Wrangell Sentinel -

Alaska’s minimum wage will increase on Jan. 1 from $10.85 to $11.73 an hour, in accordance with a law put in place by a 2014 citizen initiative, the state Department of Labor announced. The law mandates regular increases in the minimum wage to... Full story

After recent years of record or near-record runs and harvests, Bristol Bay sockeye salmon numbers are expected to return to more average levels next year, according to state biologists. The 2024 Bristol Bay sockeye salmon run is expected to total 39... Full story

Alaska fish-harvesting employment declined in 2022, a continuing yearslong slide caused by a variety of factors, according to an analysis by the state Department of Labor. Employment for people harvesting seafood dropped by about 25% from 2015 to... Full story

Chum salmon are now reproducing farther north in some North Slope rivers, researchers have confirmed. A University of Alaska Fairbanks team this fall found about 100 chum salmon that were spawning or had just spawned in the Anaktuvuk and Itkillik... Full story

Former President Jimmy Carter was honored Nov. 1 by the Alaska Wilderness League for his conservation work in the state. The Mardie Murie Lifetime Achievement Award recognized Carter’s role in creating and passing the 1980 Alaska National Interest... Full story

Alaska’s industrial development agency has sued the Biden administration in an attempt to revive its Arctic National Wildlife Refuge oil and gas leases. The lawsuit filed Oct. 18 by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority alleges tha... Full story

A year after state officials imposed unprecedented shutdowns on crab fishing in the Bering Sea, the snow crab population is in even worse shape than it was last year, when the Alaska Department of Fish and Game canceled the 2022-23 harvest. Survey... Full story

Alaskans have high rates of chronic health conditions that can lead to death, and they are failing to follow lifestyles that would keep those chronic conditions at bay, according to a newly released state report. Two-thirds of Alaska adults are... Full story

Alaska’s ranked-choice voting system, which was in place for victories last year by the state’s first Democratic U.S. House member in half a century and the reelection of one of the last remaining moderate Republican U.S. senators, has become a t... Full story

Alaska has gotten more money per capita from the federal infrastructure law passed in 2021 than any other state, according to participants at a news conference where the latest injection of funds for the state was announced. Alaska’s member of the... Full story

After a period when COVID-19 restrictions halted the spread of other respiratory diseases, Alaska had a big increase in influenza cases last fall and winter, state data shows. The overall influenza case load during the 2022-23 season was much higher... Full story

The Biden administration on Sept. 6 announced it is canceling the last remaining oil and gas leases in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Those seven leases, all held by the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority... Full story

Environmental groups have asked a federal appeals court to overturn the Biden administration’s approval of exports from the proposed $44 billion project to sell North Slope natural gas. The Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity filed a... Full story

Alaska Natives in certain rural areas of the state have the nation’s highest death rates from suicide and domestic violence and some of the highest rates of accidental deaths, while Asians and Latinos in the state have some of the nation’s... Full story

The math that more people are leaving Alaska than moving to the state, along with the aging of the adult population that remains, has put Alaska’s largest city and the state at risk of squandering economic opportunities, according to a three-year... Full story

Elders and adults with disabilities will have more opportunities to get care at home or in a home-like setting under a bill that became state law when Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed it on July 29. The measure, Senate Bill 57, serves two broad categories... Full story

Tracking changes in permafrost can take years and sometimes decades, lags that cannot keep up with the transformations in the rapidly warming Arctic. Now scientists will be developing new technology to track those changes in real time, thanks to a... Full story

Tracking changes in permafrost can take years and sometimes decades, lags that cannot keep up with the transformations in the rapidly warming Arctic. Now scientists will be developing new technology to track those changes in real time, thanks to a... Full story

Thousands of aboveground tanks that store diesel fuel and other petroleum products would no longer be regulated by the state, under a proposal from the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation. The proposal is to repeal regulation of what are... Full story

A federal grant of nearly $3 million over five years will enable Alaska Pacific University in Anchorage to vastly expand its nursing-education programs, the university announced. The grant, from the U.S. Department of Labor, was one of 25 given to... Full story

Migrating birds have returned to Alaska, and so has the highly pathogenic avian influenza that began to sweep through global bird populations in 2020. That means Alaskans should continue to be vigilant about the strains that have arrived in the state... Full story

Federal and state leaders have appointed 19 experts to a special task force responsible for creating a science plan to better understand Alaska’s salmon, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Fisheries Service announced. Task... Full story

Alaska has the nation’s highest rate of drowning deaths, and the rate was consistently high over the past six years, according to a new state report. A Division of Public Health epidemiology bulletin released on May 31 examines drowning deaths... Full story