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- [00:00]
Casey Grove
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.
- [00:19]
Mike Cronk
I'm always hopeful. You know, obviously we are in the minority, but I'm hopeful to, you know, work with the majority.
- [00:25]
Casey Grove
State Senate Republicans select a new minority leader. From Alaska Public Media, this is statewide news on Alaska News nightly for Tuesday, December 16th. Good evening. I'm Casey Grove. Also tonight, the latest federal report on the Arctic shows the region is still rapidly warming.
- [00:41]
Hannah Marie Ladd
We are witnessing an entire marine ecosystem which is tied to our economies and culture transform within a single generation.
- [00:48]
Casey Grove
Those stories and more tonight on Alaska News Nightly. In times of intense national controversy, a lot of Americans write their Congress members. Alaska Public Media Washington correspondent Liz Ruskin became interested in how Alaska's congressional delegation responds to constituent messages. She collected hundreds of response letters. She joins us now to tell us her five findings. Liz, how did you become interested in this, and what did you do?
- [01:22]
Liz Ruskin
Well, responding to constituent letters is a big portion of what the congressional offices do. But as a reporter covering our trio, I have only caught glimpses of it. So I asked the readers of my newsletter, Alaska at Large, to send me the constituent response letters they've received from the senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, and from Congressman Begich. And to be frank, Casey, I was fascinated because clear patterns emerged.
- [01:53]
Casey Grove
Oh, really? Well, let's get into your five findings. Tell us about the first one.
- [01:57]
Liz Ruskin
Number one is that some Alaskans are calling and writing the congressional delegation a lot. I was really surprised. One reader sent me this, Liz, I've written over 700 messages to each of our three lawmakers since April 2025, when I finally couldn't stand silent anymore. With regard to the Trump administration, that is from someone I think we've both interviewed, retired fish and game biologist Rick Sinnott. He never struck me as overtly political, but now he says he's up to 800 messages to the delegation since April.
- [02:36]
Casey Grove
Wow. Yeah. Remind me not to do anything that Rick Senate thinks is controversial.
- [02:41]
Liz Ruskin
Yeah. And Casey, let's acknowledge that anger is a huge motivator to contact the delegation. This is not a cross section of Alaskans I heard from people who write their Congress members these days are often quite mad at President Trump's policies. And it's almost a given that the letters they get back, which are crafted by professional staffers and approved by a politician, they're unlikely to satisfy.
- [03:07]
Casey Grove
Yeah. Tell me about that finding. Number two is about Senator Murkowski's letters, right?
- [03:12]
Liz Ruskin
Yeah. And to Generalize what I heard from constituents. Murkowski's response letters are the equivalent of tap water unexciting. But every once in a while, people told me, kind of refreshing. One person said he finds Murkowski's letters to be more thoughtful than Sullivan's. And the read admitted to me his own bias as a judge. He said, I suppose that this is in part due to the fact that Murkowski generally agrees with my positions or at least acknowledges them, whereas I completely disagree with Sullivan on almost all topics that I write to him about. That was what one person told me.
- [03:53]
Casey Grove
Okay, well, then what about Senator Sullivan's constituent response letters?
- [03:57]
Liz Ruskin
My third finding is that Sullivan's responses tend to be quite long. One person sent me a Sullivan letter and said, quote, quite frankly, I couldn't get through the whole epistle without falling into a brief coma, unquote. I saw a Sullivan letter that ran to 15 pages. The real colossus was Sullivan's response letter to complaints about the one big beautiful bill. That letter grew to 25 pages. Sullivan started sending it as an attachment to a shorter letter.
- [04:35]
Casey Grove
Okay, so long letters from Senator Sullivan. What else did you find? What is finding number four?
- [04:40]
Liz Ruskin
Well, some of my readers asked if these long Sullivan letters were produced by artificial intelligence, so I sent one to an expert in the AI field. That is my artificial friend, Claude.
- [04:56]
Casey Grove
Oh, yeah, Claude. Claude, AI So, using AI to sniff out AI what did Claude say?
- [05:02]
Liz Ruskin
Claude said the Sullivan letter I sent about the powers of the presidency was almost certainly not AI generated. And Claude just gushed praise for the letters. Thoroughness, organization, accuracy, and what it called its sophisticated civics lesson tone. And then Claude offered this insight. And I'm just going to read you this passage. Quote, rhetorical strategy. The letter tries to thread a needle supporting Trump's agenda while acknowledging judicial authority concerns. The extensive discussion of Federalist 78, Marbury v. Madison, and mandatory injunctions feels like it's addressing constituent concerns about Trump defying court orders without directly criticizing him. Unquote.
- [05:55]
Casey Grove
Okay, interesting take.
- [05:57]
Liz Ruskin
Yeah. And, Casey, those things that Claude AI Loved, the constituent who received the letter did not. He wanted Sullivan to say what he was doing to be a check on presidential power. He didn't want a civics lesson. But this was a feature in nearly all the Sullivan letters I saw. One recipient I know coined a term for it. Dan splaining.
- [06:22]
Casey Grove
All right, Dan splaining. And what about our fifth finding here? You haven't said anything about Congressman Begich's letters yet.
- [06:29]
Hannah Marie Ladd
Right.
- [06:30]
Liz Ruskin
My fifth finding is that a great Many constituents who contacted me said they got no response from Begich. An Anchorage resident named Irene Bortnick told me that she's been writing Begich for months and only got two responses. One of those was a blank email and one was not a response. It was just a trans transcript of a voicemail she'd left for the congressman.
- [06:57]
Casey Grove
Well, that's odd. So they sent her own words back to her.
- [07:00]
Liz Ruskin
Yes, and she was not the only person to tell me that that's what they got, just a transcript of their words. I asked about it, and a Begich spokeswoman said they had a technical problem that they've now addressed. And she also pointed out that in the House, they have far fewer staffers than the Senate offices have, but they do try to respond to every constituent message. One person forwarded a five sentence generic response letter from Begich's office. It invites the constituent to check the congressman's website and subscribe to his newsletter for updates on what he's doing. And Casey, I did see a couple of actual Begich response letters. It was a small sample size, but they were crisply written and said what his position was and why.
- [07:54]
Casey Grove
Okay, Liz. And if people want to subscribe to your completely not AI generated newsletter, which you write yourself, it's called Alaska at Large. How can they do that?
- [08:03]
Liz Ruskin
Alaskapublic.org newsletters. It's free and arrives by email every two weeks.
- [08:10]
Casey Grove
All right, great. That was Alaska Public Media Washington correspondent Liz Ruskin. Liz, thanks for joining us.
- [08:16]
Liz Ruskin
Thank you.
- [08:26]
Casey Grove
Tok. Republican Senator Mike Cronk is the state Senate's new minority leader. The six member minority caucus in the state legislature's upper chamber announced today that they had elected Cronk to replace Senator Mike Schauer, who resigned to run for lieutenant governor earlier this year. Cronk is a former schoolteacher and construction worker who first joined the State House in 2021. Last year, he won a seat in the Senate representing a massive swath of interior Alaska that includes Glennallan, Tok, Southeast Fairbanks, Delta Junction, and much of the Yuk River. Cronk says he's looking forward to working on a fiscal plan that Governor Mike Dunleavy plans to unveil next month.
- [09:04]
Mike Cronk
I'm always hopeful. You know, obviously we are in the minority, but I'm hopeful to, you know, work with the majority to can we get some of these things solved so, you know, we can continue working on. It's not like there's a shortage of issues that, you know, affect the state.
- [09:19]
Casey Grove
The caucus includes six of the 11 Republican members in the Senate, five other caucus with Democrats and a bipartisan majority that controls the chamber. Cronk's elevation to minority leader follows a leadership shakeup in the House's minority caucus. That means both minority caucuses will have new leaders when lawmakers return to Juneau next month. The administration of governor Mike Dunleavy is taking aim at insurance companies it says appear to be illegally discriminating against high carbon industries. Key among them oil and gas. As Avery Elfelt reports for the Alaska Desk, the move is part of a broader push to crack down on the wave of finance firms that have set lofty climate targets in recent years.
- [10:00]
Avery Elfelt
Two state agencies are conducting a comprehensive review of insurance companies to ensure they are not illegally boycotting certain sectors or stifling Alaska energy development. That's according to the state attorney general and Alaska Department of Commerce Community and Economic Development, which sent letters to four insurers saying as much earlier this month. The letters raise concern that the insurers are declining to do business with certain industries for environmental reasons as opposed to financial ones. That's become an increasingly popular argument in red states where officials have raised concerns about corporate climate commitments, says Sierra Club oil and gas campaigner Mike Scott.
- [10:38]
Casey Grove
It's definitely part of a larger trend.
- [10:41]
Avery Elfelt
The letters zero in on ensure policies related to industries such as coal, agriculture and oil and gas with special attention to Arctic energy projects. One insurer called Chubb, for instance, says it will not underwrite extraction projects in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Another company, aig, has a policy that prohibits underwriting any new Arctic energy exploration activities. Insurer Zurich and the Hartford also received letters. The letters call policies of this nature unacceptable, adding that the state has invested years of planning and permitting into Arctic energy development. The letters argue that exclusions based on geography or climate related goals as opposed to financial risk, are not in line with Alaska's insurance code. Green groups and finance firms typically argue that these policies are meant to guard against risky investments that might falter in the long term. That's particularly the case as the world shifts away from fossil fuels. Here's Scott again.
- [11:39]
Mike Cronk
When you sit down in corporate boardrooms, I mean, it's they're still interested in.
- [11:43]
Matthew Druckenmiller
Their bottom line, right?
- [11:44]
Casey Grove
They're thinking about the interest of their business first.
- [11:47]
Avery Elfelt
The two Alaska agencies requested that the company set up meetings to talk through the matter. Agency spokespeople did not respond to a request for comment. The four insurers also did not respond to a request for comment. In Hanes, I'm Avery Elfelt.
- [12:05]
Casey Grove
Still to come on Alaska News Nightly hear what some recipients of this year's Rasmussen Individual Artist Awards are planning.
- [12:11]
CJ Harrell
I don't know if I would be brave enough to do this if I didn't have that funding and that support.
- [12:17]
Casey Grove
That's ahead. Stay with us. Alaska State troopers are still looking for a Tuksuk Bay man who allegedly kidnapped and fired multiple shots at a tribal police officer in the Nelson island community. Troopers say they received a report on November 29th that 44 year old Adrian Kylukiak had taken tribal police officer Gregory Carl hostage at gunpoint, but that another tribal police officer had been able to defuse the situation. According to a trooper affidavit, Kylukiak rammed a snow machine that Carl and his brother were traveling on before pulling a gun on Carl and demanding Carl accompany him to his parents house. Inside the home, Kylukiak allegedly fired the handgun at Carl and also struck him in the head with the gun. A tribal police officer who responded to the home where both of Kylukiak's parents were also present, was allegedly able to enter the home and separate the two men. Troopers say Carl was eventually allowed to leave the residence with the fellow tribal police officer. Troopers say Kylukiak fled Tuksuk Bay before a trooper SWAT team arrived on November 30th. A warrant was issued for his arrest on December 2nd. As of today, the troopers have still not been able to find him. Tuksuk Bay Tribal Police would not comment when asked why they had not arrested Kylukiak after the incident. Kylukiak has been charged with felony kidnapping, weapons misconduct and three counts of assault, two for allegedly firing a handgun at Carl and one for allegedly striking him in the head with the gun. Alaska is expected to have a strong winter tourism season. Despite a small dip in visitation last year, the number of travelers coming to the state each year between October and April has grown by almost 150,000 in the past two decades. Gillian Simpson is the president and CEO of the Alaska Travel Industry Association. She says Alaska's scenery is a year round driver for tourism and in the winter it's the chance to see the northern lights that draws visitors.
- [14:21]
CJ Harrell
But then when people get here, there's.
- [14:22]
Liz Ruskin
So many really cool things to see.
- [14:24]
CJ Harrell
And experience that they wouldn't elsewhere, like.
- [14:26]
Liz Ruskin
The opportunity to go dog mushing, for.
- [14:29]
CJ Harrell
Example, or to see the Iditarod.
- [14:31]
Casey Grove
Northern lights viewing is one of the most common activities for wintertime visitors, according to an Anchorage Airport WI FI survey that fielded over 7,000 responses between October 2024 and April 2025 it also found that Aurora hunting is a popular activity for residents. Breweries and distilleries were also a draw for both tourists and residents. Meetings are another important factor to winter tourism. According to Visit Anchorage, the majority of international, national and statewide conferences are held in the city. In the last winter saw a drop of nearly 22,000 travelers compared to the previous year. Simpson says that dip is likely tied to economic uncertainty weighing on consumers.
- [15:13]
Liz Ruskin
Alaska is definitely a destination that takes time and money in order to come here and visit us, and so that can make people want to wait until they feel more confident with the economy.
- [15:24]
Casey Grove
People who visit Alaska are categorized as either cruise visitors or independent travelers. Independent travelers primarily fly into the state and make up the overwhelming majority of winter tourists. Well, the Arctic continues to warm faster than other parts of the world and is experiencing record high temperatures and record low levels of sea ice. That's according to the national oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which released its annual report card for the region today. As the Alaska Desk's Alena Nydin reports, those findings directly affect Alaska communities.
- [15:57]
Alena Nydin
The Arctic Report Card has been documenting changes in snow and sea ice cover as well as air and ocean temperatures in the northern part of the globe for the past 20 years. It has shown that in that time, the Arctic's annual temperature has increased at more than double the global rate of temperature changes. Hannah Marie Ladd is the director of Indigenous Sentinels Network, a tribally owned program that helps Alaska Native communities monitor their environment. She's also lead author of this year's Arctic Report Card for the chapter about community led observations on St. Paul island in the Bering Sea.
- [16:34]
Hannah Marie Ladd
These changes cascade directly into people's lives, affecting fisheries, coastal safety and subsistence harvests. We are no longer just documenting warming. We are witnessing an entire marine ecosystem, which is tied to our economies and culture transform within a single generation.
- [16:50]
Alena Nydin
Laad was one of roughly half a dozen speakers from various research agencies who detailed this year's report at a press conference. The report is the work of more than 100 authors from 13 countries. One big takeaway is that the Arctic region experienced some of the highest temperatures since the turn of the century. Matthew Druckenmiller is a senior scientist at the National Snow and Ice Data center in Colorado and lead editor of this year's report.
- [17:18]
Matthew Druckenmiller
October 2024 through September 2025, the Arctic experienced the highest temperatures on record since at least 1900. This included the warmest autumn, the second warmest winter, and the third warmest summer ever observed.
- [17:33]
Alena Nydin
The rapid warming of the Arctic is amplified by the loss of reflective sea ice and snow. The report showed that last March Arctic winter sea ice reached its lowest annual maximum extent in nearly 50 years of satellite records. Druckenmiller says that the oldest, thickest ice has also declined by over 95% since the 80s.
- [17:55]
Matthew Druckenmiller
This thinner ice is then much more mobile with wind and current and much less resilient against warming waters. This means much more unpredictable ice conditions for those both living and working in the Arctic.
- [18:08]
Alena Nydin
The Arctic is changing on land, too. The report highlights an emerging phenomenon called rusting rivers. That's when permafrost thaw causes groundwater to seep deeper and interact with mineral deposits, which likely turns some streams and rivers to a rusty orange color. Abigail Pruitt is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Davis, who studies rusting rivers. She says that In Alaska, over 200 streams turned orange in recent years and that affected aquatic biodiversity and water quality.
- [18:42]
Hannah Marie Ladd
Within Kobuk Valley national park, we observed the complete loss of juvenile Dolly Varden and Slimy Sculpin and a tributary to the Achillic river when it turned orange. Beyond the effects on fish, resting rivers may impact drinking water supplies to rural communities as well.
- [18:57]
Alena Nydin
The report highlights how indigenous communities have been observing the changes in the environment and wildlife and collaborating with scientists to better understand those changes. LAD with the Indigenous Sentinels Network describes one example of such work. She says that St. Paul residents collect samples of harvested traditional foods like seabirds, marine mammals and halibuts. Those samples are tested in a tribally owned lab and with the help from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, analyzed for contaminants like mercury. She says it is a model for resilience. Data sovereignty and collaborative research.
- [19:33]
Hannah Marie Ladd
Indigenous leadership, local workforce development and community driven observing are not optional. They are essential to understanding the Arctic that we have today and preparing for the Arctic we are moving into.
- [19:43]
Alena Nydin
In response to a question about how federal cuts to climate science might affect the future of the Arctic Report card, NOAA officials said that they will continue their efforts to observe the changing environment. In Anchorage, I'm Alena Nydian.
- [20:00]
Casey Grove
Central Southeast Alaska communities saw significant snowfall this past week. Petersburg received over 40 inches since last Monday. Edward Liske is a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Juneau. He says most of that fell over the weekend.
- [20:14]
Mike Cronk
Let's see, 5.5 for the 13th, 16 inches for the 14th, and then another 2.5 for the 15th. So yeah, it looks like most of that snow fell during the day on the 14th.
- [20:27]
Casey Grove
16 inches of snow fell on Petersburg on Sunday, breaking the local record for that date by six inches. It was the second local daily record broken within the week. Wrangel and Kake also saw significant snowfall over the weekend, although there's not a consistent record kept for Wrangle, Liske says the town got about nine inches of snow.
- [20:47]
Mike Cronk
Cake is getting buried as well. We've had reports of anywhere from 12 to 14 inches of cake overnight, liske says.
- [20:54]
Casey Grove
The main band of snow has gone north. Juno got several inches of snow over the weekend as well and broke a local daily record on Monday with over 9 inches of snowfall. The recent heavy snowfall on the Panhandle comes after a warm and wet previous two months. Then December brought a cold snap.
- [21:10]
Mike Cronk
The cold looks like it's going to be here to stay at least through the rest of the month here and yeah, be prepared for possibly more snow.
- [21:19]
Casey Grove
And cold temperatures unless temperatures warm up, which is unlikely, Lieske says. Southeast communities like Petersburg are set to have a white Christmas. The Rasmussen foundation announced their list of individual artist awardees and eight Juno projects made the list. The 50 awards go to artists across the state who will receive $10,000 each toward a project they have planned. KTOO's Yvonne Crumry spoke with some of the Juno based recipients about how they will use the funding to bring their stories to light through art.
- [21:58]
Yvonne Crumry
For artists like CJ Harrell, the grants support deeply personal projects. Harrell plans to make block print portraits depicting a dozen of the south central Alaska homes they lived in growing up. First, they plan to travel to see the homes as they are now and meet the current residents. The grant helps pay for that, Harrell says. That gives them confidence to take on the project.
- [22:17]
CJ Harrell
I realized like, oh man, this would take me years to save up for otherwise and even that, like I don't know if I would be brave enough to do this if I didn't have that funding and that support.
- [22:29]
Yvonne Crumry
The project will delve into themes of poverty and abundance in rural Alaska, including Harold's experience growing up with a parent struggling with substance abuse.
- [22:37]
CJ Harrell
You know, the experience of being both isolated but also so surrounded by nature and other wonderful spaces and resources and beauties too, and how that kind of goes into or can soften the blow when you're dealing with other challenges.
- [22:51]
Yvonne Crumry
Harrell says the project reflects experiences many Alaskans have had, but it's still uniquely theirs. Awardee Floridolino Lagundino is also using his grant to tell a story he knows intimately. He's putting on a play with Juno nonprofit Theater Alaska that he first saw 20 years ago. The Romance of Magnarubio is about a young Filipino farm worker finding his way in America, and he says the play is quite an undertaking.
- [23:14]
Casey Grove
It's a really actually difficult script to produce. It's mostly in poetry, lots of poetry in it. There's singing, there's lots of movement.
- [23:25]
Yvonne Crumry
La Gundino is using some of the funding to fly in a young Filipino director he met when the man was only a high school student and to hire more Filipino actors to fill out the roles. Theater Alaska, which he founded with other juno thespians in 2020, puts on a lot of shows for free or by donation. Lagundino says it would have taken years to fundraise to put on a dynamic play like this without grant funding. The story is set in California in the 1930s. Lagundino says the setting is familiar to Juneau's own migrant worker history.
- [23:53]
Casey Grove
The workers of this town, a lot of them have been Filipino and helped make this place.
- [24:00]
Yvonne Crumry
The Romance of Magna Rubio will run this June and July. Rasmussen also awarded Raven's Tale weaver nietzscheanagutj Lane Reinhardt a grant for a project he's been working toward for years, weaving a tunic completely out of John Wu or mountain goat hair. It's a traditional material for weaving in southeast Alaska. Brian Hart began collecting the fiber from weaving mentors and naturalists as he learned how to weave.
- [24:22]
Matthew Druckenmiller
The core reality of it is just the relationship that you have to have with other people to make something like.
- [24:29]
Yvonne Crumry
This happen, and he plans to document the process of using the fiber from its raw material as it becomes the woven tunic.
- [24:35]
Matthew Druckenmiller
It really allows you the ability to slow down and recognize, like, how much work has gone into this craft to get it from, say, side of a mountain somewhere in southeast Alaska. And then, you know, just getting it to that point where you can even spin with it is like just such a celebration.
- [24:51]
Yvonne Crumry
Brian Hart says the grant helps him financially support himself while devoting time and attention to the project. And he says it gives him the chance to reflect on why working with traditional materials is important to understanding weaving and can get people's long history working with the land and all of its inhabitants. The Rasmussen foundation also awarded grants to the following Juno musicians Annie Bartholomew and the Heists, drag king Mack Stout, Tlingit scholar and writer Gene Lance Twitchell and the weaving and documentary team Guna Shah, Lisa Fisher and Gemini Waltz Media. The artists have a year to complete their projects in Juneau. I'm Yvonne Crmery.
- [25:38]
Casey Grove
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 Liz Ruskin in Washington, D.C. eric Stone in Yvonne Crumry in Juneau, Avery Elphelt and Haynes, Evan Erickson in Bethel, Ava White and Elona Knighton in Anchorage, and Catherine Rose in Sitka. If you want to send us a news tip, question or comment, email us@newsalaskapublic.org Our audio engineer is Crystal Hyde. Madeline Rose is our producer. And I'm Casey Grove. Good night. This is statewide news on Alaska Public Media.