Casey Grove, Alaska Public Media - Anchorage
Casey Grove is host of Alaska News Nightly, a general assignment reporter and an editor at Alaska Public Media. Reach him at cgrove@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Casey here.
Alaska News Nightly: Monday, May 16, 2022
A missing seven-year-old from Kodiak is found dead a few miles from his home. Also, liberal-leaning Alaska voters worry about splitting the vote in a crowded special primary to fill Don Young's seat. And deep snowpack in the Interior last winter led an increase in wildlife deaths.
Police say they’ve caught Duffy Murnane’s killer. Now her mom is fighting cancer: ‘I’m going to be there at that trial.’
Sara Berg says she's glad to know what happened to her daughter and to have a chance at getting justice. But she says what happened was horrific, and now Berg is trying to hold off cancer long enough to see Kirby Calderwood taken to trial.
Alaska News Nightly: Friday, May 13, 2022
Industry leaders and politicians criticize the Biden administration's cancellation of a Cook Inlet lease sale. Also, a mom in Homer finally has some answers about her daughter, who went missing in 2019. And a "ghost barge" is free-floating down the Kuskokwim river after it froze into the river last fall.
Alaska Permanent Fund dividend amount still in limbo, as state House leaders delay budget vote
For individual legislators, in an election year, stalling a bigger PFD in the name of sustainable budgeting is a tough call, especially with oil prices high. But for others, it's clear cut: If oil prices drop, the state will spend down savings and have to make up the difference with taxes, drastic cuts or both.
Alaska wildland fire crews ready for action, with state funding to reduce hazardous fuels
Norm McDonald, the state Division of Forestry's Chief of Fire and Aviation, says all it would take to go from an average fire season to a huge one is some hot, dry weather and a lightning strike, or the careless burning of some brush or a campfire.
Former Homer resident kidnapped, murdered woman missing since 2019, police say
The charges against Kirby Calderwood are the first public explanation of what happened to Anesha “Duffy” Murnane since she went missing in October 2019.
Alaska’s biggest electric utility fired new CEO less than a month after hiring him
According to a document Chugach Electric Association’s lawyers filed in federal court Wednesday, the company’s board terminated its employment agreement with Halpern “for cause” a little more than three weeks after both sides signed it.
US Army Alaska commander says soldier suicide prevention is top priority
That's after the numbers jumped from eight suicides in 2019 and seven in 2020 to 17 in 2021 that are either confirmed or suspected suicides.
Anchorage police search for man’s killer nearly 6 years after his disappearance
Jose Guadalupe Gonzalez was 46 in July of 2016, when police say his coworkers reported that he had not shown up for work.
Anchorage monoclonal antibody clinic under scrutiny for political donation and patient billing
Anchorage Assembly members and others have been questioning how WEKA got the deal with the city and why it charged patients hundreds of dollars per treatment session.
Alaska military exercise seeks more ocean; public comment ends soon
Northern Edge is a biennial, large-scale training exercise that involves the Air Force, Army and Marine Corps, as well as the Navy, which says it needs more room.
Alaska heli-ski guide dies in Thompson Pass avalanche
Michael Hamilton, 46, was leading a group of skiers and scouting a run when he triggered an avalanche that swept him about 1,500 feet down the mountain and over a cliff, troopers said.
Ask a Climatologist: A look back at Alaska’s second La Niña winter in a row
For our Ask a Climatologist segment, National Weather Service climatologist Brian Brettschneider is holding on to wintry thoughts, as we're now able to look back and analyze the winter of 2021-2022.
Alaska’s first investigator focused on missing and murdered Indigenous people is a veteran of the troopers
Anne Sears had been retired after 22 years in law enforcement, as the first Alaska Native woman to serve as an Alaska State Trooper.
Alaska artist’s new film captures ‘slow motion tsunami’ of plastic marine debris
It's called "If You Give a Beach a Bottle," it's by Max Romey and it incorporates scenes of volunteers cleaning up Alaska shorelines littered with marine debris, coupled with images from Romey's watercolor sketchbooks.
Man wanted in connection to Anchorage double homicide is arrested in New York
Police found the man's wife and daughter dead from gunshot wounds.
On 4/20, Alaska House passes bill on marijuana records, underage possession
House Bill 246 would make past records of marijuana possession unavailable to the general public in searches of court cases.
‘Person of interest’ in Anchorage double homicide is arrested
Police had warned that 39-year-old Jalonni M. Blackshear was considered armed and dangerous.
Alaska wildlife officials on the lookout for new, deadlier bird flu
This strain does not seem to pose a serious risk to people but there's concern for backyard flocks and the wild birds that are a food source for many Alaskans.
Alaska snow crab fishery saw steep decline. This reporter went ‘Into the ice’ to see it for himself.
As part of the "Into the ice" series, Seattle Times reporter Hal Bernton and Anchorage Daily News photographer Loren Holmes spent two weeks in January aboard a crab boat called the Pinnacle, one of the biggest in the fleet at 137 feet.