Zachariah Hughes, Alaska Public Media
Zachariah Hughes reports on city & state politics, arts & culture, drugs, and military affairs in Anchorage and South Central Alaska.
@ZachHughesAK About Zachariah
In a state where distancing comes easy, Alaskans flee virus to remote camps and cabins
Instead of riding out the coronavirus in towns or cities, some Alaskans are opting out: Relocating to cabins, second homes, or remote locales.
Don’t forget: Anchorage elections are still happening (right now)
Candidates, bonds, and on-site cannabis consumption are all on the ballot, with a Tuesday deadline for submitting votes.
Anchorage suspends bus service to prevent coronavirus spread
City will move to an "on demand" system for essential trips, waiving fares for riders on "curb to curb" service.
Curbside growlers? Industry groups push for change to alcohol sales rules to accommodate coronavirus
In an effort to help desperate businesses, regulators and lobbyists are asking the governor to relax rules barring take out and curbside pickup of alcoholic beverages.
Planners in Anchorage brace for surge of COVID cases with more hospital space, mortuary preparation
Anticipating more coronavirus cases, officials in Anchorage are racing to bring more medical beds online, scrounging for equipment, and even preparing potential mortuary spaces.
UAA study: To prevent deaths, Alaska will need strict interventions for many months
A new academic study of the coronavirus’s likely impacts on Alaska is clear: to prevent thousands of deaths, strict interventions will be necessary for months.
Hair stylists, barbers, tattooists among those with fewest options amid coronavirus closures
Industry structure means many workers are uniquely ill-equipped for the mass closures now in place for the foreseeable future.
Anchorage to house hundreds of homeless in unused ice rinks
Anchorage is rushing to open a new emergency shelter to try and curb the spread of the coronavirus among the homeless.
Berkowitz issues an emergency ‘hunker down’ order for Anchorage residents, effective Sunday
Standing next to leaders from the state’s largest hospitals, Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz issued the city’s most sweeping emergency order yet Friday evening, asking residents to minimize social contact and limit movement in the city to essential errands.
This Yukon River village is on lockdown and has already approved its own small coronavirus stimulus
Tribes are scrambling to order supplies and step up local measures designed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus
Defending Iditarod champ Pete Kaiser says his race isn’t going as planned
The Bethel musher said sickness slowed him down.
With unfamiliar checkpoints and wet weather, mushers swap advice about the trail ahead
This weekend, as race officials changed checkpoints over coronavirus concerns, there was a lot of advice being swapped between mushers, including Jessica Klejka and Linwood Fiedler, a musher in the middle of her second Iditarod and another who had just ended his 26th race early.
LISTEN: Iditarod front-runner Jessie Royer tells the story of how her sled caught fire
Jessie Royer has been running at the front of the pack in this year's Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, even with a sled fire.
‘Well that’s a little different’: Iditarod mushers learn about moved checkpoints, closed schools as coronavirus concerns grow
Schools, towns and checkpoints along the final third of the trail, including in Shaktoolik and Nulato, are limiting their involvement with the event.
For those mushing the Iditarod trail, the ultimate form of social distancing, coronavirus news begins to trickle in
As news of emergency measures and coronavirus closures spreads, there’s at least one group of people that is almost totally in the dark: Iditarod mushers.
Iditarod mushers say the trail to Nikolai was so smooth that it even put some of them to sleep
The roughly 80-mile stretch from Rohn to Nikolai usually has has some of the worst trail conditions anywhere along the 1,000-mile route. But not this year.
‘The best trail I’ve ever seen’: Iditarod teams rest in the sun at Rainy Pass as they settle into the competition
Although they battled storms and deep snow the first dozen miles, many mushers said the trail ascending the Alaska Range to the Rainy Pass checkpoint was as good as they ever remember it.
Musher Jeff King pulls out of Iditarod because of health emergency, rookie handler will run his team
Hours after a live event in Anchorage, the veteran musher was in the ER for what looked like a hernia, but turned out to be much more serious.
Illegal for decades, many Anchorage homes still have covenants that prohibit sale to blacks and Alaska Natives
A nascent effort by local officials is grappling with thousands of discriminatory contracts still written into deeds all over town, part of Anchorage's legacy on race as it grew.
Feds nab 82 illegal guns after months of investigating traffickers
Federal officials say an investigation into drug and weapons traffickers has led to charges against more than a dozen individuals in the Anchorage area.