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- [00:00]
Lieutenant Brian Fuchs
Support for Alaska Public Media on Demand comes from Siri, an Alaska Native corporation with operations and investments spanning five continents.
- [00:09]
Casey Grove
45 states and two US territories.
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Alena Knighton
It's about trust in our public health institutions.
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Casey Grove
Senator Lisa Murkowski questions the recently fired CDC Director about RFK Jr. S sweeping changes from Alaska Public Media. This is statewide news on Alaska News nightly for Wednesday, September 17th. Good evening. I'm Casey Grove. Also tonight, Anchorage begins enforcing a new ordinance targeting illegal camping.
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Lieutenant Brian Fuchs
You get there and you're like, hey, what can we do to help?
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Casey Grove
Right?
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Lieutenant Brian Fuchs
But at the same time, you're, you're in violation of this ordinance.
- [00:50]
Casey Grove
Those stories and more tonight on Alaska News Nightly.
- [01:00]
Alena Knighton
Consider a gift of stock to Alaska Public Media. You may avoid paying capital gains tax and receive a deduction. Learn more@alaskapublic.org stock or contact your financial advisor.
- [01:14]
Casey Grove
Senator Lisa Murkowski broke from other Republicans on the Senate Health Committee at a hearing today on the firing last month of the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Murkowski said the hearing was about more than Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy's decision to terminate Susan Menarez.
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Alena Knighton
It's about trust in our public health institutions because that's what I'm worried most about.
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Casey Grove
The hearing focused on the nation's vaccine policy. Kennedy has dismissed a panel of vaccine experts and replaced them with his chosen members who mostly share his belief that the CDC's previously recommended vaccine schedule is bad for children. Vaccine skepticism is gaining ground across the United States, though dozens of medical associations representing millions of doctors say the vaccine schedule is based on scientific evidence, saves lives and protects public health. Manares testified that Kennedy fired her because she would not agree to pre approve whatever the new vaccine panel decides to and because she refused to fire career scientists at the CDC who don't share Kennedy's anti vaccine beliefs. Republicans on the health committee were split. Some criticized the former CDC director for resisting Kennedy's agenda. Others, like Murkowski, back a science based approach to vaccines. CDC chief medical Officer Deborah Hurry resigned after Menarez was fired. Hurry testified at the hearing that she was the last career employee in the CDC director's office. Murkowski sounded astonished that political appointees are replacing public health experts.
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Alena Knighton
May I stop you there? You're the last career. So then are you saying that everyone that is remaining and the office of the director is a political.
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Treg Taylor
Yes.
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Alena Knighton
Is a political and so there is nobody then that is. There must be somebody that is providing that career science then a level down. We do have center directors although 80% are now acting because they've been fired, resigned or retired.
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Casey Grove
Murkowski, like all but one Republican senator, voted to confirm Kennedy in February despite her misgivings about his vaccine stance. Kennedy had pledged to senators he'd change CDC recommendations only if based on peer reviewed and widely accepted science. The Kennedy aligned Vaccine panel meets tomorrow. Former Alaska Attorney General Treg Taylor filed to join the 2026 race for governor this morning. Taylor is the 10th Republican to enter the race to replace his former boss, Governor Mike Dunleavy. Taylor was Dunleavy's attorney general for more than four years and says he can hit the ground running.
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Treg Taylor
I know what the issues are that we face. We definitely need to get the economy moving again. We need to create good paying jobs. We need an affordable, reliable source of energy and to get the cost of living down and we need to get Juno working again and not be politics as usual.
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Casey Grove
Taylor touts his work challenging the Biden administration's restrictions on resource development and his collaboration with the Trump administration. He says he worked with Trump's team on the President's Day one executive order seeking to ease restrictions on drilling, mining and logging in the state. Taylor also cited a significant decline in violent crime and sexual assault in the state during his tenure as attorney general. Taylor echoes much of Dunleavy's approach to improving the state's education system. He says he'd focus on improving students performance as governor rather than seeking to boost funding for public schools. Taylor and his family have also backed efforts to allow students to use state homeschool funding for tuition at private and religious schools. That's the subject of an ongoing lawsuit and Taylor says he'd like to take a serious look at the state's spending as it continues to face a budget crunch. He says he'd also like to scrutinize federal spending that flows to the state.
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Treg Taylor
What you know, some people might call free money. Well, it's not free. It comes with purse strings one and two. It's paid for by taxpayers like you and I and so we need to look and see what the cost of that money is to the state and whether those programs and those things are worth worth to the state.
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Casey Grove
Taylor joins nine other Republican candidates and one Democrat seeking to succeed Dunleavy, who is term limited. The top four vote getters in the August 2026 primary will advance to the general election in November. Meanwhile, Taylor is asking the state's campaign finance regulator, the Alaska Public Offices Commission, to exempt him from a law that requires he disclose who is renting apartments in several Anchorage buildings. He owns. State law requires public officials to file an annual financial disclosure form that lists the sources of their income, including rental income, and the names of renters if it's above $1,000. The Alaska Beacon reports that Taylor and his wife, Jodi Taylor, own three apartment buildings in Anchorage and claim to have 234 renters. Taylor filed a request for an exemption in March, but the request came after the deadline to submit his 2024 disclosure form. The Anchorage Police Department has started enforcing a new city law aimed at homelessness that makes it a criminal offense for people to camp in places. Alaska Public Media's Hannah Fluor joined officers on patrol to find out more.
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Hannah Fluor
Brendan Peterson has been living in a tent in a little patch of trees in Midtown for the last six months, but now police say he has to leave. So get the essentials out. In the past, he would have gotten at least a week's notice.
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Treg Taylor
Yeah, with the rain and stuff or whatever and having a couple hours, I'm trying to boogie at it.
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Hannah Fluor
It's the first month. Anchorage police are enforcing a new law that makes it a criminal offense to camp in certain areas, like near schools, playgrounds, on trails or on the edge of high speed roads. That means police can clear those areas immediately without warning. Those who don't comply can be fined up to $500 or even do jail time. It's a major shift before the city was limited to a process called abatement, which generally gave campers 10 days to leave. It's raining hard as about half a dozen officers work off a list reported camps. They drive between locations and then fan out looking for people.
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Lieutenant Brian Fuchs
So right after the abatement, you guys came in?
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Treg Taylor
Yeah.
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Hannah Fluor
When they find them, they ask lots of questions, assess the situation, make decisions. Lieutenant Brian Fuchs says yes, it's their job to enforce the new law, but they also want to connect people with resources and services.
- [07:50]
Lieutenant Brian Fuchs
It's both the outreach and the enforcement. It's like you get there and you're like, hey, what can we do to help? But at the same time, you're in violation of this ordinance.
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Hannah Fluor
Hukes and the officers pull over on Minnesota Drive. A man's curled up on the sidewalk. He says he'd love to stay in a shelter, but at 71, he can't walk that far. Would you rather have a ride or a bus pass? They ask him. He takes the bus pass. Most of the day they're patrolling wooded areas like Valley of the Moon. A lot of the tents there are empty, but in one two people huddled out of the rain. An officer looks around the campsite, surveying their belongings.
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Casey Grove
You guys think you can get out.
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Hannah Fluor
Of here by tomorrow? He gives them 24 hours to leave. Hughes says legally, they're not required to give people a lot of time to pack up and move out. He thinks it's the right thing to do, though.
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Lieutenant Brian Fuchs
So we're giving everybody in here warnings that they have to leave in 24 hours, giving them the ability to get out of here and give them a reasonable amount of time to do so. And what, they're going to come back tomorrow and if these folks are in here, they're going to arrest them.
- [08:48]
Hannah Fluor
But police and city officials have repeated repeatedly said the goal is not to arrest people. It's to get campers to move out of those high priority areas quickly before camps grow and become entrenched. Since Anchorage police started enforcing the law in early September, they've only arrested one person. Usually when officers come back, everyone is gone. Often they just camp elsewhere. But Fuchs says sometimes being forced to move over and over is the nudge that people need to decide to stop camping.
- [09:17]
Lieutenant Brian Fuchs
Sometimes when you say, gotta be out of here in 24 hours, they're like, maybe it's time for us to take some resources. That's helpful, right? It's a way that we can motivate people to kind of break that cycle of homelessness and get them to treatment or get them into some sort of sheltering system.
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Hannah Fluor
Over the next month, Fuchs and his team will clear out as many people as possible in those priority areas. There are a lot of campers around the city, but. But it's hard to know how many. The number is always changing. Thea Agnew Bemben is with the mayor's office. She says right now the estimate is anywhere from four to 600 people sleeping outdoors. The thing is, when we look at our data, the reality is that people are going in and out of shelter. They might go even in and out of detox or hospital. They might go home. And even if they did have those numbers, the municipality doesn't have enough staff to dedicate time to abatement and criminal enforcement. They've paused the abatements of larger camps. While the police department uses the new law to clear out smaller clusters of tents, the municipality partly relies on residents to tell them where people are illegally camping. But Agnew Benben says she knows it can seem like those reports often go ignored. We are making progress, and I understand that for many neighbors, it doesn't feel that way. And I hear you under the new rules. The Anchorage Police Department is making contact each week with about 20 people camping in high priority areas in Anchorage. I'm Hannah Fluor.
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Casey Grove
Still to come on Alaska News Nightly, the Anchorage School district loses a $3.3 million grant for career and technical education.
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Jarrett Bryant
Six classroom CTE teachers were on the line because of the federal government's decision to pull a grant years ahead of schedule.
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Casey Grove
That's ahead. Stay with us.
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Alena Knighton
Alaska Public Media is now partnering with an Alaskan auction service so a helpful local team can get the biggest return for hassle should you decide to donate your vehicle. Learn more@alaskapublic.org vehicle Anchorage police have arrested.
- [11:21]
Casey Grove
A man who was accused of tracking down a woman near downtown Anchorage over the weekend and killing her in a drive by shooting. 19 year old Jacob Berkey faces a second degree murder charge in the shooting of 26 year old Kawana Naliaha, according to a charging document against Burkey. A 911 caller reported finding Naliyaha lying alongside North Post Road near Ship Creek at about 8am Sunday. She was covered in blood. The caller and a police detective performed cpr, but Naliaha was later declared dead at a local hospital. Surveillance video from the area showed a green Subaru with a white hood driving past Naliyaha as she walked along the road just minutes before she was found two days later. On Tuesday morning, callers told police several people were working on a similar vehicle that was broken down in Muldoon. Officers detained its driver, Burkey, according to the charges. Detectives say Burkey confessed during questioning, telling them he shot Naliaha after driving around looking for her on Sunday and then drove away. Police declined to answer further questions today about the case. Burkey was held at the Anchorage Correctional Complex. State officials are investigating the death of a 37 year old man found unresponsive on Sunday in his locked Anchorage jail cell. Alaska state troopers say Kurt Malutin was alone in his Anchorage Correctional Complex cell. Officers and medics tried to perform first aid, but he was later declared dead. Troopers say no foul play is suspected, but the death is being examined by the Alaska Bureau of Investigation. The state Department of Corrections says Milutin had been held since late June awaiting trial on third degree assault charges. A spokesperson declined to answer further questions today about his death. Milutin is the 13th inmate to die in state custody this year. The federal government has cut a $3.3 million grant for career and technical education at the Anchorage School District, according to Superintendent Jarrett Bryant.
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Jarrett Bryant
To say that this is a setback is an understatement.
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Casey Grove
Bryant announced the grant cancellation during a school board meeting last night. The money comes from the Fostering Diverse Schools Demonstration Grants program, an initiative started by the Biden administration. In a letter sent to ASD officials Monday, federal education officials wrote the department has determined that continuation of this program is not in the best interest of the federal government. The move comes amid a wider push from the Trump administration to cut government spending aimed at fostering diversity, equity and inclusion. Bryant says the five year grant, which began in 2023, supported the district's Academies of Anchorage program, an initiative aimed at better preparing students to move into high demand and high paying careers in the state.
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Jarrett Bryant
Six classroom CTE teachers were on the line because of the federal government's decision to pull a grant years ahead of schedule. That's unprecedented, that's not normal, and that's probably the purview of the department. That's their direction.
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Casey Grove
Bryant says the district plans to continue to staff those six positions using funds dedicated to what are called holdback teachers aimed at tackling ballooning class sizes. He says the grant also funded eight academy coach positions.
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Jarrett Bryant
They don't directly work with students in the classroom every day, but their work is critical and I will be transparent that I need a little bit more time to explore my options on what to do about those positions. But we're going to be okay. We're going to emerge on the other side in the big picture.
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Casey Grove
Bryant pointed to a number of positive district outcomes since the implementation of the academy's program, including a decline in suspensions, a growth in students taking Advanced placement courses and an increase in freshmen on track to graduate. He says that for now, classes should not be impacted by the loss of the grant. It's well documented by NOW that the marine heat wave that hit the Pacific Ocean in 2014 had devastating effects on Alaska's marine ecosystem and commercial fisheries. Now, scientists studying killer whales in Alaska are uncovering long term impacts. That's bad news as marine heat waves become more frequent and severe with climate change, the Alaska Desk's Avery Elfelt reports.
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John Durbin
John Durbin has been studying killer whales in the Gulf of Alaska for two decades. The senior scientist with the New England Aquarium in Boston says that when a marine heat wave known as the Blob struck the area a decade ago, some whales died, but the impact on the surviving whales was less clear. Now, Durbin says there are some answers.
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Avery Elfelt
For example, we've learned that females that were growing during those heat wave years grew to smaller sizes than the females.
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John Durbin
That grown before, he says that has major long term implications for the local population's health and reproductive success.
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Avery Elfelt
If you're smaller as a whale, it means you don't have as much fasting insurance, you can't store as much blubber, so. So if you go through lean times, you're less likely to bring a successful pregnancy to term.
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John Durbin
Durbin has been partnering with the Alaska based nonprofit North Gulf Oceanic Society to monitor several hundred resident salmon eating killer whales in the Gulf of Alaska. He flies drones over the water that capture images of the whales from more than 100ft in the air. Those images allow researchers to measure how the same whales are developing over time. The drones also carry something called a laser altimeter, which documents how high the camera is. So researchers can scale the measurements to determine the whale's real size by looking.
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Avery Elfelt
At growth and body condition. It tells us about the health of the whales before they die, before they have reproductive effects.
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John Durbin
The technology has delivered some good news. This summer, Durbin observed three new calves, plus some slightly older ones that appeared to be healthy and growing as expected. He says that could mean the population is on a path to recovery. But that doesn't mean the Gulf's resident orcas are in the clear. The females impacted by the heat wave may be less resilient in the face of future events such as heat waves or dips in the salmon population.
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Avery Elfelt
We're cautiously optimistic, but I think it does mean that there's some vulnerable whales.
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John Durbin
Out there, Durbin says. The findings underscore the importance of studying apex predators. They rely on species down the food chain, which means they can serve as early indicators of trouble in the broader ecosystem, he says. The findings also highlight something else the threat of climate change.
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Avery Elfelt
These marine heat waves that we're starting to see in increasing duration intensity around the world are having really important effects on marine food webs.
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John Durbin
His latest scientific findings haven't yet been published, but Durbin says he's working on several scientific papers that lay out evidence that the so called blob is still impacting killer whale's growth and reproductive success today, a full decade later. Reporting in Haines, I'm Avery Elphelt.
- [18:01]
Casey Grove
Southeast Alaska's annual economic conference is taking place in Sitka this week. For three days, people from around the region will explore economic drivers like tourism and the seafood industry. One of the sessions on Tuesday looked at economic factors like jobs, wages and business challenges. The region has seen steady job growth over the last five years, but the workforce is not keeping up. The problem points to a demographic shift, says Melani Shivens, she owns the Juneau based research and consulting firm Raincoast Data and presented at the conference. Our number one economic problem is our declining younger people. Most of the region's jobs are in the government sector, including federal, state, local and tribal. That's followed by tourism, healthcare and then seafood. But there are not enough young people to fill the jobs. The region is aging. In Petersburg, seniors 65 and older make up a quarter of the population. Chavens says the region lost 7,700 kids and working age residents in the last decade. For southeast Alaska to prosper in the future, we must focus on attracting and retaining a vibrant future population. Now retention is a major issue. Last year, more people moved out of Juneau than moved in. Rangel lost nearly 30% of its workforce over the last 10 years. The top three reasons young people leave lack of affordable housing, the high cost of living and a lack of affordable childcare, in that order. The average price of a home in Juneau is over half a million dollars, and in sitka it's about 485,000. Chevins says the region's demographics aren't expected to change in the coming years. We've mapped it out, you know, 25 years where we still have a region without the young people and the workforce that we need. So the only way out of this.
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Treg Taylor
Issue is to build, build, build.
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Casey Grove
The Southeast Conference continues in Sitka through Thursday. Juneau's longtime fire chief announced he plans to retire later this fall. Rich Etheridge has been at the helm of Capital City Fire and Rescue for more than 15 years. During that time, he led the department as it responded to countless house fires, search and rescues and natural disaster events. He says he intends to help recruit and train his replacement before his departure, which doesn't have a firm date yet. He says retirement kind of crept up on him.
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Lieutenant Brian Fuchs
Everybody said you'll just know when it's time, and I'm like, yeah, what if I don't know what that meant? So. But you know it's true. You just know.
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Casey Grove
Ethridge has worked in public service for more than three decades. During that time, he served as an Alaska State trooper and Juneau's fire marshal before becoming chief. He says he plans to enjoy his retirement in Juneau, spending time with family and growing his woodworking business. Etheridge says he hopes to see the department continue to focus on recruiting and retaining employees after his departure earlier this summer. CCFR announced it would pilot a paid internship program this year to equip locals with certifications and skills needed to work in the field. Etheridge says he thinks the new program will serve as a long term investment in the department's future and help combat its chronic understaffing issues. Etheridge shared a piece of advice he thinks everyone should know when it comes to fire safety, I would say get.
- [21:12]
Lieutenant Brian Fuchs
Rid of that mindset. It won't happen to me. Everybody that we go to these emergencies. That's the number one thing they say is I never thought it would happen to me because you don't pay attention to fire safety or your safety going in the outdoors because we all have this feeling of invincibility.
- [21:27]
Casey Grove
The city intends to begin recruiting for the position in the coming weeks. Well, six years ago, a well known whale researcher tossed a message in a bottle on a patch of sea ice near Utqiagvik. This spring it was finally found thousands of miles away. The Alaska Desk's Alyona Nydin has more on the significance of its journey and memories of the note's author.
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Alena Knighton
Back in April, Julie and Doug Watkins were walking with their dogs on Sensand beach near their home in northern Scotland. Julie says she went for a short swim in the cool water when Doug discovered something unusual, an amber colored wine bottle lying on pebbles. Julie remembers the moment they saw it.
- [22:14]
Hannah Fluor
There's still some sand and some seaweed caught on it as well.
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Alena Knighton
Inside the bottle, a note said. It was released on sea ice near Utkakavik on Alaska's North Slope. Six years earlier, the author had drawn a picture of a whale on the back and signed it Craig George. That was John Craighead George, a prominent whale expert in Utkarvik who died in 2023. He left behind extensive research, including studies on how long bowheads can live. George was instrumental in starting a bowhead whale census back in the 70s, incorporating knowledge of Inupia contras. Oceanographer Kate Stafford was with him back in 2019, counting Wales. She says they followed his tradition and sent out several bottles with messages.
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Treg Taylor
We put them out on the sea ice that year just so that they didn't get crushed in the lead, stafford says.
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Alena Knighton
George collected sturdy wine bottles and emptied them with friends during music nights, which to Stafford is a lovely memory in itself. She says he wrote his messages on waterproof paper and sealed the bottles with wax and tape.
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Treg Taylor
Craig was the most curious person you'd ever meet, and I think it just tickled him to think about putting a message, putting it in a bottle and seeing where it ended up or if it ever got recovered. He would have been so thrilled that that bottle was recovered in such an Interesting spot like the Atlantic.
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Alena Knighton
After George released the bottle near Point Barrow, the northernmost tip of the United States, it likely would have gone east. Then the Transpolar Current would have picked it up and carried it by Greenland toward Iceland. Lastly, the bottle was probably caught by the North Atlantic Current, which carried it to its final destination, Chapinsay, one of the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland. There are no bowheads in Orkney, but the area is a popular whale watching spot for orcas. Julie and Doug Watkins, the couple who found George's bottle, shared their discovery in a local Facebook group for whale enthusiasts. They learned that another Orkney resident knew George from helping with the Alaska whale census back in the 80s.
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Hannah Fluor
It's just absolutely incredible that it should travel that far and not get broken or nothing else happened to it, but also end up on this beach, on this island where people knew about him and respected his work and things. It's unbelievable almost, but it happened.
- [24:48]
Alena Knighton
So the couple reached out to George's email address that he left in the note, but to no avail. Then they contacted the city of Utkakavik, which connected them to George's widow, Sid Hands.
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Treg Taylor
So that was very cool the way they kept trying to reach out. You know, happy, sad because he wasn't here, but he had so many friends around the world and still making them.
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Alena Knighton
Julie Watkins husband, Doug, died unexpectedly a month after finding the bottle. She says that losing a loved one was another point of connection between her and Hans. And Hans says that the discovery brought George's family closer together.
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Treg Taylor
It's a story on the ocean currents and the way loved ones can surprise us even after they're gone.
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Alena Knighton
Watkins and Hans have stayed in touch through email. Hans wrote to her about George's life and research, as well as Alaska whaling traditions. She even sent a clip of Keep on Whaling, a song that George wrote that has become a favorite for whalers in northern Alaska.
- [25:56]
Casey Grove
Let that be. Go Whale, come to you.
- [26:05]
Alena Knighton
In Anchorage, I am Alena Knighton.
- [26:07]
Treg Taylor
Foreign.
- [26:16]
Casey Grove
You knew this was coming. And that's all for this edition of Alaska News Nightly. We had reports tonight from Liz Ruskin in Washington, D.C. eric Stone and Clarice Larsen and Juno, Hannah Flor, Chris Clint Wesley early and Ilona Nydin in Anchorage, Angela Denning in Petersburg, and Avery Elphelt and Haynes. Our audio engineer tonight is Tobin Shelby. Adalyn Rose is our producer, and I'm Casey Grove. Good night.