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An unlikely group of city employees are on the front-line of handling worsening woes with homelessness in Anchorage. Download Audio

The morning at Brother Francis Shelter starts with a sleepy bustle. Guests wake up at 5 am, start gathering their belongings, drink some coffee and help clean the shelter. One morning in late July, in the back dormitory shelter guest William Teal wiped down the plastic sleeping mats with cleaning solution.

Local garbage bandits have been making their bi-yearly rounds in Ketchikan, leaving messes in their wake. There are grizzly bears. And brown bears. And black bears. And there are garbage bears. Download Audio

A local farming couple is trying to change the way the state grows garlic by developing special strains resilient in the northern climate. Download Audio

Officials, politicians, and veterans themselves agree on what is causing massive problems accessing healthcare recently. Now, they are pivoting towards a search for solutions. Download Audio

Search crews have recovered the final victim of the Aug. 18 Sitka landslide. The body of 62-year-old William Stortz was found Tuesday afternoon. Download Audio

At the first meeting of the Sitka Assembly since last week’s landslides, city officials spoke emotionally about the loss of three local men — and said they had been overwhelmed by the response of city staff, volunteers, and ordinary citizens. Download Audio

Back in 1944, a 15-year-old Alaska Native girl named Alberta Schenck stood up against the segregated seating policy at Nome’s Dream Theater. Her case, paired with Elizabeth Peratrovich’s, was eventually instrumental in the passing of the 1945 Anti-Discrimination Act in Alaska. That was 10 years before Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, and nearly 20 years before the passing of the Civil Rights Act. Download Audio

Alaska military veterans testified yesterday at listening sessions in Kenai and Fairbanks about problems accessing federally funded health care benefits. Interior veterans shared concerns specific to the Veterans Choice Act, as well as more general issues about working with the Veterans Administration. Download Audio

Earlier this month, 49-year-old Joseph Murphy died at Juneau’s prison 12 hours after being booked on noncriminal charges. Among other things, Murphy was an Iraq War veteran. His squad commander says it changed him forever. Download Audio

Last spring we spoke with a young couple who moved to Wasilla in their attempt to quit meth. Now, six months later, they are still sober, living in Anchorage, and living a new life.

Sitka sits on a different chunk of the Earth’s crust than the rest of Alaska. Decades of scientific research have led to a report and map showing where the faults lie. The new information expands scientists’ understanding of what’s going on beneath Alaska’s surface. Download Audio

The commercial fishing season in Kotzebue came to a close Friday, and while both the chum salmon run and the payout to fishermen pales in comparison to the gargantuan success of last year, the fishermen at Alaska’s northernmost salmon fishery still have plenty of reason to smile.

The community of Chevak in Southwest Alaska has been breathing a collective sigh of relief after the arrest of a man in July for the murder of Roxanne Smart. The 19-year-old was found stabbed to death in the middle of town last August. But it was a tough year for the tight-knit community as they waited for an arrest. The town lived for nearly a year with a killer among them.

At a site near the Southwest Alaska village of Quinhagak archeologists are racing against time to uncover Yup’ik artifacts before the effects of climate change cause them to erode into the sea. The old village continues to reveal artifacts that give a glimpse into the daily lives of Yup’ik people hundreds of years ago.

Search crews have recovered two bodies from the Kramer Avenue landslide in Sitka. One man remains missing but search dogs have alerted to a third location on the south side of the slide, where work focused Thursday afternoon. Officials hoped to recover all three bodies before heavy rain predicted Friday. Download Audio

Since May 2015, 11 fin whales, 14 humpback whales, one gray whale, and four unidentified cetaceans have been found dead around the islands of the western Gulf of Alaska and the southern shoreline of the Alaska Peninsula, according to NOAA. Canadian authorities are also seeing an uptick in whale deaths off the coast of British Columbia. Download Audio

As crews continue to cautiously work through debris searching for the three victims of Tuesday’s deadly landslide in Sitka, it’s clear that the event could have been much worse. There are many homes below and to either side of the slide, and there were two other people directly in its path who escaped. Download Audio

The landslides that struck Sitka early Tuesday morning are the latest in a series of similar events that started in 2011. Although these slides are triggered by a combination of wind and rainfall, forecasters believe it’s too early to correlate these incidents with changing weather patterns -- but that may change.

People don’t usually plan to experience homelessness; life just takes unexpected turns. But for some guests of the Brother Francis Shelter in Anchorage, like Michael Hindman, the experience leaves them with more hope than anything else.