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Support for Alaska Public Media on demand comes from Siri, an Alaska Native corporation with operations and investments spanning five continents, 45 states and two US territories.
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When the secretary of Transportation says he predicts mass chaos, well, then I have.
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To plan for mass chaos. Travel experts warn of delays as the federal government shutdown hits Anchorage Airport flights From Alaska Public Media, this is statewide news on Alaska News nightly for Thursday, November 6th. Good evening. I'm Casey Grove. Also tonight, Anchorage officials are working to expand capacity as winter shelters fill up.
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We want to see that number go down, and we're doing all we can to make that happen.
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Those stories and more tonight on Alaska news nightly. Ted Stevens, Anchorage International Airport is among 40 airports across the country forced to slash air traffic by 10% starting tomorrow as the federal government shutdown becomes the longest in U.S. history. Federal transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said Wednesday that traffic would be cut from the country's busiest airports to maintain travel safety. Local Travel expert Scott McMurran says he hasn't seen this much uncertainty for airline passengers since the disruptions that followed the 911 terrorist attacks.
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When the secretary of Transportation says he predicts mass chaos, well, then I have.
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To plan for mass chaos. And so that means a lot of flights may get through unscathed.
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But just because the flight gets through doesn't mean the travelers themselves aren't affected.
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Airport officials confirmed by email today that Anchorage International is included among the airports where flights will be reduced, but few additional details were available, including whether both passenger and cargo flights will be affected. The Anchorage airport is one of the busiest cargo airports in the world. The state entity that manages the airport said in a statement it's working to minimize impacts. Seattle Tacoma International Airport is also on the list of airports forced to make reductions, and it's where many flights to and from Alaska connect through. Alaska Airlines said that it canceled a limited number of flights in response to the FAA directive, but international flights are not expected to be impacted. Passengers with questions about specific flights should contact their airline. In the days after X typhoon Ha long hit Yukon, Kuskokwim Delta Communities, a global organization, worked to get food that felt like home to the impacted villages. As KYUK's Samantha Watson reports, the effort is rooted in the idea that food could be more than nutrition in times of crisis.
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Packaged shelf staple foods are often on the front lines of disaster response. Think protein bars and canned soup. It's what can keep stack on a plane and be deployed fast. But those foods are very different from the moose and salmon rich diets communities impacted by ex typhoon Halong KN disaster.
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Hit and so whatever we can do to give them, you know, home cooking or something that they're used to or something that they remember as a child or something that that does give them comfort, we're going to do that at all costs.
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That's John Torpy. He's the response director of an organization called World Central Kitchen, or wck. A chef led nonprofit with projects all over the world, WCK provides food support to disaster and war impacted communities and works with locals to curate meals with the affected community's culture mind. The organization is currently feeding war refugees in Gaza and typhoon impacted families in the Philippines. Shortly after ex typhoon halong hit YK Delta communities, Torpy says the organization began to plan. Within days, WCK was able to mobilize out to Bethel and send representatives to affected villages along with thousands of pounds of food. They were meeting with with the elders.
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They were meeting with the people in charge, they were talking to them, they were trying to figure out their needs so that we could support them with things, with things that they were going to use, things that they wanted, Torpy says.
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The team got a lot of requests for soup ingredients, so began to coordinate pallets of potatoes, carrots and onions communities could use to cook for themselves. If the village was without power, World Central Kitchen bought canned or ready made meals. We're not here to cook WCK food.
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We're here to cook food that's comforting.
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That does provide hope, that makes people.
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Feel, that gives people a respite from the disaster for just a little.
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Torpy says the organization tried to source as much as it could from Alaska to provide foods fitting with the indigenous community's diets. They partnered with Anchorage based Copper River Seafoods to bring pallets of wild caught fish out to the YK Delta. WCK also partnered with the city of Bethel and a team of local volunteers to deliver 200 boxes of food and water to 48 households sheltering evacuees. There isn't a one size, you know, sort of fits all approach to supporting disaster relief when it comes to food because food is deeply personal and sacred. That's World Central Kitchen core member chef Amy Foote. As part of WCK's network of chefs, Foote helped coordinate more cultural menus for hot meals served in the initial days of the congregate shelters in Anchorage, Foote says. Part of providing food to people impacted by the eggs typhoon is is to know how hard a disaster can be on the body, she says. It's like fueling for a marathon. Foote says native foods like moose and salmon are nutrient dense, high in omega 3s and vitamin D. Aside from having that connectivity to culture, they're like superfoods and they can help you, you know, get up and keep going. Foots helped serve up halibut chowder at the shelters in Anchorage, as well as fish head soup, a traditional yupik meal. In those initial days at the Congregate shelters, Foote says she'd seen people relax for a moment over a bowl of something known maybe, she says, for the first moment in a while. In Bethel, I'm Samantha Watson.
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Fishing jobs in Alaska are down for the fifth year in a row. That's according to new economic data from the state Department of Labor for the year 2024. Seafood harvesting jobs dropped about 7.5% last year, about the same as the year before. That brings the industry to its lowest job count since records began in 2001. The report's author, Joshua Warren, says there are many reasons for the drop.
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There's increased costs, competition in international markets, drop in prices. A lot of different things can cause someone to choose to fish or not to fish.
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Warren says climate change is another major factor, bringing unpredictable runs and fishery closures for different species and regions of the state. The report does not reflect this year's tariffs, but it notes the US has been losing ground in global seafood markets for years. Warren says the numbers fit a decade long trend. Seafood harvesting jobs have fallen by more than a third since 2014. The pandemic caused the biggest losses, but unlike most Alaska industries, the seafood sector has not bounced back. Warren says crab was the only bright spot that seems to have rebounded from recent closures, but that all other species are still seeing declines. And while he's not optimistic that jobs will rebound to previous levels, he says the industry overall is pretty stable.
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I don't think I'm terribly worried there won't be fishing in the future. I think it's pretty resilient and we're just seeing a lot of negative factors right at the moment.
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The very end of the year did see modest job growth, but Warren says it's too soon to tell if that trend continued into the current year. Still to come in Alaska News Nightly, Petersburg High School is taking their performance of Dracula overseas to share that with.
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People from all across the world. And like in Europe, that's so cool.
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That's ahead. Stay with us. A minor has been charged with manslaughter in Bethel in the death of a family member, 57 year old Gene Cheney Jr. That's after police responded to a home to find Cheney Jr. Severely wounded from an apparent shotgun blast in the early morning hours of November 1st. According to charging documents, Cheney Jr. Had called Bethel police just after midnight to report a domestic disturbance in the home where he was living. Only minutes later, Cheney Jr's partner called 911 to report that he had been shot and was unresponsive. The miner allegedly fled the home prior to the arrival of emergency responders, but ultimately surrendered to police several hours later in the parking lot of the local hospital without incident. The miner is being charged as an adult. They are currently held at the Bethel Youth Facility. A preliminary hearing in the case is set for November 10th in Bethel Court. Shelters in Anchorage are already full as winter sets in and the city is trying to keep up with demand. Thea Agnew Bembin with the mayor's office, says Officials recently opened 50 extra beds between two city run homeless shelters. Even so, they're still turning people away every night.
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The data tells us right now that we have more people wanting to come into our shelters than we can accommodate that night. We generally get people in within a few days. So it just may be that the moment that they say, hey, I need a bed, that bed might not be available at that location right then.
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Agnew Bembin says it's pretty common for shelters to fill up during the colder months. But she says the city is doing everything it can to have fewer people sleeping outside this winter. That means ensuring every one of the nearly 1000 beds at Muni funded and independent shelters is filled every night. Agnew Bembin says the city and its partners are doing that by improving communications between shelter providers, outreach teams and other agencies, including at nonprofits like Brother Francis, at rehab facilities and at the Anchorage Safety Center.
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The mayor said that at the beginning of her term we are going to have fewer people sleeping outside and so we want to see that number go down and we're doing all we can to make that happen.
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The Muni won't open a warming center this winter like it did last year. Agnew Bembin says warming centers with their limited two hour stay and prohibition on sleeping, did the bare minimum. Instead, she says any additional funding approved by the assembly will go toward opening up 50 more winter beds at Muni owned shelters. And Agnew Bembin says the city continues to explore other ways to keep people out of the cold.
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We're trying to create as many options as we possibly can and you know, I'm also in discussion with churches and other faith communities to See if some of them can add some emergency shelter during the winter because that used to happen.
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She says that declined with COVID but she's optimistic there's a way to expand faith communities involvement in the city's cold weather homeless response. Wrangell residents banded together over the week in response to the federal government stopping SNAP benefits during the government shutdown. SNAP is a federal program that helps low income households pay for groceries. KSTK's Colette Czarnicki visited some of the establishments in town that are trying to ease the loss of funding that some community members rely on.
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Right now our customers are looking for food.
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Yeah.
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So that's what we're doing right now.
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Totally.
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It's pretty well organized. Marit Stevens is stocking shelves with donated food at the Salvation Army Food bank in Wrangell. Volunteers like her are here the Tuesday after the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits were cut off a month into the government shutdown. When they started, the shelves were extra empty. And as the church's captain Chase Tomberland Green says, they rely on food from the United States Department of Agriculture, which stopped supplying the food bank earlier last month. That's impacted not just tons of our families here in our community, but also our ability to maintain the food pantry. He says the Salvation Army Food bank is the only official food bank in Wrangell, a community of about 2,000, and he's seen a recent increase in need in it nearly doubled from 40 to 75 households needing food every week. It's a pretty drastic change and we'll.
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Definitely see that throughout this week. I'm sure there will be a large influx.
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Based on the Census data from 2022, nearly 11% of Ringleites rely on SNAP benefits. At city market, cashier Tom Sewart says he's already seen an impact. He says one woman who was trying to pay about $50 with her benefits car declined at checkout. It just comes in and just says funds not available. So even though she, that lady there got, she claimed close to $250 and you know, there wasn't anything on it. Wrangle eye. Vivian Faith Prescott schemed up a way to help her fellow neighbors. Now, a day after the cut began, she's distributing boxes of donated food from a couple cars parked along the waterfront downtown. There are more donated goods on a bench. She calls this pop up the Good Neighbors Little Free Bakery. I just named it Good Neighbors because I want to be a good neighbor and to help out because of the shutdown of the SNAP funds. So I decided, well, what can I do? And I just take more. She and others baked various goods, including small Bruce tip flatbread and garlic ricotta naan. And there are donations of apples, milk, peanut butter, eggs, cheese, and bread. The local bakeries also contributed, offering Halloween cookies, cheesecakes, soups, and sandwiches. Krista Gillen walks through the Pop up with her daughter. She praises the grassroots pop up, highlighting the struggle of many during the government shutdown. Me being a single mother of three small kids, I have been struggling and with losing food stamps, benefits during the holidays, it's happened more than once to me, I think this is amazing, and it's great to see the wrangled come together like this. Later, Prescott says about 20 ring lights stopped by for the baked goods. She says some have big families, and at least one visitor was a furloughed worker. All leftovers from the Pop up will be donated to the Salvation army food bank. Ringel has about 10 restaurants. The Wolf Shack, which specializes in Mexican and American comfort food, posted on Facebook letting people know they will feed those affected by the government shutdown. Alicia Mora owns the restaurant with her husband, Chris Mierra. I think people getting ready for the holidays and, you know, trying to, you know, figure out, I mean, this is just one meal. It's not like it's, you know, people eat three times a day, you know, mostly. So it's not, you know, this is just a portion. Yeah, so we definitely, you know, we'll do it as long. As of Monday, they estimated they'd given out about 20 meals so far. Morris says they saw comments on social media about the SNAP cutoffs. And when many people said they rely on the federal aid, she knew they had to do something. This is like something that, you know, is to heart to us because, you know, we've struggled. You know, Chris and I both, you know, we came from kind of like poor families and, you know, we've always kind of been on this end of the thing, and this is the first time that we've had, like, a place in our lives where we can give back. So far, the restaurant has raised around a thousand dollars in donations from other community members. Morris says when the government reopens and SNAP benefits are back, they'll either donate the rest of the money to a good cause or return it. As the shutdown's effects unfold in the island town, so is the community's generosity one meal at a time. Reporting in Wrangell, I'm Colette Czarnicki.
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Alaska might soon regulate its own hazardous waste. That's if the U.S. environmental Protection Agency authorizes the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation's new hazardous waste program. Alaska is one of only two U.S. states without an authorized program. That means the EPA regulates the generation, storage and disposal of the state's hazardous waste. Lori Aldrich manages the state's new hazardous waste program. It's made up of 6 dec employees, including her. If the program gets federal approval, she says, her team will take the lead on permitting inspections and cleanups instead of the epa.
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And honestly, for Alaska, it doesn't mean that much change except that you're going to have somebody at ADEC here to call.
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The state legislature adopted new hazardous waste regulations in 2023 that went into effect this summer. For the most part, the state's rules now mirror the federal rules. According to the most recent EPA data, more than 2,700 tons of hazardous waste were generated in Alaska in 2023. Aldrich says that's quite low compared to most other states, and one reason is that petroleum on its own is not categorized as hazardous waste. She says businesses commonly toss things like cleaning solvents, paint and oil contaminated with other chemicals, which are hazardous wastes. Some things are hazardous due to their toxicity, others are hazardous because of how they react.
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For instance, cylinder gas is a hazardous waste if you're throwing it away because it could blow up.
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Aldrich says that if the program gets approved, her team will start with a lot of outreach to educate Alaskans about what counts as hazardous waste.
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Getting people to manage it properly and to make sure that it's not impacting health or environment here in Alaska is what is the most important part of our job.
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Aldrich says that almost all of the hazardous waste in Alaska is shipped to disposal facilities in the lower 48, and that her team would only be in charge of the waste when it's within state boundaries. The public comment period on the state's application is open until December 8th. The largest community in the North Slope Borough has a new grocery store. Alaska Commercial Company opened AC Stojukpak last week in partnership with the Local Native Corporation. Roughly a thousand people attended the store's grand opening in Utqiagvik, says Kyle Hill, ACC's president.
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It was just all positivity about the broader selection of food, the fact that.
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We have fresh cut meat in the.
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Store, we had hot deli food, including.
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Hamburgers and breakfast sandwiches and so on. Over 80,000 Alaskans shop at nearly 40 AC stores throughout the state, many of which are in rural areas where goods have to be flown or boated. In Alaska, commercial company has another smaller store near utqiagvik's airport, which it plans to continue operating. The company has about 60 employees between the two locations. Hill says customers shopping behavior will determine the future of the smaller store.
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If people end up shopping almost exclusively for their dry grocery, as we call.
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It in the large store, we may turn the smaller store into a different format, including more furniture, appliances, motorized machines, sporting outdoor living.
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You kind of imagine a whole variety of non food products.
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AC Stojagpak, which means big store in Inupiaq, is in Utqiagavik's largest retail space. It's 40,000 square feet and is owned by the Utpiagvik Inupiat Corporation. There's only one bank in the town of over 4,500 people. The corporation's president and CEO, Dr. Pearl Brauer, says they're working to bring more financial services to the space along with opportunities for local entrepreneurs.
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One of the things that happens here is that we don't have a lot of commercial infrastructure for small businesses, and something that we'd like to very much consider as we move forward is utilizing some of the space to perhaps put in some opportunity for some small businesses to run small storefronts.
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Brower says there has been a long need for a large grocery operation in the North Slope Hub community and that it'll serve residents throughout the region. Halloween might be over, but the spooky season continues in Petersburg. The high school theater department will be presenting its production of Dracula this week, and as KFSK's Taylor Heckert reports, the town will get an opportunity to see the play live before it heads overseas.
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Oh, John. Dr. Seward, what is it? Why have you sent for me? I told you my my dear John, I told you my wire. There's nothing new. On a recent evening practice at the Wright Auditorium, the stage is set for the students working on Dracula. The character of Jonathan Harker is answering a message from Dr. Seward, the father of his fiance, Lucy. Lucy has been sick with a mysterious illness. I jumped on the train from London as soon as I read it. Oh, doctor, surely there must be something more we can do for Lucy. The props are simple. There's a table in one corner, a bench in the other, and curtains line the back and walls of the stage. It's the actors who command the room. Harker and Edward solemnly discuss Lucy's fate from either side of the table, a human skull between them. You love her with the warm blood of youth, but don't forget I love my daughter, too. She's all I have. Eventually, a woman named Van Helsing is called in for Lucy's case. A botanist and monster hunter, Van Helsing believes there's more at play than just a mysterious illness. While there's a lot of overlap between the original Dracula book, director and high school drama teacher Elsa Winterstein says the play isn't an identical adaptation. The playwright took some liberties, changed around relationships, cut some characters out, really just tried to simplify it for the stage because the book is very grand in scope. You're moving across the continent, and there's all sorts of things that would be very hard to represent on stage. She says that while some aspects of the story were changed to fit the stage, there's still a lot in common with the book. I would say the air of the play is very much the same. Dracula is still this threatening, but at the same time alluring sort of monster. And everyone else is, it seems like always one step behind Dracula just the same as in the book. Senior Peyton Dreisbach, who plays Dr. Seward, says this production will be more serious than the school's previous ones. I'd say it's a little bit more serious than previous plays have been. A lot of them have been, if not entirely, at least half of a comedy. But this one's more melodramatic serious. The cast of 10, along with one stage manager, will be taking Dracula on the road next summer. The production will be heading to Edinburgh, Scotland, to perform at the world's largest performing arts festival. Years ago, Winterstein heard about a program that would bring American high school theater groups to Edinburgh to be a part of the festival. She wanted to see if her students could apply. This was like the most ambitious thing I could do. It came back to my mind and I was like, I wonder, is that even a possibility? The group applied and got accepted to the festival. This performance's ticket sales will go toward paying for the trip overseas. For senior Remy Tolkachova, who plays Van Helsing, the chance to take this play abroad is a major opportunity. I'm so excited because, I mean, I'm big on the stage, I'm big on performance. Like, I do band, I do choir, and I do theater and I've done theater. And so like to share that with people from all across the world and like in Europe. That's so cool. And it's just like it's really a once in a lifetime opportunity. These performers have been working hard for months to prepare for the show. Stage manager and senior Heidi Brontuis has a pitch for anyone on the fence about attending. People should come because, first off, you're supporting the arts. It's a great community to support. We're often represented very highly, but not very supported. And it's just gonna be a lot of fun. You're not gonna expect a lot of what comes at you, and it feels very raw if you haven't seen it before. Attendees should expect some jump scares, loud sounds and good theater in Petersburg. I'm Taylor Heckart.
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And that's all for this edition of Alaska News Nightly. If you if you missed any of tonight's stories, we're online@alaskapublic.org and wherever you get your podcasts. We had reports tonight from Ava White and Hannah Flor in Anchorage, Samantha Watson in Bethel, Theo Greenlee in Portland, Evan Erickson in Bethel, Colette Czarnicki in Rangel, Alex Solomon in Juno, and Taylor Heckard in Petersburg. If you want to send us a news tip, question or comment, email us@newsalaskapublic.org Our audio engineer is Crystal Hyde, Madeline Rose and is our producer. And I'm Casey Grove. Good night. This is statewide news on Alaska Public Media.