Anchorage news

• To reduce staff turnover, Wrangell hospital takes homegrown hiring approach

  10-11-2019 18:07 via ktoo.org
  
  Wrangell Medical Center. (Photo by KSTK)
  Wrangell’s hospital is funding professional training for local community members. The idea is to reduce staff turnover in the Southeast Alaska hospital by empowering — and ultimately hiring — people with roots in the community.
  For about a month now, Isabella Crowley has been working as a nursing assistant in Wrangell’s long-term and acute care units.
  “It’s a very rewarding job. I don’t look at it as a way to earn
  
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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)
  https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/GT-3.wav
  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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• Juneau’s winter warming shelter has closed, but no summer campground has taken its place

  20-04-2024 04:46 via ktoo.org
  
  On Monday, April 15, the last night before Juneau’s warming shelter closed, a man who gave the name Mikey said he and his partner did not know where they would go next. (Yvonne Krumrey/KTOO)
  On Monday night, about 20 people slept on cots in the warehouse that served as Juneau’s warming shelter this winter. At its peak, the Thane shelter housed 63 people. 
  A man who gave the name Mikey said that he and his partner had been staying in the shelter since losing their housing earlier
  
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• Newscast – Friday, April 19, 2024

  19-04-2024 18:37 via ktoo.org
  
  
  https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/20240419-News-Update.mp3
  In this newscast –The Tongass National Forest has grown, with the addition of 5 acres of important fish and wildlife habitat
  Earlier this month, the Denver Post reported that Lingit tribal members have been requesting cultural items back from the Denver Art Museum in Colorado for years – to no avail
  
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• Lawmakers to wait on Alaska Supreme Court as families reel in wake of correspondence ruling

  19-04-2024 18:08 via ktoo.org
  
  Danielle Brubaker shops for homeschool materials at the IDEA Homeschool Curriculum Fair in Anchorage on April 18, 2024. A court ruling struck down the part of Alaska law that allows correspondence school families to receive money for such purchases. (Photo by Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon)
  Over the last 26 years, Penelope Gold has used the state’s correspondence school program to homeschool six of her seven children. Most have graduated, but her youngest daughter is in fifth grade. For all
  
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• How well does Juneau recycle, and where does it all end up?

  18-04-2024 20:00 via ktoo.org
  
  Signs tell Juneau residents where to deposit their recyclables at the city Recycling Center in Lemon Creek. (Photo by Adelyn Baxter/KTOO)https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/05CJRecycling.mp3
  Editor’s Note: After we finished this story, a power outage forced the city’s recycling center to close for repairs. The city’s public works department says the recycling facility is full right now and won’t be able to receive any new materials for at least a few days.
  I
  
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• Newscast – Thursday, April 18, 2024

  18-04-2024 18:16 via ktoo.org
  
  https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/20240418.mp3
  In this newscast:Scientists and Alaska Native leaders released a report this week that claims plastic waste in the Arctic is contaminating essential resources of Indigenous communities
  Kahlil English shares his research on the silverweed, a seemingly inconspicuous plant with deep roots in Pacific Northwest history
  
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• Many baby boomers own homes that are too big. Can they be enticed to sell them?

  18-04-2024 17:12 via ktoo.org
  
  Some baby boomers would like to downsize from their large homes, but say it doesn’t make financial sense. Single-family homes in Dumfries, Va., are seen here last year. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
  Among the many hard truths for those trying to enter America’s brutal housing market, here’s one: Baby boomers continue to own many of the country’s large houses, even after their households have shrunk to one or two people.
  Baby boomer empty ne
  
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• Alaska Senate rolls out operating budget with roughly $1,300 PFD plus energy relief check

  18-04-2024 17:00 via ktoo.org
  
  Senate Finance Committee Co-Chair Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, listens to testimony from Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities Commissioner Ryan Anderson on Feb. 28, 2024. (Eric Stone/Alaska Public Media)
  The Alaska Senate rolled out its first draft of the state’s operating budget Wednesday. The budget includes a roughly $1,300 Permanent Fund dividend for residents, plus about $175 in an energy relief check. The Senate’s PFD proposal earmarks 25% of this year&rsquo
  
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• Peter Pan Seafoods announces it will cease operations

  17-04-2024 21:30 via ktoo.org
  
  Fishing vessels in King Cove (Theo Greenly/KUCB)
  Peter Pan Seafood Co., the state-backed processing company that has faced dire financial troubles recently, announced Friday it was ceasing operations.
  “We’re saddened to share that Peter Pan Seafoods will be halting operations at its processing plants, leading to the discontinuation of both summer and winter production cycles for the foreseeable future,” the company said in a Facebook post Friday night.
  The company has faced mou
  
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• Conservation groups add land to the Kootznoowoo Wilderness

  17-04-2024 20:00 via ktoo.org
  
  Two brown bears on July 10, 2012 in the Kootznoowoo Wilderness on Admiralty Island in the Tongass National Forest. (Photo courtesy (Don MacDougall/U.S. Forest Service)
  The vast Tongass National Forest just grew a little bit larger, with the addition of five acres to the Kootznoowoo Wilderness on Admiralty Island. 
  The property, known as Wheeler Creek, was privately owned until the Southeast Alaska Land Trust and the Wilderness Land Trust teamed up to buy it. Then they transferred ownership
  
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• Newscast – Wednesday, April 17, 2024

  17-04-2024 19:53 via ktoo.org
  
  
  https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/20230417-News-Update.mp3
  In this newscast:Wrangell’s Nolan Center hosted a screening of Blue Ticket on Monday. It’s a film of a play that KTOO documented back in 2019. The play’s author, Maureen Longworth, documented how gay men in Juneau were exiled from the city in the 1960s.
  The Alaska Native Birthworkers Community is a collective of Indigenous midwives and doulas who work with Indigenous mothers during pregnancy, birth and
  
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• Army Corps of Engineers affirms denial of permit for Pebble Mine

  17-04-2024 19:30 via ktoo.org
  
  The proposed Pebble Mine site, pictured in 2014. (Photo by Jason Sear/KDLG)
  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has upheld its denial of a permit for the proposed Pebble Mine, upstream from Bristol Bay.
  The decision issued Monday is the latest in a long string of legal and administrative rulings against the project.
  But opponents of the gold mine say their fight isn’t over.
  “Pebble will not be over until we have federal legislation, basically saying Bristol Bay is protected fo
  
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• Dunleavy argues homeschool allotments are an ‘indirect benefit’ to private schools. Lawmakers disagree.

  17-04-2024 17:30 via ktoo.org
  
  Governor Mike Dunleavy discussed his priorities for education and other state issues on Talk of Alaska on Tuesday, April 16, 2024. (Matt Faubion/Alaska Public Media)
  Gov. Mike Dunleavy is defending the state’s correspondence school program after a Superior Court judge declared cash payments to Alaska homeschool parents for educational expenses unconstitutional.
  The judge found that the state’s allotment program, which reimburses parents up to $4,500 per year for books, supplies, acti
  
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• Scientists, Alaska Native leaders say the Arctic faces a growing crisis from plastic waste

  17-04-2024 02:58 via ktoo.org
  
  A walrus is seen in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea in June of 2010. Research by a University of Alaska Fairbanks student found microplastics, mostly tiny fibers, were lodged in muscle tissue, blubber and livers of walruses harvested by hunters from St. Lawrence Island and Wainwright. (Sarah Sonsthagen/U.S. Geological Survey)
  Vi Waghiyi grew up in the village of Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island, where meat from walrus, seal and bowhead whale sustained her family through long winters. 
  “My
  
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• Newscast – Tuesday, April 16, 2024

  17-04-2024 02:40 via ktoo.org
  
  
  https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/20240416-NewsUpdate.mp3
  In this newscast:The Juneau planning commission agreed to let an outdoor food court expand into the empty lot that once housed the demolished Elks Hall building,
  The National Native Boarding School Healing Coalition will conduct interviews to document abuse at boarding schools,
  Alaska Public Media reporter Eric Stone on the Superior Court ruling that found a key benefit to families who choose certain types of homeschoolin
  
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• Alaska House committee advances, expands proposal to bar trans girls from girls sports

  16-04-2024 19:20 via ktoo.org
  
  An outdoor basketball hoop is seen in Bethel in October 2022. Alaskans will be able to play only on sports teams that match their gender at birth through college if a new bill becomes law. (Photo by Claire Stremple)
  Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee expanded and advanced a bill that would limit Alaska students’ sports participation to teams that match their sex at birth. Twenty-four states have passed similar laws.
  House Bill 183 was amended in the committe
  
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• Suicides make up majority of gun deaths, but remain overlooked in gun violence debate

  16-04-2024 19:12 via ktoo.org
  
  Maura Condon Umble and her son, Alex Patrick Umble. (Maura Umble)https://play.podtrac.com/npr-191676894/ondemand.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/me/2024/04/20240416_me_suicides_make_up_majority_of_gun_deaths_but_remain_overlooked_in_gun_violence_debate.mp3?orgId=1&topicId=1003&aggIds=1241382501&d=436&p=3&story=1243924108&ft=nprml&f=1243924108
  It was an early summer morning in 2018, and Alex Patrick Umble’s family hadn’t heard from him. His mother, Maura Condon Um
  
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• Alaskans will have a chance to see a total solar eclipse… in 9 years

  16-04-2024 19:03 via ktoo.org
  During a solar eclipse, Baily’s Beads and solar prominences are seen just after totality in Dallas on Monday, April 8, 2024. (Keegan Barber/NASA)
  If you’re bummed out about missing the total solar eclipse in the Lower 48 this month, start planning now. The next total solar eclipse in North America will happen in 2033, in Alaska.
  University of Alaska Anchorage physics and astronomy professor Travis Rector said the world sees about one to two solar eclipses a year, but the next one in
  
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• A judge has thrown out a key part of Alaska’s homeschool system. Here’s what to know.

  16-04-2024 18:39 via ktoo.org
  
  The Alaska State Capitol on March 25, 2024. (Eric Stone/Alaska Public Media)
  A Superior Court judge in Anchorage has found a key benefit to families who choose certain types of homeschool violates the state Constitution. The ruling has to do with correspondence school allotments. Those are cash payments to families of homeschooled children meant to reimburse the cost of things like textbooks, services and even private school classes.
  Here’s what to know.
  What does this ruling say?
  The ruli
  
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• Downtown Juneau’s outdoor food court is expanding, with more restaurants and longer seasons

  16-04-2024 17:30 via ktoo.org
  
  Workers construct a retaining wall at the outdoor food court location on Franklin Street on Monday, April 15, 2024. (Clarise Larson/KTOO)
  An empty lot that once housed the now-demolished Elks Hall building in downtown Juneau will be getting a new life this summer. 
  Last week, the Juneau planning commission unanimously agreed to allow David McCasland of Deckhand Dave’s, a fish taco stand, to use the site to expand his seasonal outdoor food court on Franklin Street. 
  McCasland said
  
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• Newscast – Monday, April 15, 2024

  16-04-2024 02:41 via ktoo.org
  
  
  https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/20240415-News-Update.mp3
  In this newscast:Peter Pan Seafood announced Friday that it was ceasing operations,
  A partisan brawl is about to erupt in Congress over the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Alaska’s US senators are seemingly split over it,
  Tongass Voices: Jeremy Kane on the philosophy of bowl-making
  
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