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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 26.
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When the delegation secures a federal allocation. We really need you to come through with your share in a timely manner.
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Senator Lisa Murkowski tells state lawmakers they need to invest in infrastructure projects from Alaska Public Media. This is statewide news on Alaska News nightly for Tuesday, March 31st. Good evening. I'm Wesley Early. Also tonight, a federal judge orders that a grant program be reopened with implications for communities hit by Typhoon Ha Long.
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We need all the resources to relocate to a safer, elevated area.
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Those stories and more tonight on Alaska News Nightly.
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Hi, I'm Avery Elphelt, a reporter with the Alaska Desk. That's a joint reporting effort from Alaska Public Media, khns, where I work in Haines and other public radio stations in Anchorage, Fairbanks and the Aleutians. It allows us to connect you with the issues happening in communities all across the state. You can hear our stories during the morning news on Alaska News Nightly or online@alaskapublic.org the Alaska Desk is only possible with the support of grants and listeners like you. Thank you.
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U.S. senator Lisa Murkowski said she didn't want to be lecture y in her annual address to the Alaska Legislature, but she told lawmakers that they needed to step up their game in a few areas.
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And one of those areas just going to offer it up here is matching funds. When the delegation secures a federal allocation, we really need you to come through with your share in a timely manner. We need you to meet the match.
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Typically, federal transportation programs require state or local governments to provide 20% of the money. Murkowski got a lot of money for Alaska in the bipartisan infrastructure law during President Biden's term, including nearly $1 billion that could go to Alaska ferries. Murkowski envisioned a revitalized Alaska Marine highway system with electric ferries and other modern improvements. Instead, Governor Mike Dunleavy has used the federal money on operating costs. Murkowski says that money is available for a limited time with no guarantee it'll be renewed.
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It's not a good strategy to rely on a temporary competitive federal grant program to cover 45% of our state's operating costs, all of which used to be paid for by the state. That's the case that we're facing right now.
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She also encouraged legislators to have a fiscal plan to balance revenue and spending. She said the state can't rely on federal funding or high oil prices for long. Later, Murkowski acknowledged to reporters that she didn't solve the problem when she was a member of the Alaska Legislature either.
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We know what the contours of a fiscal plan need to be, but political will to make it happen. Still waiting.
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Twenty years later, each member of Alaska's congressional delegation has an opportunity to address a joint session of the Legislature. Representative Nick Begage and Senator Dan Sullivan delivered their speeches earlier this month. State inspectors board every cruise ship in Alaska twice a summer to ensure the industry is doing its best to protect the environment. But in 2025, ships owned by cruise giant Carnival Corporation repeatedly declined to provide inspectors with information related to systems known as open loop scrubbers. According to state inspection documents, those systems are criticized for reducing air pollution by converting it into water pollution. The Alaska Desk's Avery Elfelt recently published a story about the situation and joins us now. She says the back and forth is sparking concerns about the company's lack of transparency. And in Alaska. Hi, Avery.
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Hey, Wesley.
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So how did this dispute between Carnival and the state of Alaska start?
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Yeah, so Carnival has more than a dozen ships with systems called open loop scrubbers. Those systems use seawater to scrub pollutants like heavy metals and sulfur out of ship exhaust, and then they release the resulting wash water back into the sea. Last year, state inspectors requested to take samples of that wash water on Carnival ships for the first time. Basically, they wanted to get a better sense of what's actually in it. But the carnival owned ships said no. They also started withholding data that tracks scrubber activity. I looked through inspection reports from more than a dozen ships and found that this happened at least five times last summer.
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Wow. It sounds like the inspectors wanted to look at two things, wash water samples and scrubber related data. Why would the state benefit from that information?
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Yeah, so there's a general sense of what types of contaminants might be in scrubber wash water, again, like heavy metals and sulfur. But state officials say that direct samples taken on board would allow them to to get a much more accurate idea. Cruise ships also maintain really granular records that document all sorts of things. Think when their scrubber systems come on and off, where ships are located, when they violate environmental standards, and really importantly, how long those exceedances last. That information could help answer questions around how those systems are really working in practice and what impacts they might be having. Here is Jean McCabe, who heads the Department of Environmental Conservation's Water Division.
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That data, that's more specific data that's cataloged on the ship and maintained on the ship gives us that specific information we're looking for to know where to look and see if there is a water quality problem based on that specific discharge. Right.
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It's also worth noting that Carnival is Alaska's biggest cruise ship operator and is the only company whose ships use open loop scrubbers in state waters.
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So did Carnival explain why its ships wouldn't comply and how did the state respond?
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I got a hold of letters between Carnival and DEC that provide a pretty good peek into the back and forth. So in September, Carnival wrote a letter that said it wanted more information about the state requests before its ships would comply. The company also questioned whether DEC even has the right to request that data or wash water samples, given that scrubber discharge is technically regulated by the federal epa, not the state. That sparked a pretty fiery response from Randy Bates, who's the head of dec. He said the state without question has a right to the information and that Carnival, quote, has the obligation to provide it. The department says that stems from state law and DEC's overarching mission to protect Alaska's environment.
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So how does this fit in the Carnival's broader record on environmental issues? And what do industry watchdogs say about the situation?
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Something that really jumped out in this reporting process is that Carnival really has a long history of environmental violations. That includes multiple felony convictions, but also one federal fine nearly a decade ago for violating standards related to scrubber discharge in Alaska specifically. But as it turns out, those violations are actually still happening pretty regularly. The company self reported more than 700 between 2023 and 2024 alone. Critics say that history, combined with the company's refusal to provide additional information is a pretty big cause for concern. Here's Jim Gamble. He runs the Arctic program at Pacific Environment.
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And the fact that they're not sharing it, you know, leads you in a couple of directions. You know, one is that there's there are more violations than folks are aware of. And the other one is that they're not keeping the data as accurately or as often as they're supposed to or, you know, they're hiding something.
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Carnival, I should say, did respond to a request for comment for this story and said it's, quote, always open to sharing data but chose not to move forward with sampling. That fellow fell outside of what it called established protocols.
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Okay, so where does this stand now? Has Carnival agreed to comply?
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So Carnival and the state are currently in negotiations about co designing a sampling program and study. The details are still being ironed out. So there's no clear timeline for when a study might happen if it but McCabe over at DEC says he thinks a joint effort would amount to a win win for both the company and the state. Not everyone agrees with that. Multiple sources I interviewed for this story said that past industry backed studies have painted a rosier picture of scrubbers than independent academic research. They also said research shouldn't distract from the fact that carnival scrubber systems frequently violate federal standards.
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All right, well, that was the Alaska Desk. Avery Elfeldt. Her full story is online@khns.org and alaskapublic.org thanks for joining us, Avery.
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Thanks for having me.
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Still to come on Alaska News Nightly, dancers from around western Alaska gather in Bethel for the region's Chamai Festival.
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Such a blessing to be here. I think we all feel more excited being at Chamai than we would getting to Disney.
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That's ahead. Stay with us.
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Hi, I'm Avery Elfeldt, a reporter with the Alaska Desk. That's a joint reporting effort from Alaska Public Media, K and S, where I work in Hanes, and other public radio stations in Anchorage, Fairbanks and the Aleutians. It allows us to connect you with the issues happening in communities all across the state. You can hear our stories during the morning news on Alaska News Nightly or online at Alaska Public. The Alaska Desk is only possible with the support of grants and listeners like you. Thank you.
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The University of Alaska is hosting a virtual restorative justice symposium this week to support communities and tribes running or building programs, especially since they're often under resourced. Restorative justice is a collaborative approach to harms or crimes that focuses on repair over punishment. Dr. Ingrid Johnson is an associate professor of justice at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and and is organizing the symposium. She says restorative justice aligns well with Indigenous practices of resolving conflict. She says some Alaska tribes and communities use the process as a response to
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crime, going through restorative dialogues or circles, to figure out the underlying causes of the issue and then to decide what they think is an appropriate response for those cases and then to go to the court and say, this is the sentence we'd like to see.
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Johnson says some victims choose restorative justice programs to repair harms instead of filing a police report. One example is a talking circle, a structured dialogue where those involved make a repair plan themselves. Martina Georges works as a circle keeper running structured dialogues for the Kaitsi Indian tribe. She says participating in talking circles is always voluntary and she's not in charge, but just a guide.
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When we sit together, it's the people that are in the talking circle that basically is in charge. It's up to them. Every circle is completely different, and I never know what's going to happen with the talking circle. We come up with ideas or plans.
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Georgia says she's guided circles in response to minors drinking or doing drugs, and for families who've had cases with the Office of Children's Services. She says she's seen the circles strengthen communication and relationships for families who participate. Johnson says research shows restorative justice programs don't seem to reduce recidivism or how likely offenders are to commit a crime again. But they do lead more victim satisfaction,
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improvements in victim psychology and mental health, and improvements in both victim and offender's perceptions of procedural justice and fairness.
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The virtual symposium runs through Wednesday afternoon. It's free and open to all. Today is the last day for Alaskans to apply for a 2026 permanent fund dividend. Alaska residents need to apply at the state's pfd.alaska.gov by 11:59pm Mailed applications also need to be postmarked by today to be processed. To qualify for a dividend, a person must have been a resident of the state for the entire previous calendar year, not be convicted or incarcerated for a felony, and not have traveled outside the state for more than 180 days. More than 600,000 Alaskans have already applied for a dividend, according to the state. The amount of this year's dividend is still up in the air as legislators craft a budget. Governor Mike Dunleavy proposed a statutory PFD of more than $3,600, which legislators across the political spectrum said was unrealistic. Earlier this year, House and Senate budget officials said a PFD of $1,000 was more likely. Typically, the PFD is one of the last items to pass at the end of the legislative session in May. Last year's dividend was $1,000. Meanwhile, the Federal Emergency Management Agency last week opened $1 billion in grants for disaster management. The news comes after the terminated the program for that work a year ago, but a federal court found that termination unlawful and ordered the agency to restart it. Alena Knightzen with the Alaska Desk has more on what that means for some Alaska villages.
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FEMA opened applications for a program to help communities protect themselves from fires, floods, earthquakes and hurricanes. The agency canceled the program last year, but a federal Judge in the U.S. district of Massachusetts ordered that the agency reinstate the funding. Now, $1 billion is available to states, local governments and tribes. Dustin Ivan is tribal resilience coordinator for the village of Kwigilingog in western Alaska, one of the villages hit hardest by the Ex Te Funha Long. The village participated in the FEMA program before it was canceled. Ivan says it is still unclear how useful the new version of the program will be for Alaska villages like his.
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There's good news. We'll see how it goes. So gotta go through those reforms they made. A lot of these grants don't really fit our rural Alaska villages.
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Last spring, FEMA canceled its program called Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, also known as bric. The agency called it wasteful, ineffective and too concerned with political agendas. 20 states sued FEMA in response. Kwegielngok residents for years have been working to protect themselves from flooding and erosion and voted to relocate several years ago. In 2022, the village was accepted into the BRIC program to select a relocation site. Village leaders also applied for another BRIC grant to do a visibility study for the site, but the program was canceled.
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We were all devastated. It was like a year and a half of work all down the drain.
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Fema said BRIC has a few changes. Following the order to relaunch, it will focus on ready to build infrastructure projects, move money faster and shift responsibilities to the states. The agency said it will eliminate phased projects, funding for hazard mitigation planning and technical assistance provisions, the very things that tribes like Quigilingog applied for in the past. FEMA's interim director Karen Evans said of the new funding, when done correctly, mitigation activities save lives and reduce the cost of future disasters, end quote. She also said that previously the program was too focused on climate change. Ivan with Quiggielengg says he's concerned that the agency is not planning to do phased projects. He says that in rural Alaska, materials often need to be barged in and construction spans over several seasons. The revised program does not seem to account for that, he says.
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We might not be able to utilize it because as you know, Alaska has four seasons and we can only do summer to freeze up projects. And the project we were planning was going to be a multi year end in phases.
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Kipnik is another western Alaska village that was devastated by Ha Long. The village also applied for the technical assistance through the BRIC program in the past, but did not receive the award. After the majority of the village was destroyed in the western Alaska storms, residents voted this month to relocate to higher grounds. Raina Paul, the village's environmental director, says she hopes her village can apply for the reopened BRICK program to help with relocation.
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I think it's an important program, and we need all the resources to relocate to a safer, elevated area before a natural disaster hits. We need to be better prepared.
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Tribal leaders for Kipnik and Kuiglingag both say that with many federal climate and environmental grant opportunities shut down, there will be more competition for the funding that's left. The application for the program is open until late July. The status of the projects previously considered for the awards was not immediately clear. In Anchorage, I am Alena Knighton the
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University of Alaska's Southeast and the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska are working together to create a School of Indigenous Studies. The partnership, formalized on Friday, is one of the first of its kind in the state, and leaders say it's a way to strengthen and uplift Indigenous studies in higher education. KTOW's Jamie Deep has more.
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That's the sound of two pens making history Tlingit and Haida President Chacha Richard Peterson and UAS Chancellor Aparna Palmer signed a memorandum of understanding to create a School of Indigenous Studies. The signing took place at the Andrew Hope Building in Juneau during the second day of Tlingit and Haida's March Executive Council meeting. The tribe already has its own programs in early childhood and K12 education. President Peterson called this a historic moment to partner with the university.
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There's leadership at the UA system that we can feel like we can lock arms with finally and really uplift Indigenous studies at all levels with our own Indigenous educators, and we want to see our people who so richly deserve those degrees get degrees.
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The agreement commits both parties to work together to create a vision of what a School of Indigenous Studies looks like. Officially establishing a school will require approval from both the tribe and the Board of Regents, and there's currently no timeline of when that will happen. In an interview after the signing, Chancellor Palmer said, in addition to continuing to shape education with Indigenous values and addressing workforce needs, the partnership can work toward healing through education.
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I think giving people opportunities, giving them a way to fulfill who they are as human beings, giving them that sense of identity and pride in who they are, those are all things that are so important to your health as a human being.
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UAS would not be the first UA campus with a school or College of Indigenous Studies. The University of Alaska Fairbanks has a College of Indigenous Studies. Palmer says this new effort is unique in that the university will partner with a specific tribe to develop a roadmap together. While this particular partnership was about four years in the making, UAS Alaska Native Language Professor KHUNE Lance Twitchell says the idea to create a tribal university goes back decades. The proposed school is not a tribal university, but Twitchell says he envisions creating a school that covers Indigenous language, art, science and governance. He says education is the path forward to bring back Indigenous languages that boarding schools once sought to eliminate.
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When we look at what the intention of education was for Indigenous peoples, it was to destroy us, it was to destroy our languages, it was to make us be servants of the the population. And I think now we look at education as a way to bring us back to strength.
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The proposal comes more than a year after the University of Alaska Board of Regents directed university leadership to remove language around diversity, equity and inclusion from campus websites and communications. That was in response to a letter from the Trump administration that threatened to withhold federal funds from universities and DEI programs nationwide. That directive remains even after a federal court struck down the policy. Peterson says he's personally a great fan of dei, but he initially had concerns that their initiative might fall under its umbrella. He says this program should not be affected because they are acting as a government entity.
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We are a recognized form of government and so Aparna assured me that we were, because of our government status, that we were going to work together in that capacity because I didn't want to start something. Also, we are so close to and then have it be lumped as DEI when it is not.
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The memorandum says that it can be supplemented with future agreements to support projects for developing the school. In Juneau. I'm Jamie Deep.
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This year's Chamai Dance Festival brought three packed days of performances and events to the Bethel Regional High school gymnasium. As KYUK's Evan Erickson reports, the beating of traditional frame drums is still something that resonates with elders and youth alike.
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The 2026 Chamai Dance Festival was about preserving traditions and reawakening them on the Yukon, Kuskokwim Delta and beyond. During this year's festival, recently formed dance groups from the Norton Sound communities of Stebbins and St. Michael performed for the second time ever outside of their communities. Co organizer Sousa Huntington summed up up
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the feeling such a blessing to be here. I think we all feel more excited being at Chamai than we would getting to Disneyland. So it's just such a heartwarming place and it's just filling our spirits.
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Young dancers from the far Western Aleutians community of ATKA working to revitalize Unanga dance tradition also performed. Group leader Crystal Dushkin said dancing is being rebuilt after a 50 year hiatus.
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We formed our dance group in the 1990s because our dancing had fallen asleep after World War II.
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From far away on the edge of Bristol Bay, dancers from Togiak returned to Chamai for the first time since 2002. Group leader Margie Frost was born and raised in Bethel, but has been working to revitalize dance in Togiak since moving there in the late 90s.
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It's an honor to be back home and it's more of an honor to
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present to you our kids from Tobyk.
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Frost was once a pupil of the recipient of this year's living treasure award, Dr. Teresa John of Tuksuk Bay. John spent decades teaching at the University of Alaska Fairbanks where her research highlighted the central role of dance in Yupik culture. Her father, the late tribal leader Paul John, was a lifelong advocate for traditional ways and of living. John says she's carrying on that legacy and she says her work preserving Yupik teachings ultimately comes down to promoting unity.
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There is a saying in Yuktun worldview Yupik philosophy that there's no other humanity in this globe, just you and I and everybody, and we all have common needs.
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This year's Chamai brought some brand new faces to the stage, like singer songwriter Martin Paul of Kipnook and Kalsgang. The 22 year old, who has amassed a huge following on social media, was trailed by packs of young people in search of selfies at this year's festival. In performances that wove together traditional songs, Yupik humor and deeply personal stories, Paul said better things are ahead if you just keep on going.
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Might be killing me but I will keep on going.
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On the final night, Paul brought his grandmother Minnie Paul up on stage to sing a song she taught him as a young boy growing up in Kipna. He dedicated the song to the community devastated by last October's storm. New York City based percussionist CJ Joseph and his snare drum acrobatics were also new to the Chamai stage. Festival organizer Linda Curta said she invited Joseph to Bethel after catching his subway performance in New York's Grand Central Station. Joseph says he's one of just a handful of musicians keeping rhythm and dance traditions from his native country of Panama alive on the streets, kids mesmerized by Joseph's beats clamored for a chance to sign his drum after he finished.
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If I can leave one last message. Here in Alaska, it's the beats to
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manifest your dreams and to do what you love.
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The longevity of the Chamay Dance festival was on full display this year with the return of Inuit Seoul group bamiwa for their 30th anniversary since debuting at the festival in 1996.
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Half of us are grandpa and grandmas now.
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The other half are right behind. So Kuyana for having us. We're glad to be back home.
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Stephen Blanchett and his younger brother Philip Blanchett took the stage for that first performance as a duo. The group would go on to include Ossi Ghyrajo of Chifornic and Karina Moller of Greenland. This year it was like old times as the four played their hit Reindeer Herding Song from their first album in Bethel. I'm Evan Ericsson.
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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 podcast. We had reports tonight from Liz Ruskin in Washington, D.C. avery Elphelt in Skagway, Rachel Cassandra and Alyona Knightsin in Anchorage, Desiree Hagan in Kotzebue, Jamie Deep in Juneau and Evan Erickson in Bethel. If you want to send us a news tip, question or comment, email us@newslaskapublic.org Our audio engineer is Crystal Hyde, Kirsten Dobroth is our producer and I'm Wesley Early. Good night.
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This is statewide news on Alaska Public Media.