Anchorage news

• Juneau voters may have another chance to vote on funding a new city hall

  06-06-2023 22:45 via ktoo.org
  
  Paint cracks and window frames rot outside Juneau’s City Hall on May 22, 2023. (Katie Anastas/KTOO)
  The Juneau Assembly is one step closer to putting a new city hall bond on the October ballot.
  At a meeting Monday night, Assembly members expressed support for a $27 million bond proposal. Voters narrowly rejected last year’s proposal for a $35 million bond.
  “We did not, I think, put our best foot forward last year when we did not appropriate funds to advocate for the project,&rd
  
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• City seeks proposals to fill space in Juneau’s closing schools

  26-04-2024 20:59 via ktoo.org
  
  Students exit the Marie Drake building, which houses the Juneau School District’s alternative high school, Yaaḵoosgé Daakahídi, and Montessori Borealis, on Wednesday, April 24, 2024. (Clarise Larson/KTOO)
  The Juneau School District’s plan to close schools and consolidate grades means some buildings will sit empty after the end of the school year. But the City and Borough of Juneau is seeking proposals from community organizations to fill that space. 
  City Man
  
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• Report portrays mixed picture of Alaska’s huge seafood industry

  26-04-2024 20:52 via ktoo.org
  
  Low clouds hang over Kodiak’s St. Paul Harbor on Oct. 3, 2022. Kodiak is a hub for commercial fishing, an industry with an economic impact in Alaska of $6 billion a year in 2021 and 2022, according to a new report commissioned by the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
  The Alaska seafood industry remains an economic juggernaut, but it is under strain from forces outside of the state’s control, according to a new report commissioned by the st
  
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• King Cove braces for salmon season with no seafood processor amid historic price slump

  26-04-2024 20:20 via ktoo.org
  
  
  King Cove in August 2023. (Theo Greenly/KUCB)
  The city of King Cove is worried about the future after its seafood processor announced earlier this month that it will cease operations. The plant, formerly owned by Peter Pan Seafood Company, is the economic engine of the community on the Alaska Peninsula.
  A new owner will take over the processing plant, but it’s unclear when the facility will reopen. Kirsten Dobroth is the Alaska reporter for Undercurrent News, which is a commercial fis
  
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• Newscast – Thursday, April, 25, 2024

  26-04-2024 03:25 via ktoo.org
  
  https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/newscast.wav
  In this newscast:Trident Seafood’s Ketchikan processing plant was officially transferred to Silver Bay Seafoods.
  A new Alaska Senate bill tightens residency requirements on hunting and fishing licenses.
  A rare bowhead whale was spotted in Sitka.
  
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• Alaska Senate plans fast action on correspondence problem, but House is ‘fundamentally divided’

  25-04-2024 18:02 via ktoo.org
  
  Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak, and Speaker of the House Cathy Tilton, R-Wasilla, speak to legislators during a break in the Tuesday, March 12, 2024, joint session of the Alaska House and Senate. (James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
  As the Alaska Senate prepared on Wednesday to launch a legislative blitz intended to quickly fix a looming problem with the state’s remote education programs, the Alaska House of Representatives signaled that it is so split that it may need more than a year to
  
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• Alaska an important Special Operations training ground, as Arctic sees interest from Russia and China

  25-04-2024 17:54 via ktoo.org
  
  
  Navy SEALs stationed on the East Coast jump from an MC-130J Commando II near Kodiak, Alaska, Sunday, February 25, 2024. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
  The United States military has become more focused on training in Alaska, as Russia and China have looked to expand into the resource-rich and increasingly ice-free Arctic.
  And that goes not just for conventional forces, but also for Special Operations forces like Navy SEALs and Army Green Berets. Both were training in Alaska this past winte
  
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• Juneau Afternoon: Event previews of the ‘Early Learning Fair,’ ‘After School Special,’ and ‘Spirits of Alaska’

  25-04-2024 07:59 via ktoo.org
  
  
  “After School Special” at the Goldtown Theater, April 25, 2024 (Image courtesy of Marian Call)Wednesday, April 25, 2024 — Full EpisodeOn today’s program:“After School Special” Goldtown Theater concert with Molly Lewis, Marian Call, Sophie Lager, and Seth BoyerAEYC “Early Learning Fair” is Friday, April 26 at Dimond Park FieldhouseUpdates and events from the Juneau Chamber of Commerce including “Spirits of Alaska,” Saturday, April 27The
  
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• Newscast – Wednesday, April 24, 2024

  25-04-2024 02:20 via ktoo.org
  
  https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/20240424-News-Update.mp3
  In this newscast:A new campus slated for Juneau will be dedicated to immersing children in Alaska Native culture and languages,
  An Indigenous-led group, the Herring Protectors, received an unexpected contribution — two parcels of land on an island outside of Sitka,
  House lawmakers removed an amendment from a bill that would have raised the age of consent from 16 to 18 in some situations
  
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• Tlingit and Haida unveils plans for new education campus in Juneau

  24-04-2024 20:50 via ktoo.org
  
  This is a rendering of the conceptual design of the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska’s education campus. (Courtesy/Tlingit and Haida)
  A new campus slated for Juneau will be dedicated to immersing children in Alaska Native culture and languages, according to the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska.
  Tlingit and Haida President Chalyee Éesh Richard Peterson announced the plans last week during his State of the Tribe address a
  
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• Airlines are ordered to give full refunds instead of vouchers and to stop hiding fees

  24-04-2024 20:02 via ktoo.org
  
  Travelers and their luggage in a terminal at Los Angeles International Airport in August 2023. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
  WASHINGTON — In an effort to crack down on airlines that charge passengers steep fees to check bags and change flights, the U.S. Department of Transportation has announced new regulations aimed at expanding consumer protections.
  One of the final rules announced Wednesday requires airlines to show the full price of travel before passengers pay for their tickets. The other
  
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• Alaska House panel removes proposal to raise the state’s age of sexual consent to 18

  24-04-2024 19:58 via ktoo.org
  Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage, turns to listen to a proposed amendment to the state budget on Monday, April 3, 2023, at the Alaska State Capitol in Juneau, Alaska. (James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
  The Alaska House’s Rules Committee has eliminated, at least temporarily, a plan to raise the state’s age of sexual consent to 18. Members of the House said on Tuesday that they expect to revote on the idea before the legislative session ends.
  Meeting on Monday, members of the committee vot
  
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• Alaska Rep. Peltola stuns home region by defending Donlin gold mine, a project she once opposed

  24-04-2024 19:55 via ktoo.org
  
  A camera crew documents Mary Peltola fishing. (Photo by Liz Ruskin/Alaska Public Media)
  Congresswoman Mary Peltola has joined Alaska’s U.S senators on a legal brief in support of the proposed Donlin Creek Mine in Peltola’s home region of the Kuskokwim Delta.
  Tribal and subsistence advocates in the region are shocked that Peltola, whose campaign slogan was “Fish, Family and Freedom,” would take this position. Sophie Swope, executive director of a Bethel-based tribal coalit
  
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• Fairbanks neighborhood shaken by deadly cargo plane crash

  24-04-2024 19:44 via ktoo.org
  
  
   
  A hillside riverbank about seven miles south of the Fairbanks International Airport smolders after a fuel plane crashed Tuesday, April 23, 2024. (Courtesy Mike Emers)
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  Tuesday’s crash of a large cargo plane in the Cripple Creek area southeast of Fairbanks shook the neighborhood with several explosions. Witnesses said their windows rattled and the ground trembled. For the family closest to the
  
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• Juneau Afternoon: Theater at Latitude 58 revives the 1913 melodramatic farce ‘Seven Keys to Baldpate’

  24-04-2024 02:50 via ktoo.org
  
  “Seven Keys to Baldpate,” a production by Theater at Latitude 58 runs in Juneau from April 25-28, 2024Tuesday, April 23, 2024 — Full EpisodeOn today’s program:The Northwest ADA Center on assisting businesses, state and local government, and individuals in AlaskaToll-Free, 800-949-4232, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. PSTRelay: 7-1-1Email: [email protected] at Latitude 58’s production of “Seven Keys to Baldpate” by George C Cohan plays Juneau this weekendLitt
  
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• Newscast – Tuesday, April 23, 2024

  24-04-2024 02:42 via ktoo.org
  
  
  https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/20240423-News-Update.mp3
  In this newscast:Alaska’s Division of Forestry released its plan for selling timber in Southeast Alaska for the next five years and an environmental group in the region is frustrated with the public process,
  A recent paper in Nature attempts to set a new timeframe of when humans first appeared in Southeast Alaska, but for Southeast Alaska Natives, it’s just one piece of a much bigger puzzle
  
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• University of Alaska gets $20M to study effects of climate change on fishing and harvesting in the Gulf of Alaska

  23-04-2024 23:51 via ktoo.org
  
  People fish off North Douglas in July 2023. (Clarise Larson/KTOO)
  A new University of Alaska research project will look at how human-caused climate change affects fishing, farming and harvesting in the Gulf of Alaska to build resilience for communities that rely on the ocean.
  $20 million dollars of funding from the National Science Foundation will support the work of 23 researchers at all three University of Alaska campuses in Fairbanks, Juneau and Anchorage.
  Jason Fellman of the Alaska Coastal
  
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• Begich makes a pledge: He’ll drop out of Alaska’s US House race if Dahlstrom bests him in primary

  23-04-2024 22:35 via ktoo.org
  
  Nick Begich III at his Anchorage campaign headquarters during the 2022 campaign. (Liz Ruskin/Alaska Public Media)
  Conservatives hoping to defeat Alaska Congresswoman Mary Peltola in November dread a replay of what happened in 2022, when Republican candidates Sarah Palin and Nick Begich III spent most of their campaign energy attacking each other, right up to the general election, and Republican voters were split between the two.
  This year, the leading Republicans are Begich, again, and Lt.
  
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• Alaska Senate passes bill that ties hunting and fishing residency requirements to PFD eligibility

  23-04-2024 22:28 via ktoo.org
  
  The Alaska State Capitol doors on June 16, 2021. (Andrew Kitchenman/KTOO and Alaska Public Media)
  Kurt Whitehead lives in Klawock on Prince of Wales Island, and every summer, he said, as the humpbacks and herring and salmon return, so too do the island’s seasonal residents.
  “They’re basically tourists,” he said by phone Monday. “You can be nice and call them seasonal residents, but really, they only come to our state just for the hunting and the fishing, and sometim
  
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• Talks for a plastic pollution treaty are stalling. Could the US be doing more?

  23-04-2024 19:17 via ktoo.org
  
  Plastic waste and garbage are seen at a beach in Panama. (Luis Acosta/AFP via Getty Images)
  Negotiators from about 175 countries have been sparring for more than a year over a treaty to clean up plastic pollution that’s choking rivers and piling up in landfills. As a critical new round of deliberations starts this week in Canada, the talks are floundering.
  Some scientists and civil society groups say the United States bears a lot of the blame.
  Almost every piece of plastic is made from fos
  
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• Alaska Senate considers plan that would allow teens to independently seek mental health care

  23-04-2024 19:08 via ktoo.org
  
  Sen. Cathy Giessel, R-Anchorage, speaks about Senate Bill 88, the Senate Majority’s new public employee pension proposal, on Wednesday, March 1, 2023. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
  To address a surge in mental health problems among young Alaskans, the Alaska Senate is considering whether to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to seek therapy without their parents’ permission.
  On Wednesday, the Senate is scheduled to vote on Senate Bill 240, a proposal introduced by Gov. Mike Dunl
  
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• Newscast – Monday, April 22, 2024

  23-04-2024 02:47 via ktoo.org
  
  https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/20240422NewsUpdate.mp3
  In this newscast:The City and Borough of Juneau is creating a task force to tackle if — and how — they should be regulated,
  Juneau’s emergency warming shelter closed last week and the city doesn’t have a campground for people to move to this year,
  Tongass Voices: Holly Huber on what it takes to be Miss Alaska Volunteer
  
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• Juneau mayor’s husband dies in accident in Arizona

  22-04-2024 23:41 via ktoo.org
  
  Beth and Greg Weldon smile for a photo. (Courtesy City and Borough of Juneau)
  The husband of Juneau Mayor Beth Weldon died in a motorcycle accident in Arizona on Sunday, according to the city. 
  Greg Weldon was 60 years old and a longtime Juneau resident. The Weldons have two adult children and owned Glacier Auto Parts together.  
  City Manager Katie Koester said Deputy Mayor Michelle Hale will step in as acting mayor while Beth Weldon cares for her family.
  The city’s release
  
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• Tongass Voices: Holly Huber on what it takes to be Miss Alaska Volunteer

  22-04-2024 22:34 via ktoo.org
  
  
  Miss Alaska Volunteer Holly Huber in the KTOO studio. March 3, 2024. Photo by Yvonne Krumrey/KTOO.
  This is Tongass Voices, a series from KTOO sharing weekly perspectives from the homelands of the Áak’w Kwáan and beyond.
  Holly Huber is this year’s Miss Alaska Volunteer. It’s a newer crown within U.S. pageant system, and it focuses on what contestants do to support their communities. 
  Huber uses her platform to bring awareness to the mental health crisis in Ala
  
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• Garden Talk: Transplanting starts and seeding potatoes

  22-04-2024 22:27 via ktoo.org
  
  Parsley and flower starts in the process of being hardened off on April 22, 2024. (Photo courtesy of Christina Castellanos/Snowshoe Hollow Farm)
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  With all of this spring sunshine warming the earth, Master Gardener Ed Buyarski says it’s time to think about starting seeds and transplanting. But before you put your seedlings in the ground, you’ll have to get them ready.
  “Hardening them off is slowly getting them used to out
  
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• Juneau forms a task force to tackle short-term rental regulations

  22-04-2024 22:12 via ktoo.org
  
  Downtown Juneau on Saturday, March 23, 2024. (Clarise Larson/KTOO)
  In a bid to figure out what role short-term rental properties will play in Juneau’s future, the City and Borough of Juneau is creating a task force to tackle if — and how — those rentals should be regulated. 
  On April 15, the Juneau Assembly agreed to allow the mayor to begin selecting residents who are interested in joining the task force, which will recommend regulations for the Assembly to consider.&nbs
  
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• Relocation of eroding Alaska Native village seen as a test case for other threatened communities

  22-04-2024 18:38 via ktoo.org
  
  The “Newtok Mothers” assembled as a panel at the Arctic Encounter Symposium on April 11, 2024, discuss the progress and challenges as village residents move from the eroding and thawing old site to a new village site called Mertarvik. Photographs showing deteriorating conditions in Newtok are displayed on a screen as the women speak at the event, held at Anchorage’s Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center. (Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
  The Yup’ik village of Newtok, perc
  
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• Historical markers are everywhere in America. Some get history wrong

  22-04-2024 18:27 via ktoo.org
  
  
  The stately Fendall Hall in Eufaula, Ala., has a historical marker that does not accurately portray how the home’s original owners were cotton brokers and were part of the slave trade in the 1800s. (Andi Rice for NPR)https://play.podtrac.com/npr-191676894/traffic.megaphone.fm/NPR5661782575.mp3?orgId=1&aggIds=1245316423&p=&e=1244899635&size=38307719&d=2394&t=podcast&ft=nprml&f=1244899635
  The sound of the party filters across the mansion’s lawn long befo
  
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• ‘Not in the business of just giving away our entire collections:’ Denver Art Museum denies Lingít claims for repatriation

  22-04-2024 17:59 via ktoo.org
  
  
  Works on display from the Denver Art Museum’s Northwest Coast and Alaska Native arts collection on April 16, 2024. (Ian Dickson/KTOO)
  Earlier this month, the Denver Post reported that Lingít tribal members have been requesting cultural items back from the Denver Art Museum in Colorado for years — to no avail. 
  The museum holds many Lingít items that may qualify to be returned under federal law. 
  Investigative reporter Sam Tabachnik says delegates from the Centra
  
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• Biden administration blocks Ambler Road, strengthens protections for NPR-A

  20-04-2024 17:51 via ktoo.org
  
  The Kobuk River runs through the Ambler Mining district, where a new road would be built to connect the Northwest Arctic with the Dalton Highway to Fairbanks. (Berett Wilber/Alaska Public Media)
  The U.S. Interior Department on Friday essentially rejected the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority’s proposal to build the Ambler Road, a 211-mile industrial road that would have cut through Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve to access copper and zinc deposits in Northwe
  
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