News

Hundreds of people gathered Thursday at Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve to celebrate the opening of a newly completed Huna Tribal House and the National Park Service’s 100th anniversary. But not everyone could make it. Tribal members and elected officials were stuck at the Juneau International Airport.

“We’re all expecting to see this fiscal contraction and a reduction in economic indicators. But the reality is that what’s going on at the state level hasn’t hit the communities yet. It hasn’t hit Juneau yet,” local analyst Meilani Schijvens says.

Scattered throughout Alaska are hundreds of pieces of land that have been transferred to Alaska Native Corporations by the federal government.Some came with contamination. Getting them cleaned up has been a decades long process, and a new report catalogs those contaminated sites, but leaves some questions about who will orchestrate cleanup – and when.

A bullet struck a Juneau school bus with two students aboard it Wednesday, according to a news release from Juneau Police Department.

The cast and crew of the American Public Media program “A Prairie Home Companion” cruised to Alaska this summer.

Skagway School went through a restructuring this year. An influx in students enabled the school to create single-grade classrooms in the elementary school, increase Spanish and music classes, and start an accelerated learning program. It also opened space for three new teachers.

El Nino has transitioned to below normal sea surface temperatures in the mid-latitude Pacific. If that persists, then the condition known as La Nina, typically results in a colder than normal winter for Alaska.

The Alaska Mental Health Trust took its first step toward logging Ketchikan’s iconic Deer Mountain, along with a parcel in Petersburg.

Two German sisters got a true Alaska experience through summer Rotary exchange.

Juneau Finance Director Bob Bartholomew projected Gov. Bill Walker’s veto of about half of dividend funds will cost the city.

Only three votes now separate two northern Alaska House candidates. Dean Westlake of Kotzebue has 780 votes, ahead of 777 votes for incumbent Rep. Ben Nageak, who’s from Barrow.

Bus passes, child-care assistance, work clothing and other resources to get low-income tribal members into jobs are being cut in seven Southeast Communities..

The U.S. Northern Command and Coast Guard have launched a major field-training exercise off Alaska’s northwest coast. Arctic Chinook is intended to demonstrate how local, state and federal agencies would respond to a simulated cruise ship accident. Coincidentally, a big luxury cruise ship will sail through the area while the exercise is under way. And to further complicate things, bad weather has just set in.

A musician well-known in the Ketchikan jazz community and who performed at First City Players Jazz and Cabaret Festival for more than a dozen years has died.

Tom Morphet, the owner, publisher, reporter, editor and designer for the Chilkat Valley News, was certified Monday to run for Haines Borough Assembly.

Southcentral Alaska has seen an increase in wasp activity this year. Mild winters are good for overwintering queens, and more queens means more nests come springtime.

A Canadian company conducting exploration for a potential mine about 35 miles north of Haines was recently granted permission to grow its project.

The Crystal Serenity is carrying 980 passengers on a 32-day journey from Anchorage to New York City. The cruise ship is the largest ever to navigate the Northwest Passage, a voyage of many other firsts for Crystal Cruises, according to captain Birger Vorland.

So far, the Juneau School District has enrolled about 230 more students than it expected. If the higher enrollment remains true in October, the district could get enough additional state funding to cover a near $450,000 deficit.

Juneau-based nonprofit, Southeast Alaska Land Trust, was denied its property tax exemption earlier this year. Now the Assembly will take another look.