Casey Grove, Alaska Public Media - Anchorage

Ari Katcher and Ryan Welch received Sundance's Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for "On the Count of Three," a dark comedy directed by and starring Jerrod Carmichael.

The 2021 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is going to look a lot different, one year into a global COVID-19 pandemic. (The Iditapod’s going to be pretty different this year, too, as we'll explain). The ceremonial start is canceled, so the race begins Sunday in Willow under strict COVID-19 protocols, with a shortened trail that doubles back on itself, a challenge to sled dog teams to cross the Alaska Range not once, but twice, plus coronavirus testing along the way and less access to indoor spaces at checkpoints... This Iditarod is certainly going to be unique.

Bert Christopher Heitstuman, 50, faces seven counts of second-degree sexual assault and two counts of second-degree attempted sexual assault.

A week ago, parts of Texas were suffering through cold weather and prolonged power outages. And while that state continues to recover, it got us wondering: Could that kind of thing happen in Alaska?

So far, expert witnesses have described serious problems with the boat’s stability report, which is a rating of how stable the vessel is and how much equipment it can bear. And those issues might extend to many other fishing boats around Alaska.

Hurley was a longtime assistant to territorial Governor Ernest Gruening, the chief clerk at the Alaska Constitutional Convention, and, later, a state legislator, among many other roles.

FEMA will provide disaster assistance to Haines, to recover from the deadly landslides in December. And, a large solar array will power a lodge at Denali National Park, after a delicate installation. Plus, remembering Katie Hurley, who helped draft Alaska's constitution.

A Facebook video of Wasilla police pinning down and arresting a woman last weekend at the local Walmart has gotten tens of thousands of views and drawn some criticism to the Wasilla Police Department.

Anchorage Police Chief Justin Doll plans to leave the police department this summer and is under consideration for a job as chief of police in San Jose, California.

Several Matanuska-Susitna Borough schools remain closed this week amid an increase in COVID-19 infections that the school district attributes mostly to student athletes going maskless while playing indoor sports.

Temperatures have dipped to colder than 40 below in parts of the Interior and windchills down to 70, 80 and even 90 below in some places.

In part, Dr. Anne Zink is responding to a report this week by the conservative blog Alaska Watchman under the headline, "At least five Alaskans died and 111 suffered adverse reactions after COVID vaccines."

State public safety officials say they hope to find ways to prevent people from being killed or seriously injured by their partners or someone with whom they live.

For the second time in about six months, Alaska’s attorney general has resigned amid questions by the Anchorage Daily News and ProPublica into their behavior. One case involved harassment of a state employee. The other involves possible criminal allegations of sexual abuse.

The investigation is the result, in part, of the Alaska Disability Law Center's 2020 complaint that the state has failed to provide appropriate treatment and relied too heavily on locking up children with behavioral health disorders, often at out-of-state, for-profit psychiatric institutions.

More than six years after he took his children from Alaska to the Philippines, a former Anchorage-based pilot has been convicted of international parental kidnapping.

Paul Varelans was a 6-foot-8, 300-pound giant from Fairbanks and a pioneer in the now wildly popular Ultimate Fighting Championship. He died at the age of 51 battling COVID in an Atlanta hospital.

Troopers said in a written statement Tuesday that Arnoldine Simone Hill, 26, was last known to be alive in Midtown Anchorage on Dec. 10 and might have been in Anchorage, Wasilla or Willow prior to her death.

Anchorage attorney Gavin Kentch represented one of five Alaska inmates to die of COVID-19. He wants Alaskans to remember that even people who have committed crimes don't deserve to get sick and die from COVID-19.

While Anchorage Police Chief Justin Doll says residents might see a bigger police presence at some government buildings, Doll says there are currently no specific threats of violence.