NOTN- Former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola has launched a campaign to serve as Alaska’s next U.S. senator, and now she will be making a stop in Juneau this evening for a Meet and Greet at the Crystal Saloon.
Peltola announced her candidacy Jan. 12, saying Washington politicians are increasingly driven by special interests and national politics at the expense of Alaskans. She said her campaign will focus on affordability, infrastructure, fisheries and protecting Alaska’s way of life.
According to her campaign website, Peltola is holding a public meet-and-greet later tonight, meant to give supporters and undecided voters a chance to speak with her directly about her Senate run.
Peltola is a lifelong Alaskan who grew up along the Kuskokwim River, noting on her website, “I’m running for Senate because I’ve lived firsthand how government is failing Alaskans.”
She is a former member of the Alaska State Legislature and previously served in Congress, where she built a reputation for working with both Democrats and Republicans.
NOTN- Lawmakers, their families and members of the public are invited to gather today at Centennial Hall for the annual legislative welcome, marking the opening day of the Alaska Legislature.
The reception is hosted by the Alaska Committee with support from Travel Juneau, the City and Borough of Juneau and dozens of local businesses. Organizers say the event has been held for nearly three decades and is intended to offer a bipartisan welcome to legislators arriving in the state’s capital for the session.
“The Alaska committee was formed in 1995 and we’ve been doing the reception just about since the very beginning.” Said Wayne Jensen from the Alaska Committee, ”We want all the local community members to come and say hi and welcome to the Capital City. It’s their Capital City.”
According to Jensen, being the Capital City is both a privilege and a responsibility.
“’That responsibility is to be as friendly as we can, and as hospitable as we can and make everything work well for the legislators and the State government.” Said Jensen.
Travel Juneau, the city’s marketing organization, assists with coordination for the event, including catering and use of Centennial Hall, according to Liz Perry of Travel Juneau.
“What we do is, we’re your front and center alongside the Alaska committee, to help make those invitations for people to come down and visit the Capitol, take a look at the building itself. The building is historic, and have a chance to talk with their legislators, if they have not had the opportunity to do so in their hometowns, and promote this as a great Capital City.” Perry said.
Organizers said the welcome also serves as an opportunity to promote in-state travel, noting that many Alaskans from other regions, even Anchorage and Fairbanks, have never visited Southeast Alaska or the Capitol.
Local businesses and organizations will contribute food, gift bags and promotional items for legislators and staff. The city also participates by providing passes to local amenities such as Eaglecrest Ski Area, city pools and public transit.
“We prepare a bag for each one of the offices, and it’s just a way to say welcome to Juneau.” Perry said, “So it can be anything from artwork to books to candy, or an offer of some kind. And we look forward just to saying thank you to our legislators.”
Snow falls around the Alaska State Capitol in Juneau on Dec. 31, 2025. (Photo by Claire Stremple/Alaska Beacon)
Alaska schools, students and education funding will continue to be in focus in the 2026 legislative session set to begin on Jan. 20, but early signs show they are unlikely to be at the center of the political spotlight as they were last year.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy will not be pursuing education policy changes this year, according to a spokesperson with his office on Friday. Instead, he will focus on a state fiscal plan and the proposed development of the Alaska LNG gas pipeline, his office said.
Those policy changes were at the heart of Dunleavy’s objection to increased education funding last year, and he said they were essential to boosting student achievement. He called a special session in August for lawmakers to address his policy items, but legislators took no action other than overriding two of his vetoes.
One of those veto overrides was an historic win for education advocates: it restored a $700 increase to per student funding, known as the base student allocation, adding $50.6 million in education funding to the state’s budget.
Yet many Alaska school districts continue to face steep budget deficits, and struggle to address the rising cost of operations, school maintenance, teacher retention and lost of federal funding. The Anchorage School District — the state’s largest district — is grappling with an $80 million shortfall, however the district and the union representing teachers reached a tentative agreement over the weekend on a new three-year contract. There may also be changes on the federal level because the Trump administration has promised to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education.
Sen. Löki Tobin, D-Anchorage, and chair of the Senate Education Committee, said it is still unclear whether lawmakers will again take action this year to increase education funding through the base student allocation. Tobin also co-chairs the special task force on education funding created this year.
“It is difficult to know what the body is willing to do at this point in time,” Tobin said, as lawmakers are in transit back to Juneau this week, and caucuses are meeting to discuss policy priorities.
But Tobin said she anticipates some kind of funding increase to help districts keep up with inflation. “Inflation continues to be a pressing issue in the state, and we don’t want the gains we made by increasing the basic allocation by $700 this last budget cycle to diminish because of inflation,” she said.
Rep. Andi Story, D-Juneau is co-chair of the House Education Committee and agreed an inflation adjustment is a major priority. “We don’t want to lose any ground,” she said in an interview Friday, pointing out the increase to the BSA only added $20 per student more than the year before.
Dunleavy told reporters in December he hoped the legislature would pass a bill to launch a pilot program for schools run by Alaska Native tribes, known as tribal compacting, introduced last year. Tobin said the initiative is a priority, and said she supports tribal compacting statewide and wants to see greater tribal consultation and engagement throughout all districts.
Tobin said members of the task force recently made a visit to a school in Fairbanks with one of three boilers working — in subzero temperatures — and a plan to evacuate students if the last one failed. “That’s 726 students that will be displaced. It will be a huge hit to the Fairbanks education community,” she said. “It has the potential to really harm our students’ learning and what we need to do in Juneau, during this 34th legislature, to set us up for a long term solution on rebuilding our schools, is very much at the forefront of my mind.”
Tobin co-chairs the task force on education funding, which was established this spring to conduct an 18-month study and create policy recommendations for how the state funds schools. Members have expressed interest in a wide variety of policy initiatives: from revisiting the school funding formula, to investigating chronic absenteeism, to student performance and accountability measures, and policy changes sought by the governor like open enrollment and reading incentive programs. They are slated to deliver their recommendations at the start of the next legislative session in 2027.
Tobin said task force members have made visits to schools in Fairbanks, the Matanuska-Susitna, Anchorage and Kenai Peninsula boroughs, and have plans to visit Skagway, Juneau, Bethel and Western Alaska.
Republican leaders of the Senate and House minority caucuses did not respond to interview requests on their priorities for education.
Veto override for additional education funding still in question
Lawmakers could also take up another veto override vote within the first five days of the session. Last year, lawmakers passed a corporate tax bill tied to online sales in Alaska that could generate up to $65 million in revenue that would go to fund career and technical education and K-12 reading improvement programs. Dunleavy vetoed it in September.
Whether lawmakers will take up the override vote next week is unclear. At least 40 of 60 legislators are needed to override the governor’s veto within the first five days of the legislative session.
Tobin and Story, as education committee chairs, said the override vote and restoring additional education dollars is essential, especially for reading, and funding programs instituted by the Alaska Reads Act.
House Speaker Rep. Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, said via text that the Majority caucus is meeting to discuss legislative priorities this weekend. “Protecting education and public safety items in the budget along with other core services will be a priority in an environment that will be fiscally constrained,” he said.
Edgmon did not confirm whether an override vote would take place, as of Thursday.
People gather near the post office during a protest, Sunday, Jan. 18, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
AP- The Pentagon has ordered about 1,500 active duty soldiers to be ready in case of a possible deployment to Minnesota, where federal authorities have been conducting a massive immigration enforcement operation, two defense officials said Sunday.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military plans, said two infantry battalions of the Army’s 11th Airborne Division have been given prepare-to-deploy orders. The unit is based in Alaska and specializes in operating in arctic conditions.
One defense official said the troops are standing by to deploy to Minnesota should President Donald Trump invoke the Insurrection Act, a rarely used 19th century law that would allow him to employ active duty troops as law enforcement.
The move comes just days after Trump threatened to do just that to quell protests against his administration’s immigration crackdown.
In an emailed statement, Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell did not deny the orders were issued and said the military “is always prepared to execute the orders of the Commander-in-Chief if called upon.”
ABC News was the first to report the development.
On Thursday, Trump said in a social media post that he would invoke the 1807 law “if the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job.”
He appeared to walk back the threat a day later, telling reporters at the White House that there wasn’t a reason to use it “right now.”
“If I needed it, I’d use it,” Trump said. “It’s very powerful.”
Trump has repeatedly threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act throughout both of his terms. In 2020 he threatened to use it to quell protests after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police, and in recent months he threatened to use it for immigration protests.
The law was most recently invoked by President George H.W. Bush in 1992 to end unrest in Los Angeles after the acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of Rodney King.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat and frequent target of Trump, has urged the president to refrain from sending in more troops.
“I’m making a direct appeal to the President: Let’s turn the temperature down. Stop this campaign of retribution. This is not who we are,” Walz said last week on social media.
From left, Greenland Foreign Minister Vivian Motzfeldt, Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen, Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, begin a meeting on Capitol Hill as officials from Denmark and Greenland meet with lawmakers from the Arctic Caucus, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Ap- A top Danish official said Wednesday that a “fundamental disagreement” over Greenland remains with President Donald Trump after holding highly anticipated White House talks with Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“The group, in our view, should focus on how to address the American security concerns, while at the same time respecting the red lines of the Kingdom of Denmark,” Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen told reporters after joining Greenland’s foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, for the talks. He added that it remains “clear that the president has this wish of conquering over Greenland.”
Trump is trying to make the case that NATO should help the U.S. acquire the world’s largest island and says anything less than it being under American control is unacceptable.
Denmark, meanwhile, announced plans to boost the country’s military presence in the Arctic and North Atlantic as Trump tries to justify his calls for a U.S. takeover of the vast territory by repeatedly claiming that China and Russia have their designs on Greenland, which holds vast untapped reserves of critical minerals.
The president, who did not take part in Wednesday’s meeting, told reporters he remained committed to acquiring the territory.
“We need Greenland for national security,” Trump said. “We’ll see how it all works out. I think something will work out.”
Landry, following Trump’s latest comments, posted on X that Trump was “absolutely right” about acquiring Greenland and the territory “is a critical component of our nation’s national security portfolio.”
Before the meeting, Trump took to social media to make the case that “NATO should be leading the way” for the U.S. to acquire the territory. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has sought to keep an arms-length away from the dispute between the most important power and the other members of the 32-country alliance unnerved by the aggressive tack Trump has taken toward Denmark.
Both Løkke Rasmussen and Motzfeldt offered measured hope that the talks were beginning a conversation that would lead to Trump dropping his demand and create a path for tighter cooperation with the U.S.
“We have shown where our limits are and from there, I think that it will be very good to look forward,” Motzfeldt said.
Denmark bolstering presence in Arctic
In Copenhagen, Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen announced a stepped-up military presence in the Arctic “in close cooperation with our allies,” a necessity in a security environment in which “no one can predict what will happen tomorrow.”
Several of the country’s allies, including Germany, France, Norway and Sweden, announced they were arriving in Greenland along with Danish personnel to take part in joint exercises or map out further military cooperation in the Arctic.
NATO is also looking at how members can collectively bolster the alliance’s presence in the Arctic, said a NATO official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Greenlanders want the US to back off
Greenland is strategically important because, as climate change causes the ice to melt, it opens up the possibility of shorter trade routes to Asia. That also could make it easier to extract and transport untapped deposits of critical minerals which are needed for computers and phones.
Trump says Greenland is also “vital” to the United States’ Golden Dome missile defense program. He also has said Russia and China pose a threat in the region.
But experts and Greenlanders question that claim, and it has become a hot topic on the snow-covered main street in Greenland’s capital, where international journalists and camera crews have descended as Trump continues his takeover talk.
In interviews, Greenlanders said the outcome of the Washington talks didn’t exactly evince confidence that Trump can be persuaded.
“Trump is unpredictable,” said Geng Lastein, who immigrated to Greenland 18 years ago from the Philippines.
Maya Martinsen, 21, said she doesn’t buy Trump’s arguments that Greenland needs to be controlled by the U.S. for the sake maintaining a security edge in Arctic over China and Russia. Instead, Martinsen said, Trump is after the plentiful “oils and minerals that we have that are untouched.”
Greenland “has beautiful nature and lovely people,” Martinsen added. “It’s just home to me. I think the Americans just see some kind of business trade.”
Denmark has said the U.S., which already has a military presence, can boost its bases on Greenland. The U.S. is party to a 1951 treaty that gives it broad rights to set up military bases there with the consent of Denmark and Greenland.
Bipartisan concern from U.S. senators
Løkke Rasmussen and Motzfeldt also met with a bipartisan group senators from the Arctic Caucus. The senators said they were concerned Trump’s push to acquire Greenland could upend NATO and play into the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who has introduced legislation to try to block any U.S. action in Greenland, said it was “stunning” to her that they were even discussing the matter. “We are operating in times where we are having conversations about things that we never even thought possible,” Murkowski said.
Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, said it is “nonsense” to say that the U.S. needs to control Greenland to protect national security. The officials were “very open to additional national security assets in Greenland in order to meet whatever risks there are.”
A bipartisan delegation of U.S. lawmakers plans to show their solidarity by traveling to Copenhagen this week.
