  
  U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan is looking to stop a proposed U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service ban on some bear, wolf and coyote hunts on federal wildlife refuges in the state.
  The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports that an amendment to Sullivan’s Bipartisan Sportsmen’s Act of 2015 would prohibit the federal agency from enacting hunting restrictions the agency announced earlier this month.
  Federal wildlife officials on Jan. 8 proposed changes to hunting and trapping rules for national wildlife
  
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• Reality Check: Those wacky gun shop clerks on 'Wild West Alaska' - Alaska Dispatch News

  21-01-2016 15:33
  Alaska Dispatch News
  Reality Check: Those wacky gun shop clerks on 'Wild West Alaska'
  Alaska Dispatch News
  First, a new eight-part series called “Alaska Proof” aired on Thursday with an Anchorage kick-off party at the Lake Front -- the hotel formerly known as the Millennium. Episode one focused on the staff of the Alaska Distillery harvesting glacial ice ...and more »
  

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• Reality Check: 'Alaska Proof' and those wacky gun shop clerks on 'Wild West Alaska' - Alaska Dispatch News

  21-01-2016 05:41
  Alaska Dispatch News
  Reality Check: 'Alaska Proof' and those wacky gun shop clerks on 'Wild West Alaska'
  Alaska Dispatch News
  First, a new eight-part series called “Alaska Proof” aired on Thursday with an Anchorage kick-off party at the Lake Front -- the hotel formerly known as the Millennium. Episode one focused on the staff of the Alaska Distillery harvesting glacial ice ...and more »
  

• Supreme Court Weighs Alaska Hunter's Hovercraft Claim - Voice of America

  21-01-2016 04:42
  Voice of America
  Supreme Court Weighs Alaska Hunter's Hovercraft Claim
  Voice of America
  January 20, 2016 9:35 PM. Outdoorsman John Sturgeon's fight with the U.S. government is about much more than whether the National Park Service can ban his use of a hovercraft to travel over otherwise inaccessible parts of Alaska's Nation River.
  Supreme Court hears Alaska hovercraft caseAlaska Public Radio Network
  Supreme Court hears about life in Alaska, parses access laws in hovercraft caseKTUU.com
  Supreme
  

• Alaska News Nightly: Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2016

  21-01-2016 03:43
  
  
  Stories are posted on the APRN news page. You can subscribe to APRN’s newsfeeds via email, podcast and RSS. Follow us on Facebook at alaskapublic.org and on Twitter @aprn.Download Audio
   
  Supreme Court hears hovercraft case
  Liz Ruskin, APRN – Anchorage
  The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court debated Wednesday morning whether the Park Service can impose its rules on rivers that flow through Alaska’s national park units.
  
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• Supreme Court hears Alaska hovercraft case

  21-01-2016 03:39
  
  
  Alaskan moose hunter John Sturgeon, left, traveled to Washington, D.C., to watch the Supreme Court hear his case. Photo: Liz Ruskin/APRN.
  The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court this morning debated whether the Park Service can impose its rules on rivers that flow through Alaska’s national park units. The case began in 2007, when rangers in the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve told Anchorage moose hunter John Sturgeon he couldn’t operate his hovercraft there. It has morphed into
  
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• Poll: Most Alaskans support state sales tax

  21-01-2016 03:38
  
  
  Alaskans are increasingly concerned about the $3.5 billion state budget shortfall. And they’re interested in using both state spending cuts and new revenue to close the gap. That’s according to the Rasmuson Foundation’s Plan4Alaska which surveyed 800 Alaskans earlier this month.
  Download Audio
  Compared with a similar survey in July, the share of residents who are extremely concerned about the shortfall rose from 31 percent to 43 percent.
  Two-thirds of residents want to close th
  
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• Rep. Tuck: Budget burden shouldn’t fall on middle class

  21-01-2016 03:37
  
  
  We’re talking with legislative leaders this week as part of a series on the start of the legislative session.
  House minority leader Rep. Chris Tuck, D-Anchorage, speaks at a press event Jan. 19, 2016. Photo: Skip Gray/360North.
  Anchorage Representative Chris Tuck is the minority leader in the state House. He questions whether the Governor’s budget proposal is fair for average Alaskans.
  Download Audio
  TUCK: One of the concerns that I have is a working family of four, making sure that
  
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• Conditions wanting in Fairbanks for Iditarod restart

  21-01-2016 03:36
  
  
  Iditarod organizers continue to look at Fairbanks for restarting this year’s race. Fairbanks North Star borough Mayor Karl Kassel met with race officials in Fairbanks yesterday.
  Download Audio
  Pete Kaiser in the 2015 Iditarod ceremonial start. (Photo by Josh Edge, APRN – Anchorage)
  “They think they probably have enough snow, if they don’t lose it, to be able to restart in Willow right now. But if the weather warms up at all they’ve got a major problem on their hands
  
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• Weather, land rule cancel Tustumena 200 race

  21-01-2016 03:35
  
  
  A lack of winter weather — and a lack of flexibility in the federal Wilderness Act — will mean a lack of the Kenai Peninsula’s premiere mushing race this year.
  The race’s 30th anniversary will have to wait. The Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race, scheduled for Jan. 30, has been canceled.
  Download Audio
  Photo: Tustumena 200 Sled Dog Race Association Facebook page.
  “It’s the third year in a row that we don’t have the snow conditions to make th
  
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• BIA settlement closes; Alaska tribal groups net $100M

  21-01-2016 03:34
  
  
  The enormous $940 million class-action lawsuit against the BIA on behalf of tribes cleared the last court hurdle today in New Mexico. The case stems from decades of short-funding tribal contracts. More than $100 million will be awarded to tribal organizations in Alaska.
  Download Audio
  The settlement is similar to one reached with the Indian Health Service last year, that also found tribes had agreed to contract amounts for tribal services but were then shorted the funds, or in some cases, not aw
  
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• Fairbanks paper adds new publisher after sale

  21-01-2016 03:33
  
  
  A man with a long history in Alaska newspapers is the new publisher of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.
  Download Audio
  The front of the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner’s headquarters, also known as the Aurora Building, in May 2009. (Creative Commons photo by James Brooks)
  Fuller Cowell was introduced as the newspaper’s top executive on Tuesday, shortly after the sale of the newspaper from William Dean Singleton to the Helen E. Snedden Foundation closed.
  Snedden’s husband, newspaper o
  
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• Scientists get ‘Blobby’ with it in Seattle

  21-01-2016 03:32
  
  
  Map showing how the sea surface temperature (SST) anomaly had moved and spread along the West Coast by March 2015. (Image provided by the NOAA/ESRL Physical Sciences Division at Boulder, Colorado)
  Scientists from up and down the West Coast are gathering in Seattle this week for a conference on a giant mass of warm ocean water that has lingered in the Northeast Pacific.
  Download Audio
  After over two years, the Blob may be dissipating. But its effects may last for years.
  The second Pacific Anomali
  
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• UAF expects new chancellor hire by spring

  21-01-2016 03:31
  
  
  There’s a large pool of applicants to be the University of Alaska Fairbanks next chancellor. In a wide ranging address to the Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce yesterday, interim UAF Chancellor Mike Powers updated members on the hiring process.
  Download Audio
  (Creative Commons photo by Jimmy Emerson)
  “The search committee has been formed of faculty, staff, students and administrators. We’ve met a number of times. Forty-one applications have been received. Vetting will occur in Febr
  
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• A correction helps uncover a heroic rescue in Angoon from ’95

  21-01-2016 03:30
  
  
  Two weeks ago, Alaska Public Media aired a story about Army Staff Sergeant Joshua Schneiderman receiving the Soldier’s Medal, one of the highest military distinctions, and reported that it was the first time the medal was given for an act that took place in Alaska. That claim is incorrect.
  Download Audio
  Officials with the Army in Alaska were fairly confident that a Soldier’s Medal hadn’t been issued to a member of the Army in Alaska — but caution
  
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• Traveling Music 1-24-16

  21-01-2016 03:21
  
  Traveling Music
  1-24-16
  Shonti Elder
   
  Format:
  Song TitleArtist / Composer
  CD Title
  Label
  Duration
   
  This weekends and next is the Anchorage Folk Festival www.anchoragefolkfestival.org
  free concerts at the Wendy Williamson auditorium, corner of Lake Otis and 36th. The band Front Country will be performing tonight around 8:30 PM, with evening music starting at 7:00 PM.  Concerts are free!
   
  Rootbeer For Breakfast
  Vance Gilbert / Vance Gilbert
  One Meatball – The Album / T
  
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• Supreme Court hears Alaska hovercraft case - Alaska Public Radio Network

  21-01-2016 00:49
  Alaska Public Radio Network
  Supreme Court hears Alaska hovercraft case
  Alaska Public Radio Network
  Alaskan moose hunter John Sturgeon, left, traveled to Washington, D.C., to watch the Supreme Court hear his case. Photo: Liz Ruskin/APRN. The justices of the U.S. Supreme Court this morning debated whether the Park Service can impose its rules on ...
  Supreme Court Weighs Alaska Hunter's Hovercraft ClaimVoice of America
  Supreme Court hears about life in Alaska, parses access laws in hovercraft case
  

• Driver plows into Sitka post office

  21-01-2016 00:21
  
  Police are investigating a woman for drunken driving after she crashed her SUV into the Sitka’s downtown postal substation Tuesday night.
  In addition to crushing the storefront, the SUV hit a parked car, a street sign, and ran over the mailbox. (KCAW photo/Robert Woolsey)
  Sitka police lieutenant Lance Ewers says that the woman was leaving the Moose Lodge a little after 9 PM in an SUV, when the vehicle crossed the street, jumped the curb, and ran head-on into the post office.
  “Sh
  
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