Category: Alaska News

Aeoden Sinclair

Mizzou wrestling’s Aeoden Sinclair stares off in the distance during a tournament. Sinclair won a gold medal at the U20 World Wrestling Championships on Friday in Bratislava, Slovakia.

Under a driving Juneau rain, dozens of new students at the University of Alaska Southeast gathered Friday for orientation and to kick off the fall semester. This year, the public university saw a boost in enrollment of out-of-state students, which officials and students say is largely due to a new policy eliminating the non-resident tuition rate.

UAS piloted the new tuition policy this year, called Alaska Unlocked, which offers the standard in-state tuition rate for all undergraduate courses, regardless of the student’s residency.

That’s resulted in an estimated 36% increase this year in out-of-state students enrolling at UAS compared to last year, according to university officials.

“We are so thrilled with that much of an increase,” said UAS Chancellor Aparna Palmer, in an interview after her welcoming remarks to students at the Egan Library. “We know that a high percentage of our graduates stay in Alaska and work in Alaska within one year of graduation. And so most of these students are our future Alaskans.”

New students have arrived from 28 states, according to university data, with the top home states including Washington, California, Colorado, Idaho, Minnesota and Wisconsin. 

The in-state tuition rate was a draw for 22-year-old Nicole Wilson of Phoenix, Arizona. After classes at community college, she enrolled at UAS to pursue a bachelor’s degree in marine biology with a focus on mammals. “I decided to come here both based on the in-state tuition and also because it was such, like, an ‘open to marine biology’ type school. My original plan was to go out to Hawaii, but it’s extremely expensive from out of state,” she said. 

Wilson said housing was also a factor. “I did the math. If I were to take a dorm, which I would have had to, at any of the major universities in Arizona, it was actually more expensive than coming out to Alaska,” she said.

Cost of housing was the main consideration for 20-year-old Owen Kellon of Portland, Oregon, who is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in environmental sciences. “It was the bigger concern when it came to the cost of schooling, just because tuition was like a couple hundred bucks per class, which is perfectly reasonable. It’s about how much I was paying back at my community college in Portland, but the housing cost was the biggest factor.”

The standard in-state tuition rate is expected to be available across the University of Alaska system next year. Earlier this month, the UA Board of Regents moved to eliminate out-of-state tuition rates for all locations and degree types, aiming to draw more students to Alaska. 

Currently, out-of-state tuition is double to quadruple the amount of resident tuition, depending on degree type. The Board of Regents is expected to take up a final vote on the policy change in November. 

UAS has the smallest student population of Alaska’s public universities, with roughly 1,800 students last year across campuses in Juneau, Ketchikan and Sitka.

This year’s preliminary enrollment data shows roughly the same number of students as last year, signalling Alaskan student enrollment may have declined. But Palmer emphasized that it’s too soon to tell, as enrollment numbers are subject to change in the next few weeks with more Alaska students possibly signing up for dual enrollment programs or classes beginning later in the fall.

This year, UAS saw a 21% increase in applications from out-of-state students, and a 36% increase in newly enrolled out-of-state students. More than 80 new out-of-state students have enrolled this year, compared to 60 students last year, according to university officials.

UAS is an open access enrollment institution, Palmer noted. “What that means is, no matter where you are in life, whether you just graduated from high school, in high school, or whether you’re, you know, in your sixties or seventies, there is a way in which you can access UAS,” she said.

Most students are working adults or part-time students, Palmer said, and can enroll in classes in-person or online. “So, we do have a really diverse group of students,” she said.

In Juneau, new students had a jam-packed schedule for orientation week. On Friday, students were welcomed by UAS administrators, a Tlingit elder and student leaders, followed by a campus tour and briefings on campus resources, student clubs, tutoring, career counseling, and anti-discrimination and Title IX rights and reporting. 

Students expressed excitement for the new school year and to be in Alaska, including Owen Kellon of Oregon.

“I love the rain,” he said. “ I am excited to see how the winter months will look like with only like six hours of sunlight. I’m scared, but I’m also excited.”

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Anchorage police say an officer had emergency lights and a siren activated before a cruiser collided with a taxi, killing two people. The investigation could take months.

On Alaska’s primary election day, NBC News — citing unidentified sources — reported that the U.S. Department of Justice has issued grand jury subpoenas as it investigates whether Petersburg candidate Dan J. Sullivan may have somehow violated federal law. 

If that’s true, subpoenas haven’t reached Sullivan, currently running third in this week’s election and the person that incumbent Republican Sen. Dan S. Sullivan has accused of running a sham campaign.

Subpoenas also haven’t reached anyone in the campaign of Democratic candidate Mary Peltola as of Friday, according to the campaign. That includes Anton McParland, Peltola’s former campaign manager, who is still with the campaign. 

Jalen Lee, a spokesman for the Alaska Democratic Party, said on Thursday that no one at the party has gotten a subpoena. 

Amber Lee, a consultant who helped Dan J. Sullivan start his campaign, said on Thursday that she has not been subpoenaed. Lee is no longer working with Sullivan’s campaign.

A spokesperson for the Alaska Division of Elections said no one with the division has received a subpoena about Dan J. Sullivan’s campaign. 

Dan J. Sullivan said by email on Thursday that he has not received a subpoena. He said he’s refraining from saying more about the issue until he understands more about what’s happening.

In July, NBC News reported that the U.S. Attorney’s office and acting Alaska Attorney General Cori Mills were looking for evidence of wire fraud or a conspiracy to deprive Alaska voters of a free and fair elections process, which could be a civil rights violation.

Reagan Zimmerman-Hartzheim, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Alaska, said that under DOJ policy, she could neither confirm nor deny the existence of an investigation.

Throughout his campaign, Dan S. Sullivan has called Dan J. Sullivan’s campaign fake, and a trick to deceive Alaska voters. Dan J. Sullivan, also a registered Republican, has denied that claim.

“My intention is not to trick people,” Dan J. Sullivan told the New York Times in an interview this month. “I would hope people are informed enough to know the difference between an incumbent senator and a teacher.”

Dan J. Sullivan, a Republican, remains on track to advance to November’s general election, alongside Dan S. Sullivan, Peltola and a fourth person. Progressive Democrat David Leslie led the race for that spot on Friday. 

A spokesperson for Dan S. Sullivan’s re-election campaign did not return emails about the possible Department of Justice investigation.

Ahead of this week’s statewide primary election, President Donald Trump took to social media with a statement that closely resembled Dan S. Sullivan’s remarks. 

In the statement, the president claimed Dan J.’s candidacy is the result of “trickery” by “Crooked, Radical Left Dumocrats” who put up another Dan Sullivan “to take Votes away from our Great Senator of the same name.”

The Alaska Democratic Party was not involved in Dan J. Sullivan’s candidacy, both Sullivan and the party have said repeatedly.

“I have not spoken to Mary (Peltola). I wouldn’t even know who to speak to,” Dan. J. Sullivan told his hometown newspaper, Petersburg Pilot, in June. 

In the Times interview, Dan J. Sullivan suggested he was worried about the possibility that he could face federal investigation.

“I’m just a guy, and they’re scary,” he said. “Whether you’ve done something right or wrong, it doesn’t seem to matter anymore.”

Across the country, federal judges are tracking an increasing number of ungrounded, politically motivated prosecutions by the Department of Justice. 

These include high-profile failed prosecutions against anti-ICE protesters in Chicago, a man who threw a sandwich at a federal official in Washington, D.C., and a man the president accused of vandalizing the Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C.

Last weekend, new U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said he would take the president’s views into consideration when making decisions on prosecutions. 

Traditionally, the Department of Justice has acted independently from presidents and has sought to preserve that independence. 

In 1973, Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy both resigned rather than follow President Richard Nixon’s orders to fire a special prosecutor examining the Watergate scandal. Those resignations spurred impeachment proceedings against Nixon.

Last month, the U.S. Senate confirmed Blanche in office by a 50-49 vote. Dan S. Sullivan, who voted “yes,” was a decisive vote in favor of Blanche’s confirmation. 

Aubrey Wieber is the director of the 907 Initiative, an organization opposing Dan S. Sullivan’s re-election. 

Wieber said he doesn’t know if Dan S. Sullivan is working with the Trump administration to manufacture false claims, but he does see the accusations as part of a broader national pattern, with Trump attempting to sow doubt about elections in general.

“I do think this is bogus,” he said of the accusations against Dan J. Sullivan. “Look how many investigations and how many people have looked into this, and no one has found any indication that Dan J. Sullivan is a sham candidate.”

In the just-completed primary election, third-party groups spent millions of dollars to advertise fringe candidates in hopes that they would finish in the top four and advance to the November general election. Dan J. Sullivan wasn’t generally targeted by those ads.

“If this is the ace in the hole,” Wieber asked, “Don’t you think you would spend to make sure that he makes it into the top four?”

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Our next borough election is set to take place on Oct. 6. That means it’s crunch time here at the Chilkat Valley News as we work to get you the information you need to know to cast an informed vote. 

That also means candidates for borough assembly, planning commission, and school board are making plans on how to get their messages out, and how to frame local conversations to serve their agendas. 

We believe voters deserve more coverage of local races than stories focused solely on what the candidates want to talk about. The Chilkat Valley News is independent and reader-funded and as such we’d like our readers to get the chance to shape our coverage of this year’s election. What do you want to see candidates talking about as they’re competing for your votes? 

Here’s our plan for how that could work. Please fill out the survey below. We’ll collect your questions until Sept. 6, then we’ll look through all of the responses to get an idea of what’s important to our readers, and we’ll take those questions directly to the candidates as we work on profiles of each one. 

Two former mayors are running against each other, Douglas Olerud and Janice Hill.

Here are the candidates for borough assembly;

• Beau Bradley
• Anne Marie Palmieri
• Debra Schnabel
• Diana Lapham
• Lee C. Robinson

the planning commission;

• Erika Merklin
• George R. Campbell
• Kimberly Rosado
• Nathanael Reams
• Nick Szatowski
• Patty Brown
• Zeke Frank

and the school board.

• Burl Sheldon
• Cara Gilbert
• Carlos Jimenez
• Jenn Walsh
• Kevin Shove
• Michael Wald

One quick note on how to answer the survey: It’s better to write clear, topic-based and complete questions. Something like: 

What are the financial costs of the borough’s policy to…

What specific actions can you take to approach student performance in …

What do you think the borough’s land use policies should be on… 

Please note that we’ve dropped our paywall for this post, so if you’ve got a friend in town who does not subscribe or you tend to buy the paper directly from the newsstands, you can weigh-in too.

2026 Haines borough election candidate questionnaire

A series of questions asked by Chilkat Valley voters.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser to complete this form.

Name *

First

Last

number) Planning Contact

Contact information (email/phone number) *

Assembly candidate question (s)

Mayoral candidate question(s)

Planning Commission candidate question (s)

School Board candidate question (s)

Submit

The post Help shape the Chilkat Valley News’ local election reporting in 2026 appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.

A quiet year for Alaska wildfires is closing out in dramatic fashion with a late-season blaze that has burned homes and prompted evacuations in an Interior Alaska community.

As of Thursday, only about 83,400 acres had burned in Alaska wildfires this year, far short of the approximately 1 million acres that has become typical for recent years.

But the Mukluk Fire, first reported on Aug. 17 and ignited by a downed power line and estimated at about 5,000 acres as of Thursday, has caused particular problems.

It broke out in the Alaska Highway community of Tok, home to about 1,600 people. At least 20 structures have been lost, said Jessi Morse, an Alaska Division of Forestry public information officer.

Several residents have had to evacuate, and the American Red Cross of Alaska set up a shelter this week at the local school.

Alaska’s fire season usually peaks in June or early July, paralleling the time of maximum lightning strikes and summer daylight.

That makes it “very unusual” for a new fire to break out in mid-August, Morse said.

The Mukluk Fire’s acreage estimate is likely to change as fire managers gather more accurate information, she added.

Over the past half century, wildfire frequency, acreage and intensity have increased in Alaska, though there are wide variations year to year.

This year’s low acreage total was the product of several factors, said Rick Thoman, a scientist with the Alaska Center for Climate Assessment and Preparedness at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

An abnormally cold spring limited the spread of fires, even as summer lightning strikes were about normal in number, he said. Reports from smokejumpers assigned to new blazes indicated that in Interior and Western Alaska, at least, the vegetation on the ground had limited burn potential, even in midsummer.

“They’d be working to put them out and they’re encountering frozen ground, you know, six inches below the ground. And this is in June,” Thoman said. “We had lightning, but the ground wasn’t really ready to burn yet.”

Another factor was the lack of sustained hot weather this summer, he said. There were hot days, but not several of them in a row, he said.

Another contributor was likely “happenstance,” part of the wide variation from year to year, he said.

The most recent ultra-low year for Alaska wildfires was 2008, when only 105,600 acres burned, according to state records. Before that, the lowest year in recent decades was 1995, with only 43,900 acres, according to the records. In prior decades, there were several years with similarly low fire acreage, or even much lower, though past records may lack the accuracy provided by satellite observations.

Despite the low total this year, the late emergence of the Mukluk Fire fits a long-term pattern of expanding fire seasons, Thoman said.

The Tok area, in eastern Interior Alaska about 90 miles from the Canadian border, might be particularly vulnerable to late-season fires.

“Tok tends to be drier. So when the rest of the state is getting wet and rainy, sometimes Tok is left out of that,” Morse said.

Last year, a different fire near Tok continued to burn late in the season, she noted. Last year’s 7 Mile Lookout Fire, which burned about 4,000 acres in a spot southwest of the town, was ignited by lightning in June and prompted a response through early August.

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The gap between the fifth and sixth-place finishers in Alaska’s 17-way governor race closed to fewer than 300 votes on Thursday as the Alaska Division of Elections published more results from Tuesday’s primary election.

As of noon Thursday, fifth-place finisher Treg Taylor had 9,775 votes and sixth-place finisher Click Bishop had 9,489. 

Ordinarily, a change in order between fifth and sixth place doesn’t matter, because only the top four candidates advance to November’s general election. 

But if one of the top four finishers withdraws from the race by Aug. 31, the fifth-place finisher will be promoted and advance to November. 

Ahead of the primary, some candidates for governor said they were considering their options, depending on this week’s results. 

Only one election day precinct remains uncounted — votes from Koliganek in southwest Alaska had not been reported by the end of Thursday — but thousands of absentee and early votes also remain unreported and could change the result.

Voting precincts for the villages of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok in southwest Alaska also reported no results, but those communities were almost entirely destroyed by Typhoon Merbok in 2025 and did not host polling sites.

Counting is expected to wrap up by Aug. 28, the deadline for mailed absentee ballots to reach the Division of Elections.

Democratic frontrunners Jonathan Kreiss-Tomkins and Tom Begich, who are on track to finish first and second in the primary, have since issued statements implying that they will remain in the race. Third-place Republican finisher Bernadette Wilson has said she will remain in the race if she is the top Republican. 

Fourth-place finisher Dave Bronson issued a statement Wednesday that said in part, “Once the final tabulation of early votes are reported next Tuesday and we have the full picture of where this race stands, our campaign will make the decision that best advances that goal and gives Republicans the strongest path to victory in November.”

In other races, the newly counted ballots confirmed existing trends. In the U.S. Senate race, Democratic challenger Mary Peltola has 48.1% of the vote, and incumbent Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan has 42.7%. In the No. 3 spot is Republican challenger Dan J. Sullivan of Petersburg, with 2.4%. The fourth spot is currently held by progressive Democrat David Leslie, with 1.1%.

If Leslie withdraws or if late-counted votes alter election-day trends, his spot would be taken by conservative Republican Gerald Heikes, who sat just 17 votes behind Leslie on Thursday. 

In the U.S. House race, Republican Rep. Nick Begich III has 46.1% of the vote, ahead of independent challenger Bill Hill, with 30.9%. 

Democratic challenger Matt Schultz was in third with 8% and federal inmate Eric Hafner, a Democratic candidate, was in fourth with 3.8%.

Schultz has already suspended his campaign and is expected to withdraw, which would elevate fifth-place finisher John Williams, a Fairbanks Democrat with 2.6% of the vote. Republican Clay Strickland was in sixth with 2.4%. 

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