Liz Ruskin

3 weeks ago | kyuk.org | Liz Ruskin

On June 5, Sen. Lisa Murkowski said that she’s still digging through the details of the giant budget reconciliation bill and can’t say yet whether she’ll vote for the legislation that would fulfill many of President Trump’s campaign promises. She described the bill as malleable. “Everyone is pulling this Gumby in lots of different directions, right? And so we are not, I think, resolved as a conference as to what that bill looks like,” she said, referring to the Senate Republican conference.

3 weeks ago | alaskapublic.org | Liz Ruskin

WASHINGTON — Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Thursday that she’s still digging through the details of the giant budget reconciliation bill and can’t say yet whether she’ll vote for the legislation that would fulfill many of President Trump’s campaign promises. She described the bill as a malleable. “Everyone is pulling this Gumby in lots of different directions, right?

3 weeks ago | alaskapublic.org | Liz Ruskin

WASHINGTON — Staff reductions and budget cuts at the U.S. Commerce Department have Sen. Lisa Murkowski concerned for Alaska's major industries. Alaska pilots, she said Wednesday, depend on the proper functioning of Automated Surface Observing Systems. “The ASOS systems, as they are known, which provide for the aviation safety, are managed by the National Weather Service,” Murkowski told Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick at a Senate hearing.

1 month ago | alaskapublic.org | Liz Ruskin

A hiker from Seward was struck by a massive boulder on Saturday and spent almost two hours pinned face-down in a glacial creek. Kell Morris, 61, said he’s surprised he survived. “Oh yeah, I was pretty sure I wouldn't,” he said Wednesday. The Seward Fire Department’s account of the incident makes for dramatic reading:"The patient was found lying in the creek on his stomach with an approximately 700 lb. boulder on top of him with his spouse holding his head out of the water,” it says.

1 month ago | ktoo.org | Liz Ruskin

WASHINGTON — Drue Pearce, a former president of the Alaska Senate, has taken a new job in the U.S. Interior Department. “I’m counselor to the assistant secretary in the Land and Minerals hallway,” she said in an interview from her new office. “Hallway” is not actually part of her title, but it does describe how the Interior Department’s D.C. headquarters is organized.