Anchorage news

• Fiber optic cable break in Sitka could take nearly two weeks to repair

  03-09-2024 19:28 via ktoo.org
  
  Trollers await the July 1 opening of the king salmon season in Sitka’s Crescent Harbor. The commercial season for king salmon in Southeast Alaska opens on Saturday, July 1, 2023. (Berett Wilber/KCAW)
  A widespread internet and cellular outage in Sitka continued into the weekend.
  Sitka has been without internet access since Thursday after an undersea fiber optic cable broke, cutting off the island from the online world.
  GCI provides internet and cell service for most Sitkans. In an email to
  
  Read more

• Juneau Afternoon: Wearable Art; Skate to Eliminate Cancer; SHI Lecture with Preston Singletary

  14-09-2024 03:59 via ktoo.org
  
  Cancer Connection’s second annual Skate to Eliminate Cancer at Treadwell Arena takes place on September 14 & 15.On today’s program:Preview of Wearable Art happening at Centennial Hall on Saturday, September 21 & 22Cancer Connection’s second annual Skate to Eliminate Cancer at Treadwell Arena on September 14 & 15SHI Lecture Series with Preston Singletary “Eagle’s Journey with Raven” on September 17 at NoonPreston Singletary website
  Volunteer Andy Kl
  
  Read more

• Young people in Juneau gather to protest Dunleavy’s “incomprehensible” contraceptive expansion veto

  14-09-2024 02:05 via ktoo.org
  
  
  Protestors gathered at the Alaska State Capitol after Gov. Mike Dunleavy vetoed a bill that would have expanded access to contraceptives. September 11, 2014. (Photo by Yvonne Krumrey/KTOO).https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/12bcrally.mp3
  Dozens gathered on the sidewalk across from the Alaska State Capitol building Wednesday holding pink and cardboard signs saying, “healthcare is a right, not a privilege” and “reproductive freedom by any means necessary.”&nb
  
  Read more

• Newscast – Friday, Sept. 13, 2024

  14-09-2024 01:56 via ktoo.org
  
  https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/20240913-News-Update.mp3
  In this newscast:The City and Borough of Juneau is asking voters whether or not to take out 12.7 million in bond debt to help replace the radio system that police and firefighters use to communicate.
  Juneau residents took to the Capitol this week to protest Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of a bill that would have expanded access to birth control.
  The Alaska Supreme Court has affirmed the U.S. House candidacy of Eric Haf
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Juneau’s public safety radio system hardly works. This election, Juneau voters are being asked to overhaul it for $12.7M.

  13-09-2024 23:41 via ktoo.org
  
  Juneau Police Department Officer Terry Allen talks into a radio while on patrol duty in downtown Juneau on Monday, Sept. 9, 2024. (Clarise Larson/KTOO)https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/13radiobond.wav
  City officials say the radio system that police and firefighters in Juneau use is outdated. It was only designed for an eight-year lifespan and that expired a decade ago.Though the system still operates, police officers like Terry Allen say it’s hardly reliable anymore. 
  
  Read more

• Alaska’s U.S. Attorney under scrutiny in disgraced federal judge’s sex scandal

  13-09-2024 23:06 via ktoo.org
  
   
  S. Lane Tucker, U.S Attorney for the District of Alaska, speaks at a press conference in Anchorage on Thursday, Jan. 25, 2024. (Wesley Early/Alaska Public Media)
  The fallout from former U.S. District Court Judge Joshua Kindred’s inappropriate relationships with two federal prosecutors continues to unfold.
  Kindred resigned July 3. Days later, the Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit released the results of its investigation into Kindred’s bad behavior, which included
  
  Read more

• NORAD detects, intercepts 2 Russian aircraft off Alaska’s coast

  13-09-2024 21:03 via ktoo.org
  
  A U.S. F-22 jet fighter accompanies a Russian Tu-142 maritime reconnaissance/antisubmarine warfare plane through the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone in March 2020. (From NORAD)
  The North American Aerospace Defense Command tracked and intercepted two Russian military aircraft Wednesday in international airspace near Alaska.
  A NORAD news release said the Russian aircraft remained in the Alaska Air Defense Identification Zone, or ADIZ, and did not enter American or Canadian soverei
  
  Read more

• After a string of fatal landslides, is this a new normal for Southeast Alaska?

  13-09-2024 16:00 via ktoo.org
  
  A house on Second Avenue in Ketchikan is flipped sideways and destroyed by the Aug. 25 landslide. (Jack Darrell/KRBD)
  Ketchikan gets more rain than almost anywhere else in Alaska. It’s the kind of rain you have to dump out of your coat pockets before you come inside. Mountainsides across the channel on Gravina Island are streaked with scars from landslides in years past.
  But even so, landslides never felt like a threat, said Ketchikan mayor and local historian Dave Kiffer.
  “If you as
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Alaska Supreme Court rejects Democrats’ attempt to remove candidate from U.S. House ballot

  13-09-2024 07:04 via ktoo.org
  
  The Alaska Supreme Court is seen in session on June 27 in Boney Courthouse in Anchorage. (Photo by Andrew Kitchenman/Alaska Beacon)
  The Alaska Supreme Court has affirmed the U.S. House candidacy of Eric Hafner, a Democrat imprisoned in New York state.
  The court, in a split 4-1 decision, upheld Anchorage Superior Court Judge Ian Wheeles’ decision to dismiss a lawsuit by the Alaska Democratic Party that had challenged Hafner’s eligibility.
  The decision means Hafner will appear on the N
  
  Read more

• Juneau Afternoon: Muskeg Collective, ‘Cruise Boom’ to air on PBS, National Concussion Awareness Day, USDA Forest Service

  13-09-2024 04:00 via ktoo.org
  
  “Cruise Boom” will begin airing on PBS and KTOO 360 TV.On today’s program:Juneau’s own Muskeg Collective calls in live from Ireland to share adventures in music touringAn interview with Ellen Frankenstein whose film “Cruise Boom” will air on PBS and KTOO 360 TVBartlett specialists share important resources in support of National Concussion Awareness Day on September 20USDA Forest Service on the Tongass Forest Revision Plan and a new subsistence dashboardSubsis
  
  Read more

• Newscast – Thursday, Sept. 12, 2024

  13-09-2024 02:52 via ktoo.org
  
  
  https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/20240912-News-Update.mp3
  In this newscast:Ballots for Juneau’s local election are being mailed to registered voters Thursday.
  Landslides are nothing new among Southeast Alaska’s steep mountainsides and heavy rain. But the idea that every few years, another Southeast Alaska community has to dig its way out after a fatal disaster — that is new.
  Trail Mix, Inc.’s Meghan Tabacek shares how the makeup of the nonprofit’s
  
  Read more

• Local election ballots headed to Juneau voters’ mailboxes

  12-09-2024 23:08 via ktoo.org
  
  A municipal election ballot is placed in the drop box at the Douglas Library in September 2023. (Clarise Larson/for the Juneau Empire)
  Ballots for Juneau’s local election are being mailed to registered voters Thursday. 
  It marks the start of the City and Borough of Juneau’s municipal election this year, which features three ballot propositions, two recall questions, nine Assembly and six school board candidates.  
  City Clerk Beth McEwen said people should start receivi
  
  Read more

• Sitka tourism documentary ‘Cruise Boom’ to debut on PBS

  12-09-2024 22:42 via ktoo.org
  
  Summer tourists in Sitka, seen in the documentary “Cruise Boom.” (Courtesy ArtChange, Inc.)https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/20240912104821-10CRUISEBOOM.mp3
  Sitka-based filmmaker Ellen Frankenstein’s latest documentary, “Cruise Boom,” premieres nationwide Saturday on PBS.
  The national debut culminates years of work on the part of Frankenstein and her co-director Atman Mehta, who explored both the potential benefits and downsides of cruise tourism&rsq
  
  Read more

• Juneau Afternoon: ‘Romantische’ from Con Brio Chamber Series to play Saturday, September 14

  12-09-2024 05:49 via ktoo.org
  
  
  “Romantische” from the Con Brio Chamber Series plays at the Alaska State Museum on Saturday, September 14, at 2:00 p.m.On today’s program:Preview of Con Brio Chamber Series’ upcoming concert “Romantische” with Doug Smith and William Todd HuntElection preview with KTOO’s Clarise Larson and Adelyn BaxterThe Medicare and Social Security seminar is open to the public on Friday, September 13, from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
  Bostin Christopher hosts the conversat
  
  Read more

• Alaska Supreme Court considers legal challenge to imprisoned out-of-state Democrat’s U.S. House run

  12-09-2024 03:09 via ktoo.org
  
  Case files for a legal matter referred to the Alaska Supreme Court are seen on Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024, in Juneau. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
  The Alaska Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Thursday morning in a lawsuit seeking to remove Eric Hafner, an imprisoned, out-of-state Democrat, from the state’s November election ballot.
  Under Alaska’s elections system, the top four finishers in the August primary election advance to the general election ballot. Hafner, who finish
  
  Read more

• Newscast – Wednesday, Sept. 11, 2024

  12-09-2024 03:00 via ktoo.org
  
  
  https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/20240911-News-Update.mp3
  In this newscast:Bartlett Regional Hospital’s board of directors has named Joe Wanner as its new CEO
  Assembly candidates in Juneau’s upcoming municipal election discussed public safety issues during a forum last week
  A documentary examining the impact of the explosive growth of cruise tourism in Sitka will debut this weekend on national television
  
  Read more

• Joe Wanner will be Bartlett Regional Hospital’s new CEO

  12-09-2024 01:47 via ktoo.org
  
  Bartlett Regional Hospital’s CFO Joe Wanner talks to staff at a meet and greet as a finalist for the hospital’s CEO position on Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2024. (Clarise Larson/KTOO)
  Bartlett Regional Hospital’s board of directors has named Joe Wanner, the hospital’s chief financial officer, as its new CEO. 
  Wanner was one of three finalists. He will begin the new role at the end of this month. He takes over from Ian Worden, who has held the position in the interim since la
  
  Read more

• Alaska librarians hopeful state will restore ‘massive’ cut in vital grant

  11-09-2024 23:36 via ktoo.org
  
  Many members of the community, tourists and other visitors turned out in May during the Delta Community Library’s annual open house. (Courtesy Tiki Levinson/Delta Community Library)
  Alaska librarians are cautiously optimistic that a state agency will restore a big cut in funding for an annual grant that smaller rural libraries depend on. The abrupt reversal of last month’s cutback followed an outcry by librarians and the public.
  The director of the state Division of Libraries, A
  
  Read more

• Tongass Voices: Trail Mix’s Meghan Tabacek on what it takes to be in trail work

  11-09-2024 20:53 via ktoo.org
  
  Meghan Tabacek is the executive director of Trail Mix, Inc. Juneau’s trail maintenance nonprofit. August 30, 2024. (Photo by Clarise Larson/KTOO).
  This is Tongass Voices, a series from KTOO sharing weekly perspectives from the homelands of the Áak’w Kwáan and beyond.
  Meghan Tabacek has been with Trail Mix, Inc. for four years now, and she’s done a lot of the dirty work. The nonprofit has maintained many of Juneau’s beloved trails since 1993, and she says the
  
  Read more

• Anchorage Daily News newsroom planning to form union

  11-09-2024 19:19 via ktoo.org
  
  The Anchorage Daily News print edition for Monday, July 8, 2024. (Casey Grove/Alaska Public Media)
  The newsroom at the Anchorage Daily News, the most widely read newspaper and news website in Alaska, plans to unionize.
  At the top of the would-be union’s list of goals is better pay.
  Sixteen out of 20 eligible newsroom employees – that’s 80% of reporters, photographers and editors not in management – recently signed cards supporting the formation of a union, according to a
  
  Read more

• Anchorage judge rules that imprisoned Democrat will remain on Alaska’s U.S. House ballot

  11-09-2024 19:13 via ktoo.org
  
  An early voting station is set up in the atrium of the State Office Building in Juneau, Alaska on Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, the first day of early voting for the 2024 Alaska primary election. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
  An Anchorage Superior Court judge said on Tuesday that out-of-state imprisoned Democratic U.S. House candidate Eric Hafner is eligible to appear on November‘s election ballot.
  In an 18-page ruling, Judge Ian Wheeles firmly dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Alaska Democ
  
  Read more

• State rules use of force justified in fatal downtown Juneau shooting

  11-09-2024 04:22 via ktoo.org
  
  A banner with a photo of Steven Kissack hangs at his memorial service in downtown Juneau on Sunday, Aug. 26, 2024. (Clarise Larson/KTOO)
  The two law enforcement officers who shot and killed a Juneau man who they say lunged at them with a knife during a standoff earlier this summer will not face criminal charges. 
  The state’s Office of Special Prosecutions released a letter Tuesday clearing Juneau Police Department Sergeant Chris Gifford and Alaska Wildlife Trooper Sergeant Branden For
  
  Read more

• Newscast – Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024

  11-09-2024 03:38 via ktoo.org
  
  https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/20240910.wav
  In this newscast:The Juneau Parks and Recreation Office is moving operations into a downtown building vacated by the Juneau School District
  Juneau’s city leaders say they’re working with federal partners on strategies to prepare for future floods in the Mendenhall Valley, following a second year of record-breaking glacial outburst flooding. 
  The Tongass National Forest has a new online tool for subsistence users in
  
  Read more

• Juneau’s Parks and Rec Department is moving

  11-09-2024 02:48 via ktoo.org
  
  The Juneau School District office in January, 2023. (Clarise Larson/KTOO)
  Juneau’s Parks and Recreation Department is moving into a different building downtown this month. The building on the corner of Glacier Avenue previously housed the Juneau School District’s central office. 
  Right now, Parks and Rec is located at City Hall downtown. The school district vacated its building earlier this year amid its budget crisis. 
  During the move, the department will close to visitors
  
  Read more

• Juneau officials discuss short and long-term glacial flood preparation, as Suicide Basin fills again

  11-09-2024 00:44 via ktoo.org
  
  Deputy City Manager Robert Barr, City Manager Katie Koester, City Attorney Emily Wright and City Clerk Beth McEwen at a Juneau Assembly Committee of the Whole meeting on Monday, Sept. 9, 2024.  (Photo by Anna Canny/KTOO)
  City leaders say they’re working with federal partners on strategies to endure a future of flooding in the Mendenhall Valley, following a second year of  record-breaking flooding. 
  At Monday’s Juneau Assembly Committee of the Whole meeting, City Manage
  
  Read more

• Most University of Alaska faculty paid on time after paperwork mishap

  10-09-2024 22:30 via ktoo.org
  
  University of Alaska President Pat Pitney gestures while speaking to the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce on March 11, 2024. She apologized to affected staff in an email last week.(Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
  An unspecified number of University of Alaska staff, mostly graduate students, went unpaid last week because of “paperwork issues” that the administration did not detail.
  Eighty-five of the University of Alaska faculty members affected by the paperwork problem were paid on
  
  Read more

• Repair ship working to mend cable break that took Sitka offline

  10-09-2024 21:53 via ktoo.org
  The Cable Innovator at work in Salisbury Sound 25 miles north of Sitka Monday morning. (Martin Becker photo)
  A cable repair ship is mending a broken fiber optic cable that took Sitka offline in late August, but it could be close to a week until repairs are finished.
  The British-flagged Cable Innovator arrived at the site of the break over the weekend.
  “So when a break like this occurs, GCI is part of a professional service group that allows for these repair ships to become available in the
  
  Read more

• Trump and Harris will meet face-to-face for the first time on Tuesday’s debate stage

  10-09-2024 21:43 via ktoo.org
  
  Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor (right) administers the oath of office to incoming Vice President Kamala Harris in front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20, 2021, as outgoing Vice President Mike Pence (wearing blue mask) watches. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
  Tuesday night’s presidential debate isn’t just the first matchup between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. It’s their first time meeting in person.
  “I was a little bit surprised, p
  
  Read more

• Juneau Assembly candidates differ on natural disaster response, hiring strategies at public safety forum

  10-09-2024 03:51 via ktoo.org
  
  Assembly candidate Neil Steininger speaks to the audience during a forum at the Alaska State Museum on Thursday, Sept. 5, 2024. (Clarise Larson/KTOO)
  The candidates who win the three open seats on the Juneau Assembly this fall will make critical decisions about the safety of residents. From figuring out how to mitigate natural disasters to hiring enough first responders — not all candidates are on the same page on how to tackle these issues. 
  Last week at the State Library and Mu
  
  Read more

• Newscast – Monday, Sept. 9, 2024

  10-09-2024 03:48 via ktoo.org
  
  
  https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/20240909-News-Update.mp3
  In this newscast:Douglas Island issues got the spotlight at a Juneau Assembly candidate forum on Sunday
  New research hopes to find ways for bears and people to coexist more peacefully in Juneau
  A clinical mental health counselor in Sitka shares the unexpected upside of being out of touch thanks to the community’s ongoing internet outage.
  
  Read more

Follow @AnchorageNewsUS on Twitter!