Sorted by date Results 1 - 19 of 19
KAKTOVIK, Alaska (AP) — Early last summer, George Kaleak, a whaling captain in the tiny Alaska Native village of Kaktovik, on an island in the Arctic Ocean just off the state's northern coast, pinned a flyer to the blue, ribbon-lined bulletin board in the community center. "Attention residents," it read. "In search of elections chairperson to conduct the August and November elections. … If interested please contact the State of Alaska Nome Elections." No one was interested, Kaleak said, and the state failed to provide an elections sup...
Sheriff's deputies in Washington's Kitsap County frequently get calls about animals — loose livestock, problem dogs. But the 911 call they received recently from a woman being hounded by dozens of raccoons swarming her home near Poulsbo stood out. The woman reported having had to flee her property after 50 to 100 raccoons descended upon it and were acting aggressively, said Kevin McCarty, a spokesperson for the sheriff's office. She told deputies she started feeding a family of raccoons decades ago and it was fine until about six weeks e...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A federal judge on Thursday upheld the Biden administration's approval of the massive Willow oil-drilling project on Alaska's remote North Slope, a decision that environmental groups swiftly vowed to fight. U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason rejected requests by a grassroots Iñupiat group and environmentalists to vacate the project approval, and she dismissed their claims against Willow, which is in the federally designated National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. The administration's approval of Willow in March drew th...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — An Alaska fishing adventure became a nightmare for a family of eight when disaster struck one of the two boats they chartered over the Memorial Day weekend, leaving three people dead and two more missing despite a desperate search over hundreds of square miles of ocean. The tragedy tore the Tyau family apart: Two sisters and one of their husbands are dead, while the other's partner and the boat captain remain missing off southeast Alaska four days after the boat was found partially submerged off an island. Authorities s...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency took an unusually strong step Tuesday and blocked a proposed mine heralded by backers as the most significant undeveloped copper and gold resource in the world because of concerns about its environmental impact on a rich Alaska aquatic ecosystem that supports the world's largest sockeye salmon fishery. The move, cheered by Alaska Native tribes and environmentalists and condemned by some state officials and mining interests, deals a heavy blow to the proposed Pebble Mine. The i...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Drag performers shimmied up and down a walkway between café tables, as enthusiastic patrons took photos, waved cash and filled out ballots ranking the shows. The mock election, fueled by performances that brought the din of an Anchorage, Alaska, café to a roar, was aimed at teaching voters about the state's new ranked choice voting system. The first ranked voting election under a suite of elections changes approved by Alaska voters in 2020 will be the Aug. 16 special U.S. House election featuring Republicans Sarah Pal...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Sarah Palin on Friday shook up an already unpredictable race for Alaska's lone U.S. House seat, filing paperwork to join a field of at least 40 candidates seeking to fill the seat that had been held for 49 years by the late-U.S. Rep. Don Young, who died last month. Palin filed paperwork Friday with a Division of Elections office in Wasilla, said Tiffany Montemayor, a division spokesperson. The paperwork was being processed by the division, she said. The field includes current and former state legislators and a North P...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Nick Cline gets calls about all kinds of items people want to sell through the Anchorage auction house where he works. But he was caught off-guard by a call he got last fall from a man saying he had "one of the largest opals in the world." "I was extremely skeptical but extremely excited," said Cline, a partner and appraisal specialist with Alaska Premier Auctions & Appraisals. According to the auction house, the opal, dubbed the "Americus Australis," weighs more than 11,800 carats and is one of the largest gem-quality o...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — An abandoned bus in the Alaska wilderness where a young man documented his demise over 114 days in 1992 has been removed by officials, frustrated that the bus has become a lure for dangerous, sometimes deadly pilgrimages into treacherous backcountry. An Alaska National Guard Chinook helicopter flew the bus out of the woods just north of Denali National Park and Preserve on Thursday. Christopher McCandless hiked to the bus located about 250 miles (402 kilometers) north of Anchorage nearly three decades ago, and the 2...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A man accused of killing a woman who was seen strangled in videos on a digital memory card was charged Thursday with the death of another woman, authorities in Alaska said. Brian Steven Smith acknowledged to detectives that he was the man in the images and videos recovered from the card, according to a document filed by the state Department of Law. Smith, 48, also said he shot another woman and told police where he disposed of her body, the document states. Anchorage police identified that woman as Veronica Abouchuk. A...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Republican Bart LeBon has won an Alaska state House race by one vote after a ballot recount, officials said. Before Friday's recount, LeBon and Democrat Kathryn Dodge were tied with 2,661 votes apiece. Recount results showed LeBon with 2,663 votes while Dodge had 2,662 votes, after LeBon picked up two votes and Dodge picked up one, according to the Alaska Division of Elections. A much talked about mystery ballot found weeks ago on a table in a voting precinct ended up playing no role in the race outcome. The ballot was t...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A powerful undersea earthquake sent Alaskans fumbling for suitcases and racing to evacuation centers in the middle of the night after a cellphone alert early Tuesday warned that a tsunami could smash into the state's southern coast and western Canada. The killer wave never materialized, but people endured several tense hours in shelters, waiting for a potential catastrophe that they feared could wipe away their communities at any moment. The magnitude 7.9 quake in the Gulf of Alaska triggered the jarring alert that a...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The state of Alaska has sued the maker of the prescription opioid OxyContin, alleging deceptive marketing practices and laying blame with the company for the state's epidemic of opioid abuse. The lawsuit, filed against Purdue Pharma and its affiliates, was filed in state court on Monday and announced Tuesday by Attorney General Jahna Lindemuth. Lindemuth told reporters the state's investigation continues, and there may be additional claims against other manufacturers and distributors. Purdue Pharma, in a statement, said i...
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A Utah man killed his wife aboard an Alaska cruise and told an acquaintance who later walked into the couple's blood-splattered room that he did it because she laughed at him, the FBI said in documents released Thursday. Kenneth Manzanares of Santa Clara, Utah, was charged with murder after he was found with blood on his hands and clothes, and with blood spread throughout the cabin on the Princess Cruises ship Tuesday night, according to a criminal complaint by FBI Special Agent Michael L. Watson. Kristy Manzanares, 39,...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — An Alaska lawmaker made one last legal push Tuesday to put about $1,000 back in the hands of nearly every state resident for their share of Alaska's oil wealth. Sen. Bill Wielechowski argued before the Alaska Supreme Court in Anchorage that Gov. Bill Walker last year exceeded his authority when he reduced the size of the yearly checks by about half. Wielechowski, an Anchorage Democrat, hopes to reverse the governor's action after losing in superior court in November. He was peppered with questions by justices during his a...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — When most people think of Alaska, they picture its thick forests, hulking grizzly bears and soaring, snow-covered peaks. What they might not imagine is rockets whisking defense and other payloads into space. But America's northernmost state has that too, entering the high-tech aerospace business more than 25 years ago as it looked to diversify its oil-reliant economy. The state-owned Alaska Aerospace Corp. hit a low point after a rocket exploded at its launch site in 2014 amid a deepening state deficit. The governor l...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Alaska lawmakers used the announcement of a major oil find on the North Slope Thursday to stake out positions in the politically charged debate over oil taxes and credits. Spanish energy company Repsol, which has partnered with Armstrong Energy LLC, said the find could amount to about 1.2 billion barrels of recoverable light oil. Repsol called it the largest U.S. onshore oil discovery in 30 years. The announcement was hailed by Gov. Bill Walker and Republican U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan. But it laid bare a divide, p...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — Add sleep to the already long list of hazards in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. A video posted on the official race website shows a dog team that arrived at a checkpoint without a musher. "Now you've seen it all, huh?" a man in the video says. As the video scanned the faces of the mellow-mannered dogs, a man could be heard saying, "Where's Linwood?" That would be Linwood Fiedler, a race veteran. He arrived at the checkpoint about an hour behind his dogs after falling asleep and toppling off his sled, according to inform...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The University of Alaska system has agreed to resolve issues stemming from a federal review of its handling of campus sexual assault and sexual harassment cases. The agreement, signed by system President Jim Johnsen on Friday and released Monday, outlines steps the system will need to take over the next several years. It follows a review, initiated in 2014, by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights. Johnsen, in a letter to the university community, said the system did not enter into the agreement grudgin...
