Signs tell Juneau residents where to deposit their recyclables at the city Recycling Center in Lemon Creek. (Photo by Adelyn Baxter/KTOO)https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/05CJRecycling.mp3 Editor’s Note: After we finished this story, a power outage forced the city’s recycling center to close for repairs. The city’s public works department says the recycling facility is full right now and won’t be able to receive any new materials for at least a few days. It’s a nearly universal experience in Juneau.  It’s Saturday. You pull up to the city recycling center in Lemon Creek an ..read more

https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/20240418.mp3 In this newscast: Scientists and Alaska Native leaders released a report this week that claims plastic waste in the Arctic is contaminating essential resources of Indigenous communities Khalil English shares his research on the silverweed, a seemingly inconspicuous plant with deep roots in Pacific Northwest history ..read more

Some baby boomers would like to downsize from their large homes, but say it doesn’t make financial sense. Single-family homes in Dumfries, Va., are seen here last year. (Amanda Andrade-Rhoades/The Washington Post via Getty Images) Among the many hard truths for those trying to enter America’s brutal housing market, here’s one: Baby boomers continue to own many of the country’s large houses, even after their households have shrunk to one or two people. Baby boomer empty nesters own twice as many of the country’s three-bedroom-or-larger homes, compared with millennials with kids, according to a ..read more

Senate Finance Committee Co-Chair Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, listens to testimony from Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities Commissioner Ryan Anderson on Feb. 28, 2024. (Eric Stone/Alaska Public Media) The Alaska Senate rolled out its first draft of the state’s operating budget Wednesday. The budget includes a roughly $1,300 Permanent Fund dividend for residents, plus about $175 in an energy relief check. The Senate’s PFD proposal earmarks 25% of this year’s drawdown on the Permanent Fund for the state’s annual payout. That is substantially lower than the roughly $2,300 p ..read more

Fishing vessels in King Cove (Theo Greenly/KUCB) Peter Pan Seafood Co., the state-backed processing company that has faced dire financial troubles recently, announced Friday it was ceasing operations. “We’re saddened to share that Peter Pan Seafoods will be halting operations at its processing plants, leading to the discontinuation of both summer and winter production cycles for the foreseeable future,” the company said in a Facebook post Friday night. The company has faced mounting troubles, including legal claims from fishermen of back-owed payments for unpaid seafood deliveries. Silver Bay ..read more

Two brown bears on July 10, 2012 in the Kootznoowoo Wilderness on Admiralty Island in the Tongass National Forest. (Photo courtesy (Don MacDougall/U.S. Forest Service) The vast Tongass National Forest just grew a little bit larger, with the addition of five acres to the Kootznoowoo Wilderness on Admiralty Island.  The property, known as Wheeler Creek, was privately owned until the Southeast Alaska Land Trust and the Wilderness Land Trust teamed up to buy it. Then they transferred ownership to the Forest Service. The swath of land is tiny compared to the 17 million acres that make up the T ..read more

https://media.ktoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/20230417-News-Update.mp3 In this newscast: Wrangell’s Nolan Center hosted a screening of Blue Ticket on Monday. It’s a film of a play that KTOO documented back in 2019. The play’s author, Maureen Longworth, documented how gay men in Juneau were exiled from the city in the 1960s. The Alaska Native Birthworkers Community is a collective of Indigenous midwives and doulas who work with Indigenous mothers during pregnancy, birth and pregnancy loss. They aim to make the birth experience easier for mothers, including those living in rural Alaska ..read more

The proposed Pebble Mine site, pictured in 2014. (Photo by Jason Sear/KDLG) The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has upheld its denial of a permit for the proposed Pebble Mine, upstream from Bristol Bay. The decision issued Monday is the latest in a long string of legal and administrative rulings against the project. But opponents of the gold mine say their fight isn’t over. “Pebble will not be over until we have federal legislation, basically saying Bristol Bay is protected forever, and it’s permanent,” said Lindsey Bloom, a strategist with SalmonState, part of the coalition of tribes ..read more

Governor Mike Dunleavy discussed his priorities for education and other state issues on Talk of Alaska on Tuesday, April 16, 2024. (Matt Faubion/Alaska Public Media) Gov. Mike Dunleavy is defending the state’s correspondence school program after a Superior Court judge declared cash payments to Alaska homeschool parents for educational expenses unconstitutional. The judge found that the state’s allotment program, which reimburses parents up to $4,500 per year for books, supplies, activities and even private school classes, violates a section of the Alaska Constitution that prohibits t ..read more

A walrus is seen in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea in June of 2010. Research by a University of Alaska Fairbanks student found microplastics, mostly tiny fibers, were lodged in muscle tissue, blubber and livers of walruses harvested by hunters from St. Lawrence Island and Wainwright. (Sarah Sonsthagen/U.S. Geological Survey) Vi Waghiyi grew up in the village of Savoonga on St. Lawrence Island, where meat from walrus, seal and bowhead whale sustained her family through long winters.  “My people continue to live off the land and ocean like we have for millenia,” Waghiyi said. “Our elders call the Ber ..read more