News

A North Pole city councilmember named Santa Claus saw his Facebook account suspended this month. Facebook told him he had to prove his identity to get it re-established.

A woman, who was walking downtown, was struck by a vehicle is in stable condition. According to the Juneau Police Department, the 56-year-old woman was crossing the street about 4 p.m. Friday and was standing near the median. She was not using a crosswalk. A 53-year-old male driver was driving south on Main Street and began to slowly turn into the parking lot behind the Alaska USA Federal Credit Union.

Charlie Oen was addicted to heroin as a teenager. At 25, he’s now clean and a peer counselor in Lima, Ohio, where he tries to help people who started using drugs before he was born.

A federal act signed by the president this month will bring millions of dollars for water and sewer systems in Alaska over a five-year period.

It’s the end of the year (as we know it), and that means we’re looking back at your most popular stories produced at KTOO. For 2016 we’re narrowing down the list to stories produced from of the KTOO building or that have a specific tie to Juneau. Some serial stories are incorporated into one entry.

Check out this compilation of music produced by public media in Juneau in 2016.

As 2016 winds down, here’s a look at Juneau’s biggest stories of the year.

Bogoslof Island is now a natural laboratory where researchers can see how the island and its ecosystem respond to volcanic activity.

Nora Edith Thomas, 28, may spend 16 years in prison for the stabbing death of Christopher Kenney.

It’s been a deadly year in Alaska’s largest city, with 34 homicide victims so far — more than in any previous year on record. It comes on the heels of 2015, which also saw an exceptionally high number of violent deaths.

A decline in the number of mature razor clams the past several years has prompted the state Fish and Game department to curtail clamming on East Cook Inlet beaches for the foreseeable future.

The Alaska State Council on the Arts is urging Alaska’s congressional delegation to protect Native use of ivory after recent domestic ivory bans.

Workers at a Tesoro facility are cleaning up after more than 120 gallons of oily water spilled out of a pipeline near Cook Inlet. State officials don’t yet know how the spill happened.

“Yeah we saw an impressive powder cloud, but no, that was not a catastrophic sized avalanche,” said Juneau Emergency Programs Director Tom Mattice.

Streams and watersheds in the Petersburg area are among those placed off-limits to old growth logging in an amendment to the Tongass Land and Resource Management Plan released in December.

U.S. Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, showed no enthusiasm for Donald Trump during the presidential campaign. But with President-elect Trump three weeks from his swearing-in, and a new Democratic minority leader in the Senate, Young is looking at the big picture and seeing the bright side.

Pete Williams accepted the city manager position at a special city council meeting Tuesday and will begin working under the new title Jan. 2. Williams has been serving as acting city manager since September when former City Manager Ann Capela terminated her contract more than a year early.

Southeast Alaska gained legislative power but lost ferry sailings in 2016. No new transboundary mines opened but Alaska-British Columbia safety talks advanced.

In a class action grievance filed Tuesday, the Alaska State Employees Association says the governor overlooked a crucial detail in its contract agreement.

Matfie McCarr has been homeless since 2002, one of just a few in town who call the streets home. It’s been his choice to live this way, he says, though he’s not always proud of how he got here.