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KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) – A recently approved U.S. Senate bill secures a long-awaited land trade. The $1.1 spending bill approved by the Senate on Thursday will permit a land trade between the U.S. Forest Service and the Alaska Mental Health Trust, the Ketchikan Daily News reports. The bill is heading to President Donald Trump’s desk for final signature. The land trade has been an ongoing effort by the Mental Health Trust Authority Board. The board uses land proceeds to fund the state’s mental health services. The entities began the land tradi...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – Going without health insurance is a risk. Going without it in Alaska can be a gamble of a much higher order, for this is a place unlike anywhere else in the U.S., a land of pitiless cold, vast expanses and dangerous, back-breaking work such as pulling fishing nets from the water or hauling animal carcasses out of the woods. And yet many people on the Last Frontier do not carry insurance. For them, the Affordable Care Act just isn’t working. For reasons that have a lot to do with its sheer size, sparse population and har...
Petersburg was paid a visit by longstanding United States Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) on Monday, part of a wider tour of Southeast that includes Ketchikan and Juneau. Extra chairs had to be brought into the Borough Assembly chambers to accommodate the audience, and people stood at the room's back and sides. Seated front and center, Young explained the session would be an informal way for people to give input and ask questions. "I'm here primarily to hear what's on your mind and what you'd like to...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – The state of Alaska’s toolkit for increasing moose and caribou numbers includes killing wolf pups in dens, shooting wolf packs from helicopters, and adopting liberal hunting regulations that allow sportsmen to shoot grizzlies over bait. But when state officials wanted to extend “predator control” to federal wildlife refuges, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said no. And after years of saying no, the agency late last year adopted a rule to make the denial permanent. Alaska’s elected officials called that an outrage a...
Massive cuts could be in store for the agencies and people who provide the science and stewardship to preserve and protect our planet. The budget proposed by Donald Trump that starts in October puts on the chopping block the agencies and staff in charge of fisheries research and management, weather forecasting, satellite data tracking and the U.S. Coast Guard. Trump called the cuts a tradeoff to “prioritize rebuilding the military” and to help fund the border wall with Mexico. The Washington Post broke down a White House memo to the Office of...
JUNEAU (AP) – U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski says a proposed $1.3 billion cut to the Coast Guard's budget conflicts with President Donald Trump's goal of strengthening border security and rebuilding the armed services. The Alaska Republican outlined her concerns in a letter to Trump, released Monday. She says the cuts proposed by the Office of Management and Budget would have “far-reaching implications on national security” and force the Coast Guard to halt a program in which it replaces older ships with state-of-the-art vessels built in U.S. shipy...
Alaska crabbers are hauling back pots from the Panhandle to the Bering Sea, and reduced catches are resulting in record prices for their efforts. The year’s first red king crab fishery at Norton Sound has yielded 17,000 pounds so far of its nearly 40,000 pound winter quota for more than 50 local fishermen. The crab, which are taken through the ice near Nome, are paying out at a record $7.75 a pound. A summer opener will produce a combined catch of nearly half a million pounds for the region. Red king crab from Bristol Bay also yielded the h...
Puppy Love will soon be putting more people to work in Seldovia, a town of less than 300 people at the tip of the Kenai Peninsula. The love comes in the form of salmon pet treats, formerly made in Anchorage and now ready to come home, thanks to funding from the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development. “The goal was always to come back to Seldovia,” said Brendan Bieri, Chief Operating Officer ofSeldovia Wild Seafoods. “It’s a value-added product, so it’s not like we’re processing and putting it on ice and shipping it...
WRANGELL – A Wrangellite took part in the 44th annual March for Life, which last month made its way through the streets of Washington, D.C. Since 1974, the annual nondenominational march is held each year on or around the anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade decision, which held that abortion was protected under the right to privacy in the Constitution. Opponents to the court decision have since met at the National Mall on about every January 22 since, marching from there to the s...
WRANGELL – In its first meeting of the new year, the governing board for Southeast Alaska Power Agency looked ahead to political reshufflings at the state and federal levels. Meeting in Petersburg February 8, members of the board learned from SEAPA executive officer Trey Acteson a change in administrations at the federal level could be useful to the agency’s future operations. For example, only two commissioners sitting on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission – which licenses hydropower projects – remain in place since the swearing in of P...
JUNEAU, (AP) _ The head of the board that regulates marijuana in Alaska said he expects officials will have to address again at some point the issue of pot users consuming marijuana products in authorized stores after regulators rejected doing so last week. But Peter Mlynarik, chairman of Alaska’s Marijuana Control Board, said Monday he did not know when the board might take up the matter again. Mlynarik sided with two other board members last Thursday in rejecting rules by a 3-2 vote for allowing people to buy marijuana in Alaska’s aut...
JUNEAU (AP) – Alaska Gov. Bill Walker says he understands the need to keep this country safe. But he says it also is important to protect the rights and liberties of those coming to Alaska. Walker tells The Associated Press that there’s a balance to be struck. But he adds it may be too soon to say if President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration and refugees strikes that balance. He says Alaska’s attorney general’s office is looking at how the order affects Alaska. Trump’s order temporarily suspends immigration from seven countries a...
WRANGELL – A Wrangell resident was among the travelers detained following a selective travel ban issued by the White House last week. Sylvia Ettefagh was returning from a 10-day vacation in Costa Rica with her husband, John, and friends the Stroms on Saturday. The group was at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) on its way to connecting with an Alaska Airlines flight to Seattle. At customs, Ettefagh attempted to enter the Global Entry section of the Trusted Traveler program. The expedited screening is offered by US Customs and Border Pro...
More Pacific halibut will be going to market this year due to an overall boost in the harvests for the West Coast, British Columbia and Alaska. The coast wide catch of 31.4 million pounds reflects a 5.1 percent increase, and for the first time in decades, not a single fishing region met with a decline in halibut catches. The International Pacific Halibut Commission, overseer of the stocks since 1923, released the heartening news on Friday. Halibut catch limits are determined by summer surveys at more than 1,200 stations from Oregon to the...
JUNEAU (AP) – Alaska Gov. Bill Walker on Monday expressed renewed hope for working with the federal government on oil, gas and land issues, praising President Donald Trump’s pick to head the Interior Department as “just what we need.” Walker said he met informally with Interior secretary nominee Ryan Zinke while in Washington, D.C., for Trump’s inauguration. He said Zinke, a Montana congressman, understood the challenges Alaska has had with access to federal lands for things like resource development. “I think we’re going to have a very, very...
JUNEAU – An estimated 36,000 uninsured Alaskans got health care coverage under President Barack Obama’s signature health care law between 2010 and 2015, according to figures released by the federal government Tuesday. The data was released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services just weeks before Obama leaves office, amid calls by many Republicans in Congress for replacing the law after Donald Trump’s administration takes power. The state-level data touting the law’s benefits provides a lens through which to judge new proposals and...
It was fast and furious for Alaska’s premiere crab fishery with the fleet catching the nearly eight-million pound red king crab quota at Bristol Bay in less than three weeks. The overall take was down 15 percent from the 2015 fishery and will likely fetch record prices when all sales are made. “The only price we have is an advance price so fishermen can pay fuel, bait and other trip expenses. The final price will be determined from now to January,” said Jake Jacobsen, executive director of the Inter-Cooperative Exchange, which represents 70 pe...
Over a thousand Petersburg voters made their voices heard regarding national and local politics in the 2016 election that wrapped up Tuesday night. Petersburg Borough voters supported the president-elect Donald Trump who will be the 45th President of the United States of America. The Republican candidate received over 575 votes, amounting to about 55 percent of local voters. Democrat Hillary Clinton earned just over 30 percent on Petersburg and Kupreanof ballots at almost 335 votes. Local...
ANCHORAGE – The two main candidates for Alaska’s sole U.S. House seat vowed Monday to work with whoever wins the presidential election to advance Alaska’s interests in resource development. “I won’t be happy particularly with one of them being elected, and won’t be too happy with the other one,’’ said Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, without naming either presidential candidate. Young, the longest serving Republican in the U.S. House, is seeking his 23rd term. “I’ve worked with eight presidents, and I’ll work with a ninth president to make sure Alaska...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – Jeff King, a four-time winner of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, is changing political teams when it comes to Alaska’s U.S. Senate race, pulling his endorsement of Republican incumbent Lisa Murkowski and backing independent candidate Margaret Stock. King earlier this year appeared in a radio ad with two other mushers supporting Murkowski. But King told The Associated Press on Friday that he has changed his mind and is endorsing Stock. Stock sees herself as Murkowski’s main competition for the general election. King...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski said she does not know if she will vote for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump this fall. But the moderate Alaska Republican told The Associated Press she knows who she won’t vote for, and that’s Democrat Hillary Clinton. Murkowski is concerned that Clinton’s policy positions would be harmful to a resource-producing state like Alaska. Murkowski said she has not endorsed Trump and will continue to speak out on issues where they disagree. She said that she has time to decide how she wil...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) – Several Alaska delegates who have supported Bernie Sanders for president said Monday that they will vote for presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in November, though unenthusiastically. One of them, delegate Taz Tally, said he has long been a nonpartisan but got involved in the Democratic party because of Sanders. Tally said he was disappointed in hacked Democratic National Committee emails that he said confirmed what many people believed that the DNC was rooting for Clinton and in some cases working against S...
The 41st Republican National Convention came to order on Monday and representing the largest state in regards to area, the delegation from Alaska is situated in between New Hampshire and Nebraska on the convention floor. After spending a week before the convention on the Rules Committee, Peggy Wilson, former Alaska House of Representatives member and a delegate from Alaska, is excited to show her support for Donald J. Trump, the official nominee for president representing the Republican Party after the state of New York officially put him over...
Petersburg Republicans couldn’t vote in town last week during the Presidential Preference Poll because no one volunteered to run the caucus. The Petersburg Pilot fielded multiple calls and received emails asking why Petersburg didn’t have a poll. Chair of the Alaska Republican Party Peter Goldberg summed it up. “An effort was made to find people around the state,” Goldberg said. “Some districts had multiple places but there were several communities that had no one. If there is someone to blame, and you’re a Republican, look in the mirror and... Full story
