Sorted by date Results 676 - 700 of 1040
The state housing corporation started up its new, federally funded assistance program for renters this week. Up to $200 million is available to help tenants across Alaska who are behind on their rent or utilities, and/or need help with the rent for this month and even far into 2021. In addition to a maximum income level - a Wrangell applicant's total household income either last year or this year cannot exceed $57,120 - the other major eligibility requirement is that the household must show it...
Testing for COVID-19 will continue at the Wrangell airport, and at other airports throughout Alaska, even though the state pandemic disaster declaration expired Sunday. However, the testing will be optional rather than mandatory, except in those communities with their own rules. The Alaska Legislature was unable to agree on a new disaster authorization for the governor, who declined to issue a declaration without legislative action. "As of now we will continue with airport screening and...
Fishermen must wear masks while they are underway, even while sleeping, and the Coast Guard intends to enforce it. That’s an edict issued as a public health emergency by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a Marine Safety Bulletin issued Feb. 1. It requires wearing masks at all times in U.S. waters on all commercial vessels “when boarding, disembarking, and for the duration of travel” to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The action states that “conveyance operators traveling into or within the U.S. may transport only perso...
SITKA - With protocols for coronavirus mitigation and testing, as well as hope for a more expansive vaccine rollout, Sitka-based maritime tourism company Allen Marine plans to return to form this spring and summer, the company said last week. Bookings on Allen Marine’s subsidiary company, Alaska Dream Cruises, have seen significant demand, Allen Marine’s Zak Kirkpatrick reported in an online press and industry meeting. The Dream Cruises operate solely in Alaska waters, unaffected by Canada’s decision earlier this month to keep its waters close...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - School officials in Alaska’s second-largest municipality implemented a new policy requiring masks at sporting events last week in response to coronavirus outbreaks at a half-dozen Matanuska-Susitna Borough district schools. Three large high schools in the district — Colony, Palmer, Wasilla — are among five facilities closed as of Feb. 12 because of the outbreaks, the Anchorage Daily News reported. It was unclear when they would reopen. Public health officials said some of the confirmed COVID-19 cases started with students mixin...
It helps, but it doesn't solve the problem. The latest round of federal relief aid is equal to about half of this year's school budget deficit. The $900 billion relief bill passed by Congress and signed into law by the president at the end of December included $54 billion to be distributed nationwide to help K-12 schools reopen and assist with additional expenses and lost revenues due to the pandemic. Of that $54 billion, the Alaska Department of Education received almost $144 million that it ha...
As part of ongoing efforts to encourage people to get vaccinated against COVID-19, the chief medical officer of the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium stood in front of a Wrangell audience - live and on Zoom - to take questions. The Wrangell Cooperative Association had invited Dr. Elliot Bruhl to town, where he explained how the vaccine works, how it was developed, and answered questions from the public Feb. 4 at the Nolan Center. As of Feb. 4, 680 people in Wrangell had received their...
By Frank Murkowski The Canadian government recently announced that cruise ship arrivals and departures from Canadian ports will be cancelled until February 2022 - the news is a shock to our entire state. Before the coronavirus, it was estimated that cruise ship visitors to Alaska last year would exceed 1.3 million. Polling indicates that the majority of U.S. cruise ship passengers choose Alaska as their No. 1 preferred destination, but that dream has evaporated this year, devastating Alaska's...
Seafood sales are hot in America’s supermarkets, and one king salmon from Southeast Alaska was worth the same as two barrels of oil: $116.16 for a troll-caught winter king averaging 11 pounds at the docks versus $115.48 for two barrels of oil at $57.74 per barrel on Feb. 3. As more COVID-conscious customers opted in 2020 for seafood’s proven health benefits, salmon powered sales at fresh seafood counters. Frozen and on-the-shelf seafoods also set sales records, while online ordering tripled to top $1 billion. Those are some takeaways from a N...
Two new cases of COVID-19 were confirmed in Wrangell on Wednesday afternoon. According to the city, these latest cases are Wrangell residents who recently traveled together out of state. They both tested positive in travel-related testing, according to the city statement, and have been in quarantine since arriving in town. Both individuals are asymptomatic, the city said. The two are the only active COVID-19 cases in Wrangell, the city reported. The previous 29 individuals with the virus have recovered, according to the city...
More than 600 Wrangell residents had received their first COVID-19 vaccination shot, and more than half of those had received their second dose, too, as of Tuesday. Meanwhile, the community's health care provider, the Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium, will open the vaccination list even further as more doses become available in the community and is encouraging people to register for the shot so they are ready when their group is called. "Depending on the people registered and vaccine...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy is asking legislators for $2 million in state funds to hold a special election this summer, to ask voters their opinion of a Permanent Fund dividend that would average $2,400 a year for the rest of the decade and beyond. The governor's proposal is to split the annual withdrawal of Permanent Fund earnings between dividends and public services 50-50. He introduced legislation to call for the special election as an advisory vote, and a few days later promoted the issue in his...
Being creative with food, and providing meals for people, is a passion for Nic Martin. It came from his mother, he said, and further developed during this time on fishing boats. As a kid, his mother would have the family pull together all the leftovers and whatever was left in the pantry once a week and make a meal out of it. As a fisherman, he learned to be creative turning limited ingredients into meals. He is now bringing this passion and creativity to Wrangell's newest pizzeria: Nic's...
Senior Thien Khuong and senior Robyn Booker were crowned homecoming king and queen for 2021 during halftime of the Wolves basketball home game last Saturday. COVID-19 precautions required the homecoming court to stand apart from each other at the halftime event. Other members of the court include: Freshmen Prince and Princess Cody Eastaugh and Mia Wiederspohn; Sophomore Prince and Princess Will Ashton and Brodie Gardner; Junior Prince and Princess Jake Eastaugh and Liana Carney; and Senior...
Anti-tobacco advocates thought a little friendly competition between Wrangell and Petersburg might draw attention to their message. "It's been a challenge to reach people because we're not having face-to-face meetings," said Tammi Meissner, Wrangell SEARHC health educator. Organizers put up posters in each town, showing the connection between tobacco use, e-cigarettes and health, and asked people to find and take pictures of the hidden posters, and then put them on the event's Facebook page....
The city announced a new case of COVID-19 in Wrangell on Saturday morning. It was not related to any travel. This latest case, the 29th for the community, was reported as a local resident infected with the virus. According to the city's press release, the resident had not traveled recently. The person has been notified and is in isolation, the city said. The weekend report was the only active case of COVID-19 in Wrangell. The previous 28 are all reported as recovered. Residents who experience...
Pacific halibut harvesters received some rare good news last week: Increased catches in 2021, along with a longer fishing season. At its annual meeting that ended Jan. 25, the International Pacific Halibut Commission boosted the coastwide catch for 2021 to 39 million pounds, a 6.53% increase over last year. It includes halibut taken in commercial, sport, subsistence, research, personal-use and as bycatch for fisheries of the West Coast, British Columbia and Alaska. Almost 300 individual Pacific...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Fewer Alaska residents had routine cancer screenings in 2020 than in the year before the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, doctors said. There were 330 fewer mammograms and 28 fewer lung cancer screenings last year than there were in 2019 at Juneau’s Bartlett Regional Hospital, said Paul Hawkins, director of the hospital’s diagnostic imaging center. Some medical providers said the screening decrease was likely linked to anxiety related to the virus that has lasted through the pandemic, the Anchorage Daily News reported Jan...
Wrangell schools could receive at least a couple hundred thousand dollars less in state funding for the next school year, due to declining enrollment. The community has seen a sharp decline in enrollment this year, likely due to homeschooling and correspondence schooling because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, about 200 students are enrolled in the district, according to a presentation at a school district town hall budget meeting Jan. 19. Historically, the district has counted about 300 st...
Wrangell would see one northbound and one southbound state ferry each week this summer, under the proposed schedule released Monday. That's one-third the level of service from 2017 to 2019, before the pandemic significantly cut into ferry runs last year. Under the draft schedule for May 1 through Sept. 30, the Matanuska would stop in Wrangell northbound on Sunday mornings and southbound on Friday afternoons on its weekly run to Southeast Alaska from Bellingham, Washington. The Alaska Marine...
The state of Alaska and the municipality of Anchorage will share in $200 million in new federal funds to help renters who have lost jobs or suffered economic hardship due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Alaska Housing Finance Corp., which operated a similar, but much smaller, federally funded program last summer, is expected to manage the new assistance program outside Anchorage, with more information expected this week and application details possibly later in February. The housing...
It's good that President Joe Biden and members of Congress, Gov. Mike Dunleavy and members of the Alaska Legislature are all talking about doing more to help people hurt financially by the COVID-19 pandemic and its resulting damage to the economy. The harm to people's lives and livelihoods has been terrible and, in many cases, long term. But not everyone needs help, and we should not use the state and federal treasuries for one-size-fits-all solutions. Workers who have been able to stay on the j...
Wrangell Mayor Steve Prysunka was unopposed when he won a second term last October. More than 85% of voters cast their ballot for Prysunka; about 15% wrote in someone else. In 2018, he won election with almost 80% of the vote against the other candidate on the ballot. Sure seems like a strong case of majority rule and overwhelming community support. But a contingent of Wrangell residents don't like it. They want to force a special election to recall the mayor. Why? Mostly because they didn't...
"I actually have always loved baking," said Devyn Johnson, of Moody Folks Bakery. "I baked with my mom growing up, and I baked for people all the time. ... It's my happy place." Moody Folks Bakery is one of Wrangell's newer businesses. Johnson was running a child care out of her home before COVID-19 struck. When the pandemic reached Alaska, however, she closed it down out of safety. She found herself with more time, and started filling that time with more and more baking. She was starting to...
A Wrangell resident arriving at the airport tested positive for COVID-19 and went into isolation in town, the city reported Jan. 21. The city press release did not specify the date the individual was tested. The last COVID-19 positive case was reported by the city on Dec. 17. The case brought to 28 the total number of Wrangell-related COVID-19 positives since the start of the pandemic. Of those, 18 have been in Wrangell residents; eight were identified as non-locals, and two were Wrangell...
