Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, right, listens as the Senate Appropriations Committee marks up the FY2026 spending bill for the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, right, listens as the Senate Appropriations Committee marks up the FY2026 spending bill for the Department of the Interior, the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Transportation, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, at the Capitol in Washington, Thursday, July 24, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
AP- Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, speaking with Alaska reporters Monday, toyed with the idea of running for governor and defended her recent high-profile decision to vote in support of President Donald Trump’s tax breaks and spending cuts bill.
Murkowski, speaking from Anchorage, said “sure” when asked if she has considered or is considering a run for governor. She later said her response was “a little bit flippant” because she gets asked that question so often.
“Would I love to come home? I have to tell you, of course I would love to come home,” she said. “I am not making any decisions about anything, because my responsibility to Alaskans is my job in the Senate right now.”
Several Republicans already have announced plans to run in next year’s governor’s race, including Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom. Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy is not eligible to seek a third consecutive term. Alaska has an open primary system and ranked choice voting in general elections.
Murkowski is not up for reelection until 2028.
A centrist, Murkowski has become a closely watched figure in a sharply divided Congress. She has at times been at odds with her party in her criticism of Trump and blasted by some GOP voters as a “Republican in name only.” But her decision to support Trump’s signature bill last month also frustrated others in a state where independents comprise the largest number of registered voters. She previously described her decision-making process around the bill as “agonizing.”
On Monday, she said it was clear to her the bill was not only a priority of Trump’s but also that it was going to pass, so it became important to her to help make it as advantageous to the state as she could.
“So I did everything within my power — as one lawmaker from Alaska — to try to make sure that the most vulnerable in our state would not be negatively impacted,” she said. “And I had a hard choice to make, and I think I made the right choice for Alaskans.”
Sen. Bert Stedman, R-Sitka, stands in the Senate Finance Committee room on April 24, 2025. Stedman is sponsoring a bill that would create an Alaska flood insurance system that would be an alternate to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s national insurance program. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
As the Trump administration shrinks and even considers eliminating the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Alaska Legislature is considering a substitute for one of the agency’s key functions.
A bill introduced by Sen. Bert Stedman, a Republican from the Southeast city of Sitka, would establish an Alaska flood authority and an Alaska flood insurance fund. As far as he knows, it would make Alaska the only state with its own flood insurance, Stedman said.
The veteran state lawmaker said his measure, Senate Bill 11, stems from his dissatisfaction with FEMA and its flood policies, feelings that predated the agency’s possible demise in the Trump era.
The federal agency is, for now, the only source of flood insurance in Alaska, as private carriers that offer policies elsewhere in the country do not operate in the state’s small market, Stedman said.
But Alaskans overall pay much more into the FEMA insurance pool that they receive, he said.
“There’s a cost factor involved here, with Alaska residents subsidizing the Mississippi Delta and the Gulf Coast and East Coast and all that compared to our losses,” Stedman said.
FEMA’s rules about insurance and assistance, which are aimed at flood-prone flat Lower 48 areas, are another source of irritation for Stedman. In Lower 48 areas, FEMA encourages communities to avoid building along coastlines, but in Southeast Alaska, where steep mountains rise from the water’s edge, there are few options for moving inland, he said. An only-in-Alaska flood program could consider local conditions and local governments’ zoning rules rather than FEMA national guidelines, he said.
The Trump administration’s antipathy toward FEMA and its mission has given his bill more urgency, he said.
“It’s reasonably likely that there’ll be significant changes to FEMA coming out of Washington, from restructuring to possibly elimination, so the timing of this bill might be, by happenstance, timely,” he said.
The bill moved through committees this year and is due for more work next year’s session, including an examination of funding options. If a system is established, Stedman said, it could potentially be expanded to another type of disaster that is occurring with increasing frequency in warming Alaska: landslides. There is no specific landslide insurance available in Alaska, Stedman noted.
That may be of interest to Jason Amundson and Eran Hood, University of Alaska Southeast scientists who are focused on glacial outburst flood risks. Though immersed in their project at Mendenhall Glacier, they do not live in the path of the meltwater. Rather, both live in the city’s downtown area, which clings to the lower slopes of steep mountains. There, avalanches and landslides pose the most serious risks.
“There’s hazards everywhere in Juneau,” Hood said.
This story has been supported by the Solutions Journalism Network, a nonprofit organization dedicated to rigorous and compelling reporting about responses to social problems, http://solutionsjournalism.org.
The joint session voted 45-14 in favor of overriding Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s veto of public school funding. (Image courtesy Gavel Alaska)
Meeting in special session, Alaska lawmakers have overridden Governor Mike Dunleavy’s veto of more than $50 million in public school funding.
The 45–14 vote hit the exact threshold needed to override a budget veto, restoring what would have been a 5.6% cut to school districts and providing a modest funding boost.
In Juneau, the veto would have had the effect of a $1.4 million loss.
Lawmakers also overrode Dunleavy’s veto of Senate Bill 183, a measure requiring the Department of Revenue to share details of oil tax settlements with legislative auditors.
The special session was originally called by the governor to press for education reform and create a statewide Department of Agriculture, two ideas lawmakers have already rejected.
Instead, legislative leaders focused solely on the veto overrides and adjourned until August 19.
Members of the Alaska Senate leave the Senate chambers on Monday, April 28, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
By: James Brooks and Corinne Smith, Alaska Beacon
Members of the Alaska Senate leave the Senate chambers on Monday, April 28, 2025. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
Alaska lawmakers are scheduled to meet at 10 a.m. in Juneau for a special session of the Alaska Legislature. You can watch live online on Gavel Alaska.
Why is the Legislature meeting in a special session?
Gov. Mike Dunleavy called the special session. The official agenda says that it will involve legislation about education policy and a proposed Alaska Department of Agriculture.
Will legislators actually do that?
No.
What are they doing instead?
They’re going to vote on overriding at least some of the vetoes the governor has made since the regular legislative session ended in May.
No. 1 on the list is the governor’s decision to veto about $51 million in funding for public schools. The No. 2 item is the bill that would require the Alaska Department of Revenue to provide lawmakers with additional information about tax settlements between oil companies and the state. Lawmakers believe the state may be settling tax disputes for far less than they’re worth, costing the state millions.
Some legislators are interested in taking up other vetoes as well, including the governor’s decision to cancel a ban on payday loan lending, his decision to veto money for transportation projects, and his vetoes of bills affecting police dogs and teacher housing, among others.
Will those overrides succeed?
It’s too close to call. The Alaska Constitution says votes from 45 of 60 legislators are needed to override a budget veto. In May, 46 legislators voted in favor of overriding the governor’s decision to veto a bill that increases the state’s public school funding formula.
That was the first time since 2002 that legislators voted to override the veto of a sitting governor.
It isn’t clear whether everyone who voted in favor of that first override will vote in favor of the second.
Overriding a policy bill veto, like the one dealing with the tax settlements, takes 40 votes.
Will everyone be there?
Probably not. Some conservative Republicans had said they would stay away from the session in a show of support for the governor’s vetoes. Immediately after calling the special session, Dunleavy asked them to be absent for the first five days because an absence is as good as a “no” vote when it comes to a veto override.
He later changed his position, asking lawmakers to begin meetings about his stated agenda on Sunday, and some Republicans changed course and said they will attend the session, after all. It wasn’t clear whether all have done so, but it isn’t likely to affect the vote total on the potential override.
Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, is in favor of an override and had been expected to be unavailable because of military service overseas. He ended up getting a special leave of absence and is flying back from Europe. Sen. James Kaufman, R-Anchorage, is flying back from Vietnam to attend. Other legislators have canceled family plans and postponed business trips.
How long will this take?
On the low end, a few hours. On the high end, a few days. Officially, the special session can last for up to 30 days, but legislators have said they won’t use all that time.
In some previous special sessions, legislators have left Juneau without formally closing the special session, just in case they need to come back. Those special sessions ended after the 30th day.
How much will this special session cost?
Based on historical costs, the estimated cost for a special session is $30,000 per day, according to the Legislative Affairs Agency, the Legislature’s nonpartisan support agency. But that cost depends on the duration and scope of the special session, said Jessica Geary, the agency’s executive director, by email on Tuesday.
“Many legislators had to change summer travel plans to attend the special session, and many of them purchase their own travel and submit for reimbursement. At this point we don’t have any concrete cost estimates and won’t know until the special session concludes,” she said.
Geary said legislators have up to 60 days to submit reimbursements for expenses like hotel lodging, transportation and airfare, staffing, expenses, and so the agency will have a total cost by October.
Legislators receive an annual salary of $84,000 per year. The 57 members that live outside of Juneau are entitled to receive a “per diem” amount of $332 per day to cover expenses.
If lawmakers don’t take up the governor’s ideas, are they dead?
No. Legislators have created a task force to consider education policy changes, including those from the governor. One idea supported by the governor is open enrollment — allowing a student to move between different schools and school districts, regardless of where they live. That will be considered by the task force, which meets Aug. 25.
Legislators are also considering a bill that would create the Alaska Department of Agriculture. That bill is broader than the governor’s initial plans; for example, it would include sea farms (formally known as aquaculture), which are the fastest-growing agricultural sector in Alaska.
According to the proposed ordinance, when an officer-involved shooting occurs that causes death or serious injury to an officer or someone else, Juneau Police Department would release body-worn camera footage no later than 30 days after the incident. (Photo courtesy City & Borough of Juneau website)
A Juneau Police Department vehicle(Photo courtesy City & Borough of Juneau website)
A woman was arrested and a man was hospitalized following an altercation outside the Douglas Library on Wednesday evening, according to the Juneau Police Department.
Police responded to a report of a woman fighting with a man near the library at approximately 7:32 p.m. on July 30. Officers identified the woman as Marisa Didrickson, 47, of Juneau, and the man as a 52-year-old Juneau resident.
According to police, Didrickson allegedly threw water in the man’s face and made racially charged remarks, including comments suggesting the man, who is black, did not belong in Juneau. She was arrested on a charge of disorderly conduct.
As officers attempted to place Didrickson into a patrol vehicle, she continued to shout at the 52-year-old man and directed a 49-year-old male friend to “take care of him,” while nodding toward the man, police said.
The 49-year-old, also a Juneau resident, then approached officers in what police described as an aggressive manner. the man was taken to the ground during arrest and sustained a head injury.
He was transported by Capital City Fire/Rescue to Bartlett Regional Hospital and later medevacked to Anchorage for further treatment.
Didrickson was transported to Lemon Creek Correctional Center. The incident remains under investigation, police said.
The press release comes after a video was circulated by a civilian on social media.
The arrest has sparked controversy in comments, with some saying the officer used unnecessary force.
The Juneau Police Department has requested and was granted assistance from an outside law enforcement agency to lead an investigation into the officer’s use of force in this incident.
Once the agency concludes its investigation, the State of Alaska Office of Special Prosecutions will review the case to determine whether the use of force was consistent with AS.11.81.370. The Officer involved has been placed on administrative leave per department policy. Their name will be released following the investigating agency’s review. In accordance with CBJ code, body-worn camera footage related to this incident will be released and posted on the JPD website 30 days from the date of the incident.
Photo provided by CBJ following the installation of the HESCO barrier project
Photo provided by CBJ following the installation of the HESCO barrier project
NOTN- Deputy Mayor Greg Smith joined KINY’s morning show on Thursday to recap Wednesday’s joint flood initiative meeting, discussing long-term solutions for flooding caused by the Mendenhall Glacier’s Suicide Basin.
In the short term, HESCO barriers remain the primary line of defense for vulnerable neighborhoods.
“We’re approaching historical release times” said Smith, “I mean, of course, everyone is crossing their fingers and just hoping for the best possible outcome.”
The Army Corps emphasized that a more permanent solution—such as a levee around Mendenhall Lake, is likely necessary. But planning and engineering such infrastructure takes time.
“they’re doing studies, but they need to know, you know, what is the risk from Suicide basin, in 5 years, what’s the risk in 50 years? There are more basins back up behind the glacier, and they need to know what those situations could be.” He said, “There’s a lot of factors that go into it. So for them to engineer a viable, long-term solution that will not fail, it does take time. We’ve heard them say it’s probably the top issue for the Army Corps in the state of Alaska.”
A federally funded technical study is underway, and officials hope that data from current modeling and previous floods will help shorten the usual multi-year timeline.
Still, even an expedited timeline might take seven years or more, but Smith says he’s optimistic about that timeline.
“The fact that we just got federal money to do this technical study is tremendous.” Said Smith.
With the Alaska Legislature back in town for the special session, Smith urged residents to take the opportunity to raise the issue with state lawmakers.
“I think some of the takeaways for people, is letting our congressional staff or congressional delegation know the importance.”
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy speaks during a news conference on Friday, March 15, 2024. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy speaks during a news conference on Friday, March 15, 2024. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
NOTN- The Alaska Legislature will reconvene in Juneau on Saturday for a special session called by Gov. Mike Dunleavy, with two major items on the agenda: education reform and the creation of a new Department of Agriculture. But lawmakers are also preparing to challenge some of the governor’s recent vetoes, including cuts to public school funding.
Under Alaska’s constitution, when the governor calls a special session, he sets the subjects lawmakers may address.
“He has, apparently, a new education bill. Most of it is stuff that we have seen before, that he’s proposed before, and that has not had a lot of support.” Said Juneau Senator Jessie Kiehl, “And the other thing he wants to take another crack at is creating an Alaska Department of Agriculture. We have a Division of Agriculture. He wants it to be its own State Department.”
But overriding vetoes may take center stage during the first five days of the session, a constitutionally limited window for legislators to reverse the governor’s decisions.
At the top of the list: restoring approximately $51 million in statewide public school funding that Dunleavy vetoed.
That override will require a three-quarters majority, or 45 votes.
“It is the highest, toughest veto override threshold in all 50 states or any of the territories.” Said Senator Kiehl, “I have talked to colleagues all over this state, Republicans, Democrats, rural, urban and the agreement is our schools are hurting, and they need that money.”
Lawmakers are also considering overriding a veto of a bipartisan bill that would empower the Legislative Auditor to review oil tax enforcement practices
That override will require two-thirds of the Legislature, or 40 votes.
In addition to the override votes, lawmakers may consider a commercial fishing bill and discuss items in the governor’s education package through the new legislative Education Task Force.
A recent report suggested that Dunleavy had asked some minority Republicans to stay home in an effort to block override votes. Kiehl said he believes most lawmakers plan to attend.
“My understanding is that in the last week or so, the governor has come the other way and said, everybody, go ahead and be there.” He said, “The Constitution has some rules for how you do your job when you raise your right hand as a legislator elected by the people and take on this duty, I don’t believe in cutting work when I’m on the job, I think the vast majority of my colleagues feel the same way.”
Bill introductions are scheduled for the session’s opening day, August 2, with hearings requested to begin Sunday, Aug. 3.
Several oil projects are active in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. (Photo by Bob Wick/Bureau of Land Management, CC BY-SA)
The U.S. Department of the Interior announced on Thursday that it will revoke three documents intended to form the basis for limits on oil drilling in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska.
Those documents, and the limits themselves, were issued in the last year of President Joe Biden’s administration.
Since his election, President Donald Trump has prioritized administrative moves that would reverse Biden decisions limiting oil and gas drilling in Alaska.
That decision followed prior decisions by the Biden administration and President Barack Obama’s administration that put about half the reserve off limits to oil development.
Thursday’s announcement, rescinding three planning documents, is a step toward that end.
On Wednesday, ahead of the official notice in the Federal Register, all three members of Alaska’s congressional delegation expressed support for the move and praised the Trump administration for taking action.
KCAW in Sitka is one of more than two dozen public radio stations broadcasting across Alaska. (Photo by Nathaniel Herz/Northern Journal)
On July 17, Congress voted to eliminate federal funding for public media across the United States.
The cuts, called a “rescission” in Congress-speak, are huge: They will take away some $1 billion that the federal government had previously allocated for the next two years to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funding for national outlets like NPR and PBS as well as local radio and television stations with much smaller budgets.
That funding is essential to many of Alaska’s local news outlets. It’s no exaggeration to say that losing that money — which was slated to be delivered starting September 30 — threatens the very existence of some stations that provide news coverage and other programming, like emergency alerts, around the state.
To get a sense of how local radio and television stations are responding — and what their leaders expect in the months ahead — Northern Journal correspondent Max Graham sent some questions to two longtime public media employees in rural Alaska: Sage Smiley, news director at KYUK in Bethel; and Lauren Adams, general manager at KUCB in Unalaska.
Below are their responses, lightly edited for brevity.
What have the last few days been like for you and your colleagues? How are you feeling?
Sage Smiley: We’ve spent seven months facing – and trying to publicly push back on – an increasingly likely existential threat to public broadcasting. It’s been exhausting, and demoralizing.
Beyond the threat to our jobs, or even to this station we care so much about and where we’re trying to serve the communities of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, it’s incredibly concerning and challenging to see the attack on journalism and on that pillar of democracy that this and other actions by the Trump administration represent.
In a way, though, rescission of funds has been deeply motivating to the news staff. We may be in the unique position of defining the end of a chapter of KYUK’s newsroom history, and want to do the best job we can, for as long as we can, serving the mission of KYUK and its newsroom.
Lauren Adams: On the day that the vote took place, KUCB’s entire staff was working to inform our community about a tsunami evacuation following a large earthquake in the region. Our entire community, including the fishing industry workers, were evacuated to high ground. Our emergency response went off without a hitch, and we worked in tandem with our community’s public safety department. It was a huge affirmation of our connection to the community and our important mission.
That night, I was very happy to hear U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski speak about KUCB on the Senate floor in defense of Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding. It was incredibly disappointing that her colleagues didn’t hear the message and that they voted in favor of the rescission.
The following days were really low! There was a sadness and a heaviness in the office that I haven’t experienced before. I know my staff was concerned about the future of their jobs and we met as a group the following day to talk through their concerns.
I told them that we will have to make changes in the future but for now we will use reserves to keep our essential services up and running and those services depend on having people on the payroll. In short, we aren’t cutting staff right now.
In my case, I am beyond frustrated and dismayed looking at a budget that’s just not going to balance this year without severe cuts. The federal funding cut comes on the heels of already lean years, given the lack of funding from the state of Alaska, which was eliminated under Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
One silver lining has been seeing donations come in every day from people all across the country expressing their support for the work we do. While the funds won’t fill the gap made by the elimination of federal funding, the sentiment and the comments have been a real morale boost for all of us.
Could you help readers understand how significant federal funding is for your station? What proportion of your budget does it account for, and what does it pay for?
Smiley: KYUK is both a radio and a television station, called a dual licensee, so we receive two community service grants each year from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Together, those grants represent about 70% of KYUK’s operating funds – over $1 million. That money pays for everything from salaries to equipment to travel on bush planes for reporting.
Adams: Federal funding last fiscal year was over $280,000, over 40% of our total budget. We had it budgeted at $289,602 for this fiscal year, which started on July 1. That was 45% of this year’s projected budget. There is no replacement for these funds. Our community is small but residents support us in substantial ways already. We estimate that about 8% of people in Unalaska are KUCB donors and also support us through daily non-monetary acts of generosity. We have consistently done well with local fundraising allowing us to match federal funds with local income. But we can’t expect community members to fill this gap: It’s just not possible.
Funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting supports KUCB’s local news content, a comprehensive community calendar, emergency alerts, health and safety information and government accountability through live broadcasts and streaming of municipal meetings.
What are your expectations for your station moving forward?
Smiley: KYUK has been a community institution broadcasting to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta for over 50 years, committed from the beginning to uplifting Yup’ik voices. Our call letters, Y-U-K, were picked because Yuk means “real person” in Yugtun, the Yup’ik language. Our ultimate goal is to stay on the air, which we have to do to keep our licenses. KYUK is unique and incredible – the only station I’m aware of in the state broadcasting news and public affairs that provides shows bilingually on a daily basis – and we want to preserve that legacy of support for Yup’ik language and culture, however possible.
The entrance to KYUK in Bethel. (Photo by Nathaniel Herz/Northern Journal)
Adams: We had a reporter leave the station in June to fill a Report for America position in Texas. Because I was concerned about funding, I chose not to post that position until we had a better sense of federal dollars. That means we started the fiscal year with a little financial breathing room, but also with a newsroom that was down by a quarter of our former reporting capacity. Thankfully, we have a summer news intern funded by Alaska organizations promoting journalism and community development. When she leaves next month, our community will start to notice the reduction in news coverage, which is unavoidable.
At this point, I don’t know exactly what we will sound like. We will have to meet with our board of directors and with community leaders to make changes under their guidance. I imagine that we will have to sacrifice some of our daily news coverage during times when we have a lot going on.
For instance, we are going into our municipal election season and this is a mayoral election year. I am confident that we will hold our usual forums and we will produce a voter guide as we do every year. This is an important responsibility for us because we employ the only reporters in the community. But if our staff is doing this work, we will have to give up the other stories and newscasts in order to prepare for the forums. We need to be mindful of not burning out staff by just piling more work on the two remaining members of the news team.
We are lucky because our studio is located in a municipal building and the rent is free. We also receive an operations grant from the City of Unalaska. Because of this, I don’t fear that our station will go dark. My bigger concern is that we will be more of a repeater station, playing statewide content instead of local content, and that we won’t have the staff to cover the region’s news and events and we won’t be as effective during an emergency.
I imagine news of the lost funding has brought up, or will bring up, some pretty tough conversations at your station about programming cuts and layoffs. Could you shine some light on those discussions if you’ve already had them? Or are you still waiting and seeing what the full impacts will be?
Smiley: There’s a lot that’s still unclear, and I would say that at this point, KYUK’s future is also unclear. Seventy percent of our funding will cease to exist at the end of the federal fiscal year on September 30. That’s catastrophic. We may have to make drastic cuts to staff in order to keep providing basic broadcasting to the communities we serve.
Adams: We are hoping to hold off on layoffs for at least six months using reserves. In the meantime, we will strip our station budget down as much as possible while maintaining as much of our essential content – local news and information – as possible.
Places where we can cut immediately include syndicated programming, interconnection costs, travel, training, dues and subscriptions, computer hardware and software purchases, internet and phone, and potentially utilities. In the future we might turn off broadcast television and focus on our radio operations, but this is a hard choice that requires giving up a broadcast license that we have held locally for 50 years.
I’ve heard some talk that potential funding from philanthropists could make up for the lost federal spending. Is that really a possibility? Or are there other funding alternatives that are giving you hope?
Smiley: Our fall fundraiser usually brings in around $50,000, and our federal grants are 20 times that. As an ardent lover of the public broadcasting system, I would be overjoyed if a philanthropist decided to fund the network in perpetuity. But I don’t think that’s realistic, or a real solution. The whole point of the public broadcasting system is the system, and the commitment of the United States government to supporting that egalitarian, deeply democratic, equal-access system. It’s the fact that public broadcasting reaches 99% of Americans. It’s that it’s free, and available practically everywhere. A patchwork solution, one that doesn’t preserve the entirety of the system, isn’t going to address what will be lost more broadly.
Adams: I am in one of the most remote corners of the state and I might not be the one to ask about major philanthropy donors and the advocacy efforts. We have a small staff and all of us are working daily to keep our systems up and running and to provide the services that our community relies on. I don’t have the resources to go after major donors. At the statewide level, I think we are all doing our best to try to envision a future where there’s increased funding from philanthropists and donors. I don’t know how quickly this could come together or how sustainable the model would be.
I think that federal funding filled a need, and we were a great fit for the funds because we brought crucial health and safety services to our remote community. I am not aware of a viable long term substitute for Corporation for Public Broadcasting funds.
With that said, I would love to see restoration of public media funding in our state budget. We’ve always received bipartisan support for state funding until the line gets vetoed by the governor. Maybe given the new funding circumstances, and the real need for the services that public broadcasters provide in Alaska, we could see restoration of some state funding.
I also know from years of experience at KUCB that building a station’s relationship with a community, and establishing an award-winning news team, takes a lot of time and effort. I also know that while it’s slow to build, it’s very quick to erode. With reduced news staff, fewer editors, reduced equipment maintenance, and cuts to our services, we will see a spiral of reduced local income.
Could you highlight recent work at your station — whether news reporting or other programming — that wouldn’t have been possible without federal funding and that illustrates the importance of your station to your community?
Smiley: Everything you see on KYUK’s website is supported by federal funding. Our calendar of fisheries openers. The local newscasts in Yugtun and English. Yup’ik Word of the Week. Decades-worth of archival television material from throughout the Delta. Our call-in shows: Fish Talk, River Watch, Talkline, Yuk to Yuk, the Birthday Line. Live coverage of high school basketball games. City Council meetings.
And then there’s all the stuff that goes out over the radio but isn’t necessarily online: radio programming the funding allows us to license, search and rescue messages, boil water notices, public service messages from the local and state governments, emergency alerts.
Adams: Again, I think that the tsunami response earlier this month is an amazing example of the work we do locally — work that is only possible with federal funding. Unalaska is a volcanic island in the middle of a chain of volcanoes, and we experience extreme weather pretty frequently. Emergency alert procedures are essential and a very real part of the work we do.
Additionally, we are the only newsroom located in the Aleutian region. The reporting work that our staff does every day is essential. While cutting syndicated programming wouldn’t hurt our community because yes, we have internet in Unalaska and can get our national news and our music programming from a variety of sources, there is no replacement for the unique daily news and information that KUCB provides. We broadcast every city council meeting, ensure transparency of local government, highlight the arts and culture events that make Unalaska a unique and vibrant place to live, and provide fisheries and science reporting from an important port surrounded by some of the most productive fishing grounds on earth.
Northern Journal contributor Max Graham can be reached at max@northernjournal.com. He’s interested in any and all mining related stories, as well as introductory meetings with people in and around the industry.
This article was originally published in Northern Journal, a newsletter from Nathaniel Herz. Subscribe at this link.
FILE - Emil Bove, attorney for former US President Donald Trump, sits Manhattan criminal court during Trump's sentencing in the hush money case in New York, Jan. 10, 2025. (Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via AP, Pool, File)
FILE – Emil Bove, attorney for former US President Donald Trump, sits Manhattan criminal court during Trump’s sentencing in the hush money case in New York, Jan. 10, 2025. (Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via AP, Pool, File)
AP- The Senate confirmed former Trump lawyer Emil Bove 50-49 for a lifetime appointment as a federal appeals court judge Tuesday as Republicans dismissed whistleblower complaints about his conduct at the Justice Department.
A former federal prosecutor in the Southern District of New York, Bove was on Trump’s legal team during his New York hush money trial and defended Trump in the two federal criminal cases. He will serve on the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which hears cases from Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Democrats have vehemently opposed Bove’s nomination, citing his current position as a top Justice Department official and his role in the dismissal of the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. They have also criticized his efforts to investigate department officials who were involved in the prosecutions of hundreds of Trump supporters who were involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Democrats have also cited evidence from whistleblowers, a fired department lawyer who said last month that Bove had suggested the Trump administration may need to ignore judicial commands — a claim that Bove denies — and new evidence from a whistleblower who did not go public. That whistleblower recently provided an audio recording of Bove that runs contrary to some of his testimony at his confirmation hearing last month, according to two people familiar with the recording.
The audio is from a private video conference call at the Department of Justice in February in which Bove, a top official at the department, discussed his handling of the dismissed case against Adams, according to transcribed quotes from the audio reviewed by The Associated Press.
The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because the whistleblower has not made the recording public. The whistleblower’s claims were first reported by the Washington Post.
None of that evidence has so far been enough to sway Senate Republicans — all but two of them voted to confirm Bove as GOP senators have deferred to Trump on virtually all of his picks.
Democrats say Bove’s confirmation is a ‘dark day’
Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said that Bove’s confirmation is a “dark day” and that Republicans are only supporting Bove because of his loyalty to the president.
“It’s unfathomable that just over four years after the insurrection at the Capitol, when rioters smashed windows, ransacked offices, desecrated this chamber, Senate Republicans are willingly putting someone on the bench who shielded these rioters from facing justice, who said their prosecution was a grave national injustice,” Schumer said.
Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted against Bove’s confirmation. “I don’t think that somebody who has counseled other attorneys that you should ignore the law, you should reject the law, I don’t think that that individual should be placed in a lifetime seat on the bench,” Murkowski said Tuesday.
At his confirmation hearing last month, Bove addressed criticism of his tenure head-on, telling lawmakers he understands some of his decisions “have generated controversy.” But Bove said he has been inaccurately portrayed as Trump’s “henchman” and “enforcer” at the department.
In a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee released Tuesday evening just before the vote, Bove said he does not have the whistleblower’s recording but is “undeterred by this smear campaign.”
A February call emerges as evidence
Senators at the Judiciary Committee hearing asked Bove about the February 14 call with lawyers in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, which had received significant public attention because of his unusual directive that the attorneys had an hour to decide among themselves who would agree to file on the department’s behalf the motion to dismiss the case against Adams.
The call was convened amid significant upheaval in the department as prosecutors in New York who’d handled the matter, as well as some in Washington, resigned rather than agree to dispense with the case.
According to the transcript of the February call, Bove remarked near the outset that interim Manhattan U.S. Attorney Danielle Sassoon “resigned about ten minutes before we were going to put her on leave pending an investigation.” But when asked at the hearing whether he had opened the meeting by emphasizing that Sassoon and another prosecutor had refused to follow orders and that Sassoon was going to be reassigned before she resigned, Bove answered with a simple, “No.”
In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Bove defended his testimony as accurate, noting that the transcript of the call shows he didn’t use the word “reassigned” when talking to the prosecutors.
At another moment, Bove said he did not recall saying words that the transcript of the call reflects him as having said — that whoever signed the motion to dismiss the Adams case would emerge as leaders of the section.
But in the letter to Grassley, Bove said he did not intend to suggest that anyone would be rewarded for submitting the memo but rather that doing so would reflect a willingness to follow the chain of command, something he said was the “bare minimum required of mid-level management” of a government agency.
Republicans decry ‘unfair accusations’
Grassley said Tuesday that he believes Bove will be a “diligent, capable and fair jurist.”
He said his staff had tried to investigate the claims but that lawyers for the whistleblowers would not give them all of the materials they had asked for until Tuesday, hours before the vote. The “vicious rhetoric, unfair accusations and abuse directed at Mr. Bove” have “crossed the line,” Grassley said.
The first whistleblower complaint against Bove came from a former Justice Department lawyer who was fired in April after conceding in court that Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran man who had been living in Maryland, was mistakenly deported to an El Salvador prison.
That lawyer, Erez Reuveni, described efforts by top Justice Department officials in the weeks before his firing to stonewall and mislead judges to carry out deportations championed by the White House.
Reuveni described a Justice Department meeting in March concerning Trump’s plans to invoke the Alien Enemies Act over what the president claimed was an invasion by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Reuveni said Bove raised the possibility that a court might block the deportations before they could happen. Reuveni claims Bove used a profanity in saying the department would need to consider telling the courts what to do and “ignore any such order,” Reuveni’s lawyers said in the filing.
Bove said he has “no recollection of saying anything of that kind.”
