Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy canceled funding increases for a variety of state health and education programs on Wednesday, vetoing a combined $57.8 million in general-purpose money from state budget bills passed by the Legislature. Under the Alaska Constitution, the governor has the ability to eliminate or reduce individual line items from the budget. Dunleavy struck […]

An Anchorage judge heard oral arguments on Thursday in a case poised to decide whether the Alaska Division of Elections has the authority to remove a candidate with the same name as the incumbent from the race for U.S. Senate. The court is expediting the case and a decision is expected Friday. Any appeals are […]

Last year, a state-owned Alaska corporation transferred leadership of the proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline project to a private developer. Now, a newly revealed draft analysis of the agreement between the state-owned Alaska Gasline Development Corp. and Glenfarne, the private developer, shows that if the project fails to go forward under certain conditions, the state […]

Alaska and fisheries are intrinsically linked, both economically and culturally. Alaska’s fisheries provide for communities and rural economies across the state—and they will do so sustainably, year after year, provided we take care of the ocean and rivers that support them. That is why Alaska should be excluded from the federal government’s latest plan for […]

The Alaska Supreme Court declined to take up a case that could have compelled the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District to open a charter school in August. The Supreme Court denied an emergency petition on Monday filed by the state and a charter school group to overturn a lower court’s decision and force the […]

Under a new law, Alaska boroughs and cities will be able to offer property tax breaks to first-time homebuyers, new trailer parks and homeowners who convert short-term rentals into long-term rentals. Those breaks and more are included in House Bill 13, which became law this week after Gov. Mike Dunleavy declined to veto it. Eight […]

Alaska’s short summers demand fast, resilient pollinators — and few species meet that challenge as well as our native bumblebees. These insects are active in cold, windy, and unpredictable weather that keeps most other pollinators grounded. Their ability to generate heat, forage in low temperatures and fly long distances makes them essential to the health […]

Members of the Alaska House Judiciary and State Affairs committees held an investigatory hearing on Monday about the state’s decision to remove a candidate from the U.S. Senate election with the same name as the incumbent — Dan Sullivan. The Division of Elections announced that Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher from Petersburg, was not […]

An environmental group has sued the Trump administration over its failure to grant Endangered Species Act protections to sunflower sea stars, a keystone Pacific Ocean species that lost 90% of its population since 2013 to a wasting disease. The Center for Biological Diversity, in its lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Northern […]

The Juneau Community Foundation is giving the Alaska Legislature 16 two-bedroom apartments as part of a long-term effort to keep the state’s capital in Juneau. Members of the House-Senate Legislative Council voted unanimously to accept the apartments, which are spread across two four-plexes and one eight-plex in the Starr Hill and Chicken Ridge neighborhoods, respectively. […]

Government regulators and scientists are investigating the death of a fin whale that was carried on the bow of a cruise ship into Seward on Friday. The dead female whale, measuring 61 feet and apparently pregnant, was moved by local responders to a nearby beach for the investigation into its cause of death, the National […]

Businesses routinely offer discounts and coupons as enticements to get people to spend money, or to buy something they wouldn’t normally purchase if they had to pay full price. It’s the same for the proposed Alaska North Slope natural gas pipeline project. The dream has been around for almost 60 years, but no one has […]

The Alaska Senate has approved a multibillion-dollar tax cut for the developers of the proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline, but some changes adopted late Friday by the Senate reduced the size of the break. Speaking to reporters after the 12-8 Senate vote, Gov. Mike Dunleavy and House Majority Leader Chuck Kopp, R-Anchorage, said the Senate […]

The Alaska House of Representatives on Saturday rejected a Senate-drafted multibillion-dollar tax break for a proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline project, as members of the House declined to abandon a different proposal they drafted. Members of the House voted down the Senate’s revised bill 12-28, nine votes short of what was needed to adopt the […]

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy extended his record-high veto rate Thursday by vetoing nine of the 82 bills passed by lawmakers in the second year of the 34th Alaska State Legislature. Among the vetoed bills were measures that would have provided mental health lessons to kids in public schools, created a retirement plan for private-sector workers […]

The abolitionist and writer Frederick Douglass is known for many things, but perhaps among the most significant is his views on education’s relationship to slavery. Douglass himself was born into slavery in Maryland in 1818. Douglass described in his 1845 autobiography how one of his enslavers, Mrs. Auld, began teaching him to read when he […]

The federal government is continuing to push for oil drilling in a North Slope conservation area intended to protect caribou. Last month, the U.S. Department of the Interior asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review a ruling from U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason that blocked oil and gas lease sales in […]

Alaska’s acting attorney general filed an emergency petition with the Alaska Supreme Court to compel the Fairbanks North Star Borough School District to open a charter school whose application the district previously denied. The petition comes one day after a Fairbanks judge denied a preliminary injunction filed by the local charter group that sought to […]

Hundreds of sophisticated monitoring instruments will remain in place in the nation’s oceans, thanks to a National Science Foundation reversal of its plan to partially dismantle the system. The federal agency announced on Thursday that it is dropping its plan to remove hundreds of instruments from the Ocean Observatories Initiative program. The program encompasses more […]

The proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline project would generate an average of almost $800 million per year for the state treasury for 30 years starting in 2033, according to a new estimate from the Alaska Department of Revenue that includes a proposed tax break approved by the state House. Dan Stickel, the department’s chief economist, […]

Alaska has been allocated about $99 million in new fishery disaster assistance, making up the majority of the $123.6 million in aid that federal officials on Wednesday said is headed to Alaska, Washington, Oregon and California. In Alaska, the money is to address previously declared fishery disasters for Bering Sea snow crab and Chignik and […]

If Alaska lawmakers do not vote by 11:59 p.m. Friday on a bill offering a tax break to the proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline project, Gov. Mike Dunleavy says he will call them into another 30-day special session. In a message on social media, Dunleavy said legislators are making progress on the issue, but if […]

An attorney advising the Alaska Legislature said Wednesday that Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom may have violated the U.S. Constitution when she disqualified Petersburg’s Daniel J. Sullivan from this year’s U.S. Senate race in Alaska. Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage and chair of the House Judiciary Committee has scheduled a legislative hearing on Monday to discuss the […]

Alaska saw an unprecedented wave of school closures this year. District officials grappling with severe budget shortfalls have opted to close 12 elementary and middle schools across the state — in Anchorage, Wasilla, Sutton, Seward, Sterling, Soldotna, Kasilof and Ketchikan. With those closures, hundreds of students and staff will bus or commute to new schools […]

Carbon dioxide, a byproduct of the proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline project, could net the pipeline’s operators more than $285 million per year from the federal government, the Alaska Department of Revenue estimates in a forecast released this month. “It’s a benefit to the project and to whatever investors there are in the project,” said […]

The 14 members of Alaska’s Senate coalition majority met behind closed doors twice on Wednesday to decide the fate of a multibillion-dollar tax break for the proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline. The state House voted 34-5 on Friday to approve the break, which also has the approval of Gov. Mike Dunleavy and pipeline developer Glenfarne, […]

The president of the United States urged lawmakers to do everything they can to make the long-desired Alaska natural gas pipeline a reality. “It is in the national interest to bring Alaskan gas reserves to market at the lowest possible price for consumers,” the president said in an official message. “Every effort must be made […]

Alaska media coverage of a highly touted and long anticipated “connector trail” in downtown Anchorage has produced a series of “feel good” stories that sing the praises of a project widely considered to be a dream come true—at least by its backers. Those include a high-powered coalition of local recreational trail advocates and elected officials […]

This story has been updated with a response from Sen. Dan Sullivan’s office on Tuesday, June 16, 2026 at 3:02 p.m. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is among several members of Congress trying to prevent the National Science Foundation from dismantling portions of an instrument system that monitors the nation’s oceans. The National Science Foundation plans […]

Members of the Alaska Senate’s majority coalition said on Tuesday that a tax break for the proposed trans-Alaska natural gas pipeline currently lacks the votes to advance in the Senate. Because lawmakers are meeting in a special session that ends on Friday, even a short delay could kill the bill containing the tax break. Gov. […]