Alaskans, like millions of Americans in other parts of the country, will move their clocks one hour ahead on Sunday for daylight saving time.

Many see the twice-a-year clock shift as an irksome practice that should be eliminated. Research has shown that the clock changes disrupt circadian rhythm, leading to negative health effects.

So what, if anything, are Alaska lawmakers doing to change the situation?

The Senate voted in May to advance a bill that would permanently eliminate daylight saving time in Alaska — but only if the federal government agreed to move Alaska to Pacific Standard Time, the same time zone used by Washington state, Oregon, California, Nevada and parts of Idaho.

Sen. Kelly Merrick, an Eagle River Republican who sponsored the bill, said her proposal aims to address concerns that arise from past proposals to eliminate daylight saving time while keeping Alaska in its current time zone. Effectively, that would mean Alaska is offset from Seattle by two hours for part of the year, creating challenges for Alaskans who are dependent on Lower 48 time zones — including bankers, broadcasters and tourism operators.

The House has yet to take up Merrick’s bill. There are also two dueling House bills introduced last year — neither of which has advanced — to either permanently remain in daylight saving time or permanently remain in standard time.

Federal law allows states to exempt themselves from observing daylight saving time, which generally begins in March and ends in November. However, states are not allowed to move permanently to daylight saving time without congressional authorization.

The U.S. Senate voted in 2022 in favor of moving to permanently adopt daylight saving time. The legislation has not been voted on in the U.S. House.

Hawaii and Arizona are the two states to exempt themselves from observing daylight saving time so far.

Alaska has long considered various proposals for eliminating the twice-a-year clock changes, with more than a dozen bills proposed in three decades. None have passed both bodies.

But there is relatively recent precedent for changing the way Alaskans set their clocks.

Until the 1980s, Alaska had four time zones. Before the change, the Southeast Panhandle, including Juneau, operated in Pacific Standard Time — the same as the West Coast of the Lower 48. Clocks in most of the state were set two hours earlier — the same time zone as Hawaii. Kotzebue, Nome and much of the Aleutian Chain were on Bering Standard Time, an hour behind Hawaii.

Moving most of the state to a single time zone was meant to create simplicity for both residents and visitors alike.

What would it mean for Alaska to permanently move to Pacific Standard Time? On the shortest days of the year, the sun would rise in Anchorage around 11 a.m. and set around 5 p.m. On the longest days of the year, the sun would rise in Anchorage shortly after 5 a.m. and set well past midnight.

For proponents of after-work outdoor recreation, the idea may seem appealing. For longer stretches of the year, Alaskans will be able to enjoy sunlight after leaving the office or school. The price to pay? More mornings waking in the dark.

Visitor numbers to Alaska were nearly flat last summer following a dip in cruise ship traffic, an unusual plateau for an industry that typically sees solid growth.

The state saw just 4,000 more tourists last summer, compared to the previous year, according to a new report commissioned by the Alaska Travel Industry Association.

That’s a bump of 0.1% percent, in a total of 2.7 million visitors.

“A flat season is OK, I guess,” Jillian Simpson, president of the Alaska Travel Industry Association, said in an interview this week.

“It’s not great,” she said. “Certainly it feels like there’s an opportunity for tourism to be growing in Alaska. But it wasn’t a decline. And so that feels like a win.”

Early season last June, some operators reported slightly slower bookings in some sectors, such as international visitors, amid geopolitical and economic concerns caused by President Donald Trump’s global trade wars and rhetoric.

The leveling off in visitor numbers is unusual for the industry, she said.

“We’ve been on a steady trend of growth for several years,” she said, not counting the COVID-related downturn in 2020 when cruise ships to Alaska were canceled.

Also potentially affecting the summer tourism numbers: The group had less marketing funding to reach potential visitors, she said.

That money dropped after the group had used a COVID-related $5 million federal grant the previous year.

Alaska saw about 1.8 million travelers arrive by cruise ship last year, a decrease of 0.4% from the year earlier, the report said.

About 900,000 travelers arrived by air, an increase of 0.8%.

Less than 100,000 people arrived by highway or ferry.

Anchorage snapshot

While most cruise guests visit Southeast communities, about a quarter of them travel to Seward and Whittier, delivering visitors to Anchorage.

That cross-gulf cruise traffic fell 5% from the year before, the report said.

That likely had to do with how cruise lines allocated their ships last year, Simpson said.

The cross-gulf numbers are expected to rise this summer, in part because a new dock in Seward will be available to handle larger ships, she said.

Anchorage bed tax revenues, a tourism indicator, were down last summer, compared to a year earlier, the report said.

The annual income fell to $45 million, falling more than $4 million from the year before, an 8% drop.

Hotel demand for Anchorage last summer was a bit softer compared to the year before, said Jack Bonney with Visit Anchorage, the city’s tourism bureau.

But that trend has recently reversed, with growth in January up from the year before.

Hotel supply was tight last year, with some renovations underway and some hotels in recent years coming off the tourism market.

But the situation for hotel supply has started to shift, too, with growth in that area, he said.

For example, a 141-room Courtyard by Marriott Hotel has planned to open its doors in spring in Midtown, at 4960 A St.

Cross-gulf cruise ship capacity is also expected to grow this summer by 10% to 15%, he said.

That should also help boost visitor numbers, Bonney said.

Advance hotel bookings for so far this year are showing positive signs, he said.

“It appears that, at least for advanced bookings, at the same time last year, we’re ahead of the game,” he said.

A Bangladeshi man who authorities say operated an international child sexual exploitation enterprise involving hundreds of children, including those in Alaska, arrived in Anchorage this week after spending several years out on bail in Malaysia.

Zobaidul Amin, 28, made his first federal court appearance in Anchorage on Thursday.

A federal grand jury in Alaska indicted Amin in July 2022 on 13 charges related to the production and distribution of child pornography, cyberstalking and child exploitation. Law enforcement in Malaysia was prosecuting him on similar accusations.

Amin is accused of orchestrating a vast online sexual extortion ring that resulted in the abuse of minors, primarily from the United States.

“Amin delighted in sexually abusing hundreds of minor victims over social media,” prosecutors said in a memorandum filed Thursday recommending that a judge keep Amin jailed while awaiting trial. “He bragged about causing victims to become suicidal and engage in self-harm. He shared hundreds of nude images and videos of minor victims all over the internet and encouraged other perpetrators to do the same.”

The FBI arrested Amin on Wednesday in Malaysia and took him to Alaska, Anchorage FBI spokesperson Chloe Martin said in an emailed statement.

Amin pleaded not guilty at Thursday’s hearing.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Kyle Reardon assigned Amin a public defender and ordered that he remained jailed while his case proceeds.

Amin, wearing a yellow Anchorage Correctional Complex jumpsuit, quietly spoke only two words during the hearing: “Yes,” when Reardon asked whether he understood his rights, and “yes” after Reardon asked if Amin agreed to waive his right to a speedy trial to allow his attorney to adequately prepare.

For more than three years, federal officials sought to have Amin “expelled” from Malaysia, where he was a medical student, to face charges in the U.S., prosecutors said in their memorandum.

Authorities have said they uncovered the sophisticated child sexual abuse material production scheme after a 14-year-old girl told Alaska State Troopers in 2021 that Amin coerced her via social media into sending him lewd images of herself and participating in sexually explicit conduct over video calls.

When the girl stopped communicating with Amin, prosecutors said, he carried out previous threats to distribute the images to her friends and social media followers.

“Dozens of search warrants, subpoenas, and legal process revealed that Amin did the same thing to hundreds of minor victims,” prosecutors said in the detention memo, adding that it was one of the “most extensive” operations of its kind investigated by law enforcement.

But authorities had been unable to extradite Amin from Malaysia, they said.

Malaysian authorities, with help from U.S. law enforcement, also charged Amin for offenses related to the production and distribution of child sexual abuse images in 2022.

He was released from custody in Malaysia after his family paid a bail equivalent to $24,000, according to the detention memo.

The requirements of Amin’s release included that he surrender his passport, not contact his victims or engage in child sexual abuse image conduct, and report to police monthly, according to the memo.

Prosecutors said they were not aware of any violations but added that it was unclear how strictly the requirements were enforced.

Had Amin fled to Bangladesh, he would have been able to evade prosecution because the U.S. doesn’t have an extradition treaty with the South Asian country, according to the memo.

Officials didn’t publicly disclose additional details about the circumstances that led to his arrest and transfer to Alaska or why he hadn’t been moved to the U.S. sooner.

The FBI and U.S. Department of Justice have been working “in conjunction with Malaysian authorities” to get Amin transferred to U.S. custody, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Alaska said in a prepared statement Thursday.

A child exploitation and human trafficking task force based out of the FBI’s Anchorage offices investigated the case with the support of numerous agencies, including the Anchorage Police Department and Alaska State Troopers, the Royal Malaysia Police, and a long list of law enforcement entities in Wyoming, Oregon, West Virginia and Florida as well as cities including Atlanta, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Newark, Salt Lake City and Seattle.