Anchorage news

• Gardentalk – Dividing primulas

  18-05-2017 23:38 via ktoo.org
  
  
  Primroses and daffodils simultaneously bloom in a North Douglas flower bed. (Photo by Matt Miller/KTOO)
  In this week’s edition of Gardentalk, Master Gardener Ed Buyarski provides some tips for dividing primula, commonly known as primrose.
  He recommends waiting until after the primose plant has finished blooming and the flowers begin fading away.
  Carefully dig up the plant and separate out the various drumsticks of flowers by lightly shaking and washing out the soil from the roots. Tri
  
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• Newscast – Thursday, May 18, 2017

  18-05-2017 23:18 via ktoo.org
  
  
  Stories include:
  Start of the special session of the Alaska Legislature, and
  New head of the Alaska State Troopers, and
  Resignation of Petersburg Mayor Mark Jensen, and
  Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee meeting in Seattle.
  http://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/ktoo/2017/05/newscast051817.mp3
  
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• Trump says special counsel ‘divides the country’

  18-05-2017 22:36
  
  WASHINGTON (AP) – The Latest on President Donald Trump (all times local):
  4:25 p.m.
  President Donald Trump says that the appointment of a special counsel for the ongoing investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia “divides the country.”
  Trump is reacting to the appointment of former FBI Director Robert Mueller to lead the investigation after he fired FBI Director James Comey.
  Trump said Thursday that he respects “the entire thing” but said that he persona
  
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• Series of fishing restrictions hitting Kuskokwim Saturday

  18-05-2017 22:04
  
  The state has issued a series of subsistence fishing restrictions that will take effect beginning this weekend, according to a report by KYUK. The measures are meant to conserve the soon-to-arrive king salmon.
  Starting Saturday, May 20, the Kuskokwim River will close to gillnets in the bottom portion of the river. The restriction will move upstream every five days until it reaches the headwaters.
  Also beginning Saturday, a series of river drainages will close to both subsistence fishing and gill
  
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• Alaska lawmakers open special session, Walker addresses press

  18-05-2017 21:59
  
  JUNEAU, Alaska – The Latest on the Alaska Legislature’s special session (all times local):
  12:56 p.m.
  Alaska Gov. Bill Walker is expected to make a public appearance at a press conference Thursday at 1 p.m. Watch the video above for more.
  11:05 a.m.
  Alaska lawmakers have convened the special session called by Gov. Bill Walker to complete work on a state budget and plan for addressing Alaska’s multibillion-dollar budget deficit.
  The session opened late Thursday morning.
  It comes
  
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• Alaska may see warmer than normal temperatures this summer

  18-05-2017 20:53
  
  The Climate Prediction Center has released it’s latest summer outlook, and a warm summer may be ahead for Alaska. According to the outlook, the months of June, July, and August have a 40 percent chance of seeing warmer than normal temperatures for the majority of Alaska, with a 33 percent chance of warmer than normal temperatures on the North Slope. This outlook comes after the warmest year on record was recorded statewide in 2016.The trend in Alaska follows closely with much of the Lower
  
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• Driver killed, passengers injured in crash outside Wasilla

  18-05-2017 20:42
  
  WASILLA, Alaska (AP) – A Wasilla man died when his small pickup crossed the centerline of a rural road and crashed into a sport utility vehicle.
  Alaska State Troopers say 37-year-old Daniel Alexander died in the crash on Knik-Goose Bay Road.
  Alexander late Tuesday afternoon was driving south near Foothills Road when his truck crossed into the northbound lane and struck the SUV driven by 30-year-old Chris Tucker of Wasilla.
  Alexander was not wearing a seat belt. He and a passenger, a child
  
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• At least 1 dead, 12 injured after car strikes pedestrians in Times Square

  18-05-2017 19:08 via ktoo.org
  
  At least one person was killed Thursday when a vehicle hit a crowd of pedestrians in New York City’s Times Square, according to fire officials in New York. Officials say 12 other people were injured in the incident.The scene at Times Square now. Gov Cuomo just arrived. pic.twitter.com/pErB4jg4sS
  — Stephen Nessen (@s_nessen) May 18, 2017The car leaped the curb at 45th Street and Broadway, and then plowed onto the sidewalk. Law enforcement has blocked off the area, and WNYC’s Ste
  
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• 1 in 6 newlywed spouses are of different race or ethnicity

  18-05-2017 18:55
  
  WASHINGTON (AP) – A new study says that 1 in 6 people who married in 2015 wed someone of a difference race or ethnicity, the highest proportion in American history.
  The figures released Thursday come from a Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data.
  Overall, 1 in 10 people – or 11 million – in the United States have spouses of a different race or ethnicity.
  Pew researchers note that 50 years ago, only 3 percent of the people in the country were intermarried &ndash
  
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• Trump loyalists pay little heed to revelations rocking DC

  18-05-2017 18:30
  
  NEW YORK (AP) – President Donald Trump’s loyal backers say they don’t know, don’t believe or don’t care about the explosive revelations rocking Washington.
  Voters who supported him are standing by the president – who’s tweeted that he’s the target of what he calls “the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!”
  That’s the word from the quiet streets of New York’s working-class Staten Island to small-tow
  
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• Leaving timber behind, an Alaska town Ketchikan turns to tourism

  18-05-2017 18:00 via ktoo.org
  
  Ketchikan sits on an island at the southernmost end of southeast Alaska, a prime spot for cruise ships navigating Alaska’s Inside Passage. (Photo by Elissa Nadworny/NPR)What happens to a town when a key industry collapses?
  Sometimes it dies. But sometimes it finds a way to reinvent itself.
  Case in point: Ketchikan, Alaska, where the demise of the timber industry has led to a radical transformation.
  Many people who used to earn their livelihoods through timber have now turned to jobs in tou
  
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• In a first, moms in their 30s are having more babies than younger women

  18-05-2017 17:32
  
  For the first time, women in their early 30s are having more babies than younger moms in the United States.
  Health experts say the shift is due to more women waiting longer to have children and the ongoing drop in the teen birth rate.
  For more than three decades, women in their late 20s had the highest birth rates, but that changed last year, according to preliminary data released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  The birth rate for women ages 30 to 34 was about 103 pe
  
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• Quake prone cities on West Coast aim to improve countermeasures

  18-05-2017 16:00 via ktoo.org
  
  
  https://cpa.ds.npr.org/northwestnews/audio/2017/05/051217TB_Resilience_web.mp3Vulnerability assessments by utilities and emergency planners along the U.S. West Coast suggest it could be weeks or a month or more before water service gets restored after a major earthquake — not to mention electricity, sewage treatment and fuel supply too.
  The social and economic disruption does not have to be that bad though, given adequate preparedness and investments in critical infrastructure as dem
  
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• Special session to begin Thursday after lawmakers fail to compromise

  18-05-2017 09:01 via ktoo.org
  
  Gov. Bill Walker signs a proclamation for a special session focused on the budget and long-term spending plan, after lawmakers failed to compromise on Wednesday. (Photo by Andrew Kitchenman/KTOO and Alaska Public Media)
  Gov. Bill Walker called the Alaska Legislature into a special session starting Thursday.
  The session will focus on the state budget and the long-term gap between how much the state government spends and how much it raises. The Legislature failed to reach agreements on a budg
  
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• 91-year-old charged with killing his wife released to family

  18-05-2017 08:16
  
  In a wheelchair, with headphones to aid his hearing and tears in his eyes, 91-year-old Duane Marvin appeared in Anchorage’s jail court on a murder charge Wednesday.
  He cried throughout the hearing, at one point saying “I killed my wife.”
  He gave a similar statement to detectives Sunday when they responded to his Midtown home and found the body of his wife, 92-year-old Charlotte Marvin.
  The warrant for his arrest says investigators believe he shot his wife in the back of th
  
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• Gov. Walker calls Alaska Legislature into special session

  18-05-2017 07:54
  
  Alaska lawmakers are headed for a special session after adjourning Wednesday night without coming up with a long-term fiscal plan or passing an operating budget for the upcoming fiscal year.
  (Liz Raines / KTVA)
  Gov. Bill Walker signed the proclamation minutes after the Legislature adjourned, calling them back into special session Thursday morning at 11 a.m.
  They now have up to thirty days of additional work in Juneau.
  Lawmakers did pass some other non-budget measures before a
  
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• Anchorage’s new Community Compost Program begins Sunday

  18-05-2017 07:08
  
  After a successful pilot project the Municipality of Anchorage will officially begin a new Community Composting Program.
  Solid Waste Services (SWS) has 1,000 buckets to give out to people who want to participate. People can save their food scraps — coffee grounds, eggshells, fruit and vegetable peels — then trade them in for compost.
  SWS estimates each person in Anchorage produces up to a ton of trash every year. Recycling coordinator Travis Smith said it’s important to divert
  
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• State handing out free drug disposal bags to combat Alaska’s opioid epidemic

  18-05-2017 06:49
  
  This may sound familiar, in fact, you’ve likely been there yourself. Your doctor prescribes you opioid pain medication, but once the pain is gone there are still pills left over.
  The Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) wants to keep your unused prescriptions from falling into the wrong hands while helping to fight the spread of opioid addiction.
  Andy Jones works for the state and also acts as deputy incident commander for Alaska’s Opioid Response Team.
  Lately, it seems he
  
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• Brass music fills the State Office Building

  18-05-2017 04:58 via ktoo.org
  
  This is the Axiom Brass Quintet from at today’s Juneau Jazz and Classics’ lunchtime concert at the State Office Building.
  Between songs, members of the group talked to the audience, which included several school groups, about the histories and mechanics of their instruments—two trumpets, a tuba, a French horn, and a trombone.
  The quintet plays again tonight at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center at 7 p.m. The group will be joined by several additional instruments, including pia
  
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• Juneau’s homeless population prefers Marine Park over Thane campground

  18-05-2017 04:40 via ktoo.org
  
  
  Lorraine Paul, 42, wakes up the morning of May 17, 2017, in Marine Park, Juneau. The city wants to begin enforcing the park’s posted hours of midnight to 7 a.m.
  Juneau’s controversial anti-camping ordinance has been in effect for more than a month. The result has been more people are sleeping in downtown’s Marine Park.  Now the city is looking to empty the park of overnight campers.http://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/ktoo/2017/05/170518HOMELESS-PKG.mp3It’s just after 8
  
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• Many of California’s salmon populations unlikely to survive the century

  18-05-2017 04:00 via ktoo.org
  
  Wild Chinook salmon, probably the most prized seafood item on the West Coast, could all but vanish from California within a hundred years, according to a report released Tuesday.
  The authors with the University of California-Davis and the conservation group California Trout name climate change, dams and agriculture as the major threats to the prized and iconic fish, which is still the core of the state’s robust fishing industry.
  Chinook salmon is just one species at risk of disappearing.
  A
  
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• Former FBI Director Mueller appointed special counsel to oversee Russia probe

  18-05-2017 02:19 via ktoo.org
  
  Updated at 7:45 p.m. ET
  The Justice Department is appointing former FBI Director Robert Mueller as a special counsel to oversee the growing probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible ties to associates of President Trump.
  “In my capacity as acting Attorney General, I determined that it is in the public interest for me to exercise my authority and appoint a Special Counsel to assume responsibility for this matter,” Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said in a st
  
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• At Anchorage high school, a student meteorologist delivers the forecast

  18-05-2017 02:10 via ktoo.org
  
  Jack Pellerin prepares his morning weather broadcast script. (Photo by Wesley Early/Alaska Public Media)
  For most high schooler students, the first thing they hear at school every day is the Pledge of Allegiance and announcements.
  Students get something more At Anchorage’s Bartlett High School:
  “Good morning Bartlett Bears. Welcome to Wednesday, May 17 — graduation day. I’m meteorologist Jack Pellerin.”
  Pellerin, 14, is one of the first voices the students at B
  
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• Juneau Afternoon – 5-18-17

  18-05-2017 02:00 via ktoo.org
  
  Thursday on a Juneau Afternoon, Joan Pardes hosts;
  David Coucheron and Evan Drachtman will be here to highlight their Juneau Jazz & Classics Festival concertS;
  Juneau Stop Heroin/Stop Talking – Student Awareness Campaign
  And Nancy DeCherney will be here with Arts Up.
  That, Writer’s Almanac, Bird Note, music and more, live at 3 on KTOO, repeated at 4 on KRNN, and available on demand via ktoo.org
  
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• As states tighten restrictions on ivory, Skagway carvers worry about the future

  18-05-2017 01:14 via ktoo.org
  
  
  Bruce Schindler carves a piece of mammoth ivory using a dental tool. (Photo by Abbey Collins/KHNS)
  Restrictions on the ivory industry are multiplying in the U.S., causing concern for artists in Alaska.
  Alaska Native carvers do have a degree of protection under federal law. But, non-Native carvers who only work with fossilized ivory are not shielded in the same way.
  In Skagway, where thousands of cruise visitors stop each summer, there is a small but significant group of ivory carvers and sellers
  
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