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Alaska Federation of Natives sides with federal government in Kuskokwim salmon dispute
Alaska’s largest Native organization has sided with the federal government in its dispute with the state over salmon management in the Kuskokwim River, saying that the state’s position is attacking its interests and those of its members. The Alaska Federation of Natives on Tuesday filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit filed by the […]
Arctic sea ice patterns put on display during New York’s Fashion Week
Arctic sea ice patterns recorded by an Alaska scientist made it to the catwalk earlier this month in New York, blending High Arctic climate change with high fashion. Clothing designed by Barcelona-based designer Corentin Daudigny and displayed at New York’s Sept. 8-13 Fashion Week showed the colors and patterns captured by Marc Oggier of the […]
Alaska regulations drop some COVID-19 reporting requirements, add requirement for RSV reports
Alaska medical providers no longer need to report patients’ COVID-19 cases to the states, but there are some new requirements for reporting other diseases and emerging health concerns, under new regulations that went into effect earlier in the month. COVID-19 slips out of the reporting requirements for two main reasons, said Louisa Castrodale, an epidemiologist […]
North to the future? Alaska’s ranked choice voting system is praised and criticized nationally
Alaska’s ranked choice voting system, which was in place for victories for the 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 test case for a nation struggling with political polarization. To fans, Alaska’s system shows how voters can […]
After a slow start, Alaska wildfire season wraps up as unremarkable
An Alaska wildfire season that wound up with an unexceptional amount of area burned took an unusual route to get there. After a record-slow start, the Alaska wildfire season tally as of Wednesday stood at 343 fires covering 297,747 acres, according to state wildfire managers. That is well below the recent years’ median of about […]
Alaska flu cases increased last year, spiking in early winter, while vaccine rates lagged
After a period when COVID-19 restrictions halted the spread of other respiratory diseases, Alaska had a big increase in influenza cases, state data shows. The overall influenza case load during the 2022-23 season was much higher than in prior years, reports a new bulletin issued by the epidemiology section of the Alaska Division of Public […]
Biden, in Alaska speech commemorating Sept. 11 attacks, urges unity and defense of democracy
Twenty-two years after Al-Qaeda terrorists staged coordinated attacks that killed nearly 3,000 Americans, there is a threat to U.S. democracy coming from closer to home, President Joe Biden said in a memorial speech in Anchorage. “Terrorism, including political and ideological violence, is the opposite of all we stand for as a nation that settles our […]
Traditional practices blended with modern life jacket technology seen as boosting fishing safety in Alaska
Even as safety has improved vastly in the Alaska fishing industry overall, harvesters who operate from small, open skiffs continue to face risks. Among those who continue to contend with mortal dangers are those who use set nets in Western Alaska’s Norton Sound, a group of largely Native fishers whose families have been working on […]
National political fight over electric vehicles surfaces in Alaska
The oil industry’s pushback against electric vehicles arrived in Anchorage last week, but Alaska fans of the vehicles say the criticism is misplaced. The president of the American Petroleum Institute, speaking at the Alaska Oil and Gas Association conference on Aug. 30, blasted a proposed Biden administration rule aimed at accelerating use of electric vehicles. […]
Native corporation invests in graphite mining project on Alaska’s Seward Peninsula
An Alaska Native corporation said Tuesday it is investing in a project that could result in the first graphite production in the United States in decades. Bering Straits Native Corp., the corporation for the Inupiat and Yup’ik people of the Bering Strait region, will put $2 million into the Graphite One project being explored about […]
Biden administration cancels last leases in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
The Biden administration on Wednesday 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 and sold in a controversial auction held in the last days of former President Donald Trump’s […]
Travels around Alaska highlight myriad challenges facing Indigenous communities, EPA leader says
Travels to the to the tiny Yup’ik village of Igiugig in the Bristol Bay region, to Utqiagvik at the northern tip of Alaska and to Eklutna, the Dena’ina community that is the only Native village within Alaska’s largest city, have showcased the range of environmental challenges facing Alaska’s Indigenous people, the head of the Environmental […]