Sorted by date Results 1644 - 1668 of 1788
SEATTLE (AP) - A federal judge has granted a preliminary injunction to stop the sale of the National Archives building in Seattle. More than two dozen Native American and Alaska Native tribes and cultural groups from the Northwest, along with the states of Washington and Oregon, sued the federal government to stop the sale and the relocation of millions of invaluable historical records to California and Missouri. The Seattle Times reported that U.S. District Court Judge John Coughenour asked Brian C. Kipnis, an assistant U.S. attorney in...
PORT ANGELES, Wash. (AP) - The crash of a small plane in waters near Port Angeles, Washington, in late January that killed a Kodiak man occurred after the plane apparently ran out of fuel a few miles from an airport, The National Transportation Safety Board said. The agency said in a report of preliminary findings Feb. 18 that the Cessna 170A airplane with only the pilot aboard left Kodiak on Jan. 25, then refueled and departed from Ketchikan on Jan. 26. The man texted his mother that afternoon saying a severe headwind was causing concern...
A federal judge on Feb. 17 dismissed a lawsuit arguing that tribal members of Alaska’s sole Native reserve — on Annette Island, south of Ketchikan — should not need state permits to fish outside the reserve’s marine boundaries. Public radio KRBD reported the story. Metlakatla Indian Community sued Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s administration last year. Lawyers for the tribe said the 1891 federal law that established the Annette Islands Reserve was intended to create a self-sustaining community — and that the right to fish in waters within a day’s trave...
Gov. Mike Dunleavy said his administration will no longer respond to or participate in hearings led by Sen. Lora Reinbold, telling the fellow Republican in a withering letter Feb. 18 that she has used her position to “misrepresent” the state’s COVID-19 response and that her demands for information are “not based in fact.” Reinbold has criticized the governor’s pandemic disaster declarations and taken aim at health restrictions imposed by local governments, airlines and the Legislature, including mask requirements. She has used social medi...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Alaska public health officials said 58% of residents 65 and older have received at least their first dose of a COVID-19 vaccination since distribution efforts began. State Epidemiologist Dr. Joe McLaughlin said the state hopes to move the process along faster as more contagious and potentially deadly strains of the coronavirus emerge. “Right now, it’s sort of a race against the variants to get people vaccinated,” McLaughlin said Feb. 17. Alaska’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Anne Zink said the state wants more Alaskans 65 and olde...
JUNEAU (AP) - A man in a pickup truck was arrested after the Alaska Transportation Department said he drove past boarding lines to get onto a state-run ferry at the dock in Juneau on Feb. 10 and was heard by crew “muttering about a bomb and firearms.” The Juneau Police Department said the man did not have a ticket to board the LeConte’s morning voyage and “made a comment about a bomb” when confronted by ferry employees. The police department, in a release, said the comment was not a direct threat and the man did not say he had a bomb. But it sa...
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...
HONOLULU (AP) - Senators from Hawaii and Alaska on Feb. 11 were elected the chairperson and vice chairperson of the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, will serve as chairperson. U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, will be vice chairperson. Both senators emphasized the panel’s bipartisan traditions in their first committee hearing in Washington. Schatz said the federal trust responsibility to American Indians, Alaska Natives and Native Hawaiians should be the guiding light f...
HONOLULU (AP) - Hawaii’s governor has said he is cautious about loosening air travel restrictions for people who have received a coronavirus vaccine, while stressing that new virus variants are not widespread in the state. Democratic Gov. David Ige said researchers are still unclear about whether the vaccine hampers virus transmission. “Until the science (tells) us that those who are vaccinated cannot carry the virus and, I think most important, do not transmit it to other people, I think it would be irresponsible to say that those vac...
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...
Without diplomatic intervention, large cruise ships aren’t coming to Alaska this year. Canada closed its waters to foreign ships with more than 250 passengers. That means Alaska’s big-ship cruise season for 2021 is effectively cancelled. Skagway officials unveiled their backup plan Feb. 10. “We can’t cry in our pillow that we’re not a cruise ship destination this year. We need to be excited about what we are,” said Skagway Mayor Andrew Cremata. He told the virtual town hall that 2021 will be about survival. He acknowledged the summer seas...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Three rural Alaska communities have launched a pilot program intended to create more culturally sensitive protocols on how government and law enforcement should respond to cases with missing or slain Alaska Natives. The Curyung Native Council in Dillingham, the Native Village of Unalakleet and the Koyukuk Native Village have launched the program, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Alaska said in a statement. The three will work with state agencies to create a Tribal Community Response Plan that will determine law e...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - An Alaska skier who was injured by a bear when his group accidently disturbed the animal’s den was released from a Juneau hospital. The Chilkat Valley News reported 40-year-old Bart Pieciul was released Feb. 9 after sustaining injuries in the attack during a backcountry ski trip near Haines last Saturday. Pieciul had surgery on a broken arm and will need a second surgery to remove metal pins implanted by doctors. Pieciul and his ski partners, Graham Kraft and Jeff Moskowitz, were going up a mountainside above Chilkoot Lake w...
JUNEAU - A state corporation is seeking almost $4.5 billion in federal funding to help build a $5.9 billion pipeline to move North Slope natural gas to Fairbanks. The project is being promoted as the first phase of the state-sponsored $38 billion project to move North Slope gas more than 800 miles to Nikiski, on the Kenai Peninsula, where the gas would be supercooled into a liquid and loaded aboard 1,000-foot-long tankers to buyers in Asia. The larger project to transport and sell North Slope natural gas overseas has been around for decades,...
KETCHIKAN (AP) - The owners of a Ketchikan supermarket that was severely damaged by a rockslide plan to permanently close the business. Tatsuda’s Supermarket CEO Katherine Tatsuda announced the closure of the store on Feb. 1. “It is with sadness in my heart that I tell you Tatsuda’s IGA will not be returning, but this is not the end of the Tatsuda family serving our community,” she wrote in a social media post reported by the Ketchikan Daily News. Tatsuda said she made the decision with her father and co-owner, Bill Tatsuda Jr. An early m...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - A former attorney at the Native American Rights Fund in Alaska and member of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma will become a top official in the U.S. Department of the Interior, the agency said in a statement Feb. 3. Natalie Landreth will become deputy solicitor for land with the Interior Department after spending 17 years with the Native American Rights Fund, which represents tribes in treaty rights, public lands, aboriginal rights and environmental laws, the federal agency said. Rep. Debra Haaland, a member of the Laguna...
ANCHORAGE (AP) - Alaska Wildlife Troopers have killed a moose after a woman posted a video on social media showing herself feeding and petting the animal. Troopers said the juvenile male moose had become comfortable around people and subsequently posed a public safety risk, Anchorage Daily News reported Feb. 1. The video posted on Facebook by Angel Bunch of Palmer was forwarded to authorities, Alaska State Troopers spokesman Austin McDaniel said. The live video showed Bunch feeding carrots to the moose and petting the animal from the doorway of...
ANCHORAGE (AP) – The state-operated Anchorage Pioneer Home for older Alaskans has reopened its doors to family members and others eager to see residents after a lockdown of 11 months. The building welcomed back visitors beginning Feb. 3. The largest state-run assisted living facility closed to outsiders in March 2020 to protect its vulnerable residents from the coronavirus. The state operates six homes serving nearly 500 Alaska residents ages 60 and older in Anchorage, Fairbanks, Palmer, Juneau, Sitka and Ketchikan. While some of the f...
JUNEAU (AP) – Proposed state legislation would protect the graves of Native Alaskans forcibly displaced from the Aleutian Islands by adding land to a state park on Admiralty Island in Southeast. The bill would increase the land within Funter Bay State Marine Park near Juneau to include a cemetery holding the graves of 30 to 40 Aleut people who died there during World War II. The measure, if approved by the state Legislature, would prevent the land from being sold or developed, public radio station KTOO in Juneau reported Feb. 3. The U.S. g...
VANCOUVER, BC (AP) - Public condemnation has grown over a wealthy Vancouver couple who allegedly flew to a remote Indigenous community in Canada’s Yukon Territory to get vaccinated for the coronavirus. Marc Miller, Canada’s federal Indigenous services minister, said he was “disgusted” by the purported actions of Rodney Baker and his wife, Ekaterina, who have been issued tickets under Yukon’s Emergency Measures Act and face fines of up to $1,000 Canadian (US$783) plus fees. Baker resigned on Jan. 24 as Great Canadian Gaming Corp.’s president a...
JUNEAU (AP) - More people are leaving the city of Juneau than arriving because of state budget cuts and declining state jobs, labor officials said. The Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development estimates more than 1,300 people have moved out of Juneau since the city’s population peaked at 33,162 in 2015, public radio KTOO-FM reported. Juneau lost 172 residents from July 2018 to July 2019, and 286 residents from July 2019 to July 2020, officials said. The state population has also declined during that time. Agency economist Sara Teel...
After missing 2020 due to the pandemic, the Southeast Alaska State Fair in Haines plans to return this year. The board voted unanimously last month to put together some version of the annual event, according to the Chilkat Valley News in Haines. But it will not be a normal year. Southeast Alaska State Fair Executive Director Kari Johnson said events are likely to be smaller and will certainly be outdoors. “We are hopeful,” Johnson told KHNS public radio. “Yes, there’s going to be one. It might be big, it might be small. … I think we’re kin...
JUNEAU (AP) - Officials in Alaska’s capital city are working on measures to prevent disruptions of online public meetings that have included verbal abuse of at least one assembly member. The use of videoconferences allows the public to continue observing and participating city government meetings during the coronavirus pandemic, but there have been problems, Juneau public radio station KTOO reported Jan. 26. City officials estimated there have been about a dozen instances of what has become known as “Zoom bombing,” or planned disruptions of me...
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...
JUNEAU (AP) - Alaska has detected the state’s first known case of the coronavirus variant identified last year in the United Kingdom, officials said Jan. 26. The infected person is an Anchorage resident who had traveled to a state where the variant had already been detected, the Alaska health department said. The person first experienced symptoms on Dec. 17, was tested three days later and received a positive result Dec. 22. The resident lived with another person in Anchorage, who also became ill. Both isolated and have since recovered, o...
