Loading summary
Transcript85 lines
- [00:00]
Wesley Early
Support for Alaska Public Media On Demand comes from PeopleMover Help update the public transit service plan. Visit transitonthemove.com to take the latest public survey by April 26th.
- [00:18]
Lisa Murkowski
If they can't get their work authorization renewed, they can't work. And this causes a real problem.
- [00:26]
Wesley Early
Lawmakers and community advocates say they're concerned about visa delays for the state's Ukrainian refugees. From Alaska Public Media this is statewide news on Alaska News nightly for Thursday, April 9th. Good evening. I'm Wesley Early. Also tonight, a Kenai peninsula connection to NASA's historic Artemis 2 moon mission.
- [00:42]
Dr. Tess Caswell
It is exploration for the sake of exploration that really fuels my passion for space, and I think that comes from growing up in Alaska.
- [00:51]
Wesley Early
Those stories and more tonight on Alaska News Nightly. The Aleutians, Eastborough and three other groups are suing the Alaska Board of Fisheries. A complaint filed Friday says the borough, the native village of Unga and two Aleutian fishing groups want to void fishing regulations adopted at a February board meeting. The lawsuit is asking the court to overturn five regulations for the Alaska Peninsula commercial salmon fishery, known as Area M. The fishery has been the center of a decades long debate about salmon returns in western Alaska. The recent restrictions adopted for the fishery are part of an effort to reduce the interception of chum salmon headed for the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, where salmon returns have reached crisis lows. But the plaintiffs claim the restrictions would encourage derby style competition, increasing chum and chinook harvests in the commercial fishery, which they say is the opposite of the board's stated conservation goal. The changes would also undermine local economies, they say. The lawsuit says the state board failed to consider important evidence, violated administrative laws and mishandled conflicts of interest while adopting new regulations, according to a press release from the Aleutians East Borough. The groups raised concerns prior to the Board of Fish meeting. Six federally recognized tribes then formally expressed their concerns to the board, filing a complaint with the state attorney general's office in late February. The the plaintiffs are asking a Superior Court judge to put a preliminary block on the regulations, then void them and permanently prohibit their enforcement. Republican gubernatorial candidate Click Bishop announced his running mate at a campaign event in Fairbanks last night. The former state senator and labor commissioner has chosen Greta Shirk, who's from the village of Kyana in northwest Alaska. Standing before a crowd at the Morris Thompson Cultural and Visit Center, Bishop said that at 68, he's approaching the twilight of his long political career. But Shirk's just getting started.
- [02:57]
Josh Fortenberry
This young lady's taking a chance on me my ticket is punched, but I
- [03:02]
Lisa Murkowski
care so much about Alaska and I
- [03:05]
Josh Fortenberry
want to do everything I can to
- [03:07]
Wesley Early
win that we can win so she
- [03:09]
Lisa Murkowski
can build her Future for Alaska.
- [03:12]
Wesley Early
46 year old shirk works in government affairs for Tech, a Canadian mining company. She's also a board member for the Nana Regional Native Corporation. She said the decision to run for lieutenant governor was a difficult one, but
- [03:24]
Lisa Murkowski
Alaska is at a critical moment. We're facing real challenges around energy, the cost of living and a state budget deficit that impacts our schools, our communities and our families. And yet instead of coming together to meet those challenges, we're seeing division grow.
- [03:40]
Wesley Early
She harkened back to a time when she said Alaska politicians didn't let the letter beside their name determine who they were or who they were willing to work with, end quote, and that she and Bishop would bring that cooperative spirit to to the governor's office. Eighteen other Alaskans have announced their candidacy for this year's gubernatorial race. Bishop is the third to announce his running mate. Candidates have until June 1 to get their names on the ballot for the August primary. In Alaska, all candidates run together on a single ballot for the primary election. The top four finishers then move on to the general election. Meanwhile, in recent months, Ukrainians in Alaska have been facing delays in getting their immigration documents renewed. Advocates who work with the local Ukrainian community say that's led to at least 100 people leaving the state. As Eliona Neidson reports for the Alaska Desk, the issue has created confusion and chaos for many who are left waiting.
- [04:32]
Alyona Knighton
Elena Dobchenko is with her four year old son, Maxim, in their Anchorage living room with just two suitcases. It's a recent March morning and they're getting ready for their flight to Seattle. Dubchenko is from Kharkiv, a Ukrainian city close to the country's northeastern border, one of the first places devastated by war after Russia's invasion in 2022. That year, Dubchenko came to Alaska with her husband and son. But last month she decided to leave the state because she was not sure when her work authorization would be renewed. Speaking in Russian, Dobchenko says she could not afford living in Alaska without a job. She says she feels like her family are hostages of a situation they can't control. They're planning to live with friends in Washington State, where they will have a roof over their heads. Dubchenko is one of at least a hundred Ukrainians who have left Alaska in recent months. That's according to the Ukraine Relief Program, which is affiliated with the Parish of the New Chance Church in Anchorage the group helps Ukrainians with housing, employment and integration. Since the war, around a thousand Ukrainians have come to Alaska, primarily through two federal immigration Uniting for Ukraine and a temporary protected status. Both programs need regular renewals, but last year many Ukrainians say that those renewals and associated authorizations to work did not come on time. They say this caused more confusion and uncertainty as they tried to build a life in Alaska and don't have a safe place to return to Alaska. Senior US Senator Lisa Murkowski says many reached out to her office.
- [06:11]
Lisa Murkowski
If they can't get their work authorization renewed, they can't work and this causes a real problem not only for the individuals but for those who were really counting on that workforce, murkowski says.
- [06:26]
Alyona Knighton
Alaska's congressional delegation has jointly signed on to letters urging the federal government to allow Ukrainian refugees to remain in the state. Governor Mike Dunleavy also wrote a letter directly to President Trump asking him to allow Ukrainians to stay and keep working on crucial infrastructure and resource development projects. A spokesperson for Dan Levy's office said that the state has also reached out to the US Department of Labor and the Department of Homeland Security for guidance for Alaska employers with Ukrainian workers waiting for document renewals. In an email in response to a list of questions about the visa delays, the DHS press team blamed the Biden administration for expanding humanitarian parole programs for Ukrainians and urged people to self deport to avoid arrests and deportation. Meanwhile, the war in Ukraine continues. Just this month, a drone attack targeted the city of Odessa in southwestern Ukraine. The attack destroyed an apartment complex and killed several people, including a child. Oksana Bonder is in her Anchorage apartment, showing a photo of the destroyed house in Odessa. It's just around the corner from her
- [07:34]
Dr. Tess Caswell
former home,
- [07:37]
Alyona Knighton
she says. Her friends still living there survived but lost everything. Bonder says she cried herself to sleep, thinking it could have been her family. Bonder moved to Alaska at the end of 2023. She now works as a teacher assistant in Clatt Elementary School in Anchorage. When renewal of her legal status and work authorization did not arrive in December, she had to leave work for two and a half months. She says it was challenging to lose that income and the job she enjoys. Wonder got her documents in February and returned to work, but she says the uncertainty did not end. Her husband is getting a work visa, but his temporary protected status that allows him to work in the meantime is running out in October. It is unclear if that program will be renewed. She says they leave out of suitcases. She's 42 and she doesn't have confidence in tomorrow, bundre says. They can't go back because Odessa is under attack, and moving to a new country would be really hard, she says. It's one thing to restart a life once and another to go through changes constantly. For Dobchenka, who decided to go to Washington with her family, the future remains uncertain as well. She left Alaska in March without even seeing the northern lights once. Dubchenko says if her documents aren't renewed in summer, her family will have to leave the country and and pack their suitcases again. In Anchorage, I am Alyona Knighton.
- [09:09]
Wesley Early
Still to come on Alaska News nightly, musicians, fans and an army of volunteers gather in Juneau for this year's Alaska Folk Festival.
- [09:16]
Josh Fortenberry
As everybody says, it's a marathon. I always gotta remember, don't get burned out by Wednesday or Thursday night.
- [09:23]
Wesley Early
That's ahead. Stay with us. Governor Mike Dunleavy signed a $450 million fast track budget bill this afternoon, according to his spokesman. The closely watched bill provides hundreds of millions of dollars for construction projects, disaster relief and wildfire suppression. Lawmakers passed it late last month. Construction industry groups had pressed for fast action on the bill. Complex fiscal maneuvering by the Legislature last year and a series of vetoes by Dunleavy left the state's 10% match for $700 million in federal infrastructure projects unfunded. Industry groups told lawmakers that meant they were unable to properly prepare for the summer construction season. But the bill faced delays in the House as Republicans objected to a proposed draw from the state's $3 billion savings account, arguing war driven oil revenue would cover the cost. The Democrat heavy bipartisan House majority countered that banking on unknown future oil revenues in a volatile market was unwise. Lawmakers ultimately failed to garner the 3/4 supermajority necessary to backstop the budget with a possible savings Dr. That leaves it unclear whether the state will have the money to pay for all the items in the budget. Republicans said they were willing to revisit a savings draw if it became necessary. Meanwhile, Anchorage School District officials plan to transfer a special accreditation for an elementary school focused on science, technology, engineering and math to a different school. That's after a vote from the school board to close Campbell STEM Elementary School in February. The closure is aimed at addressing the district's roughly $90 million budget deficit, which also led officials to cut of teacher positions and closed two other schools. Campbell was the first elementary school in the state to be STEM certified by education nonprofit Cognia. At a state board meeting Monday night, Anchorage School Superintendent Jarrett Bryant said the district plans on transferring the accreditation to Klatt elementary, one of several schools where former Campbell students will be headed next school year. In addition to transitioning that STEM accreditation to clatt, our priority is to offer interested Campbell students and families access. Those students can continue their STEM learning journey, bryant says. The accreditation transfer will occur next school year, and part of the transition will involve a site visit by Cognia officials. Deputy Superintendent Sven Gustafsson says there will be a lottery held in the next month to enroll former Campbell students in the CLATT STEM program. While Campbell was the only school certified by Cognia, Gustafson says other elementary schools have existing STEM programs for the following year. We would look at trying to add a couple more STEM programs, an extension of the transition On Wednesday, a group called Campbell STEM Preservation and Education foundation filed a lawsuit against the district and school board, alleging that the district did not provide adequate transparency and public participation in the decision to close the school, violating the Alaska Open Meetings Act. The group is asking a judge to order the district and board to reverse their decision to close Campbell's stem. Meanwhile, Bryant says he wants to ensure that school closures are done differently in the future. This year, Campbell's STEM parents found out the school was on the chopping block 11 days before the school board voted to close it. Bryant says he wants future closure discussions to focus on being transparent with district data and engaging with the community. I recommend that the district solely focus on process next year with with school consolidations and I'd like to pause recommending additional closures for next year. The district projects it will face a $70 million budget deficit over the next two fiscal years if state education funding remains at its current level. NASA launched four astronauts into outer space for a lunar flyby about a week ago, and for one engineer on the ground in Mission Control, the historic flight is also the culmination of lifetime of work and passion for space exploration that began in a Kenai Peninsula classroom. KDLL's Ashlyn O' Hara reports.
- [13:34]
Ashlyn O'Hara
For Dr. Tess Caswell, shoot for the Stars was never just an aspirational metaphor, it was an action plan. The Solatna grown engineer and NASA communications lead says her passion for space exploration started out early and strong in her fifth grade classroom at Californsky Beach Elementary School.
- [13:53]
Dr. Tess Caswell
My teacher that year had a huge poster of the space shuttle orbiting the earth that covered one of the walls in that classroom and I remember just being completely captivated by that image and it just really lit my imagination on fire.
- [14:06]
Ashlyn O'Hara
Then NASA came to her school for an assembly to promote the shuttle and early space station platforms. Armed with support from her parents, Caswell attended NASA's legendary Space Camp at the US Space and Rocket Center. She volunteered at fundraisers with the Challenger Learning center of Alaska in exchange for the ear of visiting astronauts. And when Soldotna High School did not offer an aerospace elective class, she took one online. Caswell went on to get a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, which is home to the only university owned rocket launching facility in the world. From there she obtained a master's degree and a PhD both in geological sciences from Brown University.
- [14:46]
Dr. Tess Caswell
It is exploration for the sake of exploration that really fuels my passion for space and I think that comes from growing up in Alaska, honestly. I mean, we live in a frontier as developed as it has become over time. It's still on sort of the edge and we got to look out for each other and it's very easy to get off the beaten path and find something new. And I think that's kind of what space exploration is as well.
- [15:14]
Ashlyn O'Hara
It's on Wednesday, Caswell talked to KDL from Houston, Texas, where she works at the Johnson Space center as a lead capsule communicator. Since April 1st, that's meant near constant check ins with the four Artemis 2 astronauts who've spent the last week on a historic trip around the moon. Anyone who's watched NASA's mission livestream may have seen Caswell. She's one of the people wearing headsets at mission Control. She's Houston in Houston we have a problem. But that's thankfully not a phrase she's heard on this mission so far. NASA's Artemis 2 mission is the closest humans have come to the moon in more than half a century. Caswell Sundays there are two main functions of the astronauts mission.
- [15:52]
Dr. Tess Caswell
We're really testing Orion's ability to keep humans alive and safe in the deep space environment. And while we're at it, we have the opportunity to do some pretty cool science, especially with human eyes on the far side of the moon.
- [16:07]
Ashlyn O'Hara
Despite humanity's best efforts, Caswell says there is no camera that comes close to replicating the human eye. So the astronauts visual observations of things like color variability and surface texture of the moon are key. She says not even the Apollo astronauts saw the far side of the moon. But why do scientists care so much about the moon? Caswell says it's because the space rock can tell us a lot about Earth. After all, the two are pieces of what was once a single large object,
- [16:35]
Dr. Tess Caswell
something the size of Mars smashed into the Earth and created this huge molten mess, and part of that spun off and became the moon. So our histories are linked, and when we can learn about the moon, we actually learn about the formation of the Earth and our own planet in a really cool way.
- [16:51]
Ashlyn O'Hara
She hopes the Artemis 2 mission will inspire young people today the same way she was inspired as a kid on the Kenai Peninsula. Reporting in Soletna Ashley, I'm Ashlyn O'
- [17:01]
Wesley Early
Hara and the crew of Artemis 2 is scheduled to splash down off the coast of San Diego at 4:07pm Alaska time tomorrow. School lunches are known more for soggy fries and pizza than salad and wild caught fish. But in the southeast community of Petersburg, students are eating fresh ingredients every day. The program works because of partnerships between the school district and local businesses. KFSK's Taylor Hecker visited the lunchroom to find out how a district off the road system cooks up quality food while benefiting community park partners.
- [17:35]
Taylor Heckert
At the ring of the high school lunch bell, a line of hungry students immediately forms at the cafeteria, snaking out into the hall. On the menu today, a build your own smoked salmon sushi roll. It's pretty popular with the kids. It's just really good.
- [17:51]
Wesley Early
I think I just really like the Alaskan salmon in general.
- [17:53]
Taylor Heckert
That's Ashlyn Sakamoto Quizan, a freshman senior. Laughlin Pagoda says Petersburg school lunches are a big improvement compared to her last school.
- [18:03]
Wesley Early
Before this, I went to school in Texas and the school lunches were awful. There was like nothing fresh.
- [18:08]
Alyona Knighton
There were no healthy options and I
- [18:10]
Wesley Early
feel like it's so much better here.
- [18:12]
Taylor Heckert
Past meals from the district's lunch rotation have included rockfish tacos, carrot top pesto with black cod and moose meat spaghetti. It's been a passion project for the district's food services director, Carly Johnson McIntosh. She spent the last decade slowly building the program by adding fresh local ingredients. And she hopes eating healthy lunches will give kids lifelong nutrition skills.
- [18:35]
Carly Johnson McIntosh
And when they're in college and they think, oh, I should eat a carrot, then I've won.
- [18:39]
Taylor Heckert
The program has been a big success. The district has received multiple awards recognizing the quality of their school meals. Johnson McIntosh says she didn't take an all or nothing approach, and that was key to Petersburg success.
- [18:54]
Carly Johnson McIntosh
The mindset of everything has to be farm to school or you can't do it is has held some schools back from being able to incorporate it into it. And the idea that it takes so much effort when you could just do little bits here and little bits there and it makes a large impact throughout all your students.
- [19:11]
Taylor Heckert
But it isn't cheap to source so many fresh ingredients. So Johnson Macintosh has had to get creative to offset costs.
- [19:18]
Carly Johnson McIntosh
I apply for every single grant I can get because the cost of food just keeps going up. If you think of your groceries, you know what, own personal groceries. And then you increase that. Like, our cost is so high.
- [19:30]
Taylor Heckert
And she says not every meal the district serves is made with 100% fresh ingredients. Instead, it's a balance. They heat up frozen pizza and chicken nuggets for the kids because they love it. And it's sometimes easier than making certain foods from scratch. They just try to decrease how often they're serving those kinds of meals. Besides finding funds to operate the program, Johnson McIntosh has also had to build relationships with lots of suppliers.
- [19:57]
Carly Johnson McIntosh
I've been here for quite a long time, so that it's all the relationships haven't just always been there. It's been slow to build, you know.
- [20:05]
Taylor Heckert
Their smoked salmon comes from a local processor. They buy kelp salsa from a business in Juneau. Plants for the school gardens come from a small farm in Wrangell, and they regularly buy produce from Farragut Farms, an off the grid farm 25 miles north of Petersburg. Maria Smets is one of the farmers behind Farragut Farms. When they first started their partnership, the district would buy leftovers from their Petersburg farm stand. Now they grow food specifically for the district. Smets says supplying the school district has been a big benefit for their farm and lets them focus on growing large amounts of a select few crops.
- [20:41]
Lisa Murkowski
We knew that Carley and the school district were up for buying large quantities of whatever we could produce. So that was incentive. Like, hey, even if we grow more carrots than maybe Petersburg customers in Petersburg want to buy, we could sell hundreds and hundreds of pounds to the school.
- [21:00]
Taylor Heckert
She says there's also the added benefit of being able to feed Petersburg's kids. And back in the high school lunchroom, the kids say they notice. Here's senior Heidi Brown to us.
- [21:12]
Wesley Early
I love when we get potatoes made with the Farragut farm. Potatoes.
- [21:16]
Taylor Heckert
So you can tell.
- [21:16]
Wesley Early
Yes.
- [21:18]
Taylor Heckert
Does it taste better?
- [21:18]
Wesley Early
It tastes so much better.
- [21:20]
Taylor Heckert
Food services director Johnson McIntosh hopes other school districts will consider following Petersburg's lead and add more fresh food to their menus. She recognizes that districts deal with a lot of obstacles and red tape just to feed their students, but she's working to teach other schools how to get one step closer to offering fresh food in their cafeterias. In Petersburg, I'm Taylor Heckert.
- [21:43]
Wesley Early
It's Alaska Folk Festival in Juneau this week, which means hundreds of musicians are showcasing their skills on the main stage at Centennial hall and at other venues around town. KTOO's Yvonne Crumry checked out the first night of the fest on Monday and has this behind the scenes look of what it takes to make the festival run.
- [22:01]
Yvonne Crumry
In the lobby of Centennial hall, people are beginning to gather an hour before the first act starts. It's Alaska Folk Festival president Josh Fortenberry's first time in the role. He says he's excited for the music to get underway.
- [22:12]
Josh Fortenberry
It's really hard to think big picture because you are doing so many little tasks and all of a sudden the
- [22:16]
Wesley Early
festival is just here. But it's like this train that just
- [22:18]
Josh Fortenberry
runs away whether you're ready for it or not. And all the volunteers show up and it just tends to happen.
- [22:22]
Yvonne Crumry
Nearby, John Heifetz is trying to get into the merch store as people line up outside the security gate. He's helping run that shift on its busiest night.
- [22:30]
Josh Fortenberry
A lot of the stuff comes off the shelves. So if you want stuff, come down here the first or second day because last year they ran out.
- [22:37]
Yvonne Crumry
His plan to manage the rush is simple.
- [22:39]
Josh Fortenberry
I'm just gonna do what I'm told. I'm a helper.
- [22:42]
Yvonne Crumry
Heifetz is also a festival regular.
- [22:44]
Josh Fortenberry
And I've been coming to the festival since probably 83, 84 when I first moved to Juneau.
- [22:50]
Yvonne Crumry
But he's gonna pace himself.
- [22:51]
Josh Fortenberry
He says, as everybody says, it's a marathon. I always gotta remember, don't get burned out by Wednesday or Thursday night. Cause then it's. It's a marathon, right?
- [23:04]
Carly Johnson McIntosh
Classic mistake. Are you guys ready?
- [23:07]
Taylor Heckert
You won't run.
- [23:10]
Carly Johnson McIntosh
I know better than to believe that.
- [23:13]
Yvonne Crumry
The security gate rolls up, The line stays civil as people move in to get their merch inside the auditorium and in front of rows of empty seats that will soon fill up. The stage crew and tonight's emcee, Grace Elliott are going over the plans for the transitions between the sets.
- [23:37]
Wesley Early
And you're emceeing.
- [23:38]
Ashlyn O'Hara
Yes, I am emceeing.
- [23:40]
Yvonne Crumry
Elliot has emceed at Folkfest 19 times, but she's still amazed at how the festival operates.
- [23:46]
Ashlyn O'Hara
I was just saying how remarkable this whole thing is. It's like on paper, it should not even work. It's a free festival. It's been going for over rough a century. Like, there's so much joy, there's so much willingness to show up and volunteer.
- [24:03]
Yvonne Crumry
Ben Hoffman signed up to volunteer with the stage crew when he was applying to play at the festival. The stage crew is in charge of setting up the equipment for each of the many acts. At 6pm he says he's as ready as he can be for the festival to start.
- [24:15]
Ben Hoffman
I think it'll be kind of fun. I like messing with microphones.
- [24:19]
Yvonne Crumry
He's part of a Juno Sacred Heart harp group that plays on the main stage on Saturday. It's his first time playing and volunteering,
- [24:26]
Ben Hoffman
so we'll see if it all comes together or if it all falls apart.
- [24:29]
Yvonne Crumry
Luckily for hoffman and the 15 acts that perform on Monday, it all comes together hours later at 10pm as the last act takes the stage. Hoffman's tired. He speaks quietly, almost whispers because he doesn't want to be heard by the audience.
- [24:44]
Ben Hoffman
It was a little bit overwhelming at first, but at the end we could just kind of look at the sheet for a couple seconds before I know what to do. Whereas at the beginning we had to have like a 10 minute meeting to move like two microphones.
- [25:01]
Yvonne Crumry
Now that he knows what stage crew is like, he jokes that he'll expect more from them during his performance later this week.
- [25:06]
Ben Hoffman
I'll be tougher on the stage crew. They're no longer invisible to me.
- [25:12]
Yvonne Crumry
In Juno, I'm Yvonne Crumry.
- [25:20]
Wesley Early
When that train left the station with two lights on behind me. And that's all for this edition of Alaska News Nightly. If you missed any of tonight's stories, we're online@alaskapublic.org and wherever you get your podcasts. We had reports tonight from Maggie Nelson on Alaska, Shelby Herbert in Fairbanks, Alyona Knightson in Anchorage, Ashlyn o' Hara in Soldotna, Taylor Heckert in Petersburg and Eric Stone and Yvonne Crummery in Juneau. If you want to send us a news tip, question or comment, email us@newslaskapublic.org Audio Engineer is Crystal Hyde, Kirsten Dobroth is our producer and I'm Wesley Early. Good night. This is statewide news on Alaska Public Media.