Kim Kovol has accepted a job with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Gov. Mike Dunleavy announced last week. Her last day working for the state was on Friday, and Tracy Dompeling, the department’s deputy commissioner, assumed the role of acting commissioner, the statement said.
The department’s primary divisions are the Division of Juvenile Justice, the Alaska Psychiatric Institute, the Alaska Pioneer Homes and the Office of Children’s Services.
Kovol was the first commissioner of the Department of Family and Community Services, which was created in 2022. Up to then, its functions were part of the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services. Through an executive order, Dunleavy split that department into two: the Department of Health and the Department of Family and Community Services.
In his statement, Dunleavy said Kovol was a “strong and dedicated leader” for the redesigned department. “As the first Commissioner of DFCS, she built a foundation focused on service, accountability, and support for Alaska’s most vulnerable populations. I thank her for her service and wish her every success in this next role,” he said.
Kovol said she was honored to have served in that role. “I am incredibly grateful to the staff, partners, and communities who have supported our work. Together, we have made meaningful progress for Alaska families, youth, and elders, and I will always be proud of what we have accomplished,” she said in the statement.
Kim Kovol, the first commissioner of the Alaska Department of Family and Community Services. The department was created in 2022 when the Department of Health and Social Services was divided into two entities: the Department of Health and the Department of Family and Community Services. Kovol’s last day working for the state was Jan. 2. She has taken a job with the U.S. Department of Health and Social Services. (Photo provided by the Alaska Department of Family and Community Services)
Kovol is the second Alaska department head to leave state service to join the Trump administration. Almost a year ago, Emma Pokon left her position as commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation to become the Pacific Northwest regional administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Dunleavy in May chose Randy Bates to be the department’s new commissioner. Bates was formerly director of DEC’s Division of Water.
With Kovol’s departure, there are now five state departments with leaders who currently lack legislative approval.
In addition to Bates, Dunleavy has named commissioner-designees for the Department of Law and the Department of Natural Resources. Dunleavy in August named Stephen Cox, a former U.S. attorney in Texas, as Alaska’s attorney general, replacing Treg Taylor, a Republican who is running for governor.
Dunleavy also named John Crowther, a DNR veteran, as his choice to be permanent commissioner. Crowther became acting commissioner after John Boyle resigned from the position in October.
Bates, Cox and Crowther are subject to legislative confirmation after lawmakers convene later this month for their 2026 session.
The state Department of Revenue is currently being led by an acting commissioner, Janelle Earls, who assumed the job in August after Adam Crum left the commissioner post. Crum is another Republican candidate for governor.
Dunleavy has not yet named his choices for the commissioner posts at the Department of Revenue or the Department of Family and Community Services, said Jeff Turner, the governor’s spokesperson. Earls and Dompeling are currently acting commissioners and it is not clear whether the governor will name commissioner-designees for those positions, he said.
Dunleavy is in the last year of his second term. He is term limited and may not run for reelection.
Students begin their first day of school at the Tlingit Culture, Language and Literacy program at Harborview Elementary School in Juneau on Aug. 15, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
It was a difficult and consequential year for Alaska schools, educators and students.
While Alaska lawmakers passed the first significant education funding increase since 2011, the state rode a federal funding rollercoaster as funds were frozen, released, disputed and appealed.
Western Alaska students and families also endured the devastating storm disaster of Typhoon Halong. Hundreds of students, as well as teachers, were displaced from their homes and forced to move and adapt to new schools across the state.
Here are some of the top stories of the year:
A state education funding fight culminated when the Alaska State Legislature passed a historic override of a veto by Gov. Dunleavy to enact a boost to per student funding for K-12 schools in a one-day special session in August.
Education was the top priority of the Legislature and Gov. Dunleavy this year, and an embattled topic throughout the legislative session, with an ongoing dispute around funding for schools and education policy changes sought by the governor to address lagging school performance and test scores.
Gov. Dunleavy vetoed two education funding bills during the session, citing a lack of policy changes he favored to boost homeschool and charter school options, and address test scores. In April, he vetoed a bill increasing the BSA by $1,000, calling it a “joke” and insisting that policy changes be included. Legislators introduced and passed another bill increasing funding by $700 per student in late April. In an effort to compromise, they included many of the governor’s priority items, including charter school changes, incentives for reading programs, and establishing an education task force to recommend further education policy changes.
Sen. Loki Tobin, D-Anchorage, holds her hand to her chest on Saturday, Aug. 2, 2025, after the close vote on overriding Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of education funding. (James Brooks photo/Alaska Beacon)
Dunleavy vetoed the education funding increase out of the final budget in June. The legislature came back in August to override the veto. It was the first time since 1987 that Alaska lawmakers have overridden an appropriations veto by a sitting governor.
School officials said the additional $50.3 million in per student funding, known as the base student allocation, is essential to help maintain class sizes, hire and retain teachers, and create stability for students.
“We’re extremely excited. A lot of our administrators were texting and very excited about getting it overturned today, so that made Valdez very happy,” said that city’s school superintendent, Jason Weber, in August after the veto override vote.
The Trump administration froze millions in funding for Alaska schools, later releasing some funds. But Alaska is also embroiled in an ongoing dispute with the U.S. Department of Education around impact aid, which could cost the state $80 million
Over the summer, as school districts grappled with uncertainty around a state funding increase, the Trump administration announced a freeze of over $46 million in funds for Alaska schools, including for instruction and migrant education programs, which support students who miss class due to seasonal work like fishing. The Anchorage, Fairbanks North Star Borough, and the Kuspuk school districts joined a nationwide lawsuit challenging the withholding of congressionally approved funds as unlawful.
“These are not extras. These are the programs that give our students a chance,” said Kuspuk School Superintendent Madeline Aguillard. “When the federal government walks away from its obligation, it is not a delay. It is denial. Denial of access. Denial of progress. Denial of the futures our students have a right to pursue.”
The empty playground at Pearl Creek Elementary School is seen on June 3, 2025. The Fairbanks North Star Borough School District decided to close the school at the end of the academic year. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
In late July, the federal government released $5 billion of the $6.8 billion in K-12 funding.
The state is involved in an ongoing dispute with the U.S. Department of Education, which claims the state has failed a disparity test – allowing no more than a 25% gap between the highest and lowest funded schools. The state has appealed the finding, with over $80 million in federal impact aid at stake. A decision is expected in 2026.
The Trump administration also froze more than $6 billion in congressionally-approved funding for adult education and workforce development funding in July. In Alaska, it prompted immediate cuts to programs and staff layoffs. The state had been awarded over $1.1 million in grants last year, and the frozen funds in July were a shock to programs and students that included GED classes, literacy and civic education, English language classes and workforce development.
Hundreds of students, as well as teachers, were displaced by the devastation of Typhoon Halong from Western Alaska and relocated to schools around the state.
The devastation of Typhoon Halong forced an estimated 2,000 residents to evacuate Western Alaska communities in the largest mass evacuation in state history, and education officials across districts worked quickly to re-enroll students and provide support services at schools across the state.
More than one hundred students relocated to Bethel, remaining in the regional hub of Western Alaska and the Lower Kuskokwim School District. An estimated 140 students enrolled in the Anchorage School District, which worked to keep storm displaced students together, including enrolling a number of students at the Yup’ik immersion program at College Gate Elementary School. ASD also provided transportation from emergency shelters, health services, meals and translation services for Yup’ik speaking families.
“They’re going through trauma and it’s going to take a lot of work. But we’re going to put that in, because these kids are worth it,” said Anchorage Superintendent Jharrett Bryantt at an Oct. 21 school board meeting. “And they deserve a wonderful education that we want to offer them, in ASD, for as long as they’d like to be here.”
Other students re-enrolled in schools where they relocated across the state, including in Nenana and Fairbanks areas, the Kenai Peninsula, Matanuska-Susitna Valley Borough, as well as boarding schools like Mt Edgecumbe High School. Teachers and staff displaced by the storm also were re-assigned, with the majority staying in the Lower Kuskokwim School District, according to the superintendent.
Many of the district’s 22 village schools also served emergency shelter to residents as Typhoon Halong hit, and as relief centers in the days and weeks after the storm as the recovery effort got underway.
An Alaska Air National Guard C-17 Globemaster III, assigned to the 176th Wing, arrives at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, with approximately 300 evacuated residents from western Alaska, Oct. 15, 2025. (Alaska National Guard photo by Alejandro Peña)
The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 1, 2025. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
Alaska was awarded more federal money than any state besides Texas for a federal rural health initiative, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced on Monday.
The money will come from the Rural Health Transformation Fund, a $50 billion program set up as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and intended to counteract the effects of its sweeping Medicaid cuts in rural areas.
Alaska’s congressional delegation and state officials lauded the federal investment, which will be upwards of $272 million in Alaska in 2026.
At a Wednesday news conference in Anchorage, Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, said the $1.36 billion the state is slated to receive over the next five years is the biggest investment from the federal government to Alaska’s health care system in state history.
“This is a generational opportunity for our state,” he said.
Heidi Hedberg, commissioner of the state’s health department said a major goal is to rework the state’s “fragmented” health system.
She said the agency will release more information about its plan for the money in the coming days, but pointed to the state’s application to the program, which outlines six priorities: maternal and child health, access to services, preventative care, a strengthened workforce, financial sustainability and updated technology and data systems.
Emily Ricci, the agency’s deputy commissioner, said that core to the state’s application was the question of how to support services that already exist in the state.
“Part of our focus was making sure that the tribal communities could see some of the ways that they want to sustain their programs and evolve or build their programs out further into something that provides more access and sustainable costs,” she said. “So I would say that those opportunities are written in each one of the initiatives.”
She did not immediately supply specific examples.
The state’s application also commits to adherence to several policies favored by the Trump administration, including a pledge to join licensure compacts and prohibit the use of federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funds to buy soda pop by 2027.
Several of those commitments require the approval of the state’s legislature or medical board.
Hedberg said her agency will work with those decision makers to follow through on the commitments the state made in its application.
In a virtual meeting with reporters after the state’s news conference, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, challenged the state administration and legislators to take on the question of rebuilding the state’s health care system as a major issue.
In response to a reporter’s question, she said she was worried about the reliability of the funding because the state could fail to make the most of the opportunity or because the federal government could pause or cancel the funding.
“I know that we’re going into an election year next year. I know that the Permanent Fund always takes up space. I know we’re going to be talking about the gas line,” she said. “But we must, we must absolutely be talking about this health care opportunity that we have in front of us now.”
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy greets a child during the governor’s annual holiday open house on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2022 at the Governor’s Mansion in Juneau. (Photo by James Brooks / Alaska Beacon)
Framed by the fireplace in Alaska’s governor’s mansion earlier this month, Gov. Mike Dunleavy shook hands and posed for pictures in the final holiday open house of his two terms as Alaska’s top elected official.
Dunleavy is prohibited from running for another term, and 14 candidates have already signed up to run for his office in the 2026 elections. One of those candidates, Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, stood next to Dunleavy at the open house, smiling alongside her husband.
“It started what I think is going to be a real pipeline,” Dunleavy said. “It’s something that the state has dreamed about for decades, ever since the trans-Alaska oil pipeline came into being.”
Since January, when Glenfarne announced it was buying into the long-pursued Alaska LNG pipeline project, it’s announced a series of preliminary agreements from international companies interested in buying gas.
To date, it doesn’t have firm deals for either buying or selling, and it is expected to make a go/no-go decision on the first phase of the project — a pipeline from the North Slope to Southcentral Alaska for in-state use — within the next month.
“I think in January there’s going to be some major announcements that will solidify that this pipeline as a go,” Dunleavy said.
Dunleavy said he’s also been pleased with rising forecasts for Alaska North Slope oil. In November, the federal Energy Information Administration predicted that North Slope production would grow 13% in 2026, reaching levels that haven’t been seen since 2018.
“That’s good for Alaska as well,” Dunleavy said, “because of the renaissance on the Slope.”
The state’s unemployment rate is holding below 5%, he noted.
“When you look at the turmoil across the country and you look at the turmoil across the world, I think Alaska is in pretty good shape. … We have a lot of resources here, and I think we have a lot of great people,” he said.
Asked for the lowest point of the year on a statewide basis, Dunleavy said: “You’re always dealing with disasters. Under my tenure, there’s been 73 declared disasters … we had the issue out in Western Alaska, and so we have to add now a typhoon to our mix of volcanoes, earthquakes and so forth.”
Dunleavy himself was affected by the recent Matanuska-Susitna Borough windstorm disaster, and his wife couldn’t attend the holiday open house as a result.
“We lost some of our roofing on a building or two out there, and the heat went out,” he said.
While disasters are part of living in Alaska, he said Typhoon Halong was something extra.
“I would say that whenever a disaster impacts people at the visceral level, at the local level, at their household level — we got hit hard with that typhoon,” he said.
For much of the year, as in his conversation with reporters, the governor preferred to focus on the positives.
Earlier this year, Dunleavy said the arrival of the Trump administration was “like Christmas every morning” for Alaska.
Since Trump was sworn into office, his administration has relaxed restrictions on oil and gas drilling on the North Slope. It has advanced the Ambler Access Project, which promises to open a large mining area in Northwest Alaska.
The Interior Department has also pushed forward the road between Cold Bay and King Cove and proposals to explore for oil in the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The Dunleavy administration has been enthusiastic in its support of those actions, but most have been tied up in federal court and will be for months or years.
The ANWR drilling issue, for example, won’t even come before a federal judge until late 2026, according to a status update published this month in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska.
The Trump-backed Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by Congress this year will deliver millions of dollars in construction projects to the state, and other legislation will provide millions more, but other projects — particularly those involving renewable energy and projects intended to deal with climate change — were eliminated.
“Christmas every morning” entailed other metaphorical bits of coal for Alaska this year: The extended government shutdown left thousands of Alaskans unpaid for over a month, and the cuts instituted by the Elon Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency caused significant amounts of uncertainty.
In the long run, DOGE doesn’t appear to have significantly affected the number of federal jobs here: The latest available figures show more federal employees in the state than there were at the start of the year.
While some federal grants targeted by DOGE have since been restored, many were not. Public radio stations and arts organizations laid off staff and curtailed their work.
Tariffs, visa issues and a prolonged dispute with Canada threatened the summer tourist season, but a feared Yukon boycott never appeared, and the number of cruise ship passengers traveling to Alaska increased slightly, to a new record high of more than 1.7 million.
At the holiday open house, Dunleavy said there’s plenty to look forward to in the coming year and in the years once he leaves office.
“There’s just a whole host of things — the possibility of data farms, artificial intelligence, and how that’s gonna revolutionize not just the world, but here in Alaska, I think we could become a data transportation center because of our proximity on the globe. So I think you’re going to see a number of announcements throughout the year that I think will set the stage for a great several decades going forward,” he said.
The Stikine River Flats area in the Tongass National Forest is viewed from a helicopter on July 19, 2021. The Stikine River flows from British Columbia to Southeast Alaska. It is one of the major transboundary rivers impacted by mines in British Columbia. Alaska tribes and communities are seeking some new protection to avoid downstream impacts. (Photo by Alicia Stearns/U.S. Forest Service)
By: Max Graham, Northern Journal
This story is co-published by the Wrangell Sentinel and Northern Journal.
An Indigenous community is locked in a debate about the pros and cons of a major new mine on their traditional lands — and a big cash payment promised by the developer.
There is strong support, and fierce opposition. A lot of money to be made, and a wild river to protect. The community faces a pivotal choice.
Though this story sounds like it could be unfolding in rural Alaska, a version of it has actually been playing out just across the border with Canada, in northwest British Columbia. Still, it has implications for the Alaskans who live downstream from the proposed mine site.
In a referendum after weeks of heated debate, members of the Tahltan Nation earlier this month voted overwhelmingly to approve a deal with a Canadian mining company that hopes to revive a huge gold and silver mine, called Eskay Creek, which stopped producing in 2008. The project is located above the Unuk River, which flows into Alaska near Ketchikan.
The Tahltans’ backing is a major step forward for the project, and it comes as the Canada and B.C. governments intensify efforts to build more mines in the name of national security and economic growth. Several of the projects are near the border with Alaska, where state and federal elected officials are separately pushing mines that could help wean the U.S. off a foreign supply of minerals used in energy, electronics and weapons.
Just one day after the Tahltan vote, Canada’s federal government announced that it had approved a merger between two multinational mining firms with a condition that calls for advancing two other proposed mines in Tahltan territory. Both projects sit above tributaries of the Stikine River, a major, salmon-bearing waterway that straddles Canada and the U.S. and empties into the ocean near the small Southeast Alaska town of Wrangell.
Louie Wagner Jr., a Tsimshian and Tlingit resident of Metlakatla, a Native community at the southern tip of Alaska’s panhandle, said he’s concerned about the health of the Unuk River and its future with mines in its watershed.
Wagner and his family have fished and hunted moose along the Unuk for generations.
“That little river cannot handle it,” Wagner said in a recent phone interview. The Unuk is notable, he added, for its abundance of eulachon, a small, oily fish also known as hooligan that’s a staple for Indigenous communities in Southeast Alaska.
Though rarely discussed in Alaska circles, the Tahltan Nation’s approach to mining has major implications for the industry’s future in the transboundary region. A top U.S. Department of Interior official visited the region last year to learn more about models for how Indigenous nations can partner with mining companies.
There are more than a dozen early-stage mining projects in Tahltan territory, many above rivers that flow into Alaska. And the Eskay Creek vote could serve as a preview of future deals between the Tahltan government and the for-profit mining companies promoting development.
For months, members of the First Nation debated whether to approve a deal, known as an impact benefit agreement, that Tahltan elected leaders had negotiated with Vancouver-based Skeena Resources, the company pushing Eskay Creek.
The Eskay Creek mine is accessible off British Columbia’s Stewart-Cassiar Highway. (Photo by Max Graham/Northern Journal)
The specifics of the agreement have not been made public. But Tahltan officials have said it guarantees benefits worth more than $1 billion over the life of the mine, mostly in cash but also in contracts and wages.
The deal also calls for an upfront payment from Skeena, intended to be distributed to individual Tahltan members — to the tune of $7,250 each, according to Tahltan officials. And the agreement reportedly gives the First Nation government some environmental oversight over the mine.
The nation backed the deal with support from more than 77% of the roughly 1,750 Tahltans who voted, according to the Tahltan Central Government. Payments are expected to go out to members in 2026.
“Tahltan Central Government is not standing on the sidelines,” Tahltan president Kerry Carlick said in a statement after the vote. “We are embedding ourselves directly into the governance of environmental protection.”
Tahltan leaders have long worked to navigate political tensions between an expanding mining industry and efforts to protect traditional lands and wildlife.
The Tahltan government has entered into a number of agreements with mining companies. But it also has opposed efforts to mine coal and drill for natural gas near the headwaters of major rivers in the region.
And some Tahltan members have been outspoken critics of the Eskay Creek project and the company promoting it.
In the leadup to the recent vote, arguments erupted on social media, and relationships among community members grew strained, some Eskay Creek opponents said in interviews.
“This is causing internal conflicts,” said Tamara Quock, a Tahltan member who lives in northern B.C. some 350 miles east of the mine site.
Quock said she thinks the promise of the direct payments “enticed” some people to vote in favor of the agreement. Debate over the project, she added, grew more intense after that condition was added to the deal.
Quock said she feels Skeena is “using the Tahltan people” to generate its own profits.
She and other critics have voiced concerns about a perceived lack of transparency and potential conflicts of interest within the First Nation’s government. They also say they are worried about possible environmental impacts from the project, which would involve digging two open pits and storing millions of tons of mining waste above the Unuk River.
Skeena didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Alaska Native leaders, fishermen and environmental advocates who live downstream, in Southeast Alaska, for years have expressed concerns about Eskay Creek and other proposed mines in the region, saying they don’t trust Canadian regulators to safeguard Alaskan interests.
“You can’t cut these watersheds in half and expect to adequately protect them,” said Guy Archibald, executive director of the tribally led Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission. “Right now they’re cutting the baby in half and ignoring the effects on the Alaska side of the border.”
The commission last month filed a legal challenge in B.C. court, asserting that regulators had failed to consult Alaska tribes on several proposed mines in the region, including Eskay Creek.
Meanwhile, after a major spill last year at a Canadian gold mine in the Yukon River watershed, Alaska’s congressional delegation called for more oversight of Canadian mines near transboundary rivers like the Unuk and Stikine. The statement from the delegation — which has strongly supported mine development in Alaska — called for “binding protections, financial assurances, and strong transboundary governance.”
“As British Columbia seeks to advance numerous mines just upstream from Alaska, we are still asking them to fully remediate legacy sites and firmly commit to binding protections for Alaska interests,” Joe Plesha, a spokesperson for U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, said in a recent statement. “Senator Murkowski is actively considering new ways to make our B.C. neighbors take Alaskans’ concerns seriously.”
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s office says she’s pushing the British Columbia provincial government on protections for Alaska interests as Canada advances mining projects in transboundary watersheds. (Photo by Nathaniel Herz/Northern Journal)
Ottawa and B.C.’s provincial government, meanwhile, are funding new infrastructure projects and prioritizing permitting for energy and resource development projects, including Eskay Creek and the expansion of a huge copper and gold mine in the Stikine watershed, called Red Chris.
Canadian officials say existing regulations are geared to minimize impacts in the shared watersheds. Major projects undergo thorough environmental assessments before they’re approved, a spokesperson with the B.C. agency that leads those reviews, the Environmental Assessment Office, said in an email.
“Making sure large-scale projects are properly assessed is critical to making sure development is sustainable — to ensure good jobs and economic growth while also protecting the environment and wildlife, and keeping communities healthy and safe,” said the spokesperson, Sarah Plank.
Tahltan officials declined an interview request and did not respond to questions about Alaskans’ concerns or the First Nation’s agreement with Skeena.
Supporters of Eskay Creek say it could be transformational for the Tahltan Nation. Among proponents of the deal is Chad Norman Day, a former Tahltan president who has worked in the mining industry and now runs a consulting firm that does mining-related business.
“The benefits which flow to the Tahltan Nation from here will empower the people and territory unlike anything we have ever seen,” Day said in a statement after the vote.
Many Tahltan people work in mining, and the First Nation already generates revenue from Red Chris and another large operating mine, Brucejack, which started producing gold in 2017.
In 2019, Tahltan citizens voted in favor of an agreement with a different mining company pushing another, much bigger proposed mine partially in the Unuk watershed, called KSM. The outcome of that vote was nearly identical to the recent Eskay one, with about the same percentage in favor.
The first nation also, in the past five years, has entered into two joint decisionmaking agreements with the B.C. government for regulatory reviews of mining projects, including Eskay Creek.
Before it can start producing, Eskay Creek needs an environmental approval from the provincial government. A decision is expected early next year.
Strips of sockeye salmon harvested from the Kuskokwim River are seen on July 19, 2017. Sockeye salmon, also known as red salmon, is among the species harvested for subsistence. (Photo provided by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
The U.S. Department of the Interior is considering whether to change Alaska’s unique system of hunting and fishing, which gives rural residents priority on federal land in Alaska.
According to a notice published Dec. 15 in the Federal Register, the Interior Department is conducting “a targeted review” of the program mandated by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act.
While no specific changes were identified in the notice, it prompted the Alaska Federation of Natives to react with concern.
In a message to members, it called the new proposal “a serious threat and a major step backward” in fish and game management within Alaska, according to a report Tuesday by the Anchorage Daily News.
Federal law requires rural residents to receive a priority when subsistence hunting and fishing, but because Alaska’s constitution prohibits the state from operating a system that gives one resident priority over another, the federal government uses one set of rules for hunting and fishing on federally controlled waters and lands, and the state uses another set for state-controlled water and land.
That has frequently led to conflicts between the state and federal government over management, and several lawsuits over the issue are currently in progress in federal court.
The Daily News reported that the suggestion to revise the two-tiered program came from Safari Club International, a large sport-hunting organization that has frequently sided with the state in lawsuits against the federal government.
Information posted online by the Interior Department indicates that the agency may consider:
Changing the makeup of the board that regulates subsistence hunting and fishing on federal land;
Reconsidering the rules that determine what parts of the state are “rural” and thus eligible for preferential treatment;
And the role of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game in the program.
NORAD- 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, NORAD tracks everything that flies in and around North America in defense of our homelands. On Dec. 24, they have the very special mission of also tracking Santa.
NORAD has been tracking Santa since 1955 when a young child accidently dialed the unlisted phone number of the Continental Air Defense Command (CONAD) Operations Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, believing she was calling Santa Claus after seeing a promotion in a local newspaper.
The commander on duty that night, was quick to realize a mistake had been made, and assured the youngster that CONAD would guarantee Santa a safe journey from the North Pole.
Thus a tradition was born that rolled over to NORAD when it was formed in 1958. Each year since, NORAD has reported Santa’s location on Dec. 24 to millions across the globe.
Thanks to the services and resources generously provided by numerous corporate contributors and volunteers, NORAD Tracks Santa has persevered for more than 60 years.
Each year, the NORAD Tracks Santa Web Site receives nearly fifteen million unique visitors from more than 200 countries and territories around the world. Volunteers receive more than 130,000 calls to the NORAD Tracks Santa hotline from children around the globe.
Children and the young-at-heart are able to track Santa through Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.
“I voted” stickers are seen on display at a polling station in Juneau’s Mendenhall Valley on Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2022. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
One of Rep. Nick Begich III’s uncles is endorsing his main Democratic opponent, Matt Schultz, in next year’s election. Tom Begich’s name was atop a list released to the Alaska Beacon by Schultz’s campaign this month.
Begich’s endorsement of his nephew’s opponent won’t surprise people familiar with Alaska politics — he’s a longtime figure in the state’s Democratic scene, has been publicly critical of his nephew’s actions and is running as a Democrat in the governor’s election — but Schultz’s list and a similar list of endorsements by Republicans for Begich III shows how the state’s political establishment is settling on a two-person race for U.S. House, unlike the crowded contest for governor.
“It will be awkward. It’s always awkward,” Tom Begich said of the endorsement, “ but my mom taught us to learn to live with disagreement, to move beyond it. It doesn’t change the fact that I love my nephew. Just, I’m not supporting him in this election.”
Tom Begich is among 14 people — 12 Republicans and two Democrats — who have registered to run for governor in next year’s election.
Incumbent Gov. Mike Dunleavy is term-limited and unable to run.
While there are plenty of candidates for the governor’s seat, the number of people running for federal office is tiny. Incumbent U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican, doesn’t have a well-known challenger yet. Former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat, has been rumored as a possible opponent but has yet to file.
The same is true on the Democratic side, where support for Schultz appears almost entirely united.
“I’m very pleased to support him and glad he’s running,” said state Sen. Matt Claman, D-Anchorage and the other Democratic candidate in the governor’s race.
“I think he’s more connected with the general, broad spectrum of values in Alaska, more connected with some of the challenges we’re facing. He’s really looking carefully at how we’re dealing with homelessness, and I think he’s concerned about some of the affordability issues that are particularly a challenge in rural Alaska,” Claman said of Schultz.
Among the other people endorsing Schultz are independent state Rep. Alyse Galvin, who ran unsuccessfully for U.S. House in 2020 and 2018, and Forrest Dunbar, a Democratic state senator who ran unsuccessfully for House in 2014.
One notable absence is Peltola, who held Alaska’s U.S. House seat for one term before Begich III defeated her in the 2024 election.
Also missing is longtime Democrat Mark Begich, the incumbent Republican’s other uncle and Alaska’s U.S. senator from 2009 to 2015.
“There’s definitely been a lot of support from Democrats all around the state, and I’m very grateful for that. It seems to be a lot of coalescing support,” Schultz said by phone.
A pastor in Anchorage, Schultz spoke on the day that the U.S. House announced that it would not vote to renew subsidies for health insurance policies purchased on the federal marketplace.
Without those subsidies, the prices of many policies will spike with the start of the year.
“That’s really, really sad and disturbing,” Schultz said. “It seems like it should be a no-brainer that you start out by making sure that people can afford their lifesaving medicine.”
Schultz said that as he’s gone around seeking early support for his campaign, he’s found joy and excitement among people who want to find a common good.
“It really is this wonderful excitement to say — just like we pulled together as a nation to go to the moon, we can pull together as a state to provide food and health care to people. It’s a goal that matters so much and is so basically good at its heart that people can’t wait to start working for it,” he said. “I think there’s a hope out there that has felt absent in the last decade or so.”
Cook Inlet near Clam Gulch is seen on Oct. 23, 2025. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The Trump administration on Friday affirmed a controversial federal Cook Inlet oil and gas lease sale held at the end of 2022, asserting that impacts to endangered beluga whales and other resources were adequately considered and no changes in the leasing plan are needed.
In a Federal Register notice scheduled to be published on Monday, the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management announced its decision to uphold Lease Sale 258 as held. The decision “balances the national policies mandated by Congress to expeditiously and safely develop the natural resources of the (Outer Continental Shelf), subject to environmental safeguards, in a manner that is consistent with the maintenance of competition and other national needs,” the notice said.
The lease sale, mandated by Congress in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, offered 193 blocks over nearly 1 million acres, but it drew only one bid. The sole bid was from Hilcorp, the dominant oil and gas operator in the inlet.
The auction went through a tumultuous history and remains a subject of debate.
Planning for the sale started in 2020, but two years later, the Biden administration canceled it, citing a lack of industry interest. The sale was resurrected by a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 that was inserted by then-Sen. Joe Manchin, D-West Virginia. That provision required Lease Sale 258 to be held by the end of 2022; it was ultimately held on Dec. 30 of that year.
Environmental groups that sued to block the sale secured a victory after it was held. U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason ruled in July 2024 that pre-sale studies failed to properly analyze impacts to endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales and other resources. Gleason ordered BOEM to do the new analysis of beluga and other resource impacts, putting the sole lease that was sold into suspension.
The agency considered three additional alternatives that would have increased protections for belugas and other resources, but it rejected those and kept the original plan in place, according to the document.
“As LS 258 has already occurred, selecting any alternatives other than those described above would not affirm that lease sale and would void the one lease issued as a result of it,” the Federal Register notice said.
In its supplemental environmental impact statement, BOEM asserted that the risks of leasing and the development that would result from it are minor for Cook Inlet belugas and other marine mammals.
“The likelihood of a large oil spill affecting Cook Inlet marine mammals is relatively low, but the consequences could affect some populations. Sea otters face the highest vulnerability from a large spill due to their dependence on fur for insulation, resulting in a moderate impact level. Cook Inlet beluga whales are at risk due to the small population size, but geographic and temporal factors substantially reduce the risk of exposure to a large spill, yielding a minor overall impact level,” the document said.
The agency’s impact statement also describes impacts of noise as minor. While Cook Inlet belugas are highly dependent on hearing other whales’ calls to navigate the murky waters, ship and industrial noise that would drown out those calls “are expected to be temporary, with anticipated localized effects on beluga behavior and no anticipated long-term effect on survival or fitness.” Additionally, no injuries to belugas are expected from lease-related activities, the document said.
A beluga mother, in front, and her darker calf swim in Cook Inlet waters in this undated photo. A federal judge ordered the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to do more to analyze oil leasing impacts on the endangered Cook Inlet beluga population. (Photo by Janice Waite/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration)
The three new alternatives that BOEM considered would have added new protections for marine mammals and for subsistence and commercial fishing. Those alternatives would have reduced the available leasing territory in different increments, ranging from about one fifth to nearly half, according to the document.
The environmentalists who sued to overturn the lease sale criticized the decision and the lack of public participation leading up to it.
“BOEM’s decision to conduct the whole process in secrecy represents the federal government’s new approach to cutting the public out of decisions about our waters, and favoring the billionaire class and giant corporations over the people who call this place home. We are disgusted by this rushed and sloppy process on this final SEIS,” Bridget Maryott, co-executive director at Cook Inletkeeper, said in a statement, referring to the agency’s just-published supplemental environmental impact statement.
Hannah Foster, an attorney for Earthjustice, the environmental law firm that represented the plaintiffs, called the process leading to the decision a “black box.”
“We won our challenge against this lease sale because Interior failed to adequately consider sale alternatives and the impacts to the endangered beluga whales that will be harmed by blaring vessel noise and other oil industry operations. Yet BOEM has now reaffirmed the sale without seriously considering new alternatives or imposing any new measures to protect belugas,” she said in the statement.
Foster said Earthjustice and its clients are still reviewing the information about BOEM’s decision.
Including the lease sold in 2022, there are currently eight active leases in federal waters of Cook Inlet, all held by Hilcorp.
The Trump administration has already started planning a new Cook Inlet oil and gas lease sale, the first of six nearly annual sales mandates for the inlet through 2032 under the sweeping budget bill that was called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Additionally, the administration included five Cook Inlet lease sales among the 21 it has proposed for federal waters off Alaska through 2031. Those 21 sales are proposed in the administration’s five-year outer continental shelf oil and gas leasing plan, released last month. It envisions oil development in nearly all federal waters off the state’s coasts.
The five-year plan drew praise from Gov. Mike Dunleavy, a Trump ally.
“Once again, the Trump Administration is leading the way to American energy dominance by restoring confidence in the federal government’s offshore leasing policies,” Dunleavy said at the time in a post on the social media site X.
Alaska State Troopers said in a bulletin Monday that Dr. Ryan McDonough died in a weekend fire at his home in Wasilla.
At the time of the fire, McDonough — a cardiologist formerly with Mat-Su Regional Medical Center — was on $50,000 bail after being arrested on Dec. 11 and accused of owning child sexual abuse images.
The fatal fire at McDonough’s home took place Saturday; McDonough was initially listed as missing after the fire, but firefighters found human remains at the site, and preliminary testing later identified McDonough’s body.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation, and the other people who lived at the home were unharmed.
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy appointed McDonough to the state medical board in August. That month, he joined other members of the medical board in voting to impose restrictions on medical care for transgender youth in the state and to recommend that Alaska lawmakers end legal access to abortion in the late stages of pregnancy.
McDonough subsequently appeared to drop off the board; he attended its August and September meetings but was absent from its October and November ones, public records show.
McDonough’s name was removed from the board’s roster in November. A spokesperson for Dunleavy told the Anchorage Daily News that the governor’s office found out about McDonough’s alleged crimes on Friday and was not aware of any investigations at the time of his appointment.
According to an affidavit submitted in Palmer courts by a Department of Homeland Security officer, the online file storage company Dropbox sent a tip to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children on July 31.
That tip led to the investigation of a Dropbox account linked to McDonough that contained a video of a child being sexually abused. A second tip followed another video on Aug. 10.
The Anchorage Police Department, in charge of investigating tips like those received by the National Center, obtained a search warrant for McDonough’s Dropbox, GCI and Google accounts. Subsequent searches found additional suspect videos, and McDonough’s computer was seized during a search warrant on Dec. 11, shortly before his arrest.
The Alaska Beacon typically publishes copies of court affidavits but is not doing so in this case because of their graphic contents and because they describe acts of sexual violence against children.
McDonough’s next court appearance was scheduled for Jan. 31.
