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Politics
Month: March 2026
Democrats eyeing White House runs in 2028 are preemptively breaking up with AIPAC.
Sen. Cory Booker, who received donations bundled by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee as late as December, told POLITICO that he’s sworn off the group’s funds (and other PAC money). California Gov. Gavin Newsom said he never has and “never will” take donations from the group. Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) vowed last week that he “wouldn’t take AIPAC money” anymore. A spokesperson for Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said he has “never taken money or solicited support from AIPAC,” while a spokesperson for Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said “AIPAC has never contributed to Gov. Beshear and they’re never going to. Ever.”
Their retreat underscores how rapidly AIPAC has become a bogeyman for Democrats seeking to criticize the Israeli government, particularly with the Netanyahu administration’s involvement with President Donald Trump’s operation in Iran. Many former AIPAC-friendly Democrats see the historically bipartisan group as becoming more and more aligned with Netanyahu’s right-wing government in recent years. Its emergence as an early touchstone in the shadow 2028 presidential primary reflects a calculation among leading Democrats that liberal voters’ hard shift away from the longtime U.S. ally will stick.
“This is going to be a huge flashpoint in the primary throughout 2027 and into 2028,” said veteran Democratic strategist Mark Longabaugh, who advised Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid. “The constitution of the party just in the makeup of the voters has changed dramatically. The politics of Israel has changed dramatically.”
Recent AIPAC critics also include some Jewish Democrats who had previously supported the organization or received its backing.
After AIPAC poured $22 million into Illinois primaries last week to mixed results, Gov. JB Pritzker, a billionaire who does not accept outside funds, accused the group of becoming pro-Trump and said he wants no part of the group he once donated to. A spokesperson for Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) pointed to a podcast in which she said she swore off AIPAC’s support in 2022.
Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel told POLITICO he “need not worry about AIPAC’s support. It will not be forthcoming.”
Emanuel – a supporter of Israel whose father was Israeli – has also been a longtime critic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Emanuel contested past reporting that he held dual U.S.-Israelicitizenship when he was a child: “I never had Israeli citizenship. I’m 66, my whole life I’ve only had American citizenship and an American passport.”
Democrats cited a variety of reasons for rejecting AIPAC’s cash. Booker said it was part of a broader pledge he made at the start of the year to swear off all PAC money going forward. “I don’t believe we should be accepting any PAC money at all from anybody,” he told POLITICO on Friday.
Gallego likened taking the group’s backing to “endorsing what’s happening right now” in Iran and Gaza while appearing on POLITICO’s “The Conversation.”
And progressives like Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who have been highly critical of the Israeli government and have repeatedly sparred with AIPAC, have accused the group of targeting their campaigns and long rejected its financial aid. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) bluntly told POLITICO: “I don’t take their money, they’re running ads against me.”
Other potential White House aspirants attempted to dodge the question. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), for instance, said he has “individuals who support me” when asked if he would reject AIPAC’s backing. Several more did not respond when reached through spokespeople, including former Vice President Kamala Harris, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Sens. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) and Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), and Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.
That so many Democrats declined to comment on the organization suggests that AIPAC still has some influence in Democratic politics. And the big-spending group can still help its preferred candidates to victory even as its name has become mud in Democratic primaries, as evidenced by its wins last week in two of the four Illinois House races where it spent big. But it’s also telling that no potential 2028 candidate openly embraced the group.
AIPAC and its allies hit back, accusing Democrats who are giving the group the cold shoulder of trying to silence pro-Israel voices within the party. They vowed to continue intervening in Democratic primaries to promote their interests. Deryn Sousa, a spokesperson for AIPAC, said “efforts to push pro-Israel Democrats out of the political process are alarming and fundamentally undemocratic.”
Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, acknowledged the “difficult environment” the lobby is navigating after Gaza and with the war in Iran. But, he said, “we aren’t going to be deterred in ensuring that pro-Israel voices are heard in federal elections.”
“We are going to work with mainstream Democrats across the party to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship, and that includes presidential contenders,” Dorton said. “We’re going to remind everybody about the millions of pro-Israel Democratic voters who are part of the political process in federal elections.”
Top Democrats’ rush to rebuff AIPAC comes amid a party-wide grappling over how to handle Israel, after the Biden administration’s approach to the war in Gaza was found to have cost Harris votes in 2024 and as polls show Democratic voters continuing to sour on Israel as it aids the U.S. intervention in Iran. An NBC News poll this month showed 57 percent of Democrats view Israel negatively, a dramatic shift from when just 35 percent held a negative view of the country after Hamas attacked it on Oct. 7, 2023. A Quinnipiac University survey earlier this month showed 62 percent of Democrats felt America is too supportive of Israel.
Democrats eyeing 2028 have been publicly repositioning on Israel for months as Gaza reemerges as a flashpoint in midterm primaries. And their criticisms of Israel and its allies in the U.S. are growing sharper as the war in Iran escalates with no clear off-ramp from Trump.
Newsom earlier this month likened Israel to an “apartheid state” and said the U.S. should reconsider military support for Israel. Pritzker has long been a supporter of Israel and has advocated for a two-state solution, but recently told the New York Times that he’s “challenged” by current geopolitics because the U.S. is supporting Israeli policies “that I don’t think the majority of Americans believe in and I don’t think a majority even of Israelis believe in.”
Shapiro, who’s similarly been a longtime supporter of Israel and a two-state solution, has also criticized Netanyahu and Trump’s enabling of his agenda in recent podcast appearances. But he cautioned that denying Israel’s right to exist could lead to “permanent war.” A spokesperson for Shapiro said the Pennsylvania governor “has been clear that Donald Trump is failing to hold Netanyahu accountable” while also positing that “Israel has a right to exist in security as a Jewish state, and we must find a path to peace in the Middle East that includes a safe homeland for the Palestinian people.”
Leading progressives, including Ocasio-Cortez and Khanna, have gone further — accusing the Netanyahu administration of perpetuating genocide in Gaza and pushing to stop U.S. arms sales to the country.
But Democrats on both ends of the ideological spectrum have argued there are bigger issues around Israel than AIPAC. Shapiro, on a podcast last year, said putting Democrats on record over AIPAC was a “shortcut” for asking their views on Israel and a two-state solution. “Demanding answers on those questions is more important than ‘hey, what about this lobbying group or that lobbying group,’” he said.
Khanna, in a message to POLITICO on Monday, said, “What matters more is the clarity of calling what happened a genocide and stopping military sales to Israel used to kill civilians in Gaza and Lebanon.”
Still, progressive groups such as MoveOn and Justice Democrats are plotting how to make taking AIPAC money a red line for those vying to be the party’s next standard bearer.
“We’re going to be demanding that anyone who deserves to get the Democratic nomination not only doesn’t take AIPAC support or donations, but actively speaks out against this lobby,” said Justice Democrats spokesperson Usamah Andrabi.
In a sign of the volatile and complex politics surrounding Israel, some Democrats who are shutting the door to AIPAC donations are declining to call on their would-be rivals to do the same.
Pritzker, asked by POLITICO last week whether Democratic presidential candidates should accept AIPAC funding, criticized the flood of special-interest money in campaigns in general but cast taking PAC cash as “a matter of values” for each candidate. Murphy said “everybody will make their own decision about it.”
And Booker went so far as to call the AIPAC pile-on “problematic.”
“There are Iranian Americans that bundle money. There are Turkish Americans that bundle money. There are a lot of ethnic groups that bundle money, and often for things that I don’t agree with. But somehow AIPAC seems to be drawing a lot of attention, and that’s problematic to me,” Booker said. “[AIPAC] is not the problem in America. The problem in America is money in politics.”
CLARIFICATION: This article has been updated to include Emanuel’s statement that he has never held dual Israeli citizenship.
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Session Musician Spotlight: Carol Kaye
When guitarist/bassist Carol Kaye took her first gig as a session player in 1957 for a Sam Cooke session, she simply saw herself as a working mother who needed to provide for her children. “I knew it looked like money, and I had two kids to pay for,” she once told Far Out.
Kaye was born to working-class, professional musician parents and grew up in a housing project during World War II. At the age of nine, her parents divorced, and she began working to help make ends meet, paying for her own guitar lessons. By the time she was fourteen, she was already a professional – assisting her guitar teacher with lessons and playing jazz gigs in the Long Beach area.
The jazz work led to the Sam Cooke session, and from that sprang a career that encompassed over 10,000 sessions on both rhythm guitar and bass for artists like The Beach Boys, Nancy Sinatra, Herb Alpert, Quincy Jones, Cher, and Joe Cocker as well as scores for film and television.
As one of the few women to find consistent work in the session world, she is viewed today as a trailblazer who broke the glass ceiling for other women musicians like June and Jean Millington, Bobbye Hall, and Sandra Crouch.
Kaye maintains, however, that her focus in those years was less lofty: “I never thought of myself as a woman at all. I knew I was a woman because of the way men looked at me, but not as a guitar player. The guitar was my voice, so I used my guitar to play and make money with. I was born in 1935 and my parents were not extremely poor, but there were times that we didn’t have enough to eat. When you work on that basis, it changes everything.”
Glen Campbell – Wichita Lineman
“‘Wichita Lineman’ is one of my favorite records,” Kaye once said. “I got to improvise most of my bass line on that….We just had a chord chart to work from, and they came up with a lead-in line…so they asked me to ‘start it with a pickup on bass’…and what you hear is what I invented.”
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Brenda Holloway – You’ve Made Me So Very Happy
Kaye played on more than 175 tracks for Motown artists like Diana Ross & The Supremes, the Four Tops, Martha & The Vandellas, Stevie Wonder, and others between 1964 and 1971. Her bassline undergirds this slow burner that hit the top 40 of Billboard’s Hot 100 in 1967. It became an even bigger hit for Blood, Sweat & Tears, peaking at the number 2 position on the same chart, two years later.
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Righteous Brothers – You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling
Produced by Phil Spector, Kaye played rhythm guitar on this recording that hit the number one position on both the American and British charts in February 1965. Kaye recalls of the Spector sessions, “The room would usually hold a crowd of musicians, Sonny Bono would sit in with the percussion section playing tambourine until Phil would call him saying, ‘Telephone, Sonny.’ Then as soon as he was out the door, we’d do the take (to the gratefulness of the percussionists). The booth was constantly crowded with people. What a scene, but fun!”
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Tina Turner – River Deep, Mountain High
This 1966 Phil Spector production was no ordinary session, costing $22,000 to record with over twenty musicians. Kaye provided the song’s memorable bassline. She told Songfacts, “It felt like another thing that was going to be a hit, but to walk in the booth and there’s a ton of people in the booth, and there’s a ton of us out in the studio, it almost felt like a party.”
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Wonder Woman (Theme)
It seems fitting that Kaye would receive the call to play on the theme song for The New Adventures of Wonder Woman, starring Lynda Carter, which aired on CBS from 1976-1979. Kaye’s bass is prominent in the mix alongside session royalty like Emil Richards, Joe Porcaro, and Tommy Tedesco.
Looking for more? Check out our series of articles on the greatest sessions musicians ever.
Discover more about the world’s greatest R&B artists | uDiscover Music
Julian Kalel brought a wave of emotion to the American Idol stage in Hawaii with a performance that left both the audience and judges visibly moved. The Texas native took on Zach Bryan’s “Tourniquet,” a song he deeply resonates with as it centers around the importance of lifting others up during their hardest moments.
As he explained to mentors Keke Palmer and Brad Paisley, “Tourniquet” carries a deeply personal meaning for him.
“’Tourniquet’ to me means picking someone else up when they’re hurting and always telling someone, ‘I have your back.’ What always heals my heart is thinking about the people that I have in my life and what motivates me even more is hoping that whoever’s listening gets that feeling that ‘I understand, I see you.’”
Paisley emphasized that Kalel taking on a song so personal to him makes the performance feel ‘very authentic’ and gives listeners a clear sense of who he is as an artist.
“That’s the magic of being this close. It’s really captivating…Your voice is perfect. You’re suited for that song,” Paisley shared.
Palmer added, “Sometimes when you’re in a competition, it’s like you’re thinking about what’s going to do my voice the best, but if you just sing what’s true to you, somehow it’s most perfect.”
Julian Kalel was clear in his mission to make his delivery feel like a hug or like a hand on someone’s back, letting them know they’re not alone.
“Whenever I listen to a song like this, I think of unconditional love, whether it be for a friend, for someone you love and it just means that you’re never going to leave their side, their worst days and their best days,” he reiterated as he stepped on stage in front of the live audience. “I wanted it to feel like a hand on your back, a hand that you can hold, a hug, just letting you know that you’re never alone, no matter how down you are.”
On the stage, located on the beach of Aulani’s Disney Resort and Spa, Kalel strummed his guitar with steady confidence, never showing a hint of nerves or uncertainty. Instead, he sang from the heart, and it paid off as members of the audience audibly responded, showing that they were moved by his tender, crisp vocals that radiated warmth. Midway through the performance, he turned things up a notch, effortlessly showcasing his impressive vocal range and proving he’s not just a singer, but a true performer who can command the stage.
By the end of his performance, Julian Kalel had achieved his exact goal of connecting with the audience as well as the judges.
Palmer spoke first, noting that even though she hasn’t seen the entirety of his Idol journey up to this point, it has already become abundantly apparent to her how much it means to him being up on stage and sharing his heartfelt messages.
“Your voice is beautiful. I mean, I could listen to you go on and on and on. And then when you look up, you’re talking about ‘Tourniquet.’ This is a deep and intense song, but you’re delivering that hope when you look up during the performance and you flash us that smile. It does feel hopeful. It’s beautiful. I loved it. Great job.”
Carrie Underwood called Kalel not only an artist, but also a poet as she gushed over his ability to make a story feel “believable.”
“It’s just so honest and it’s so you. And it’s a joy to get to listen to you. This is the best job in the world,” she shared.
Lionel Richie added, “To see you at this point in this competition, confident, stepping right on it. It is just really exciting as a judge to see you stand there in the light of your artistry. Strong and powerful. Forget everything else. If we can get you to this point right here, your future is right in front of you.”
Luke Bryan was last to comment, but his opinions were as strong and positive as the rest of his fellow judges. He even went as far as to label the hopeful contestant a “star.”
He proudly stated, “You make us happy to be doing this up here. That was like front runner of the competition kind of stuff. That was like star is born kind of moment. It’s so fun when somebody’s just got it and you just got it.”
Fans who want to help Julian Kalel advance in Season 24 can cast their votes in two ways. First, by commenting “Julian” on the official American Idol voting posts across Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Second, by texting “19” to 21523. Voting closes at 6am ET on March 24, 2026. There is a limit of 10 votes protestant per method and it is open to all wireless carriers.
The results of America’s votes will be shared next Monday night (3/30), revealing which singers have made it into the Top 12. Those remaining will take part in the Songs of Faith night.
The post ‘American Idol’ Standout Julian Kalel Moves Judges and Audience With Emotional Performance of Zach Bryan’s ‘Tourniquet’ appeared first on Country Now.
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Members of the bicameral conference committee charged with writing a compromise supplemental budget sign the final documents on Monday, March 23, 2026, at the Alaska Capitol in Juneau. (James Brooks photo/Alaska Beacon)
The Alaska Legislature is preparing to re-vote on a key spending bill that will cover millions of dollars in disaster response and construction projects in the current fiscal year.
On Monday, a bicameral conference committee voted 5-1 to send an amended version of the bill to final votes in the House and Senate. Those votes may take place Wednesday.
The state’s fast-track supplemental budget contains $449.3 million in spending — expenses accrued since legislators and Gov. Mike Dunleavy adopted the state budget last year.
Legislators are separately working on a budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1. A vote on that is expected at the end of the legislative session in May.
The supplemental budget bill includes $70.2 million to unlock grant-funded construction projects principally paid for by the federal government — a major lobbying priority for the state’s construction industry.
It also includes tens of millions for the state response to last year’s wildfire season and millions more as a down payment for the state’s response to ex-Typhoon Halong, which devastated Western Alaska last fall.
The new spending would largely be paid for with new revenue the state expects because of higher oil prices caused by the Iran war.
As long as prices remain high through June 30, the end of the fiscal year, legislators expect there will be enough general-purpose money to cover the expenses, plus a smaller package of budget amendments already proposed by Dunleavy.
Those amendments arrived too late to be added to the supplemental bill.
If oil prices don’t match expectations, the bill contains language that would allow the state to use the Constitutional Budget Reserve, the state’s principal savings account, to cover the difference plus $20 million in “headroom.”
That clause may run into problems in the House, where the 19-person House Republican minority caucus has voted several times against spending from the reserve.
It takes 30 votes in the House and 15 in the Senate to spend from the reserve; while the Senate has met that threshold and is expected to do so again this week, it isn’t clear whether the House will do so.
The 21-person, predominantly Democratic coalition that controls the House would need to attract at least nine minority votes, and in earlier votes, it was unable to do so — something that forced the bill into a bicameral conference committee for further negotiations.
Rep. Will Stapp, R-Fairbanks and the minority’s negotiator on the conference committee, was the only lawmaker to vote against the revised bill on Monday, saying he doesn’t believe any kind of spending from the reserve is necessary at this point.
Members of the House majority have argued that allowing reserve spending — if necessary — would provide surety for construction businesses making summer plans.
They have also argued that time is of the essence: Delaying action on the bill would mean those companies might have to defer purchasing and hiring decisions ahead of the summer construction season.
Members of the House minority argued that as previously written, the bill would have allowed members of the majority to direct the spending of hundreds of millions from the reserve, even if it wasn’t needed to balance the supplemental budget.
That version was cut to less than $375 million in spending, an attempt to attract minority votes, but while that approach worked in the Senate, it did not succeed in the House.
When the House failed to pass the reserve vote, lawmakers there sent the bill to the conference committee for further work.
While that committee was able to finalize a draft compromise, it won’t be clear until later whether that compromise can pass out of the Legislature.
10 years ago
After a drop of 84 people in 2013 and an increase of 21 in 2014, the population of Haines has reverted to a downward trend, dropping 58 people in the last year to a total of 2,493, according to state statistics.
The town is also continuing to get older, maturing from a median age of 46.6 in 2012, to 48 in 2013, 48.5 in 2014, and 49.3 last year, according to the Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
That means the Haines Borough will retain its position as the oldest borough in Alaska, said state demographer Eddie Hunsinger.
Keeping with the town’s recent trend of no growth through natural increase, births and deaths matched each other last year. In 2014, two more people died than were born here, and in 2013, eight more people died than were born.
According to a news release put out by the Department of Labor and Workforce Development, among the state’s six economic regions, Anchorage/Mat-Su gained the most over the period (343) followed by Northern (277), and Gulf Coast (220). Southwest (-232), Interior (-172) and Southeast (-165) regions each had small losses.
Of Alaska’s 29 boroughs and census areas, 11 grew between 2014 and 2015. The largest population increases were in the Mat-Su Borough (1,801) and Kenai Peninsula Borough (348). The Municipality of Anchorage lost the most people over the period (-1,458).
Hunsinger said the state primarily uses census information and Permanent Fund Dividend applications to make annual population estimates.
24 years ago – March 21, 2002
The season’s centerpiece extreme skiing event begins Friday when two dozen skiers and photographers arrive for the second annual Red Bull Snow Thrill of Alaska.
The eight-day event begins with a downtown open house Friday evening to meet participants, and ends with a day-long competition on a ridge above the Chilkat River that should be visible from town.
Event coordinator Ryan Ernst said the Red Bull Freeskiing World Championship will be held around March 29 on “Telemark Ridge,” above Haska Creek on the west side of the Chilkat.
“It’s so weather dependent. I wish we could have it on a set day. When it looks like we can hold it, we’ll call around and make sure people know so they can get out and watch with binoculars,” Ernst said. A similar event was canceled last year due to poor weather conditions.
Ernst is leading a group of six event organizers who are spending the week scouting locations for the main event — a skiing photography contest to take place on mountain peaks near the Canadian border.
The event pits 12 teams of one skier and one photographer to create the best photos in six categories: best action and feature story sequence, air, fly-on-the-wall, Alaska lifestyles, and powder turns. Each team gets a limited amount of helicopter time to get their shots. Peer judging will be held over the Internet.
Ernst said the event will be based at 33 Mile Haines Highway and will employ three or four helicopters to haul participants and gear. The Telemark Ridge finale will be based at the Haines airport.
It’s the third year logistics coordinator Jim Conway has organized ski days in the upper valley. Conway said Haines has ideal mountains and snow conditions for high-country skiing.
“It’s the best we’ve found, and I’m from Salt Lake. In coastal mountains, you get wetter snow than in the Interior and there’s way better stability. When it’s clear here, you really get the best of both worlds. It’s a treat to come here.”
But snow conditions aren’t that great this week, according to ski guide Shawn McNamara. McNamara, who’s helping organize the Red Bull event, said high winds during the past two weeks have polished and hardened the snow cover. “It’s been blowing a lot. There are pockets of soft snow, and there’s enough to hold the contest, but it’s not ideal.”
Conway said Outside skiers enjoy Haines’ rural atmosphere. “It’s a great town. People don’t come to Alaska for a five-star hotel. Haines is a nice comfortable town with its own character, and people enjoy that.” Haines local heliski outfitters and guides will be involved in the event, Conway said.
An open house sponsored by the Haines Chamber of Commerce, the Convention and Visitors’ Bureau, and local businesses will allow residents to meet skiers, photographers and guides particıpating in the competition. The reception, which will include a welcome from city mayor Dave Black and a presentation by Ellen Winkler of Mountain Sports International, will begin at 6 p.m. Friday at the Sheldon Museum.
Tourism director Michelle Glass said skiing and snowboarding enthusiasts should be sure to turn out. “They’ll have posters to autograph and we’ll all get to meet each other.” The Pioneer Bar is holding a welcoming party following the open house with music by the Truffles.
53 years ago – March 5, 1973
A petition requesting the relocation of the U.S. Customs and Immigration station from Haines to adjacent to the Canadian border station is making the rounds.
According to Dorothy Fossman of Klukwan, writer of the document, she was able to get “25 signatures in 15 minutes” and is confident of getting a majority of area residents to go along.
The recent waiver of “phone in” privileges for Haines Highway residents returning to Alaska from Canada has gotten several persons mad — namely those that must drive all the way into Haines to check in before driving all the way out to homes along the road. The “no stopping” rule has hurt businesses situated along the highway. The rule effectively bars inbound traffic from stopping to buy gas or eat a meal this side of the border. The owners of businesses along the road are not overjoyed with the setup.
“This may be in violation of the United States Constitution,” Fossman said. “This is an interruption of the free enterprise system.”
The petition, addressed to the Commissioner of Customs in Washington, D.C., requests that “adequate and up-to-standard facilities” be constructed adjacent to the Canadian facilities at the border. Attachments to the petition call attention to past requests along the same line that have had negligible response,” Fossman says.
“Even with a gate (which has been eliminated as a proposal), the basic problem remains,” Fossman said. “Persons would still have to drive clear into town without stopping. The rules simply were not designed to fit a case where such great distances between stations exist.”
Locations in town where petitions will be placed will be announced this week on TV, Fossman said.
The post This Week in History: Average Haines age, extreme ski contest and border relocation appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.
One person died Sunday afternoon in an avalanche near the Canadian border in British Columbia.
Atlin Royal Canadian Mounted Police received a Garmin SOS alert from a remote location near the Klehini River and Pleasant Camp, according to a news release. When they got the call, one person was reported unconscious and receiving CPR. Atlin Search and Rescue responded with a helicopter and flew out four people who were uninjured, and a fifth who had died.
RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Vanessa Munn did not share more details Monday but said the accident happened on the Canadian side of the border.
According to Avalanche Canada, the risk is “considerable” in the Haines Pass and by the border. Haines Avalanche Center director Jeff Moskowitz reaffirmed this saying that human-triggered avalanches are likely.
Moskowitz said recent snowfall created sensitive layers in the upper snowpack with winds redistributing the snow. In addition to winds affecting the snowpack, solar radiation can lead to instability and trigger avalanches or increase the likelihood of human-triggered avalanches.
Moskowitz said that “when we get these really cold temperatures,” weak layers are created in the snowpack that get buried with successive snowfall. Additional risks Moskowitz said to keep an eye out for are cornices, or overhanging shelves of snow, as they can “trigger layers deeper in the snowpack,” leading to an avalanche.
Moskowitz said he has seen shooting cracks — a visible fracture in the top of the snowpack — while out in the backcountry. Shooting cracks occur due to weight from above, often caused by skiers traveling on the surface. He has also gotten reports of human-triggered whumpfing sounds, or collapsing, which occurs when the snowpack drops with weight from above.
Moskowitz said that the strong-over-weak layering is “fairly widespread.” Such layering occurs when stiff snow, often from snow drifts, sits on top of a layer of sugary snow – or snowflakes that don’t stick together well.
For those traveling into the backcountry, Moskowitz advises to “make conservative terrain choices while the snowpack adjusts, and that could include sticking to slopes less than 30 degrees.” Additionally, he said skiers should assess conditions and layers before committing to steeper slopes.
Since 2012, eight people have died because of avalanches around Haines, in addition to an avalanche partially burying one person.
The post One dead in an avalanche near Pleasant Camp appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.
Fast food isn’t known to have the freshest ingredients, but fans and employees say you should choose this Mexican chain over others for its superior options.
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