Economy & Environment
Record rent increases, low wages are driving an eviction crisis, U.S. Senate panel told
WASHINGTON — Witnesses in a Tuesday hearing detailed to a U.S. Senate committee how investors and stagnant wages are driving an eviction and housing crisis across the U.S. The chair of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, said that families are being priced out of buying homes, and rising […]
Marginalizing concerns on Alaska salmon bycatch and the Yukon-Kuskokwim subsistence fisheries
The past two seasons and now this 2022 season, Chinook and chum fisheries have crashed to historical low-abundance runs on the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers. Yup’ik and Athabascan peoples, villages and communities have relied upon each fishery from time immemorial for putting healthy foods on the table. Many Canadian First Nations and communities also rely […]
Scientists team up to solve mysteries about dwindling Aleutian tern population
Yakutat, a coastal community on the northern edge of Southeast Alaska’s temperate rainforest, is something of an Alaska refuge for a bird that may be on the brink: the Aleutian tern. Its wide, sandy beaches – and particularly, a peaceful site called Blacksand Spit — holds Alaska’s biggest concentration of Aleutian terns, a long-distance migrator […]
As last big cable carrier drops One America News, Alaska’s GCI has it for now
Alaska cable company GCI has no immediate plans to drop the right-wing TV channel One America News, a spokesperson said Wednesday. Verizon, the last remaining major carrier to carry the channel, plans to stop airing the channel on Saturday. That action follows a similar one in April by DirectTV. Their decisions leave the channel, once […]
In rural Alaska, communities contemplate a double whammy from high fuel costs
Throughout rural Alaska, the summer’s fuel barges are arriving at docks with loads of diesel, heating fuel and a big bill for cities and boroughs. Away from Alaska’s road system and along coasts that freeze in winter, fuel arrives by barge or plane once, twice or a handful of times per year. This year, those […]
Alaska abalone population, important to Indigenous traditions, gets new attention
There is only one species of abalone native to Alaska waters, and a new project is underway to try find ways to boost its depleted numbers. An Alaska Sea Grant program is examining ideas for strengthening the state’s vulnerable population of pinto abalones, also known as Northern abalones or, to the Indigenous peoples of the […]
Denali gets permanent superintendent as park, a top tourist destination, copes with disruptions
Denali National Park and Preserve, one of Alaska’s top tourist attractions, has a new superintendent, the National Park Service said on Friday. Brooke Merrell, a deputy superintendent who had been filling in for the last nine months as acting superintendent, has now been promoted to the top job in the 6 million-acre park, famous for […]
Alaska sues Interior Department over contaminated ANCSA lands
The state of Alaska has sued the U.S. Department of the Interior in an attempt to hold the federal government responsible for the identification of thousands of polluted sites on land given to Alaska Native corporations. A complete inventory is a first step in the state’s ongoing efforts to hold the federal government responsible for […]
Human garbage is a plentiful but dangerous source of food for polar bears
More than 50 hungry polar bears invaded the Russian coastal village of Belushya Guba over a period of three months, attracted by the local dump. Some bears entered homes and businesses by ripping doors off hinges and climbing through windows. These invasions have been steadily increasing in Arctic settlements, though this case, in the winter […]
NOAA Fisheries wants public to weigh in on climate change studies of Alaska’s marine waters
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is seeking public input to help guide its climate-change research in waters off Alaska. Members of the public interested in having input on the future of federal research on Alaska’s fisheries face a deadline next week. Comments will be accepted through July 29 on plans drafted by NOAA’s Alaska […]
Amid turmoil, international Inuit group gathers online to promote protecting Arctic
For the organization that represents Inuit people in Alaska, Canada, Greenland and Russia’s Chukotka region, work has been hampered by the same turmoil that has upended the rest of the world – political polarization, the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. For the Inuit Circumpolar Council, the format of its quadrennial general assembly held […]
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy signs bill increasing rural power subsidy
Up to 82,000 rural Alaskans will see lower power bills because of legislation signed this month by Gov. Mike Dunleavy. Senate Bill 243, passed by the Alaska Legislature this spring, raises the maximum subsidy for the state’s Power Cost Equalization program, which reduces the cost of home electricity in rural Alaska. Dunleavy signed the measure […]