News

Schools stayed open in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough on Friday, despite high winds raking the area late Thursday night and were expected to continue through Friday afternoon. A low pressure center moving into the Northern Gulf of Alaska, in combination with a high pressure area over the Interior, caused the winds. Palmer, Wasilla, Chickaloon and Sutton were affected by the winds, which reached 60 mph with gusts of up to 80 mph.

Governor Sean Parnell’s candid comments regarding Ketchikan's lawsuit against the state over school funding drew some response. Sen. Bert Stedman, a Republican from Sitka, listened to the interview and said he believes it’s the right of every citizen to petition the government. Stedman added he didn’t believe there will be any backlash against Ketchikan in the Legislature.

The Fairbanks North Star Borough School District Fairbanks district is planning for a major funding shortfall. The district is anticipating cuts even if requested state and local funding increases come through.

For nearly a year, a group made up of lawmakers, mental health advocates, and Native leaders have been working on a strategy to bring down the number of babies born with the disorder.

The Alaska House Energy Committee heard testimony this week from the Alaska Energy Authority. While the meeting was not initially intended to focus on the Susitna-Watana Hydroelectric Project, a multitude of questions from legislators, as well as the presence of members of the Susitna River Coalition, prompted a shift that saw about half the meeting center around the proposed dam.

The release of the Arctic Deep Draft Port feasibility study has been put on hold, indeterminably. The Alaska U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had said the study would be issued for public review the first week of March. However, in a recent Joint Transportation Committee meeting, Lorraine Cordova, Project Technical Lead, said the entire port project is being pushed back a “few months.”

Despite the effort of trailbreakers, Mother Nature has thrown plenty at mushers during the race. Almost every team has arrived with a story about a mishap on the trail.

The Y-K Delta Regional Committee has selected a small steering committee and charged them with drafting strategic plan for the YK-Delta. The 16-person panel is tasked with coming up with a strategic plan by the end of the year.

Rural Alaska communities are not known for having good internet connections, cell phone reception or, really, many good ways of connecting to people and programs outside their area. But rural public libraries do now have those types of connections, thanks to a program through the Alaska State Library that connects libraries all over the state – and country – for a variety of programs and purposes. Download Audio

The U.S. Postal Service has agreed to rollback its parcel post rate hike for shipments to rural Alaska, according to Senator Mark Begich. In a Senate committee hearing today he added an amendment to a postal reform bill to undo the increase imposed last week for in-state mail to communities not linked by road. But he said he secured a separate commitment from the postmaster general to lower rates immediately, or as soon as the post office can change its machines.

Postal service to rollback rural rates; Parnell says state not to blame for refinery shutdown; Democrats want constitutional protection for PFD; Goodwill opens jobs center; NBC to air Olympics in rural areas; Alaskans hope for medals; managers give cleanup updates; VPSOs face challenges; Hooper Bay jail to pay millions; Sudanese violence touches Alaska.

A group of Democratic lawmakers is pushing an amendment to enshrine the Permanent Fund dividend in the Alaska Constitution.

Governor Sean Parnell said the state is not to blame for Flint Hills decision to close its North Pole refinery. Costs related to the cleanup of sulfolane groundwater contamination, from historic spills of the industrial solvent at the refinery, are identified by Flint Hills as a factor that went into the decision to stop production. The state recently set a strict sulfolane contamination threshold for ground water cleanup, but speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Parnell downplayed the significance of state regulation in the refinery’s shutdown.

An NBC affiliate says it has reached an agreement with Alaska's largest telecommunications company that will return its programming to rural communities just in time for the Winter Olympics. Anchorage station KTUU says its rural programming was resuming on Thursday after it reached a multiyear contract with General Communication Inc.

The annual Alaska Forum on the Environment is underway at the Dena'ina Convention center in Anchorage. On Thursday, federal project managers gave updates on cleanup projects across the state within national parks, on Federal Aviation property and at defense sites. The Defense Department has 537 formerly used defense sites or FUDS. Of those 70, remain active for cleanup.

A Bethel jury has ordered that the city of Hooper Bay pay close a million dollars to the family of a man that died at the Hooper Bay jail. The jury found that the City of Hooper Bay was negligent in the death of 22-year-old Louis Bunyan. Judge Charles Ray read the next portion of the jury’s verdict, which came in after 8 pm Tuesday.