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1 month ago | 
alaskabeacon.com
Alaska depends on cross-border traffic, and the state is asking both sides to reconsider a looming trade war.
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1 month ago | 
alaskabeacon.com | Amber Lee
An Alaska commentary author writes about NIH discovering and advancing research on a syndrome since the early 2000s.
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1 month ago | 
alaskabeacon.com | Yereth Rosen
This year's drastic conditions are part of a trend. Alaska's snow seasons are getting shorter, creating more vulnerability for winter sports.
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2 months ago | 
alaskabeacon.com | James Brooks
Driven by food-shortage fears during the COVID-19 pandemic and inspired by the recommendations of a legislative task force, Alaska lawmakers are considering the creation of a cabinet-level state Department of Agriculture. In January, Gov. Mike Dunleavy issued an executive order that will automatically authorize the department unless state lawmakers specifically vote down the idea in a joint session of the state House and Senate by March 22.
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2 months ago | 
alaskabeacon.com | James Brooks |Corinne Smith
In her first address to the Alaska Legislature since becoming head of the Alaska Supreme Court, Chief Justice Susan Carney told lawmakers that the court system is failing to deliver justice “expeditiously.”Alaska’s chief justice speaks to the Alaska Legislature each year, and Carney’s speech was the first since a scathing ProPublica-Anchorage Daily News investigation found that the time needed to try Alaska’s most serious felony cases has nearly tripled in the past decade.
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2 months ago | 
alaskabeacon.com | Yereth Rosen
by Yereth Rosen, Alaska Beacon February 12, 2025 Federal fishery managers took steps on Tuesday to impose new rules to prevent Alaska chum salmon from being scooped into nets used to catch Bering Sea pollock, an industrial-scale fishery that makes up the nation’s largest single-species commercial seafood harvest.
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2 months ago | 
alaskabeacon.com | James Brooks
In a series of hearings this week, members of the Alaska Legislature have heard emotional testimony about the need for more education funding. As lawmakers consider the idea, it’s becoming increasingly clear within the Capitol that more funding for public schools will come at the expense of the Permanent Fund dividend. “The state of Alaska is probably facing its largest fiscal problem … in 30 years,” said Sen. Lyman Hoffman, D-Bethel and chair of the Senate Finance Committee, on Tuesday.
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2 months ago | 
alaskabeacon.com | James Brooks
Alaska’s largest public employee union filed suit against the state of Alaska on Tuesday, saying that state officials have illegally withheld the results of a statewide salary study. In Tuesday’s lawsuit, filed in Anchorage Superior Court, attorneys representing the Alaska State Employees Association allege that the state is concealing results unfavorable to the administration of Gov. Mike Dunleavy and ask for a court order mandating the release of the study.
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2 months ago | 
alaskabeacon.com | James Brooks
In an effort to boost awareness of the University of Alaska’s research success, a Fairbanks Republican has proposed that the state name an official state dinosaur. Nineteen other states have official state dinosaurs, said Rep. Will Stapp, R-Fairbanks, who has proposed picking Nanuqsaurus, a carnivorous dinosaur whose remains were discovered in the North Slope Borough in 2006. “It’s a chance to talk about all the great research that UAF does.
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2 months ago | 
alaskabeacon.com | Yereth Rosen
by Yereth Rosen, Alaska Beacon February 10, 2025 The Alaska Legislature is considering a bill that would create a new state insurance program to address damages from floods, including glacial outburst floods that are becoming more common as the far north climate warms. The measure, Senate Bill 11, would set up an Alaska Flood Authority and an Alaska flood insurance fund to supplant the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s National Flood Insurance Program.