Sorted by date Results 776 - 795 of 795
FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — The wettest region in Alaska is experiencing the first extreme drought recorded by the U.S. Drought Monitor, officials said. Scientists say the southernmost portion of Southeast Alaska has been in a drought for the last two years, The Anchorage Daily News reported Sunday. The drought was upgraded last week to an extreme, or D3, drought, according to climatologists at the Fairbanks-based Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Policy. The designation is the second-highest category measured by the U.S. Drought Monitor ...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A fishing boat captain who dumped sandblast waste into southeast Alaska waters was ordered to pay $10,000 and perform 40 hours of community service. Federal prosecutors say 32-year-old Brannon Finney of Bellingham, Washington, dumped waste to avoid a $1,460 disposal fee. U.S. Magistrate Judge Matthew Scoble on Wednesday also ordered 18 months of probation for Finney and a public apology. Prosecutors say Finney’s boat had been sandblasted for repainting. On June 15, 2017, she and crewmembers left Wrangell for Pet...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska House has endorsed a tribe’s effort to change the name of Saginaw Bay to Skanax Bay. Tribal leaders are pushing the change because the body of water off Kuiu Island was named for a U.S. warship that destroyed three Tlingit villages in 1869 that are near present-day Kake in southeast Alaska, CoastAlaska reported Monday. The House passed a resolution 37-0 endorsing the name change to Skanax, the Tlingit word for security. The Tlingit villages east of Sitka destroyed by the U.S.S. Saginaw were deserted in adv...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska's unemployment rate remained steady at 6.5 percent last month. Federal labor statistics show that rate has held since August. Unemployment stood at 6.7 percent in April 2018. The state labor department says employment was up an estimated 0.9 percent from April 2018, with construction adding the largest number of jobs at 1,800. Health care and oil and gas each added 500 jobs over the period while manufacturing had the biggest decline. The department says manufacturing in Alaska is mostly seafood processing. The s...
FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — A hiker and his dog ate berries and moss while they were lost for days in Alaska, he said. Logan Holmer, 26, of Missouri, and his dog started hiking the Far Mountain Trail May 7 and became separated from their group the next day, The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported Monday. Holmer brought two days’ worth of food and ate the last of it on the fourth day, supplementing his diet with the plants he found, he said in a social media post quoted by the newspaper. “I was laying in a huge bed of these plants and I pulle...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska will pay armed Canadian police to provide protection to U.S. personnel at a ferry terminal in British Columbia, state transportation officials said. The Alaska Marine Highway System was notified in March that unarmed U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents checking ferries leaving Prince Rupert, British Columbia, will require assistance from Royal Canadian Mounted Police, CoastAlaska reported Friday. Without armed police at inspections, the port faces closure, officials said. The Canadian officers will be c...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A lawsuit has been filed against a retired University of Alaska Anchorage anthropology professor who is banned from campus over sexual misconduct allegations by multiple women. David Yesner is named in the federal lawsuit filed Wednesday along with The University of Alaska system and the University of Alaska Board of Regents, Anchorage television station KTVA reported. Plaintiffs maintain Yesner was allowed to use the UAA campus as his own personal “hunting ground” while the university shielded its reputation inste...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — An Alaska air carrier involved in two deadly floatplane crashes in a week has voluntarily suspended operations, federal officials said Tuesday. The halt of flightseeing and commuter flights is in place indefinitely, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. The action comes after the passenger and the pilot of a Beaver floatplane operated by Taquan Air were killed when the single-engine aircraft crashed in Metlakatla Harbor on Monday afternoon during a 22-mile (35-kilometer) commuter flight from Ketchikan. T...
KODIAK, Alaska (AP) — Alaska’s seafood industry is exploring strategies to reduce damage from the Trump administration’s trade dispute with China, officials said. The Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute plans to explore how Alaska can enter additional markets to expand the state’s seafood brand, The Kodiak Daily Mirror reported Thursday. The U.S. plans to raise tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese imports from 10% to 25% Friday. China is the largest export market and re-processor of Alaska seafood, with about $989 million worth of sales to Chin...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - State officials are documenting air quality in Juneau to determine if harmful pollutants are showing up from cruise ships or other sources. The Juneau Empire reports the state in late April installed 21 monitors around downtown Juneau. They're part of the first ambient air quality study in the capital in more than a decade. Monitors measuring sulfur dioxide also were installed. The monitors use lasers to measure fine particulate. The inhalable particles can cause...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — It’s crunch time for Alaska lawmakers, who face a looming deadline to complete their session and decide some of its thorniest issues. Wednesday will mark the 121st day of the regular session, the constitutional limit though a 10-day extension is allowable. Lawmakers last month blew past a 90-day voter-approved session limit, which wasn’t seen as realistic given Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s budget hadn’t been released until a month into session and the House didn’t organize until around the same time. Legislative...
FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — The University of Alaska has issued lay-off notices to 48 employees as part of an overhaul of its human resources department. UA President Jim Johnsen announced the changes, which will include downsizing, on Monday. He called the changes a redesign. “This is not a merger — it is a complete redesign based on best practices in higher education, which will lead to increased efficiencies that ultimately serve you better,” Johnsen wrote in an email to employees. “We want to make our search for new talent more efficient...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Dive teams plunged into the icy cold waters of a southeast Alaska inlet Tuesday, searching an area the size of 24 football fields for two cruise ship passengers missing after two sightseeing planes collided. The Coast Guard has confirmed four fatalities in the collision Monday afternoon near Ketchikan, a popular destination for cruise ships in Alaska. Ten people, all Americans, were injured. The missing passengers were from Canada and Australia, Princess Cruises said. The Royal Princess, which can carry up to 3,600 p...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska court system is working to switch to electronic filing, with goals of reducing workloads for clerks, eliminating delays and improving access to records. The change has been years in the making, with one targeted completion date missed and another in jeopardy. Employees at Kenai Peninsula courthouses have been part of a pilot program for electronic filing and document management systems involving limited case types. The court system plans to expand the pilot effort to include criminal cases and bring on c... Full story
KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) — A former high school teacher and pastor in southeast Alaska will be going to prison for sexually abusing a teenage girl at a school, a church and his home. Douglas Edwards, 60, was sentenced last week to 18 years in prison with 12 years suspended after pleading guilty in February to one count of sexual abuse of a minor, the Ketchikan Daily News reported. The former Ketchikan High School teacher placed his hand inside the victim’s “shirt, underneath her bra, and rubbed or touched her bare breast” multiple times between...
SITKA, Alaska (AP) — A city government in Alaska has approved agreements allowing a regional health consortium to take over operation of its community hospital, officials said. The City and Borough of Sitka Assembly voted 5-2 Monday to approve asset purchase and facilities lease agreements so Southeast Alaska Regional Health Consortium can operate Sitka Community Hospital, The Daily Sitka Sentinel reported Tuesday. The consortium’s board will consider approval of the agreements April 26, with a likely June 30 closing date, the newspaper rep...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The biggest issues heading into this year’s legislative session remain unresolved in the session’s final weeks, with Gov. Mike Dunleavy facing resistance to pieces of his agenda. Lawmakers have yet to finalize a budget. The size of the check residents will get this year from the state’s oil-wealth fund, the Alaska Permanent Fund, is unsettled, as is the debate over the program’s future. The Republican governor wants lawmakers to pass his package of bills related to crime and act on proposed constitutional amendment...
FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) — An Alaska city is facing a shortage of police officers that is raising concerns about the department’s operations. The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported Sunday that the Fairbanks Police Department has seven unfilled positions, a deficit expected to grow this spring and summer following scheduled retirements. The department says four of its 46 officers plan to retire in the coming months. Officials say four of the expected 11 vacancies will remain unfunded through at least 2019 under the terms of a three-year con...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A former Alaska bank employee who stole $4.3 million in cash and fled to Mexico is set to be sentenced. Gerardo Cazarez Valenzuela, 33, pleaded guilty to theft of bank funds after he was extradited to the U.S. last year, Alaska Public Media reported Thursday. The former cash vault services manager loaded boxes of cash onto a cart and wheeled them out of a KeyBank in Anchorage in 2011, according to court documents. He had organized an ice cream social for that day, giving him the opportunity to stay late to access the v...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Health and wildlife officials are taking steps to prepare for potentially dangerous parasites that could gain a foothold because of Alaska’s warming climate. Non-native ticks represent a threat to wildlife and people because they can carry and transmit pathogens, said Micah Hahn, an assistant professor of environmental health with the Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies at the University of Alaska Anchorage. “Things are changing really rapidly in Alaska,” she said. “It’s really important for us to establish a...
