Category: Alaska News

The Alaska Volcano Observatory has raised the caution level at Kupreanof Volcano on the Alaska Peninsula, a normally quiet peak that hasn’t had a major eruption in almost 570,000 years.

“It’s a typical Alaska volcano. It’s not dormant by any means,” said Matt Haney, the U.S. Geological Survey Scientist-in-Charge at the observatory.

On Tuesday, the observatory issued an advisory notice saying that it had detected a rising number of earthquakes and sulfur dioxide emissions at the peak.

“This activity is likely caused by a magmatic intrusion beneath the volcano,” the observatory said in the notice.

“It’s been a classic volcanic unrest sequence … From the science point of view, it’s been very fascinating to see unrest develop at Kupreanof,” Haney said.

Rising unrest does not mean an eruption will happen or is even likely to happen. Last summer, Mount Spurr near Anchorage showed a rising level of activity that appeared to indicate a likely eruption. Despite those signs, no eruption took place and seismic activity has since declined.

A 6,217-foot peak, Kupreanof is in a particularly remote part of the Alaska Peninsula National Wildlife Refuge, 505 miles southwest of Anchorage. The closest permanently inhabited community is Perryville, 26 miles to the southeast.

Though isolated, Kupreanof — like most of Alaska’s volcanoes — is near trans-Pacific flight routes, and a sufficiently large eruption could disrupt cargo and passenger flights between North American airports and Asia. 

Haney said by phone on Thursday that the observatory detected an escalating string of earthquakes beneath the volcano starting in February and continuing through this week.

On Wednesday, instruments recorded the largest earthquake yet, measured variously at Magnitude 3.5 and 3.0.

Satellites have also measured rising concentrations of sulfur dioxide near Kupreanof. That gas is a standard sign of magma moving near the surface of the Earth.

“It’s not just one of our monitoring data streams that’s showing (activity) above our background levels. Now it’s seismicity and gas. When we have two of our data streams, that’s really making the diagnosis with higher confidence that there has been a magma intrusion beneath Kupreanof,” Haney said.

There are no historic records of a confirmed eruption at Kupreanof. In 2015, a mariner reported “black smoke northwest of Ivanof Bay,” likely from Kupreanof, and in 1987, a pilot reported what may have been a small eruption.

“Although reports from Kupreanof are uncommon, steaming from Kupreanof has been noted for at least the last 75 years,” the observatory notes in its description of the 2015 report. 

The last confirmed eruption was about 570,000 years ago. 

As a result, the volcano has no permanent monitoring network. 

Hannah Dietterich, a research geophysicist at the observatory, said on Wednesday that she and others at the observatory have begun arranging more regular satellite measurements, including with instruments designed to measure whether the ground around the volcano is bulging upward.

Satellite images taken this week show Kupreanof still covered in a thick layer of ice and snow, indicating that the peak has not warmed to the point of melting that accumulation.

Haney said that in addition to satellite measurements, the observatory may use a helicopter to take a “quick-deploy” monitoring station to the volcano in July, during a previously scheduled trip to another nearby peak.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX.

This article was originally published by The 19th, a nonprofit newsroom covering gender, politics, and policy.

After briefly letting a national ban take effect, the Supreme Court blocked a lower court’s ruling that would have prevented mailing a key abortion drug.

The decision, issued Thursday, allows telehealth dispensation of mifepristone, one of two drugs used in most abortions, to continue while the state of Louisiana challenges its legality.

Research shows the two-drug regimen of mifepristone and misoprostol is safe to take from home and highly effective in ending a pregnancy. The drug’s safety profile led the Food and Drug Administration to approve mifepristone for distribution without an in-person doctors’ visit in 2023, after the agency allowed medical professionals to do so during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mailed prescriptions have allowed people living in states with bans to continue getting abortions, contributing to an increase in abortions since the fall of Roe v. Wade. Now, about a quarter of all abortions are done through telehealth, and about half are for people living in states with bans. Data released Monday by the Society for Family Planning, which tracks abortions, noted that even in states without abortion bans, about 40 percent of people getting abortions use telehealth.

Medical providers hailed the court’s decision, but argued that the legal back-and-forth could confuse patients seeking abortions and clinicians who provide them.

“Though today’s decision means that mifepristone remains available through telehealth for now, this fight is not over,” Dr. Camille A. Clare, the head of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said in a statement. “The chaos and confusion wrought by competing decisions and the revocation and restoration of access on an almost daily basis do real harm to patients and to the clinicians who care for them.”

Telehealth’s popularity has put abortion opponents on a quest to block the option through a variety of legal challenges and state laws.

The court’s decision comes in response to a case filed by Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill who argued that the FDA had insufficiently considered mifepristone’s safety when approving it for telehealth. The state also alleged that the drug’s availability by telehealth had enabled a woman in Louisiana to be forced into an abortion against her will. Abortion opponents have argued often that telehealth has made it easier to force people to get abortions, though research suggests that more often, reproductive coercion involves people being denied the option to terminate a pregnancy.

On May 1, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals blocked mifepristone’s approval for telehealth while the case continued, arguing that Louisiana was likely to succeed. Drug manufacturers appealed to the Supreme Court, which on May 4 temporarily blocked the lower court’s ruling while it considered the case.

The court’s decision blocking the ruling briefly expired at 5 p.m. ET on Thursday, May 14. The court ruled almost half an hour later to enable telehealth to continue.

The Louisiana case will continue to make its way through the courts, and could ultimately end up argued before the Supreme Court. Abortion opponents have also launched other legal challenges to mifepristone’s availability, as well as to the state laws that protect health care providers in states with abortion protections when they prescribe and mail the pills to people living in states with bans.

In separate dissents, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito — the court’s two staunchest conservatives — criticized the Supreme Court’s decision to allow telehealth to continue.

Thomas argued that the court should block telehealth, saying the mailing of abortion medications violates the Comstock Act, an 1873 anti-obscenity law that has not been enforced in decades. Abortion opponents argue the law should be resurrected to ban mailing any drugs that can be used for abortions.

Alito, the author of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the court’s decision overturning Roe, wrote that mailing mifepristone undercut Dobbs by allowing people to circumvent their states’ abortion bans.

“Some States responded to Dobbs by making it even easier to obtain an abortion than it was before, and that is their prerogative. Other States, including Louisiana, made abortion illegal except in narrow circumstances,” Alito wrote. “But Louisiana’s efforts have been thwarted by certain medical providers, private organizations, and States that abhor laws like Louisiana’s and seek to undermine their enforcement.”

Abortion opponents swiftly criticized the ruling. Kristan Hawkins, who heads the anti-abortion activist group Students for Life, posted “ENFORCE THE COMSTOCK ACT” seven times in a single post on the social media platform X. In a subsequent post, she argued that the White House should step in to block the mailing of abortion pills.

In a statement, John Seago, who heads the Texas-based anti-abortion group Texas Right to Life, said the Trump administration could intervene, directing the FDA to reverse its decision approving telehealth distribution of mifepristone.

“We shouldn’t have to depend on the court to force the FDA to do the right thing,” Seago said. “The administration could choose to restore the in-person requirement themselves right now.”

The Alaska Legislature passed a resolution urging the Trump administration to waive a steep visa fee to allow the continued recruitment and hiring of international teachers.

Alaska school districts have increasingly relied on international hiring to fill an ongoing teacher shortage across the state, particularly in rural and remote districts. Last fall, the Trump administration issued an executive order increasing the H-1B visa fee from $5,000 per applicant to $100,000 per applicant — putting such visas out of reach for Alaska districts. 

The Alaska Senate unanimously passed House Joint Resolution 39 on Tuesday, previously passed by the House, sending it on to Gov. Mike Dunleavy for consideration.

The H-1B visa program provides non-immigrant visas for highly skilled workers, including in education, health care and technology. In Alaska, districts have relied on international educators, particularly for teaching math, science and special education, according to the resolution. The visa is valid for up to six years. 

Currently, roughly 570 international teachers are working in Alaska via the visa program. And there are over 1,000 teacher and staff openings in Alaska posted on a job board run by the Alaska Educator Retention and Recruitment Center, a division of the Alaska Council of School Administrators.

Alaska school officials say the new fee is an insurmountable financial burden for districts, as they are in the process of recruiting and hiring teachers for next year.

Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage, carried the resolution in the Senate and said the roughly 2,000% increase in the fee has restricted the flow of critical education professionals coming into the state. “Unfortunately this means that many of these education professions will go unfilled, we just don’t have the resources to cover that $100,000,” Tobin said on Wednesday.

“HJR 39 simply asks our federal government to waive this fee,” Tobin said. 

The Legislature’s support and the joint resolution reinforces proposed federal legislation backed by U.S. Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan. It was introduced in the U.S. Senate by Murkowski in March but has not advanced since then.

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX.

In a historic vote, Alaska lawmakers rejected Stephen Cox as the state’s new attorney general by a 29-31 vote that saw Cox become just the second cabinet appointment in state history to fail confirmation.

Thirty-one votes were needed for confirmation as the 40-person state House and 20-person state Senate met jointly Thursday to vote on 75 nominations for state boards, commissions and the governor’s cabinet.

Speaking in the Capitol on Thursday, opponents said they viewed Cox as a Republican ideologue who favored party-supported policies at the expense of Alaskans. In particular, opponents pointed to Cox’s support for a lawsuit that could end birthright citizenship and his failure to support the state’s absentee voting program.

The Legislature’s rejection is likely to have limited long-term effects. Immediately after the vote, Dunleavy announced he had named Cox as “Counsel to the Governor,” a position he will take immediately.

“Stephen Cox has a strong understanding of Alaska law and the challenges facing our state,” Dunleavy said in a written statement. “His experience, professionalism, and commitment to public service make him a valuable asset as Counsel to the Governor. I look forward to working with Stephen as we continue advancing policies that strengthen Alaska’s economy, uphold the rule of law, and serve the people of our state.”

Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage and chair of the House Judiciary Committee, opposed Cox as attorney general but supports the new role. 

“I think it makes perfect sense,” Gray said. “I think that’s actually a perfect fit. I think Stephen Cox would make an excellent attorney to the governor because they have a lot of alignment and similar priorities.”

The new position was created specifically for Cox within the Office of the Governor.

“The governor has those choices,” said Sen. Matt Claman, D-Anchorage and chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. “That’s within his power.”

Dunleavy also named Deputy Attorney General Cori Mills as the acting head of the Department of Law.

Dunleavy may designate a permanent replacement who can serve until he is replaced by a new governor in December.

State law prohibits the governor from reappointing Cox as attorney general.

The governor’s other cabinet appointees, including officials in charge of natural resources, the environment and the treasury, received wide support and were confirmed by near-unanimous votes.

Legislators have not rejected a cabinet appointment since 2009, when the Legislature failed to confirm then-Gov. Sarah Palin’s choice of Wayne Anthony Ross to become attorney general.

Speaking Thursday, Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage, criticized Cox’s decision to hire an out-of-state attorney with no experience in Alaska as the state’s first Solicitor General.

Following that hire, Cox led the Department of Law in joining Alaska in more than 100 friend-of-the-court briefs on national cases. In some of those cases, Gray said, the briefs were contrary to Alaska law and Alaskans’ interests.

“I believe that Stephen Cox would make probably a good attorney general in a state, just not in our state. He is not the right choice for Alaska,” said Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage and chair of the House Judiciary Committee.

Sen. Lӧki Tobin, D-Anchorage, was particularly critical of Cox’s signature on a letter supporting President Donald Trump’s attempt to eliminate birthright citizenship in the United States.

“That stance threatens my rights. It threatens your rights,” she said, speaking to Senate President Gary Stevens, R-Kodiak. “It threatens every Alaskan’s rights.”

Rep. Kevin McCabe, R-Big Lake, appeared to offer a rebuttal to that argument, noting that in general, “attorneys are mercenaries.”

“Somebody’s their boss, whether you’re paying them or whether the governor or the executive hires them. So I suspect that a lot of what we are talking about here is not some rogue attorney general off on his own. I think that he’s had directions that have been provided to him. He’s doing a certain number of things that his boss is telling him to do,” he said.

Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, responded to that argument. He said the case against birthright citizenship isn’t just wrong on a moral basis, it’s wrong on a factual basis, and it was unethical for the state to back it.

“We should not have signed on to it, and a qualified attorney should not have signed on to it. I don’t know if the governor pressured the Attorney General to sign on to it, or if he did it voluntarily. It actually doesn’t matter to an ethical attorney,” Dunbar said. “An attorney being asked to make those spurious arguments and sign on to an amicus brief that would repeal birthright citizenship should have resigned rather than go forward with that argument.”

Legislators rejected only two other appointments. 

Hannah Mielke was turned down for a public seat on the Alaska State Medical Board.

Mielke is an 18-year-old who graduated from high school last year and currently works as an office assistant for Dunleavy.

Opponents said she was unqualified to supervise the state’s doctors and medical professionals. Supporters noted she would be the only female member of the board and significantly younger than other members.

“Frankly, I think a fresh perspective would be good,” said Rep. Mike Prax, R-North Pole. “It really doesn’t matter if you’re 20 or 69, soon to be 70.”

Rep. Sarah Vance, R-Homer, said a large number of young women are skeptical of the medical industry, and Mielke’s perspective could be useful.

Mielke’s nomination failed 13-47.

Lawmakers also turned down Crystal Herring for a seat on the State Board of Professional Counselors. Tobin, speaking in opposition, said her appointment may not follow state law, which requires the appointment go to someone involved in mental health treatment. Herring just provides transportation, she said.

Other objections were raised over the conduct of a COVID-19 pandemic emergency clinic she ran under a contract with the city of Anchorage while donating financially to then-Mayor Dave Bronson.

Her nomination was rejected 28-32.

SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE

The Trump administration’s so-called “America First Global Health Strategy” turns one of the most effective and humane tools of U.S. foreign policy into an instrument of coercion. We now condition lifesaving health aid on concessions from vulnerable countries and replace partnership with exploitation, thus undermining both American values and long-term national interests.

Throughout the 20th and into the 21st century, American resources were deployed to provide relief to countless millions throughout the world. Think Herbert Hoover in the aftermath of World War I, the Marshall Plan after World War II and the later formation of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). These initiatives were driven by both genuine concern for the wellbeing of others, but also enlightened self-interest. Stable and healthy nations were less likely to wage war.  American aid benefited the American economy that produced the tools and the agricultural products that were the foundation for this aid.

For decades, U.S. foreign assistance has represented a tiny share of federal spending — about one percent of the budget — but has delivered outsized benefits. It has helped contain infectious diseases before they reach our shores, stabilized fragile regions and built goodwill that strengthens diplomatic relationships while saving millions of lives at relatively low cost. 

Trump has abandoned any pretense of foreign aid altruism, replacing it with a sullied quid pro quo. The new approach abandons that framework. It was previewed in his dealings with Ukraine when he conditioned continued military assistance to that country on mineral concessions before simply insisting that other NATO members buy American weaponry and transfer these to Ukraine. Trump now applies this sinister transactional approach to medical aid to some of the poorest countries in the world.

According to reporting in The New York Times and the Associated Press and analysis by Public Citizen, the administration has pressed some 30 countries in Africa and Latin America to sign agreements granting the United States access to sensitive health data and valuable natural resources as a condition for receiving even minimal health assistance. These are not routine bilateral arrangements negotiated on equal footing. They are ultimatums delivered to countries facing urgent public health crises.

Consider Zambia, where the administration has reportedly weighed a $2 billion deal withholding, among other things, HIV treatment support affecting over one million people unless the country expands U.S. access to its mineral resources. In short, it is leveraging human lives for economic gain. In other cases, countries are being asked to provide viral samples and health data without assurances that resulting vaccines or treatments will be shared equitably. This raises profound ethical concerns and threatens to erode global cooperation in disease surveillance — cooperation that is essential to preventing the next pandemic. Not surprisingly, certain governments, among them Ghana, Zimbabwe and Kenya, have rejected the overtures, having concluded that the trade-offs are too high a price.

The moral problem is obvious. Conditioning lifesaving aid on unrelated concessions exploits desperation. It echoes a discredited era when powerful nations extracted wealth from poorer ones under the guise of assistance. The United States should not revive that model, particularly in the realm of global health, where trust and transparency are indispensable.

The strategic costs are just as serious.  The perception that U.S. aid is transactional and predatory will diminish cooperation on data sharing, early warning systems, and joint research. That makes Americans less safe, not more. Furthermore, foreign policy conducted through secret deals that trade public health for private advantage invites abuse and evades democratic accountability. Congress cannot exercise meaningful oversight if it is kept in the dark, and the public cannot assess policies whose consequences include preventable illness and death.

Proponents may argue that tying aid to economic or strategic benefits simply reflects realism. But realism properly understood recognizes that power is not only measured in transactions. It is also measured in credibility, alliances, and the willingness of others to cooperate in times of crisis. A policy that saves pennies while sacrificing trust is not pragmatic; it is shortsighted.

The United States can pursue its interests without abandoning its principles. That means maintaining robust global health programs that are transparent, evidence-based, and grounded in mutual benefit. It means supporting equitable access to the fruits of medical research. And it means rejecting the premise that the lives of people in poorer countries can be used as bargaining chips. When the U.S. conditions lifesaving care on extractive concessions, it diminishes the nation’s moral standing, weakens its strategic position, and endangers global health. Congress should demand full disclosure of these agreements, prohibit coercive conditions on humanitarian aid, and reaffirm a simple proposition: that American leadership is strongest when it aligns power with principle.

SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE

One of the largest data centers in the nation has been proposed on Alaska’s Arctic North Slope, where boosters say it could take advantage of abundant land, cold temperatures for cooling and a huge supply of natural gas for power.

The $500 million development would occupy an entire square mile with multiple buildings in a remote area off the Dalton Highway, some 25 miles south of the North Slope’s major infrastructure. That’s according to documents released this week by the state, which on Tuesday issued a preliminary decision to lease the property to the project’s operator.

A newly built pipeline would carry natural gas to fuel the data center’s power plant — which, according to the documents, could use more than twice as much of the fuel as urban Alaska consumes for electrical generation and home and commercial heating. The project could ultimately produce up to three gigawatts of power for its own use, making it competitive with some of the largest data centers under development in the Lower 48.

The company behind the project is Stak Energy, which last year proposed a far smaller project more narrowly focused on digital mining of cryptocurrency. It now says it plans to support “large-scale AI and cloud computing operations,” including training of large-scale machine learning models and high-performance scientific and analytical computing.

The company in November proposed its lease to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, which subsequently published a notice to solicit competing bids. None came in, so the department is now proceeding with the leasing process, with a public comment period on the preliminary decision open through June 15.

Stak has not disclosed who would finance its new project, though it previously said it was raising money from Anchorage firm McKinley Alaska Private Investment.

Stak has expanded significantly in recent months, making a number of politically connected hires including Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s former natural resources commissioner, John Boyle, and a former special assistant at the natural resources department, Jim Shine.

The company’s founder and chief executive, Sparrow Mahoney, grew up in Alaska and attended Wasilla High School.

Stak officials declined to respond to specific questions about its proposal. But the company shared a prepared statement that describes itself as having “deep Alaska roots, built on decades of combined experience across the state’s energy and infrastructure landscape — and proud to help build Alaska’s next era of prosperity.”

The lease application, the company said, “reflects an important milestone for anchoring Alaska as America’s at-scale energy solution — a meaningful step toward bringing opportunity, jobs, and revenue home to stay.”

“Stak Energy is committed to responsible development, expanding opportunity, and contributing to a more diverse and resilient Alaskan economy,” the company said.

Energy experts said that Stak’s lease application, released by the state, is thorough. But it also raises a number of questions.

One is how quickly the company can secure the natural gas-powered turbines that it would use to generate electricity. Rising demand for those turbines, prompted by the rush to build new data centers and the overall expansion of natural gas-fired power, is leading to manufacturing backlogs as long as seven years; Stak says it wants its initial operations to begin in 2028.

Then, there’s the question of where, exactly, Stak will get its natural gas supply.

Alaska’s North Slope oil fields contain huge deposits of natural gas. But historically, petroleum companies have almost exclusively extracted oil from those fields, as it’s more energy-dense and can be shipped down the 800-mile trans-Alaska pipeline; minimal infrastructure exists to move North Slope natural gas to market.

Companies presumably would be willing to sell gas to a project like Stak’s, according to Antony Scott, a former commercial petroleum analyst for the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.

But details of Stak’s land lease application makes clear that at the time it was submitted, the company hadn’t yet struck a firm deal for gas supply, he added. Stak says its gas pipeline could run anywhere between 25 and 90 miles, which implies that it could connect to any number of different petroleum fields on the North Slope.

“That means they don’t have a gas supply,” Scott said.

Scott added, though, that the project’s remote location — and the fact that it wouldn’t connect to Alaska’s urban power grid and risk driving up demand and prices for electricity, like data centers have in the Lower 48 — help smooth the project’s path.

“The issue of data centers and the effect on normal humanity’s electricity bills is causing real angst,” Scott said. On Alaska’s North Slope, he added, “we avoid all of that. You can just step into this friendly environment.”

Stak’s application and supporting material say its project has another leg up on Lower 48 developments.

Outside projects have faced increasingly strident opposition in response to their enormous consumption of water for cooling. The company says in its lease application materials that its North Slope location is a “crucial design advantage” because of an average annual temperature of 12F — allowing it to use air for cooling instead of depending on water.

Air cooling, the company says, is expected to reduce water consumption by 90% or more, “compared to industry norms.” Stak isn’t proposing any formal use for the project’s waste heat for now, but it says that “potential applications” include keeping greenhouses warm or supporting aquaculture.

One comparative disadvantage for Stak: It would be powering its computer infrastructure with fossil fuels. Some technology companies with carbon emissions targets are making efforts to run their data centers on non-fossil energy like nuclear power, wind and solar, though other projects have also tapped into natural gas.

Stak, in its application, says it’s monitoring developments in technology that could allow it to capture and store its carbon emissions. But at least initially, a dearth of infrastructure and a lack of understanding of the region’s geology for storing carbon are among the obstacles it faces, the company said.

Dunleavy’s administration, which has pushed to develop a data center industry in Alaska, has issued a preliminary, formal decision that the project is in the state’s “best interest” — a necessary step before it can issue the 50-year land lease that it’s currently considering.

The preliminary decision cites a peak construction workforce of 1,500 people, with some 60 permanent jobs that would be created by the project.

Stak will have to complete additional permitting before the project can move forward — namely, a federal Clean Water Act authorization needed to create the company’s gravel pad that will elevate its power plants and computer systems at least five feet off the tundra.

The project would require an enormous amount of gravel — some 7 million cubic yards worth, according to the state leasing documents.

That’s nearly twice as much as petroleum company ConocoPhillips is authorized to use for its big Willow oil project, Stak says.